Old Tavern Signs Part 11

O siecle different des temps de Lucullus!"

The landlord of the "Post" in Kehl demands pa.s.ses from Frederic and his companions, and Frederic fabricates them himself with his Prussian seal. Again in Stra.s.sburg they present the same pa.s.ses to the custom officials, not without adding a gold coin:--

"L'or, plus dieu que Mars et l'Amour, Le meme or sut nous introduire, Le soir, dans les murs de Stra.s.sbourg."

Here they stop at "The Raven," where Frederic immediately began to study the French people. His judgment is not very flattering, although he communicates it to his French friend:--

"Non, des vils Francais vous n'etes pas du nombre, Vous pensez, ils ne pensent point."

In the evening he invites even French officers to dine with him and the following morning goes to a military review. Here one of his own soldiers, a Prussian deserter, "un malheureux pendard," recognizes him; he quickly hurries back to "The Raven," pays his bill, and leaves Stra.s.sburg, never to see it again.

Like the old king, Frederic preferred to stop in rectories when traveling through the Prussian lands, but sometimes was prevented from doing so by his very faithful but very independent coachman Pfund. If the pastor had forgotten to give this important person his due tip on the last visit, Pfund would surely cut him on future occasions, and force his old master to go on to the next town, where he was sure to find a host of better manners. This sin of omission was rarely committed by pastors who received the honor of a royal visit, because they could very well afford to humor old Pfund a little, when they themselves received from the otherwise economical king the handsome "royalty" of fifty dollars for a dinner and one hundred dollars for dinner and a night's lodging. General von der Marwitz has told us the story of how Pfund once opposed the king, who was tired and wanted to stop in the rectory of Dolgelin, by saying the sun was not yet down and they could well reach the next town, and how the old king patiently submitted to the will of his Automedon. But there is a limit even to the patience of old kings, and on one occasion, when Pfund went too far in his rudeness, Frederic rebelled, and, to teach his coachman morals, ordered him forthwith to cart manure and f.a.gots with a team of donkeys. After a year the king happened to meet him, busily engaged in his new and modest occupation, and kindly inquired: "How d'ye do?" The coachman's cla.s.sic answer August Kopisch has celebrated in a song which we venture to translate:--

"'Well, if I can drive,' says Pound, On his box quite firm and round, 'I do not care How I fare, If with horses or with a.s.ses, carting f.a.gots or His Majesty the King.'

"Then old Frederic, taking snuff, Looked at Pound and told the rough: 'Well, if you don't care How you really fare, If with horses or with a.s.ses, logs or kings you cart, Quick unload, drive ME again, and take a start!'"

Goethe's father, although himself the son of a landlord, disliked inns and public-houses very keenly, as we read in Goethe's autobiography, "Dichtung und Wahrheit": "This feeling had rooted itself firmly in him on his travels through Italy, France, and Germany. Although he seldom spoke in images, and only called them to his aid when he was very cheerful, yet he used often to repeat that he always fancied he saw a great cobweb spun across the gate of an inn, so ingeniously that the insects could indeed fly in but that even the privileged wasps could not fly out again unplucked. It seemed to him something horrible, that one should be obliged to pay immoderately for renouncing one's habits and all that was dear to one in life and living after the manner of publicans and waiters. He praised the hospitality of the olden time, and reluctantly as he otherwise endured even anything unusual in the house, he yet practiced hospitality...." This excessive aversion to all inns the great son inherited from his father, although he admitted it was a weakness. We are therefore not surprised to see the student Goethe, when he for the first time traveled full of longing to Dresden in the yellow coach, lodge in the modest quarters of a philosophical cobbler, whose home seemed to him as romantic and picturesque as an old Dutch painting. Perhaps it was the memory of this interior that inspired Goethe later, when he was called "Doktor Wolf" by his proud mother, to arrange in "The Star" at Weimar, in honor of the d.u.c.h.ess Anna Amalie, a "festivity in clair-obscure" with the distinct purpose of creating a Rembrandt scene.

But before we wander in the far world with the student and doctor, let us take a stroll through the Frankfurt of his childhood and admire the many signs that still decorated, not inns alone, but also, houses of private citizens. The "Goldene Wage," situated on the Domplatz and built in 1625, as well as the "Grosse Engel," opposite the Romer, are still standing, and are filled to-day with the treasures of art-loving antiquarians. Recollections of his childhood pa.s.sed through Goethe's mind when he described in "Hermann und Dorothea" the pharmacy "Zum Engel," near the "Golden Lion" on the market-place, and the old bachelor chemist who was too stingy to regild his angel-sign:--

"Who now-a-days can afford to pay for the numerous workmen?

Lately I thought to have new-gilt the figure which stands as my shop-sign, The Archangel Michael with horrible dragon around his feet writhing: But as they are I have left them all dingy, for fear of the charges."

The father of some boy friends of Goethe's, a Herr von Senckenberg, "lived at the corner of Hare Street, which took its name from a sign on the house that represented one hare at least if not three hares."

Von Senckenberg's three sons were consequently called the "three hares," which nickname they could not shake off for a long while.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AVX TROIS LAPINS]

It was in the "Golden Lion" at Frankfurt that Voltaire was arrested and interned on his word of honor until his luggage containing the stolen "uvre de Poesies" of Frederic the Great should arrive. In these poems the king had ridiculed several crowned heads, and it was of the utmost importance for him to get them back before the revengeful Frenchman could make use of them against him. But for some reason or other the trunks did not arrive, and Voltaire, losing patience and "without warning anybody, privately revoked said word of honor" and tried to escape, an attempt that failed and ended in a tragic-comic fashion. Father Goethe, who loved to tell this story to his children as a warning example never to seek the favors of princes, does not agree here with Carlyle in the name of the tavern, but says it was "The Rose" in which "this extraordinary poet and writer was held as a prisoner for a considerable time." When the fugitive was brought back, the landlord of the tavern refused to take him in again, and the "Bock" became for the rest of the time his involuntary lodging-place.

In spite of this bad example and his father's distinct warnings, Goethe in 1778 accepted the invitation of the Duke of Weimar to the "Romische Kaiser" in Frankfurt, where he was "joyfully and graciously"

received, and where definite arrangements were made for his removal to Weimar.

After the death of Goethe's father, Mutter Aja sold the old homestead on the Hirschgraben and took a flat in the "Goldenen Brunnen" on the Rossmarket, where the golden fountain of her good humor continued to flow for all her friends, but where she no longer had such facilities for entertaining guests as in the roomy house of old. When, therefore, her daughter-in-law and her grandson, the "liebe Augst," came to visit her, she ordered rooms for them in "The Swan." Her apartment in the "Golden Fountain" we know from her own lively description in a letter to her son, who visited her here several times before her death in 1808.

Let us now accompany the student Goethe to Stra.s.sburg and pay a visit to the inn "Zum Geist," where his friendship with Herder, so important for his future development, was formed. "I visited Herder morning and evening, I even remained whole days with him ... and daily learned to appreciate his beautiful and great qualities, his extensive knowledge, and his profound views." In Leipzig, the next university where Goethe studied, he lived in a house, between the old and the new market, which was called after its sign "Die Feuerkugel." One of the first calls he made was to the literary dictator Gottsched, who "lived very respectably in the first story of the 'Golden Bear,' where the elder Breitkopf, on account of the great advantage which Gottsched's writings had brought to the trade, had a.s.sured him a lodging for life." This Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf was the inventor of music printing and the founder of the famous publishing firm of to-day. His house, the "Golden Bear," number 11 Universitatsstra.s.se, is to-day the home of the Royal Saxon Inst.i.tute for universal history and the history of civilization, founded by the distinguished historian Lamprecht. In Goethe's day Breitkopf's son built a great new house opposite the "Golden Bear" which was called "Zum Silbernen Baren."

A very popular sign in those days, in Germany, and especially in the neighborhood of Frankfurt, was the pentacle. Goethe calls it simply the beer-sign in his autobiography, where he tells us a charming story based on an ingenious and humorous interpretation of the two triangles which compose the sign. While still living as a young lawyer in Mutter Aja's house, he entertained two distinguished visitors, the famous Lavater and the educational reformer Basedow. To amuse them he arranged carriage drives in the pleasant country around his native town. We see the young fire-brand sitting between these two dignified men:--

"The prophets sat on either side, The world-child sat between them."

On one of these excursions Basedow had offended the pious and sweet-tempered Lavater by his cynical remarks about the Trinity and so spoiled the pleasant atmosphere of good comradeship. Goethe punished him in the following humorous manner. "The weather was warm and the tobacco smoke had perhaps contributed to the dryness of Basedow's palate; he was dying for a gla.s.s of beer. Seeing a tavern at a distance on the road he eagerly ordered the coachman to stop there."

But Goethe urged him to go on without seeming to mind the furious protest of the thirsty Basedow, whom he simply calmed with the words: "Father, be quiet, you ought to thank me! Luckily you didn't see the beer-sign! It was two triangles put together across each other. Now, you commonly get mad about one triangle, and if you had set your eye on two we should have had to put you in a strait-jacket."

On his first journey to Switzerland, in company with the Stollbergs, he stayed at the hotel "Zum Schwert," which is still standing. "The view of the lake of Zurich which we enjoyed from the Gate of the Sword is still before me." On the Rigi they lodged in the "Ochsen," and here from the window of his room, he sketched one Sunday morning the chapel of the "Madonna in the Snow." In the evening they sat before the tavern door, under the sign, and enjoyed the music of the gurgling fountain and a substantial meal consisting of baked fish, eggs, and "sufficient" wine. On his second trip to Switzerland in 1779-80 we meet him, together with his n.o.ble friend the Duke of Weimar, in "The Eagle" at Constance, where Montaigne had lodged more than two hundred years before.

We could mention many other hospitable thresholds which the great genius crossed: "The Red c.o.c.k" in Nuremberg, now an elegant building that reminds us little of the ancient low house with its large gate; or the "Hotel Victoria" in Venice, whose owner recalls to the modern traveler Goethe's visit in a proud memorial tablet. "I lodged well in the 'Konigin von England,' not far from the market-place, the greatest advantage of the inn." But if he could find private quarters he preferred them to public-houses; so in Rome, where he was very glad to be received in the home of the painter Tischbein.

There is sufficient evidence that Goethe took an artistic interest in signs, since he invented one himself for his puppet play "Hanswurst's Hochzeit," where we read the bewitching rhyme:--

"The wedding-feast is at the house Of mine host of the Golden Louse."

In "Truth and Poetry" he has given us the scheme of the play, which was never really executed. Like a born stage manager, he proposed a kind of turning stage: "The tavern with its glittering insignia was placed so that all its four sides could be presented to view by being turned upon a peg." This patent idea of a turning inn showing its golden sign and its door open to travelers from the four quarters of the globe, might please the modern landlord too, even if he did not care exactly for the super-sign of a "Golden Louse," "magnified by the solar-microscope!"

CHAPTER XI

THE ENGLISH SIGN AND ITS PECULIARITIES

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lamb and Flag East Bath, England]

CHAPTER XI

THE ENGLISH SIGN AND ITS PECULIARITIES

"Freedom I love, and form I hate And choose my lodgings at an inn."

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

We cannot resist the temptation to quote as an introduction the _ipsissima verba_ of England's cla.s.sical historian Macaulay on the evolution of public hospitality in his country. Most naturally the evolution of the sign runs parallel to the evolution of the tavern, and in a time of flourishing inns we may expect to find highly developed tavern signs. "From a very early period," says Macaulay, in a chapter on the social condition of England in 1685, "the inns of England had been renowned. Our first great poet had described the excellent accommodation which they afforded to the pilgrims of the fourteenth century. Nine and twenty persons, with their horses, found room in the wide chambers and stables of the Tabard in Southwark. The food was of the best, and the wines such as drew the company on to drink largely. Two hundred years later, under the reign of Elizabeth, William Harrison gave a lively description of the plenty and comfort of the great hostelries. The continent of Europe, he said, could show nothing like them. There were some in which two or three hundred people could without difficulty be lodged and fed. The bedding, the tapestry above all, the abundance of clean and fine linen was a matter of wonder. Valuable plate was often set on the tables. Nay, there were signs which had cost thirty or forty pounds. In the seventeenth century England abounded with excellent inns of every rank. The travelers sometimes, in a small village, lighted on a public-house such as Walton has described, where the brick floor was swept clean, where the walls were stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelled of lavender, and where a blazing fire, a cup of good ale, and a dish of trout fresh from the neighboring brook, were to be procured at small charge. At the larger houses of entertainment were to be found beds hung with silk, choice cookery, and claret equal to the best which was drunk in London."

A sign that costs one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars would be, even in our days of high-paid labor, a thing worth looking at. In the times of the Renaissance it certainly was a work of excellent craftsmanship, sculptured in wood and richly gilded. On an extensive tour through England which brought us to the charming western fishing-village of Clovelly, with its "New Inn" and the more romantic "Red Lion" down by the little harbor, and to Chester, in the north, founded by the Romans, we were disappointed to find so few old signs of artistic value. We found very few carved in wood like "The Blue Boar" in Lincoln or "The Swan" in Wells, from whose windows the beautiful western facade of the cathedral, unusually rich in sculptures, is seen through the green veil of huge old trees. This swan sign shows certain characteristics of the period of the First Empire, and surely does not date back beyond 1800. Also the famous "Four Swans" in the little town of Waltham Cross, north of London, perhaps the only existing example of an old English custom to construct the sign like a triumphant arch across the street, are not so old as the tavern, which a bold inscription dates in the year 1260. How could a sign delicately carved in wood resist the inclemency of the weather, when the stone sculptures of the cathedrals,--as in Exeter, for instance, or in Salisbury,--although leaning against the protecting walls of these gigantic structures, suffered so much? To please the lovers of antiquity some owners of old houses put the most arbitrary dates of their foundation on the neatly-painted fronts. In the street in Chester that leads down to "The Bear and Billet," one of England's oldest frame houses, we saw the date 1006 painted on a facade, evidently built in Renaissance times. Other burghers and house-owners who have more respect for exact historic truth, see, of course, in such misleading inscriptions an unfair compet.i.tion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THESWANINWELLS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ye Olde Four Swansin Waltham CrossEngland1260]

Signs wrought in iron seem to have been rare in England, the art of forging being less developed there than in the south of Germany.

Curiously enough the South-Kensington Museum in London, an enormous storehouse of old works of arts and crafts, contains not a single English sign, but a very beautifully forged iron sign from Germany, dated 1635,--a baker's sign, as the great crown and the heraldic lions reveal to us. A friendly a.s.sistant at the Museum showed us another German sign dating from the end of the seventeenth century, charmingly carved and gilded, representing the workshop of a shoemaker. These two were the only signs that the Museum possessed.

The old London signs have all found a very dismal refuge in the dimly lighted cellar of the Guild Hall. Some of them are stone sculptures of considerable size like the giant sign "Bull and Mouth." Here too we find certain technical curiosities, as, "The Dolphin" of 1730 painted on copper, and more unusual still, "The c.o.c.k and Bottle," a neat and dainty design composed of blue-and-white Dutch tiles. The foggy and damp climate has often injured not only the carved woodwork of the signboard, but still more the painting on it. The beam on which it hangs might be very old; the painting itself is always of recent date even if the artist, following an old tradition, sometimes produces quaint effects. As an example of how quickly the work of the sign-painter darkens beyond recognition, we may cite "The Falstaff" in Canterbury. It was not a year since the landlady had hung out this picture of the bl.u.s.tering knight in a bold fencing-pose that we saw it last, and it was already very difficult to distinguish the details of the composition; while another painting--the immediate predecessor of the sign in the street--which the friendly Dame showed us on the staircase was as black and bare as a slate. Sometimes the frames of the pictures are carved and allow us to guess the date of their origin; but, as a rule, the perfectly plain signboard hangs out on a strong beam. A typical example is "The Falcon" in Stratford-on-Avon.

The higher the artistic value of the painting on the signboards was, the more we have to regret that so much art was wasted on such a perishable production. In the eighteenth century the coach-painters, whose craftsmanship on old equipages, sledges, and sedan-chairs we still admire in many a museum, used to produce most elegant signs and received for their work astonishingly high prices. Shaken by winds, whipped by rainstorms, their beauty was soon gone. Nowhere have we found them either in collections or in the light of the street. Only in literary tradition does there still live a part of the charm of all these burned and weather-killed things of beauty.

But one device we discovered in England to restore the old forms, namely, the so-called club signs. Just as the printer's marks often reproduce _en miniature_ the sign of the publisher, so the club signs give a reduced picture of the old tavern signs, especially of those that were cut as silhouettes in metal plates. The very first printers of the fifteenth century loved to introduce into their books these little designs symbolizing their names. Peter Drach in Speyer used two little shields, one containing a winged dragon and the other, as a friendly compensation, a Christmas tree and two stars. Johannes Sensenschmied, a proud "civis Nurembergensis," had two crossed scythes (_Sensen_) in his escutcheon. These same designs appear later on the front page of a volume, neatly engraved on copper, often reproducing the sign of the bookshop to which one had to go if one wanted to buy this particular book. A Parisian publisher adopted "La Samaritaine,"

which to-day has become the name of a great department store. Mr.

Leonard Plaignard, of Lyon, called his shop "Au grand Hercule," and put the Greek hero on the front page of his books with the inscription: "Virtus non territa monstris." Just as these little engravings may give us an idea of the old publishers' signs, so we may gain from the club signs some suggestions as to how the old signboards looked.

On Whitsunday the club members used to fasten these small bra.s.s imitations of their beloved tavern sign to poles and carry them in solemn procession through the astonished town. At the end of the club walking, it is whispered, many were unable to hold the poles as straight as they wished. The museum of the quiet little town of Taunton possesses a remarkable series of such club signs. It has become quite a fad in England to collect these little polished bra.s.s figures, since the public has got tired of the warming-pan craze.

Morris dancers sometimes joined in the club processions, among them the green or wild man, Robin Hood, famous in song and story; they amused the crowd with such charming airs as as--