Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/359

 12 s.x. APRIL 15, io22.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 293 THE "HAND AND PEN" (12 S. x. 168, 216). MR. J. PAUL DE CASTBO is quite right, I think, for I have never come across a coffee- house or inn of this name, but it must not be forgotten that almost every tradesman at this time adopted a sign for his premises not always connected with the trade carried on. There was a very much advertised " Hand and Pen " kept by James Weston, a teacher of shorthand, whose pictorial announcements are to be seen in some of the mid -eighteenth - century London newspapers. In The Daily Journal of Nov. 26, 1731, his address was " at the Hand and Pen, over against [opposite] Norfolk Street in the Strand." In 1741 he advertised that he had " Remov'd to the Hand and Pen, over against the Middle- Temple Gate in Fleet Street." About this period there was also another address with this same sign, but the business was different, " French and Country Dances " being taught ; particulars were to be had "SOUTHAM CYDER" (12 S. x. 250). An excerpt from Henry Fielding's ' Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon ' probably supplies the information for which COLONEL SOUTHAM seeks. Whilst windbound in Torbay on board the Queen of Portugal, Fielding made the following entry under date Sunday, July 21, 1754 : I resolved to dispatch my man into the country to purchase a present of cyder for my friends of that which is called Southam, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to Lisbon, for it is, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the growth of Herefordshire. I pur- chased three hogsheads for five pounds ten shillings, all which I should have scarce thought worth mentioning, had I not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer who sold it me, and who is by the neighbouring gentle- men reputed to deal in the very best, and to the reader, who from ignorance of the means of providing better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juice of Middlesex turnip, instead of that Vinum Pomonae which Mr. Giles Leverance of Cheesehurst, near Dartmouth in Devon, will, of " J. Lampson, Dancing Master, at the } at the price of forty shillings^ per hogshead, send Hand and Pen, the Field end of King Street, Bloomsbury." In each of the cases I have quoted the advertisement commences with a crude representation of a hand holding a quill pen. In Larwood and Hotten's ' History of Signboards ' (really written, as has been pointed out in ' N. & Q,' by Jacobus Lar- wood von Schevichaven), we are told that the " Hand and Pen " was a scrivener's sign, which was adopted by Peter Bales, Queen Elizabeth's celebrated penman. Bale or Bales was employed by Sir Francis Walsing- ham, and afterwards kept a writing-school at the upper end of the Old Bailey. In 1595, when nearly 50 years old, he had a trial of skill with one David Johnson, by which he was the winner of a golden pen, of the value of 20, which, in the pride of his victory, he set up as his sign. The sign of the " Hand and Pen " was also used by the Fleet marriage -mongers to denote that at the houses bearing this sign " marriages were performed without imposi- tion." John Ashton, in his interesting history of gives numerous references to several of them, some being kept by barbers, where these " clergymen " attended, others being " run " by the parsons themselves. These places were so numerous in this neighbourhood that they were referred to as " these Hand and Pen houses." E. E. NEWTON. " Hampstead," Upminster, Essex. in double casks to any part of the world. Southam is a shortened form of South Hams, and Fielding himself used the latter nomenclature when writing to his half- brother John, at Bow Street, the next day : Terr Bay, July 22, 1754. Dear Jack, Soon after I had concluded my letter of business to Welch yesterday, we came to an anchor this place, which our Capt. says is the best harbour in the world. I soon remembered the country and that it was in the midst of the South Hams, a place famous for cyder and I think the best in England, in great preference to that of Hereford- shire. . . . The freight of both [hogsheads] by a coaster of Devon or Cornwall will be 8 shil- lings only. . . . Welch will easily find almost every day one of these Coasters in London. . . . It will be fit for drinking or bottling a month after it hath lain in your vault. I have consigned it in the following manner. Half a hhd. to your- self, half to Welch, half to Hunter and half to Millar, and I wish you all merry over it. The transport difficulties were clearly not so insuperable as COLONEL SOUTHAM sug- Lest a Devonian should not recog- nize the name of Cheesehurst, it should be remarked that this is the name of his farm, and that Mr. Leverance lived at Churston Ferrers, nigh unto Brixham. Baring Gould, in his ' Devon ' (Little Guides series) fully confirms Fielding's estimate of the country- side : The South Hams is the district lying S. of Dart- moor, and extending from the Plym to the Teign. It is one of remarkable fertility, and, as the climate is favourable, the proximity to the sea tempering it and checking frost, it produces abundance of apples for cyder, and pasturage the most lush for cattle. J. PAUL DE CASTRO.
 * The Fleet, its River, Prison, and Marriages,'