These last liberties, however, are a later addition to the oath introduced by a blacksmith, who kept the COACH AND HORSES. Nearly every inn in Highgate used to keep a pair of horns for this custom. In Hone’s time the principal inn, the Gatehouse, had stag-horns:-- The Mitre, stags’-horns. The Green Dragon, do. The Red Lion and Sun, bullocks’-horns. The Bell, stags’-horns. The Coach and Horses, rams’-horns. The Castle, do. The Red-Lion, rams’-horns. The Coopers’ Arms, do. The Fox and Hounds, rams’-horns. The Flask, do. The Rose and Crown, stags’-horns. The Angel, rams’-horns. The Bull, stags’-horns. The Wrestlers, do. The Lord Nelson, do. The Duke of Wellington, stags’-horns. The Crowne, do. The Duke’s Head, do. Hone supposes the custom to have originated in a sort of graziers’ club.[231] Highgate being the place nearest London where cattle rested on their way from the north, certain graziers were accustomed to put up at the Gatehouse for the night. But as they could not wholly exclude strangers who, like themselves, were travelling on business, they brought an ox to the door, and those who did not choose to kiss its horns, after going through the ceremony described, were not deemed fit members of their society. Similar customs prevailed in other places, as at Ware, at the Griffin in Hoddesdon, &c. On the Continent the sign of the Horns was formerly equally common, often accompanied with some sly allusion to what Othello calls “the forked plague.” Thus in the Rue Bourg Chavin, in Lyons, there is now a pair of horns with the inscription “SUNT SIMILIA TUIS;” and a Dutch shopkeeper of the seventeenth century wrote under his sign of the Horns-- “Ik draag Hoornen dat ider ziet, Maar menig draagt Hoornen en weet het niet.”[232] The Fox, as might be expected, is to be seen in a great many places; there is one at Frandley, Cheshire, with the following rhymes:-- “Behold the Fox, near Frandley stocks, Pray catch him when you can, For they sell here, good ale and beer, To any honest man.” A still more absurd inscription accompanies the sign of the Fox at Folkesworth, near Stilton, Hunts:-- “I . HAM . A . CUNEN . FOX YOU . SEE . THER . HIS . NO . HARM . ATCHED . TO . ME . IT . IS . MY . MRS WISH . TO . PLACE . ME HERE . TO . LET . YOU . NO . HE . SELLS . GOOD . BEERE .” Formerly there used to be a sign of the THREE FOXES in Clement’s Lane, Lombard Street, carved in stone, representing three foxes sitting in a row. But a few years ago the house came into the possession of a legal firm, who, no doubt afraid of the jokes to which the sign might lead, thought it advisable to do away with the carving by covering it over with plaster.