After Moses there is a blank until we come to SAMSON, to whom our national admiration for athletic sports and muscular strength has given a prominent place on the signboard. SAMSON AND THE LION occurs on the sign of various houses in London in the seventeenth century, as appears from the trades tokens. It is still of frequent occurrence in country towns, as at Dudley, Coventry, &c. It was also used on the Continent. In Paris there is, or was, not many years ago, a _della Robbia_ ware medallion sign in the Rue des Dragons, with the legend “_le Fort Samson_,” representing the strong man tearing open the lion. To a sign of SAMSON at Dordrecht, in the seventeenth century, the following satirical inscription had been added:-- “Toen Samson door zyn kracht de leeuw belemmen kon, De Philistynen sloeg, de vossen overwon. Wiert hy nog door een Vrouw van zyn gezigt beroofd, Gelooft geen vrouw dan of zy moet zyn zonder hoofd.”[382] This admiration of strong men, which procured the signboard honours to Samson, also made GOLIAH, or GOLIAS, a great favourite. In the Horse Market, Castle Barnard, he is actually treated just like a duke, admiral, or any other public-house hero, for there the sign is entitled the GOLIAH HEAD. Some doubts, however, may be entertained whether by Golias or Goliah, (for the name is spelt both ways,) the Philistine giant and champion was always intended. Towards the end of the twelfth century there lived a man of wit, with the real or assumed name of Golias, who wrote the “Apocalypsis Goliæ,” and other burlesque verses. He was the leader of a jovial sect called Goliardois, of which Chaucer’s Miller was one. “He was a jangler and a goliardeis.” Such a person might, therefore, have been a very appropriate tutelary deity for an alehouse.[383] Goliah’s conqueror, KING DAVID, liberally shared the honours with his victim, and he still figures on various signboards. There is a KING DAVID’S inn in Bristol, and a DAVID AND HARP in Limehouse; whilst in Paris, the Rue de la Harpe is said to owe its name to a sign of King David playing on the harp. David’s unfortunate son, ABSALOM, was a peruke-maker’s very expressive emblem, both in France and in England, to show the utility of wigs. Thus a barber at a town in Northamptonshire used this inscription: “ABSALOM, hadst thou worn a perriwig, thou hadst not been hanged.” Which a brother peruke-maker versified, under a sign representing the death of Absalom, with David weeping. He wrote up thus: “Oh Absalom! oh Absalom! Oh Absalom! my son, If thou hadst worn a perriwig, Thou hadst not been undone.”