On a level with the fourth-floor windows of a shop at the corner of Canon Alley and No. 63, St. Paul’s Churchyard, is a sculptured sign of the Prince of Wales’s feathers, with the motto ‘Ich Dien,’ and date 1670; being a handsome work of art, we give it as an illustration. The property belonged to the Dean and Chapter, but is now vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. An advertisement in the _Kingdom’s Intelligencer_, No. 11, March 10, 1661-2, shows that there was a Feathers Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard. This, however, was at the west end; a seventeenth-century trade-token was issued from it. The heraldic origin of the feather badge, and its connection with Edward the Black Prince, has been fully traced by various authorities; the motto is usually pronounced to be low German, or old Flemish, as well as the word ‘Houmout,’ meaning high mood or courage, which the Prince also wrote in a letter. His crest or badge was sometimes three feathers, sometimes one, argent. They are placed separately on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. An ostrich feather was one of the badges of King Edward III., and John of Gaunt used three or one. The old belief--that this crest was won by Edward the Black Prince from the blind King John of Bohemia, at the battle of Cressy, is contradicted by modern research; for King John’s crest was not a plume of ostrich feathers, but a vulture’s wing expanded. It has been thought probable that the Prince assumed it out of deference to his mother, Queen Philippa of Hainault. The carved sign of a Helmet was to be seen, not long since, over the entrance to Helmet Court, which was on the south side of London Wall, between Basinghall and Coleman Streets, and close to the Armourers’ and Braziers’ Hall, in whose arms the helmet is a charge. The date on it was 1686, with initials H M. In the seventeenth century there was a Helmet Inn not far off. Messrs. Larwood and Hotten quote lines from Ned Ward, who says that the trainbands, after practising in Moorfields, long ‘For Beer from the Helmet in Bishopsgate, And why from the Helmet? Because that sign Makes the liquor as welcome t’ a soldier as wine.’ In 1550, a helmet was the sign of Humphrey Joy, bookseller in St. Paul’s Churchyard. On each side of the spot where Bishopsgate once stood, are stone bas-reliefs of mitres, with inscriptions recording the fact. I learn that the gate was sold by the Commissioner of City Lands, on Wednesday, December 10, 1760, for immediate demolition. It had been rebuilt in 1731, at the expense of the City; when almost finished, the arch fell down, but luckily no one was hurt. The rooms in the ancient gatehouse were appropriated to one of the Lord Mayor’s carvers; he afterwards had a money allowance in lieu thereof.