The CAT AND PARROT was, in 1612, the sign of Thomas Pauer, a bookseller, dwelling near the Royal Exchange. At Santry, near Dublin, and in some other places, we meet with the CAT AND CAGE, which is represented by a cat trying to pull a bird out of a cage; but its origin may be found in the CAT IN THE BASKET, a favourite sign of the booths on the Thames when that river was frozen over in 1739/40. The sign was a living one, a basket hanging outside the booth, with a cat in it. It was revived when the river was again frozen in 1789, and seems to have had many imitators, for on a print[279] representing a view of the river at Rotherithe during the frost, there is a booth with a merry company within, whose sign, inscribed the _Original_ CAT IN THE CAGE, represents poor Tabby in a basket. This sign of the Cat in the Basket, or in the Cage, doubtless originated from the cruel game, once practised by our ancestors, of shooting at a cat in a basket. Brand, in his “Popular Superstitions,” gives a quotation, from which it appears that a similar cruel sport was still practised at Kelso in 1789; but instead of shooting at the cat, it was placed in a barrel, the bottom of which had to be beaten out. The same game is still practised in Holland, and generally, if not always, on the ice. [196] J. Bossewell, Workes of Armourie, London, 1597, p. 97. [197] “Allectorius is a stone similar to a dark crystal, which is taken from the stomach of a capon when it is four years old. Its utmost size is that of a bean. Gladiators take it in their mouths in order to be invincible, and not to suffer from thirst.”--_Tractatus de Animalibus et Lapidibus_, 4to, _circa_ 1465-75. [198] Guillim’s Display of Heraldry. The same is also related in the Latin Bestiarium. Harl. MSS. 4751; and by Albertus Magnus, Camerarius, &c. [199] “Boyne’s and Akerman’s Trades Tokens of the 17th Century,” in England, Ireland, and Wales. [200] Steward’s Accounts of Sir John Howard. [201] See Cunningham’s London Past and Present, p. 41. [202] Burnet’s History of the Reformation, Lib. ii., vol. ii., p. 14. It is possible also that the White Bear was set up in compliment to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, queen to Richard III., who, as a difference from her father’s bear and ragged staff, had adopted the White Bear as a badge. [203] Timbs’s Flyleaves. [204] Bagford, who was present at the excavations, relates this story in a letter prefixed to Leland’s Collectanea, p. lxiii., 1770. See also Sir John Oldcastle. [205] “Lambspring, das ist ein herzlichen Teutscher Tractat von Philosophischen Steine, welchen für Jahren ein adelicher Teutscher Philosophus, Lampert Spring geheissen mit schöne Figuren beschrieben hat. _Frankfort am Main_, 1625.” [206] “This is a great wonder, and very strange: the dragon contains the greatest medicament.” [207] “Mercury rightly precipitated or sublimated in its own water dissolved and again coagulated.”