536 Letter on- Affairs in general. [ Nov. 
But indeed it is the fate, I think, of explanations generally—Obscurium 
per obscurius—to leave the matter explained considerably more incom- 
prehensible than before. Or they supply you at great length with a solu- 
tion which is totally wrong; the natural; and probably, the) realvone, 
being at hand, but rejected. Thus some writer, in a‘book “before me, 
called “ Tavern Signs.andAnecdotes,’"’"—and made up of piracy, under, 
the name of quotation—puzzles himself exceedingly, to discover what the; 
sign of the “* Cock and Bottle” can be a corruption from :—a Cock and» 
a Bottle” being, as Johnson would have said, things “ not'contempora- 
neous.’ Now I do not see that any corruption at all is absolutely neces- 
sary here, because I find that very sign now in Oxford used by a celebrated 
Cock-fighter, who has kept a public-house there these twenty years,and fed 
for all the counties round ; and who probably chose the «Cock and Bottle” 
as illustratory of his double calling. A vast number of those'signs, indeed, 
which are apparently eccentric, I have no doubt have originated in the same 
way—out of some combination of callings by the persons who originally, 
employedthem. Thus the “Axe and Bottle’”—as publicans in the country. 
now, a great number of them, carry on some handicraft trade as wellas that 
of yictuallers—The “ Axe and Bottle” is more likely to have been the sign 
of a carpenter who kept a public-house, than to be a corruption .of 
“the Axe and Battle,” as my friend of the “signs and anecdotes’ is dis-, 
posed to have it. Even in the case of “ the Bull and Mouth,” which has 
been the very football of dispute to antiquarians and commentators—I 
doubt the corruption from ‘“ Boulogne mouth” very much. I do not 
find:that any body knowsthat there ever was such a sign as the Bou- 
logne mouth in existence. I think it more likely that the simple du//. and. 
mouth—between which (especially in England) the natural disconnec- 
tion is not quite so absolute as some disputants would have us believe— 
that the. “ Bull and Mouth” was the sign of some victuallers, or eating- 
house; in the same way that the Lamb, the Flitch of Bacon, the,Cheshire. 
Cheese, the Haunch of Venison, and various others—emblems of an edible 
character—are the signs of places of refection at present. - For the “Cock 
and Bottle,” it may clearly be justified upon this principle Oe my Oxford 
case; for every Oxford man, earlier than 1815, will recollect, old, Jem 
Crozier, the:feeder, who kept that signin St. Aldate’s?,, Rest -his,.sou}, 
(for he is dead now) he had a dozen of fine spanking daughters! And, 
moreover, swore the roundest oaths—the whoresonest—of any publican ‘in 
Christendom! But.if we must have an original contemporaneousness, 
and .a modern: corruption, the corruption is. found in a minute—for 
« Cock and Bottle,” read «Cork and Bottle ;” and Jet those go: farther 
that will—you have it. 
The want of new matter to write and read about gets absolutely la- 
mentable,, So great, is the dearth of subject,. that. some. bookseller has 
actually brought forth “The Memoirs. of Lindley Murray,” . The Me- 
moirs of Lindley Murray! Dr. Murray wrote a book (of some authority) 
upon English grammar; and, in his youth,..once took away some hay 
from the elephant at. Exeter Change ; and was: assured by the keepers» 
that the animal would remember the injury for ever after. ‘This seems to” 
have been the most important adventure of his lifes. cooos 0; soo otegemonen 
Owing to this same dearth of matter, I suppose it is, that some-of-the 
newspapers, I see, copy little points out of my letters ; and"pass ‘the joke t 
off (when there is any) for their own; not putting any notice 0} ae 
they take it from. Now the next that does this, to. shew him. how_supe- 
rior Lam to all such feelings of petty jealousy, as he declines, to»publshi. 
my name, I will publish h7s. 4) voto! tangs 9H 
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