“Where Tully’s bust and honour’d name Point out the venal page, There Dodsley consecrates to fame The classics of his age.
Persist to grace this humble post, Be Tully’s head the sign, Till future booksellers shall boast To sell their tomes at thine.”
About the same time, the favourite Tully’s Head was also the sign of T. Becket, and P. A. de Hondt, booksellers in the Strand, near Surrey Street. HORACE’S HEAD graced the shop of J. White in Fleet Street, publisher of several of Joseph Strutt’s antiquarian works; and VIRGIL’S HEAD of Abraham van den Hoeck and George Richmond, opposite Exeter Change in the Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of SENECA’S HEAD two instances occur, J. Round in Exchange Alley in 1711, and ---- Varenne, near Somerset House, in the Strand, at the same period.
A few of our own poets are also common tavern pictures. As early as 1655 we find a (Ben) JONSON’S HEAD tavern in the Strand, where Ben Jonson’s chair was kept as a relic.[77] In that same year it was the sign of Robert Pollard, bookseller, behind the Royal Exchange. Ten years later it occurs in the following advertisement:--
“WHEREAS Thomas Williams, of the society of real and well-meaning Chymists hath prepaired certain Medicynes for the cure and prevention of the Plague, at cheap rates, without Benefit to himself, and for the publick good, In pursuance of directions from authority, be it known that these said Medicynes are to be had at Mr Thomas Fidges, in Fountain Court, Shoe Lane, near Fleet Street, and are also left by him to be disposed of at the GREEN BALL, within Ludgate, the Ben Jonson’s Head, near Yorkhouse,” &c.[78]
There is still a Ben Jonson’s Head tavern with a painted portrait of the poet in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street; a Ben Jonson’s Inn at Pemberton, Wigan, Lancashire; and another at Weston-on-the Green, Bicester.
SHAKESPEARE’S HEAD is to be seen in almost every town where there is a theatre. At a tavern with that sign in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, the Beefsteak Society (different from the Beefsteak Club,) used to meet before it was removed to the Lyceum Theatre. George Lambert, scene-painter to Covent Garden Theatre, was its originator. This tavern was at one time famous for its beautifully painted sign. The well-known Lion’s Head, first set up by Addison at Button’s, was for a time placed at this house.[79] There was another Shakespeare Head in Wych Street, Drury Lane, a small public-house at the beginning of this century, the last haunt of the Club of Owls, so called on account of the late hours kept by its members. The house was then kept by a lady under the protection of Dutch Sam the pugilist. After this it was for one year in the hands of the well-known Mr Mark Lemon, present editor of _Punch_, then just newly married to Miss Romer, a singer of some renown, who assisted him in the management of this establishment. The house was chiefly visited by actors from Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the Olympic, whilst a club of literati used to meet on the first floor.