roses about the head; on which occasions those who desired to confine their words to the company present, that they "might go no farther," usually protested that they were spoken "under the Rose." Hence the Germans have a custom of picturing a rose in the ceiling over the table. In the Comedy of Lingua (1657), Appetitus says: "Crown me no Crowns but Bacchus' Crown of Roses." Gregory Nazianzen, according to Sir Thomas Browne, seems to imply that the rose, from a natural property, has been made the symbol of Silence; while Lemnius and others trace the saying to another origin; representing that the rose was the flower of Venus, which Cupid consecrated to Harpocrates, the God of silence; of which it was therefore made the emblem for concealment of the mysteries of Venus.* Warburton's comment on the passage in the first part of Shakespeare's Henry VI. "From off this Brier pluck a white Rose with me," is: "This is given as the original of the two Badges of the Houses of York and Lancaster, whether truly or not, is no great matter. But the proverbial expression of saying a thing under the Rose, I am persuaded, came from thence. When the nation had ranged itself into two great factions, under the white and red Rose, and were perpetually plotting and counter-plotting against one another, then when a matter of faction was communicated by either party to his friend in the same quarrel, it was natural for him to add, that he said it under the Rose; meaning that, as it concerned the faction, it was religiously to be kept secret. Warburton's criticism provokes Upton, another commentator, to the exclamation: "This is ingenious! What pity that it is not learned too! The Rose (as the fables say) was the symbol of silence, and consecrated by Cupid to Harpocrates, to conceal the lewd pranks of his mother. So common a book as Lloyd's Dictionary might have instructed Dr. Warburton in this: Huic Harpocrati Cupido Veneris filius parentis suæ rosam dedit in munus, ut scilicet si quid licentius dictum, vel actum sit in convivio, sciant tacenda esse omnia. Atque idcirco veteres ad finem convivii sub rosa (Anglicè under the rose) transacta esse omnia ante digressum contestabantur; cujus formæ vis eadem esset, atque ista Μισώμνάμονα συμποταν. Probant hanc rem versus qui reperiuntur in marmore ear. 'Est rosa flos Veneris, cujus quo furla laterent Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendit amicis, Newton's Herball to the Bible (1587) says "I will heere adde a common Countrey Custome that is used to be done with * It is worth noting that it was anciently the fashion to stick a rose in the The first Lord North had a juvenile portrait (supposed to be that of Queen Elizabeth) representing this mode. the Rose. When the pleasaunt and merry companions doe friendly meete together to make goode cheere, as soone as their Feast or Banket is ended, they give faithfull promise mutually one to another, that whatsoever hath been merrily spoken by any in that assembly, should be wrapped up in silence, and not to be carried out of the Doores. For the Assurance and Performance whereof, the tearme which they use is that all things there said must be taken as spoken under the Rose. Whereupon they use in their Parlours and Dining Roomes to hang ROSES over their Tables, to put the companie in memorie of Secrecie, and not rashly or indiscreetly to clatter and blab out what they heare. Likewise, if they chaunce to shew any Tricks of wanton, unshamefast, immodest, or irreverent behaviour either by word or deed, they protesting that all was spoken under the Rose, do give a straight charge and pass a Covenant of Silence and Secrecy with the hearers, that the same shall not be blowne abroad, nor tatled in the Streetes among any others." So Peacham in The Truth of our Times (1638): "In many places as well in England as in the Low Countries, they have over their Tables a Rose painted, and what is spoken under the Rose must not be revealed. The Reason is this: the Rose being sacred to Venus, whose amorous and stolen Sports, that they might never be revealed, her sonne Cupid would needes dedicate to Harpocrates the God of Silence." Whence the saying of "plucking a Rose,” that needs no explanation, originated, if not in some modest excuse for absence in the garden dictated by feminine bashfulness, we cannot divine. The passage already quoted from Newton's Herball to the Bible may perhaps explain it. This mention of the sex reminds me of the remarkable saying, now almost forgotten, but noticed by Sir Thomas Browne as usual in England in his time and probably all over Europe, that "Smoak doth follow the fairest." "Whereof," writes he, "although there seem no natural ground, yet it is the Continuation of a very antient opinion, as Petrus Victorius and Casaubon have observed from a passage in Athenæus, wherein a Parasite thus describes himself 'To every Table first I come, Whence Porridge I am called by some. HOB or NOB. Grose's Glossary explains Hob-Nob (sometimes pronounced HabNab) as a North Country word signifying "At a venture," or "rashly." Hob or Hub, he adds, is the North Country name for the back of the chimney; "Will you hob or nob with me?" being the question formerly in fashion at polite tables, signifying a request or challenge to drink a glass of wine with the proposer; and if the challenged individual answered nob, they were to elect between white and red. His explanation of the origin of the custom is highly improbable This foolish Custom is said to have originated in the days of good Queen Bess thus: When great Chimneys were in fashion, there was, at each corner of the Hearth or Grate, a small elevated projection called the Hob, and behind it a Seat. In Winter time the beer was placed on the Hob to warm, and the cold Beer was set on a small Table, said to have been called the Nob; so that the Question Will you have Hob or Nob? seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold Beer; Beer from the Hob, or Beer from the Nob?" The exposition modestly hinted at by Reed, seems much more satisfactory. It occurs in the form of a note upon the passage in Twelfth-Night, in which the incensement of a duellist is said to be "so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death, and sepulchre hob, nob, is his word; give't or take't." In AngloSaxon, habban is to have, and næbban to want. May it not, therefore, be explained to signify, "Do you chuse a Glass of Wine, or would you rather let it alone?" Is not this the original of our hob nob, asks Mason, or challenge to drink a glass of wine at dinner? "The phrase occurs in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub 'I put it Even to your Worship's bitterment hab nab I shall have a chance o' the dice for't, I hope;'" to which Malone adds a passage from Holinshed: "The Citizens in their rage shot habbe or nabbe, at random." Heywood (1566) has the following passage "Where Wooers hoppe in and out, long time may bryng I hoppyng without for a Ringe of a Rush, And while I at length debate and beate the Bushe, Betwene these two Wives, make Slouth speede confounde In Harrington's Epigrams we read "Not of Jack Straw, with his rebellious Crew, That set King, Realme, and Lawes at hab or nab, In the popular ballad of The New Courtier (1790), we find Hab nab thus introduced So also in The Character of a Quack Astrologer (1673) we are told: 56 He writes of the Weather hab nab, and, as the Toy takes him, chequers the Year with foul and fair.” Jorevin, who was here in the time of Charles II., thus refers to Worcester, and the Stag Inn there: "According to the custom of the Country, the Landladies sup with the Strangers and Passengers; and, if they have daughters, they are also of the company, to entertain the Guests at Table with pleasant conceits, where they drink as much as the Men: but what is to me the most disgusting in all this is that when one drinks the Health of any person in Company, the custom of the Country does not permit you to drink more than half the Cup, which is filled up and presented to him or her whose health you have drunk.” He next speaks of tobacco, which it seems the women smoked as well as the men. In A Character of England (attributed to John Evelyn, 1659), the reference to taverns runs in this wise: "Your L. will not believe me that the Ladies of greatest quality suffer themselves to be treated in one of these Taverns, but you will be more astonisht when I assure you that they drink their crowned Cups roundly, strain healths through their Smocks, daunce after the Fiddle, kiss freely, and term it an honourable Treat." Further we read of "a sort of perfect Debauchees, who stile themselves Hectors, that in their mad and unheard of revels, pierce their Veins to quaff their own blood, which some of them have drank to that excess, that they died of the Intemperance." And again: "I don't remember, my Lord, ever to have known (or very rarely,) a Health drunk in France, no, not the Kings; and if we say à votre Santé, Monsieur, it neither expects pledge or ceremony. 'Tis here so the Custome to drink to every one at the Table, that by the time a Gentleman has done his duty to the whole Company, he is ready to fall asleep, whereas with us, we salute the whole Table with a single Glass onely." A curious passage occurs in Galateo, of Manners and Behaviour (1576) "Now to drink all out every Man: (Drinking and Carrowsing) which is a Fashion as little in use amongst us, as y terme itselfe is barbarous and strange: I meane, Ick bring you, is sure a foule thing of itselfe, and in our Countrie so coldly accepted yet, that we must not go about to bring it in for a fashion. If a Man doe quaffe or carrouse unto you, you may honestly say nay to pledge him, and geveing him thankes, confesse your weaknesse, that you are not able to beare it or else to doe him a pleasure, you may for curtesie sake taste it: and then set downe the Cup to them that will, and charge yourselfe no further. And although this, Ick bring you, as I have heard many learned Men say, hath beene an auncient Custome in Greece: and that the Grecians doe much commend a good man of that time, Socrates by name, for that hee sat out one whole night long, drinking a Vie with another good man, Aristophanes; and yet the next morning, in the breake of the Daye, without any rest uppon his drinking, made such a cunning Geometrical Instrument, that there was no maner of faulte to be found in the same: bycause the drinking of Wine after this sorte in a Vie, in such excesse and waste, is a shrewde Assault to trie the strength of him that quaffes so lustily." 508 ALE-HOUSE OR TAVERN SIGNS. SIR THOMAS signs and in coats-of-arms are relics of paganism, these visages originally typifying Apollo and Diana. Hudibras asks a shrewd question on this topic, which we do not remember to have seen solved BROWNE opines that the human faces depicted "Tell me but what's the nat❜ral cause Why on a sign no painter draws There is a familiar proverb that good wine needs no bush; nothing, that is, to indicate where it is sold. From Good Newes and Bad Newes (1622) it would appear that tavern-keepers anciently maintained both a bush and a sign "I rather will take down my bush and sign 66 Greene's Conceipt (1598) has it: "Good wine needs no ivie bush." So in England's Parnassus (1600) we find: "I hang no ivie out to sell my wine;" and in Braithwaite's Strappado for the Divell (1615), Bacchus is invoked as sole soveraigne of the ivy-bush, prime founder of red-lettices," &c. In Dekker's Wonderful Yeare (1603) we read: "Spied a bush at the end of a pole (the auncient badge of a country ale-house);" and similarly in Vaughan's Golden Grove (1608): "Like as an ivy-bush put forth at a vintrie is not the cause of the wine but a signe that wine is to bee sold there, so, likewise, if we see smoke appearing in a chimney, wee know that fire is there, albeit the smoke is not the cause of the fire." Harris' Drunkard's Cup also supplies a quotation: "Nay, if the house be not worth an ivie-bush, let him have his tooles about him; nutmegs, rosemary, tobacco, with other the appurtenances; and he knowes how of puddle-ale to make a cup of English wine." Coles (1656) held that vintners made their garlands of box and ivy because their viridity was durable. He inclined to think, however, that ivy was preferred "because of the antipathy between it and wine." Poor Robin (1678) recites in his Perambulation from Saffron Walden to London "Some alehouses upon the road I saw, And some with bushes shewing they wine did draw." From Whimzies (1631) we gather that _birch-poles were supplanted by signs in alehouses: "He [the painter] bestowes his pencile on an aged piece of decayed canvas in a sooty alehouse, where Mother Redcap must be set out in her colours. Here hee and his barmy hostesse drew both together, but not in like nature; she in ale, he in oyle: but her commoditie goes better downe, which he means to have his full share of, when his worke is done. If she aspire to the conceite of a signe, and desire to have her birch-pole pulled downe, hee will supply her with one." |