The head of ROWE, the first emendator, corrector, and illustrator of Shakespeare, was in 1735 the sign of a bookseller in Essex Street, Strand. The CAMDEN HEAD and CAMDEN ARMS occur in four instances as the sign of London publicans. Camden Town, however, may perhaps take the credit of this last sign. ADDISON’S HEAD was for above sixty years the sign of the then well-known firm of Corbett & Co.--first of C. Corbett, afterwards of his son Thomas, booksellers in Fleet Street from 1740 till the beginning of this century. DR JOHNSON’S HEAD, exhibiting a portrait of the great lexicographer, is a modern sign in Bolton Court, Fleet Street, opposite to where the great man lived, and which was in his time occupied by an upholsterer. It is sometimes asserted to be the house in which the Doctor resided, but this statement is wrong, for the house in which he had apartments was burned down in 1819. Finally, a portrait of Sterne, under the name of the YORICK’S HEAD, was the sign of John Wallis, a bookseller in Ludgate Street in 1795. Of modern poets LORD BYRON is the only one who has been exalted to the signboard. In the neighbourhood of Nottingham his portrait occurs in several instances; his MAZEPPA also is a great favourite, but it must be confessed its popularity has been greatly assisted by the circus, by sensational engravings, and, above all, by that love for horse flesh innate to the British character. DON JUAN also occurs on a publican’s signboard at Cawood, Selby, West Riding; and DON JOHN at Maltby, Rotheram, in the same county; but perhaps these are merely the names of race horses. The latest of all literary celebrities who attained sufficient popularity to entitle him to a signboard was SHERIDAN KNOWLES, who was chosen as the sign of a tavern in Bridge Street, Covent Garden, facing the principal entrance to Drury Lane Theatre, (now a nameless eating-house.) There the Club of Owls used to meet. Sheridan Knowles was one of the patrons, and Augustine Wade, an author and composer of some fame, was chairman of the club in those days. Pierce Egan and Leman Rede were amongst its members; so that it may be conjectured that the nights were not passed in moping.[80]