Horned cattle are just as common as horses on the signboards; the BULL, in particular, is a favourite with the nation, whether as a namesake--so much so, indeed, as to have given it a popular name abroad--or as the source of the favourite roast-beef, or from the ancient sport of bull-baiting, it is difficult to say. From Ben Jonson we gather that there was another reason which sometimes dictated the choice of this animal on the signboard. In the “Alchymist” he introduces a shopkeeper, who wishes the learned Doctor to provide him with a sign.
“_Face._ What say you to his Constellation, Doctor, the Balance?
_Sub._ _No, that is stale and common: A Townsman born in Taurus gives the Bull Or the Bull’s head: in Aries, the Ram, A poor device._”--ALCHYMIST, a. ii. s. i.
Newton dates a letter from “the Bull,” at Shoreditch, September 1693; it is addressed to Locke, and a curious letter it is, containing an apology for having wished Locke dead.
The Bull is generally represented in his natural colour, _black_, _white_, _grey_, _pied_, “_spangled_” (in Yorkshire,) and only rarely _red_ and _blue_; yet these two last colours may simply imply the natural red, brown, and other common hues, for newspapers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often contain advertisements about _blue_ dogs; and whatever shade that was intended for, it may certainly with as much justice be applied to a bull as to a dog. The CHAINED BULL at North Allerton, Leeds, and the BULL AND CHAIN, Langworthgate, Lincoln, doubtless refer to the old cruel pastime of bull-baitings. Occasionally we meet also with a WILD BULL, as at Gisburn, near Skipton.
Leigh Hunt observes:--“London has a modern look to the inhabitants; but persons who come from the country find as odd and remote-looking things in it as the Londoners do in York and Chester; and among these are a variety of old inns with corridors running round the yard. They are well worth a glance from anybody who has a respect for old times.” Such a one is the Bull’s Inn in Bishopsgate Street, where formerly plays were acted by Burbadge, Shakespeare’s fellow-comedian, and Tarlton in good Queen Bess’s time amused our forefathers on summers’ afternoons with his quaint jokes and comic parts.[252] This inn is also celebrated as the London house of the famous Hobson, (Hobson’s choice,) the rich Cambridge carrier. Here a painted figure of him was to be seen in the eighteenth century, with a hundred pound bag under his arm, on which was the following inscription:--“The fruitful Mother of a Hundred More.”[253] At the Bull public-house on Towerhill, Thomas Otway, the play writer, died of want at the age of 33, on the 14th of April 1685, having retired to this house to escape his creditors.[254]