84 A Walk from 



play of hotel nomenclature. Some of the combinations 

 are exceedingly unique and most interesting in their 

 incongruity. Dickens has not exaggerated this cha- 

 racteristic ; not even done it justice in his hotel scenes. 

 Things are put together on a hundred tavern signs 

 that were never joined before in the natural or moral 

 world, and put together frequently in most grotesque 

 association. For instance, there is a large, first-class 

 inn right in the very heart of London, which has for a 

 sign, not painted on a board, but let into the wall of 

 the upper story, in solid statuary, a huge human 

 mouth opened to its utmost capacity, and a bull, round 

 and plump, standing stoutly on its four legs between 

 the two distended jaws. Now, the leading idea of this 

 device is involved in a tempting obscurity, which leads 

 one, at first sight, into different lines of conjecture. 

 What did the designer of this group of statuary really 

 intend to represent ? Was it to let the outside world 

 know that, in that inn, the " Eoast Beef of Old Eng- 

 land " was always to be found par excellence ? If so, 

 would a man's mouth swallowing a bull whole, and 

 apparently alive, with hide and horns, tend to stimu- 

 late the appetite af a passing traveller, and to draw him 

 into the establishment ? But leaving these ambiguous 

 symbols to be interpreted by the passing public accord- 

 ing to different perceptions of their meaning, how many 



