[Illustration: ‘THE BELL’ IN KNIGHTRIDER STREET.] From the Bell Inn, Carter Lane, Richard Quyney wrote in 1598 to his ‘loveing good ffrend and contreyman, Mr. Will^m Shackespere,’ the only letter addressed to our greatest poet which is known to exist. It is now preserved at Stratford-on-Avon. The Bell is also mentioned in that quaint guide-book to taverns, the ‘Vade Mecum for Malt-worms,’ written, it is supposed, in 1715; and a seventeenth-century trade-token was issued from Bell Yard, not yet destroyed, a passage through which connects Knightrider Street with Carter Lane. Adjoining it, there is now a modern Bell tavern, where Dickens is said to have often rested when making notes for ‘David Copperfield.’ That the Bell should be a common sign is natural enough, from its connection with the worship of the Christian Church, and the popularity of bell-ringing in England. A gold or silver bell was often used as a prize at horse-races; hence the expression, to ‘bear away the bell.’ Fine specimens of these bells were to be seen in the Sports Exhibition, at the Grosvenor Gallery, a few years since. One from Carlisle had on it the date 1599, and the following distich: ‘The Sweftes horse the bel to tak For mi Lade Daker sake.’ In Dudley, Lord North’s ‘Forest of Varieties,’ p. 175, occur the following lines: ‘Jockey and his horse were by their masters sent, To put in for the bell-- They are to run, and cannot miss the bell.’ A sign which has disappeared and left no trace was the bas-relief of a Bible and Crown, formerly at the corner of Little Distaff (now Distaff) Lane, within the precincts of St. Paul’s; it disappeared some time after the year 1856. Larwood thinks that this sign came into fashion among the Royalists during the political troubles of Charles I.’s reign. A more probable suggestion seems to be, that forming part of the arms of Oxford University, it indicated one of the presses licensed to sell the Authorized Edition of the Bible. A wooden carving of a Bible and Crown, painted and gilt, was, till 1853, let into the string course above a window of the house of Messrs. Rivington and Co., in Paternoster Row. It then moved westward to Waterloo Place, and is now in the possession of Messrs. Longmans, whose sign was the Ship and Black Swan, and who have absorbed the older firm. Messrs. Rivington were originally established in St. Paul’s Churchyard in the year 1711, when, on the death of Richard Chiswell the elder, his house and business passed into their hands. He has been called the ‘metropolitan bookseller of England,’ and published many important works, of which a list is given in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_. His sign--the Rose and Crown--was changed by Charles Rivington, his successor, into the Bible and Crown. Messrs. Longmans date, it is said, from 1725. [Illustration]