In 1824, a mermaid or merman (for the sex was discreetly left _in dubio_) made its appearance before “an enlightened public,” when, as the papers inform us, “upwards of 150 distinguished fashionables” went to see it. At Bartholomew Fair, in 1830, a stuffed mermaid was exhibited; but if once she had been such a “mulier formosa” as captivated the ancient mariners, she was certainly much altered.[317] A very different specimen had been exhibited in Fleet Street in 1822; but she disappeared all at once most mysteriously, not, however, without a rumour of her being under the protection of the Lord Chancellor, which, as she was a comely maiden with flaxen hair, “mulier superne _et inferne_,” lies within the range of possibilities. The sea-serpent has now almost done away with the mermaid; yet, as late as 1857, there appeared an article in the _Shipping Gazette_, under the intelligence of 4th June, signed by some Scotch sailors, and describing an object seen off the North British coast, “in the shape of a woman, with full breast, dark complexion, comely face,” and the rest. At one time it appears to have been a very common sign, if we may judge from the way in which it is mentioned by Brathwait in his New Cast of Characters, (1631):-- “If she [the hostess] aspire to the conceit of a sine and device, her birch pole pull’d downe, he will supply her with one, which he performes so poorely as none that sees it, but would take it for a _sign_ he was drunk when he made it. A long consultation is had before they can agree what sign must be reared. ‘_A meere-mayde_’ says she, ‘for she will sing catches to the youths of the parish.’ ‘A lyon,’ says he, for that is the onely sign he can make; and this he formes so artlessly, as it requires his expression, _this is a lyon_. Which old Ellenor Rumming, his tapdame, denies, saying it should have been a meere-mayde.” Among the most celebrated of the Mermaid taverns in London, that in Bread Street stands foremost. As early as the fifteenth century, it was one of the haunts of the pleasure-seeking Sir John Howard, whose trusty steward records, anno 1464:--“Paid for wyn at the Mermayd in Bred Stret, for my mastyr and Syr Nicholas Latimer, x d. ob.” In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh established a literary club in this house, doubtless the first in England. Amongst its members were Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Martin, Donne, Cotton, &c. It is frequently alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in their comedies, but best known is that quotation from a letter of Beaumont to Ben Jonson:--