The signs of great men who have distinguished themselves in the civil walks of life are much more scarce. Archimedes we meet with as an optician’s sign. He had been adopted by that class of workmen on account of the burning lenses with which he set the Roman fleet on fire at Syracuse. Various implements of their trade were added as distinctions by the several shops who sold spectacles under his auspices, such as GOLDEN PROSPECTS OF PERSPECTIVES, (_i.e._, spectacles or any other glass that assisted the sight,) GLOBES, KING’S ARMS, &c. Among the Bagford Bills there is one of John Marshall, optician on Ludgate Hill, “at the sign of the OLD ARCHIMEDES AND TWO GOLDEN SPECTACLES,” which represents Archimedes taking astronomical observations, a huge pair of spectacles being suspended on one side of the sign, and on the other a lantern.[72] ARCHIMEDES AND THREE PAIR OF GOLDEN SPECTACLES was the sign of another optician in Ludgate Street, 1697, who evidently had adopted Marshall’s sign with the addition of one pair of spectacles, in the hope of filching some of his customers. SIR ISAAC NEWTON was another telescope-maker’s sign in Ludgate Street _circa_ 1795.[73] At the present day he occurs on a few public-houses; but it is somewhat more gratifying for our national pride to see a coffee-house in the Rue Arcade, Paris, named after him. LORD BACON’S HEAD was the sign of W. Bickerton, a bookseller, without Temple Bar, in 1735; LOCKE’S HEAD, of T. Peele, between the Temple Gates, 1718; JAMES FERGUSON figured at the door of an optical instrument maker in New Bond Street in 1780.[74] No doubt this optician was a Scotchman, who had given preference to a national celebrity. Just so, Andrew Miller, the great publisher and friend of Thomson, Hume, Fielding, &c., took the BUCHANAN HEAD for the sign of his shop in the Strand, opposite St Catherine Street, the house where the famous Jacob Tonson had lived, in whose time it was the SHAKESPEARE’S HEAD. But Miller preferred his countryman, and put up the less known head of George Buchanan, (1525-1582.) Buchanan was author of a version of the Psalms, and at various times of his life tutor to Queen Mary Stuart, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Principal of St Leonard’s, preceptor to James I., director of the Chancery, Privy Seal, &c. CARDINAL WOLSEY occurs in many places, particularly in London, Windsor, and the neighbourhood of Hampton Court. ANDREW MARVEL is still commemorated on a sign in Whitefriargate, Hull, of which town he was a native. THOMAS GRESHAM, the founder of the Royal Exchange, was a favourite in London after the opening of the first Exchange in 1566; and SIR HUGH MIDDLETON, the projector of the New River, is duly honoured with two or three signs in Islington.