The house was distinguished by the device of a large, well-painted Rose, erected over a doorway, which was the only indication in the main street of such an establishment. In the superior houses of the metropolis in the sixteenth century, room was gained in the rear of the street-line, the space in front being economized, so that the line of shops might not be interrupted. Upon this plan, the larger taverns in the City were constructed, wherever the ground was sufficiently spacious behind: hence it was that the Poultry tavern of which we are speaking, was approached through a long, narrow, covered passage, opening into a well-lighted quadrangle, around which were the tavern-rooms. The sign of the Rose appears to have been a costly work, since there was the fragment of a leaf of an old account-book preserved, when the ruins of the house were cleared after the Great Fire, on which were written these entries:--"Pd. to Hoggestreete, the Duche Paynter, for ye Picture of a Rose, with a Standing-bowle and Glasses, for a Signe, xx_li._ besides Diners and Drinkings. Also for a large Table of Walnut-tree, for a Frame; and for Iron-worke and Hanging the Picture, v_li._" The artist who is referred to in this memorandum, could be no other than Samuel Van Hoogstraten, a painter of the middle of the seventeenth century, whose works in England are very rare. He was one of the many excellent artists of the period, who, as Walpole contemptuously says, "painted still-life, oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloth-of-gold, and that medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar." But, beside the claims of the painter, the sign of the Rose cost the worthy tavern-keeper, a still further outlay, in the form of divers treatings and advances made to a certain rather loose man of letters of his acquaintance, possessed of more wit than money, and of more convivial loyalty than either discretion or principle. Master Roger Blythe frequently patronized the Rose Tavern as his favourite ordinary. Like Falstaff, he was "an infinite thing" upon his host's score; and, like his prototype also, there was no probability of his ever discharging the account. When the Tavern-sign was about to be erected, this Master Blythe contributed the poetry to it, after the fashion of the time, which he swore was the envy of all the Rose Taverns in London, and of all the poets who frequented them. "There's your Rose at Temple Bar, and your Rose in Covent-garden, and the Rose in Southwark: all of them indifferent good for wits, and for drawing neat wines too; but, smite me, Master King," he would say, "if I know one of them all fit to be set in the same hemisphere with yours! No! for a bountiful host, a most sweet mistress, unsophisticated wines, honest measures, a choicely-painted sign, and a witty verse to set it forth withal,--commend me to the Rose Tavern in the Poultry!"