As Byron hints, popular admiration is generally very short-lived; and when a fresh hero is gazetted, the next new alehouse will most probably adopt him for a sign in preference to the last great man. Thus it is that even the Duke of Wellington is now neglected, and in his place we see General Havelock, Sir Colin Campbell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not omitting the fair Princess of Denmark. We will not now dwell upon these modern celebrities, but rather direct our attention to those illustrious dead upon whom the signboard honours were bestowed in bygone ages. Many signboards have an historic connexion of some sort with the place where they are exhibited. Thus the ALFRED’S HEAD, at Wantage, in Berkshire, was in all probability chosen as a sign because Wantage was the birthplace of King Alfred. So the CANUTE CASTLE, at Southampton, owes its existence to a local tradition; whilst admiration for the great Scotch patriot made an innkeeper in Stowell Street, Newcastle, adopt SIR WILLIAM WALLACE’S ARMS. The CÆSAR’S HEAD was, in 1761, to be seen near the New Church in the Strand,[54] and, in the beginning of this century, was the sign of a tavern in Soho, which afterwards removed to Great Palace Yard, Westminster. Even at the present day, his head may be seen outside certain village alehouses; but this we may attribute to that provincial popularity which the Roman hero shares with Oliver Cromwell; for as the Protector gets the blame of having made nearly all the ruins which are to be found in the three kingdoms, so Cæsar is generally named by country people as the builder of every old wall or earthwork the origin of which is unknown. Notwithstanding the popular censure, CROMWELL is still honoured with signboards in places where his memory has lingered, as at Kate’s Hill, near Dudley. In most cases, however, signboard popularity is rather short-lived; “_dulcique animos novitate tenebo_” seems to be essentially the motto of those that choose popular characters for their sign. Had this modern tribute of admiration been in use at the time of the Preacher, it might have afforded him one more illustration of the vanity of vanities to be found in all sublunary things. Horace Walpole noticed this fickleness of signboard fame in one of his letters:-- “I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs, as I passed through the villages, made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke’s Head had succeeded almost universally to Admiral Vernon’s, as his had left but few traces of the Duke of Ormond’s. I pondered these things in my breast, and said to myself, ’Surely all glory is but as a sign!’”[55]