CHAPTER IX. ASTRONOMICAL SIGNS 148 CHAPTER X. MISCELLANEOUS SIGNS 153 GLOSSARY OF HERALDIC TERMS USED 176 INDEX TO NAMES OF SIGNS, &C. 177 [Illustration] The Trade Signs of Essex. CHAPTER I. _INTRODUCTION._ “The county god, ... Whose blazing wyvern weather-cocked the spire, Stood from his walls, and winged his entry-gates, And swang besides on many a windy sign.” TENNYSON: _Aylmer’s Field_. The use of signs as a means of distinguishing different houses of business, is a custom which has come down to us from times of great antiquity. Nevertheless, it is not at all difficult to discover the reasons which first led to their being employed. In days when only an infinitesimally small proportion of the population could read, it would obviously have been absurd for a tradesman to have inscribed above his door his name and occupation, or the number of his house, as is now done. Such inscriptions as “Sutton & Sons, Seedsmen,” or “Pears & Co., Soapmakers,” would then have been quite useless as a means of distinguishing the particular houses that bore them; but, if each dealer displayed conspicuously before his place of business a painted representation of the wares he sold, the arms of the Trade-Guild to which he belonged, or those of his landlord or patron, or some other device by which his house might be known, there would be little probability of mistake. If the sign thus displayed indicated the nature of the wares sold within, it would answer a double purpose. Signs, too, would be especially useful in distinguishing different establishments in times when many members of the same craft resided, as they used formerly to do, in one street or district. Although this habit has now largely disappeared in England, in the cities of the East each trade is still chiefly confined to its own special quarter.