“I saw an aged Beggar in my walk; And he was seated by the highway side, On a low structure of rude masonry Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they Who lead their horses down the steep rough road May thence remount at ease.”
{ 72} The practice of complimenting distinguished personages by suspending their portraits over ale-house doors sometimes indeed led to ludicrous consequences. We all remember the conversion of Sir Roger de Coverley’s good-humoured visage into a frowning Saracen’s Head. Soon after Dr. Watson had been installed at Llandaff, a rural Boniface exchanged for his original sign of the Cock an effigy of his new Diocesan. But somehow the ale was not so well relished by his customers as formerly. The head of the Bishop proved less inviting to the thirsty than the comb and spurs of the original Chanticleer. So to win back again the golden opinions of the public, mine host adopted an ingenious device. From reverence to the Church he retained the portrait of Dr. Watson, but as a concession to popular preferences he caused to be written under it the following inscription:—
{ 82} The splendour and costliness of English signboards seem to have struck foreigners very forcibly. Moritz, from whom we have already quoted, says that “the amazing large signs which, at the entrance of villages, hang in the middle of the street, being fastened to large beams, which are extended across the street from one house to another opposite to it, particularly struck me. These sign-posts have the appearance of gates, or gateways, for which I at first took them, but the whole apparatus, unnecessarily large as it seems to be, is intended for nothing more than to tell the inquisitive traveller that there is an inn.” It marks in some degree the territorial prejudices of the English people that the principal inn of a hamlet usually “hangs out” the crest of the family, if it be indeed an ancient house, at the neighbouring hall or great house, whether it be a Swan, a Griffin, a St. George, or other heraldic or historic emblem or hero.
{ 87} We have availed ourselves of Mr. Cary’s skilful translation of Brunetto’s description of his journey from Florence to Valladolid, whither he had been sent on an embassy by the Guelph party:—“Un scolaio—Sur un muletto baio,” etc.