L'2 THE IVY. 



represented in many of the suttlers' tents in the pictures of Wouverman. The 

 custom came evidently from the Romans, and with it the oft-repeated proverb, 

 "Good wine needs no bush" (Vinum vendibile hedera non est opus; in Italian, 

 Al buon vino non bisogna frasca ; in French, a bon vin point d'enseigne). Ivy was 

 the plant commonly used : " The tavern-ivy clings about my money and kills it," 

 says the sottish slave in Massinger's "Virgin Martyr" (act iii. sc. 3). It may 

 have been adopted as the plant sacred to Bacchus and the Bacchantes ; or perhaps 

 simply because it is a hardy plant, and long continues green. As late as the 

 reign of King James I., many inns used it as their only sign. Taylor, the water 

 poet, in his perambulation of ten shires around London, notes various places 

 where there is " a taverne with a bush only"; in other parts he mentions "the 

 sign of the Bush." Even at the present day, " The Bush" is a very general sign 

 for inns and publichouses ; whilst sometimes it assumes the name of the Ivy Bush 

 or the Ivy Green (two in Birmingham). In Gloucester, Warwick, and other 

 counties, where at certain fairs the ordinary booth people and tradesmen enjoy the 

 privilege of selling liquors without a licence, they hang out bunches of ivy- flowers, 

 or boughs of trees, to indicate this sale. As far away as the Western States of 

 North America, at the building of a new village or station, it is no uncommon 

 thing to see a bunch of hay or a green bough hung from above the "grocery" or 

 bar-room door, until such time as a superior decoration can be provided. The 

 bunch being fixed to a long staff was also called the Alepole. Thus, among the 

 processions of odd characters that came to purchase ale at the Tunnyng of Elinour 



Rummyng : 



"Another brought her bedes 

 Of jet or of coale, 

 To offer to the Alepole." 



These Alepoles, from the very earliest times, continued to enlarge and encroach 

 upon the public way. The bunch gradually became a garland of flowers of 

 considerable proportions, whence Chaucer, describing the Sompnour, says : 



"A garlond hadde he sette upon his hede 

 As gret as it were for an alestake." 



Afterwards it became a still more elegant object, as exemplified by the Nag's Head 

 in Cheapside, in the print of the entry of Marie de Medici. Finally, it appeared 

 as a crown of green leaves, with a little Bacchus bestriding a tun dangling from it. 

 Thus the sign was used simultaneously with the bush. " If these houses [ale- 

 houses] have a boxe-bush or an old post, it is enough to show their profession. 



