390 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.ix.Nov.i2.io2i.
Replies.
TAVERN SIGNS: "THE FIVE ALLS."
(12 S. ix. 145, 355.)
Some light on the origin of this sign is afforded by a ballad contained in 'A Collection of Seventy-nine Black Letter Ballads and Broadsides printed between the years 1559 and 1597' (London, Joseph Lilly, 1870). The pieces contained in this volume were reprinted from the celebrated collection formerly in the library of George Daniel of Canonbury Square, at the sale of whose library it was purchased for Henry Huth.
At p. 98 is a ballad without title, having a large cut representing five figures, with that of Death with his dart pursuing them, having legends underneath each as follows:—
The Priest: "I praye for yov fower."
The King: "I defende yovr fower."
The Harlot: "I vanquesh yoy fower."
The Lawyer: "I helpe yov iiij to yovr right."
The Clown: "I feede yov fower."
Death: "I kill yov all."
In the background, in a bower, are seated the soldier (sic), the harlot, the lawyer and the priest. A festive board furnished with viands is supported on the back of the clown, who rests on his hands and knees. Death, approaching with his dart, clutches at something on the table. Birds of prey are hovering in the air.
The ballad is too long to give at length, but the editor's Introduction thus shortly describes it:—
One of the most curious broadsides in the whole collection is this ballad, which pictures the various orders in the State, arranged under the heads of the priest, the king, the harlot, the lawyer, and the clown, each boasting of the power he holds over the others. The priest alleges that he prays for the other four; the king that he defends and protects them; the harlot, introduced in a manner which would seem to show a low state of morals at that period, says, "I vanquesh yov fower"; the lawyer, "I helpe yov iiij to yovr right"; the clowne, "I feede yoy fower"; and Death comes in and proclaims his errand, "I kill yov all." The subject is found, treated, a little differently, in the French popular literature of that age, from which the idea was taken by the English ballad-writer, who has no doubt modified it a little to make it accord with the difference of English sentiments. The ballad ends:—
I pray for you all.
I help you all to your right.
I defend you all.
I vanquish you all.
I feed you all.
I will kill you all.
The Author's Apostrophe to the Reader.
Here may you see what as the world might be.
The rich, the poore, Earl, Cesar, Duke, and King,
Death spareth not the chiefest high degree—
He triumphes still in every earthly thing;
While then we liue, let us endeuour still
That all our works agree with God's good will.
In a note, the Editor observes:—
This is probably the earliest, as it undoubtedly is the most curious, of the English versions of a notion which subsequently became familiar as the Five Alls. As late as the reign of George III. there was issued a satirical print by Kay, in five compartments, the first of which represented a clergyman in his desk, with the inscription, "I pray for all"; the second a barrister, "I plead for all"; the third, a farmer, "I maintain all"; the fourth, a soldier, "I fight for all"; the fifth, his Satanic majesty, "I take all."
Probably the original source of the idea was the Dance of Death or Danse macabre, a name given to a certain class of allegorical representations illustrative of the universal power of Death, and dating from the fourteenth century, in which Death was personified as a musician playing to dancing men, or as a dancer leading them on. The idea assumed the form of a drama, simply constructed, consisting of short dialogues between Death and 24, or more, followers, and was acted in or near churches by religious Orders in Germany during the fourteenth century, and at a rather later period in France. The subject was treated in painting, sculpture and tapestry, and in numerous woodcuts and accompanying letterpress which succeeded the invention of printing. 'Chambers's Encyclopædia' states that from Paris both dramatic poem and pictures were transplanted to London (1430), Salisbury (about 1460), Wortley Hall in Gloucestershire,. Hexham, &c. In other representations the chain of 24 dancers was replaced by a number of separate couples, as in the celebrated Dance of Death on the cloister walls of the Klingenthal at Basel. About the middle of the fifteenth century, the drama being altogether laid aside, the pictures became the main point of interest, and the verses merely subsidiary; and at length pictures occurred with different verses or without any at all, and in many respects the pictures themselves diverged from their original character. But in all the representations there was preserved the idea of the triumph of Death over all persons of every age, sex, rank, or station in life. There was a Dance of Death painted round the cloisters of Old St. Paul's in London in the reign of Henry VI.; and there is a sculptured one at Rouen in the cemetery of St. Maclou. Holbein's designs are well known, in which, departing from the idea of a dance, he illustrated the subject by 53 sketches for engravings, which he called 'Imagines Mortis.'
Perhaps the most familiar example of the subject to most travellers is the Dance of
