We cannot resist the temptation to quote as an introduction the _ipsissima verba_ of England’s classical historian Macaulay on the evolution of public hospitality in his country. Most naturally the evolution of the sign runs parallel to the evolution of the tavern, and in a time of flourishing inns we may expect to find highly developed tavern signs. “From a very early period,” says Macaulay, in a chapter on the social condition of England in 1685, “the inns of England had been renowned. Our first great poet had described the excellent accommodation which they afforded to the pilgrims of the fourteenth century. Nine and twenty persons, with their horses, found room in the wide chambers and stables of the Tabard in Southwark. The food was of the best, and the wines such as drew the company on to drink largely. Two hundred years later, under the reign of Elizabeth, William Harrison gave a lively description of the plenty and comfort of the great hostelries. The continent of Europe, he said, could show nothing like them. There were some in which two or three hundred people could without difficulty be lodged and fed. The bedding, the tapestry above all, the abundance of clean and fine linen was a matter of wonder. Valuable plate was often set on the tables. Nay, there were signs which had cost thirty or forty pounds. In the seventeenth century England abounded with excellent inns of every rank. The travelers sometimes, in a small village, lighted on a public-house such as Walton has described, where the brick floor was swept clean, where the walls were stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelled of lavender, and where a blazing fire, a cup of good ale, and a dish of trout fresh from the neighboring brook, were to be procured at small charge. At the larger houses of entertainment were to be found beds hung with silk, choice cookery, and claret equal to the best which was drunk in London.”