326 The Tavern Signs of Wiltshire and their Origin. 
the number of any other sign in the county; the favorite “ Bell ” 
only amounting to a total of forty, and the “ Crown” but thirty- 
nine. 
Then we have “ Railway” Hotels, seven in number ; two “ Great 
Western Railway” Hotels; and a “ Station” Hotel ; but I need 
not pursue the question farther; for the New Inn appears to me to 
be the very acme of dulness, the xe plus ultra of all that is common- 
place, and to stand at the head of the stupid signs : indeed it betrays 
a paucity of ideas, and an absence of taste, than which nothing can 
be more hopeless.! 
Here, then, I close my rough sketch of the sign-boards of our 
Wiltshire taverns: it is but an outline; and if I have seemed on 
any point to have generalized from insufficient data, and to have 
jumped to too rapid a conclusion on too slender premises, I would 
say, let such weak points be dropped out of sight altogether ; for 
here (unlike the proverbial links of the chain) every particular case 
stands solely upon its own pretensions, uninfluenced by the force or 
weakness of its neighbour’s claims. 
I conclude, then, with the expression of a hope that the older and 
more interesting emblems may not be allowed to die out, and be 
extinguished, even though the circumstances which gave rise to 
them may have passed away, and been well-nigh forgotten: and I 
venture to add an appeal to the influential landowners in our county, 
that in cases of new signs being required for houses of public en- 
tertainment on their property, they will think it not beneath their 
notice to exercise some small amount of pressure, if only by means 
of advice, to secure the adoption of such emblems, as (even if not 
the most fitting for the particular locality) may at all events not 
bring discredit, or a deserved charge of utter imbecility, on the in- 
habitants of Wilts. 
10n the day following that on which this paper was read before the Society, 
at Warminster, the archeologists, in the excursion to Stourhead, halted at 
Monkton Deverell, and here it was discovered that the village hostelry, now 
denominated the ‘‘New Inn,” was once designated by the far less common- 
place, if somewhat eccentric sign of ‘‘ The Tippling Philosopher” ! 
