Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/326

 384 [9"" S. IV. Nov. 4, '99. NOTES AND QUERIES. and the end of St. Nicholas flesh shambles." That the Poultry as late as 1572 embraced a coney or rabbit market is evident from an entry in the ' Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series),' 24 June, 1572, as follows : "The sergeant [of the Poultry, Cheapside], being a poulterer, has engrossed warrens of coneys into his hands, made sale of the best, and spent the refuse in the queen's house ; and if two brothers be made sergeant and purveyor they will be partners," &c. The entry relates obviously to a complaint of corruption. Coney Hope Lane, now Grocers' Hall Court, is a narrow passage leading from Old Jewry. The author of'Tavern Anecdotes,' 1825, says that the lane " was so named from there being a rabbit market, at the corner of which was a chapel dedicated to St. Mary Coney-Hope." This, however, is not quite correct, for both chapel and lane were "so called of such a sign of three conies hanging over a poulterer's stall at the lane's end" (Stow, p. 99), i.e., a rabbit in a hoop, after the more ancient manner of the trade sign. Literature from the North and News from all Nations, said to have been the first review of books published in London, was printed for John Dunton, at the " Black Raven " in the Poultry. Nathaniel Crouch, the famous bookseller in the reign of William and Mary, and the first to condense great and learned works into a small and popular form, lived at the "Bell" in the Poultry. His 'Historical Rarities in London and Westminster' was one of the books which Johnson, in his old age, desired to read again, in remembrance of the pleasure derived from their teaching in the days of his youth. Crouch generally wrote under the name of " John Burton." In 1723 Thomas Crouch (? son) was publishing at the " Bell" in Paternoster Row (Lond. Journ., 22 June, 1723). The sign of the " Golden Crotchet" used to distinguish the famous old music publishers Messrs. Novello, in the Poultry, before their removal to Queen Street. In a room at the back of Messrs. Corbyn's premises, No. 7, New Poultry Chambers, in the Poultry, is preserved an old carved stone sign, well protected though much fractured, of the " Bell and Dragon." Neither Larwooa and Hotten ('Hist, of Signboards') nor Mr. Norman (' Lond. Signs ') have given the pal- pably simple origin of this sign, assuming as they do that it alludes to the apocryphal account of the heathen god Bel ana the serpent, among the doubtful books of the Old Testament—which, indirectly, may be so. A belief in this interpretation of the sign probably actuated Thomas Topham, the strong man, when he fantastically changed his sign of the "Bell and Dragon," in Hog Lane, near Norton Folgate, to that of " King Astyages's Arms," that name being the first mentioned in the apocryphal story. There can be no doubt, however, that the sign is derived directly from the arms of the Apothe- caries' Company, which consist of Apollo, the god of healing, slaying the dragon of dis- ease, or, to take it in its wider meaning, the principle of good overcoming that of evil— the Celtic sun-god Bel corresponding to Phoebus. The " King's Arms," in the Poultry, was in 1671 the sign of a ballad stationer, as may be seen by referring to the Luttrell collection of ballads in the British Museum. According to Wheatley's 'London,' Dilly, not Dalby, was the name of the bookseller at whose shop, 15 May, 1776, Dr. Johnson met Wilkes at dinner by a manoeuvre of Boswell's of which Burke declared "that there was nothing equal to it in the whole history of the Corps Diplomatique." J. HoLDEN MACMlCHAEL. I contributed to the City Press in 1891 or 1892 a long article entitled 'Bookselling in the Poultry,' which I remember involved considerable research. I have a copy of the article, which appeared in the issue of Saturday, 16 Aug., but the exact year I cannot state. The most celebrated book which issued from the Poultry was undoubtedly Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress,' which Ponder published in 1678. Mr. Reynolds will find most of the Poultry booksellers described in Dunton's ' Life and Errors.' W. Roberts. 47, Lansdowne Gardens, S. W. Holy Communion (9th S. Hi. 427, 498; iv. 273).—An instance of earth being adminis- tered is furnished by the experience of Benvenuto Cellini, who, being on occasion injured and temporarily deprived of breath by the fall of a battlement, was lamented as dead :— "Giovanni Francesco, the musician, wept bitterly, and ran directly for a flask of the best Greek wine ; then making a slate red-hot, put a handful of worm- wood upon it, and sprinkling it with the wine, applied it to that part of my breast where 1 appeared to have received the injury. Such was the efficacy of the wormwood that it immediately restored my vigour. I made an attempt to speak, but found myself unable to articulate, because some foolish soldiers had filled my mouth with earth, thinking that they had thereby given me the sacrament; though it had nearly proved an excommunication to me, for 1 could scarcely recover myself, as the earth did me a great deal more harm than the contusion."—' Memoirs,' pp. 79, 80 (Bonn's edition).