Yorkshire Almanac “Nimrod” of London encounters The Four Alls on a pub sign in Burniston (Scarborough) while on a hunting tour

20 November 1826: “Nimrod” of London encounters The Four Alls on a pub sign in Burniston (Scarborough) while on a hunting tour

Thomas Rowlandson’s Sign of the Four Alls, upon which I guess the Burniston pub sign (and many like it) was based (Rowlandson 1810).

Charles James Apperley (“Nimrod”). 1827. Nimrod’s Yorkshire Tour [1]. Sporting Magazine, Vol. 20 (New Series). London: Pittman. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Monday the 20th.-Lord Darlington met at No-man’s Moor, about five miles from Newton House. Drew several plantations, and Mr. Scroope’s Whin; plenty of pheasants, but no fox. Found beautifully in Wylde Wood, the property of Mr. Wyvill, Member for York, and had thirty minutes to ground, very straight and very fast till just at the end, when the hounds divided, or we must have tasted him. There was a very large field this day, and amongst them his Grace the Duke of Leeds. Lord Darlington rode his famous grey horse Panegyrick-a thorough-bred one-purchased some years since of his Grace; and Mr. Milbanke went very well upon a horse once Mr. Maxse’s.
As Sir Bellingham and myself were to return to Norton Conyers that afternoon, and we were then nearly twenty miles distant from it, we took leave of his Lordship as he was trying to bolt his fox, and made towards the place where our hacks were planted. On the road we passed through the village of Burniston, and here I saw a sign to a public house quite new to me. It consisted of portraits, at full length, and in full costume, of the four following personages:- A king, a soldier, a parson, and a farmer, and the house is yclept The Four Alls. Out of the mouth of His Majesty were the words, “I govern all;” the soldier says, “I fight for all;” the parson, “I pray for all;” and the farmer finishes with, “I pay for all.”. This reminds me of an inscription over the door of an inn which Lord Darlington informed me he saw at Pisa, in Italy, and which he was kind enough to transcribe for me when at Raby. Its ingenuity consists in being written in four different languages, and yet the rhyme and metre so well preserved:-
In questa Casa trouverâte
Tout ce qu’on peut souhaiter,
Bonum, vinum, pisces, carnes,
Coaches, chaises, horses, harness.”
For the benefit of those who only know one language, the following may be quoted as the English version of the entertainment and accommodation thus held out to travellers:-
In this house a man may find
All things suited to his mind:
Good wine-fish and flesh in courses,
Coaches, chaises, harness, horses.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

“Larwood” (Herman Diederik Johan van Schevichaven) and Hotten have chapter and verse:

Others have a sort of satirical humour in them, such as the well-known Four Alls, representing a king who says, “I rule all;” a priest who says, “I pray for all;” a soldier who says, “I fight for all;” and John Bull, or a farmer, who says, “I pay for all.” Sometimes a fifth is added in the shape of a lawyer, who says, “I plead for all.” It is an old and still common sign, and may even be seen swinging under the blue sky in the sunny streets of La Valette, Malta. In Holland, in the seventeenth century, it was used, but the king was left out, and a lawyer added; each person said exactly the same as on our signboards, but the farmer answered:—

“Of gy vecht, of gy bidt, of gy pleyt,
Ik ben de boer die de eyeren leyt.”

The author of “Tavern Anecdotes” observes that he used to notice in Rosemary Street, the sign of the Four Alls, but passing that way some time after, he found it altered into the Four Awls; the sign painter who renewed the picture had probably found himself not equal to a representation of the four human figures. In Ireland, a similar corruption may be observed, the four shoemaker’s awls taking the place of the four representatives of society. Although having no connexion with the Four Alls, it may be mentioned that three and four awls constitute the charges in the shoemakers’ arms of some of the continental trade societies or guilds.

This enumeration of the various performances coupled with the word all has been used in numerous different epigrams: an address to James I. in the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has:—

“The Lords craved all,
The Queene graunted all,
The Ladies of honour ruled all,
The Lord-Keeper seal’d all,
The Intelligencer marred all,
The Parliament pass’d all,
He that is gone oppos’d himself to all,
The Bishops soothed all,
The Judges pardon’d all,
The Lords buy, Rome spoil’d all,
Now, Good King, mend all,
Or else the Devil will have all.”

This again seems to have been imitated from a similar description of the State of Spain in Greene’s “Spanish Masquerade,” 1589:—

“The Cardinalls solicit all,
The King grauntes all,
The Nobles confirm all,
The Pope determines all,
The Cleargie disposeth all,
The Duke of Medina hopes for all,
Alonso receives all,
The Indians minister all,
The Soldiers eat all,
The People paie all,
The Monks and friars consume all,
And the Devil at length will carry away all.”

(Larwood 1908)

See also Pepys, quoting the Duke of York:

the three great trades of the world are, the lawyers, who govern the world; the churchmen, who enjoy the world; and a sort of fools whom they call soldiers, who make it their work to defend the world.

The German travel guide writer Stein confirms Lord Darlington’s observation in Pisa (Stein 1829).

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Comment

“Larwood” (Herman Diederik Johan van Schevichaven) and Hotten have chapter and verse:

Others have a sort of satirical humour in them, such as the well-known Four Alls, representing a king who says, “I rule all;” a priest who says, “I pray for all;” a soldier who says, “I fight for all;” and John Bull, or a farmer, who says, “I pay for all.” Sometimes a fifth is added in the shape of a lawyer, who says, “I plead for all.” It is an old and still common sign, and may even be seen swinging under the blue sky in the sunny streets of La Valette, Malta. In Holland, in the seventeenth century, it was used, but the king was left out, and a lawyer added; each person said exactly the same as on our signboards, but the farmer answered:—

“Of gy vecht, of gy bidt, of gy pleyt,
Ik ben de boer die de eyeren leyt.”

The author of “Tavern Anecdotes” observes that he used to notice in Rosemary Street, the sign of the Four Alls, but passing that way some time after, he found it altered into the Four Awls; the sign painter who renewed the picture had probably found himself not equal to a representation of the four human figures. In Ireland, a similar corruption may be observed, the four shoemaker’s awls taking the place of the four representatives of society. Although having no connexion with the Four Alls, it may be mentioned that three and four awls constitute the charges in the shoemakers’ arms of some of the continental trade societies or guilds.

This enumeration of the various performances coupled with the word all has been used in numerous different epigrams: an address to James I. in the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has:—

“The Lords craved all,
The Queene graunted all,
The Ladies of honour ruled all,
The Lord-Keeper seal’d all,
The Intelligencer marred all,
The Parliament pass’d all,
He that is gone oppos’d himself to all,
The Bishops soothed all,
The Judges pardon’d all,
The Lords buy, Rome spoil’d all,
Now, Good King, mend all,
Or else the Devil will have all.”

This again seems to have been imitated from a similar description of the State of Spain in Greene’s “Spanish Masquerade,” 1589:—

“The Cardinalls solicit all,
The King grauntes all,
The Nobles confirm all,
The Pope determines all,
The Cleargie disposeth all,
The Duke of Medina hopes for all,
Alonso receives all,
The Indians minister all,
The Soldiers eat all,
The People paie all,
The Monks and friars consume all,
And the Devil at length will carry away all.”

(Larwood 1908)

See also Pepys, quoting the Duke of York:

the three great trades of the world are, the lawyers, who govern the world; the churchmen, who enjoy the world; and a sort of fools whom they call soldiers, who make it their work to defend the world.

The German travel guide writer Stein confirms Lord Darlington’s observation in Pisa (Stein 1829).

Something to say? Get in touch

30 May 1835: Alfred Austin, future poet laureate, “Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum,” is born into rural splendour at Ashwood, 48 Headingley Lane, Leeds

9 January 1827: Writing from Halifax, the comedian Charles Mathews longs for Leeds

27 March 1634: In commercial Gothic urban legend, John Bartendale, a piper, is hung and buried at York, but awakes, is rescued and pardoned, and returns to the music business

23 January 1640: Andrew Marvell’s father drowns in the Humber at Hull

11 July 1787: Advertisement for The Commercial and Mathematical Academy, Hull

25 May 1728: King Jessop, the fighting rector of Treeton (Rotherham), is buried at Sheffield, and remembered for his punch and his parody

24 March 1733: Several couples ensure their marriage licences are Latin

3 November 1826: “Nimrod” of London gets to know a coachman during a journey from Leeds to York

5 December 1859: Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nephew and the cousin of the then French emperor, has work for the Barnsley dialectologist Charles Rogers

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Comment

Paterson is wrong to claim that Louis Lucien was “son of the late King of Holland” – Louis Bonaparte: his father was actually Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s younger brother, Minister of the Interior from 1799 to 1800, and president of the Council of Five Hundred in 1799.

Who can find me the Barnsley Song of Solomon?

“One of the Barnsley newspapers”!

Bonaparte also visited Abel Bywater, Sheffield dialect writer, and requested a Sheffield version of the Song of Solomon of him:

This he did, and was favoured with a dozen copies from the Prince. He, however, when he saw them, regretted having reduced them to such a ridiculous appearance (Bywater 1877).

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