In old times, more than at present, music was deemed a necessary adjunct to tavern hospitality and public-house entertainment. The fiddlers and ballad singers of the “tap” room, however, gave way to the newer brass band at the doors, and this, in its turn, is now gradually fading before the “music hall” and so-called “concert” arrangement. Singing, it may be remarked, is one of the first follies into which a man falls after a too free indulgence in the cup. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that musical signboards should have swung from time to time over the alehouse door. PAGANINI, who contributed so much to the popularity of that well-known part of the “Carnival de Venise”--still the shibboleth of all fiddlers--is of very common occurrence.
The love for music is also eloquently expressed by the sign of the FIDDLER’S ARMS, Gornal Wood, Staffordshire. JENNY LIND seems to be the only musician of modern times who has found her way to the signboard. In the last century, HANDEL’S HEAD was common; but at the present moment, no instance of its use remains. The MAID AND THE MAGPIE, a very common tavern title, is believed to be the only sign borrowed from an opera. In Queen Anne’s time, there was a PURCELL’S HEAD in Wych Street, Drury Lane, the sign of a music-house. It represented that musician in a brown, full-bottomed wig, and green nightgown, and was very well painted. Purcell, who died in 1682, greatly improved English melody; he composed sonatas, anthems, and the music to various plays. His “Te Deum” and “Jubilate” are still admired.
Actors, and favourite characters from plays, have frequently been adopted as signs. The oldest instance we find is TARLETON, or DICK TARLETON, who, in the sixteenth century, seems to have been common enough to make Bishop Hall allude to him in his “Satyres,” (b. vi., s. 1)--
“O honour far beyond a brazen shrine, To sit with Tarlton on an ale-post’s sign.”
Tarleton is seen on the trades token of a house in Wheeler Street, Southwark; and it is only within a very few years that this sign has been consigned to oblivion. Richard, or “Dick” Tarleton was a celebrated low-comedy actor, born at Condover in Shropshire, and brought to town in the household of the Earl of Leicester. He first kept an ordinary in Paternoster Row, called the CASTLE, much frequented by the booksellers and printers of St Paul’s Churchyard. Afterwards, he kept the TABOR, in Gracechurch Street. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s twelve players, in receipt of wages, and was at that time living as one of the grooms of the chamber at Barn Elms, but lost his situation by reason of some scurrilous reflections on Leicester and Raleigh. He probably also performed at the Curtain in Shoreditch, in which parish he was buried, September 3, 1588. “The great popularity which Tarlton possessed may be readily seen from the numerous allusions to him in almost all the writers of the time, and few actors have been honoured with so many practical tokens of esteem. His portrait graced the ale-house, game-cocks were named after him, and a century after his death, his effigy adorned the jakes.”[102] The portrait of this famous wit is prefixed to the edition of his jests, printed in 1611, where he is represented in the costume of a clown playing on the tabor and pipe. Another portrait of him occurs as an accompaniment to the letter T, in a collection of ornamental letters,[103] with the following rhymes:--