was sold at Christie and Manson's, on January 27, 1855, and
was bought by Mr. Halliwell. The ancient sign, carved in stone, with the
initials I.T., and the date 1668, is now preserved in the City of London
Library, Guildhall.

In 1834 Mr. Kempe exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries a carved oak
figure of Sir John Falstaff, in the costume of the sixteenth century.
This figure had supported an ornamental bracket over one side of the
door of the last "Boar's Head," a figure of Prince Henry sustaining the
other. This figure of Falstaff was the property of a brazer whose
ancestors had lived in the same shop in Great Eastcheap ever since the
Fire. He remembered the last great Shakesperian dinner at the "Boar's
Head," about 1784, when Wilberforce and Pitt were both present; and
though there were many wits at table, Pitt, he said, was pronounced the
most pleasant and amusing of the guests. There is another "Boar's Head"
in Southwark, and one in Old Fish Street.

"In the month of May, 1718," says Mr. Hotten, in his "History of
Sign-boards," "one James Austin, 'inventor of the Persian ink-powder,'
desiring to give his customers a substantial proof of his gratitude,
invited them to the 'Boar's Head' to partake of an immense plum
pudding--this pudding weighed 1,000 pounds--a baked pudding of one foot
square, and the best piece of an ox roasted. The principal dish was put
in the copper on Monday, May 12, at the 'Red Lion Inn,' by the Mint, in
Southwark, and had to boil fourteen days. From there it was to be
brought to the 'Swan Tavern,' in Fish Street Hill, accompanied by a band
of music, playing 'What lumps of pudding my mother gave me!' One of the
instruments was a drum in proportion to the pudding, being 18 feet 2
inches in length, and 4 feet in diameter, which was drawn by 'a device
fixed on six asses.' Finally, the monstrous pudding was to be divided in
St. George's Fields; but apparently its smell was too much for the
gluttony of the Londoners. The escort was routed, the pudding taken and
devoured, and the whole ceremony brought to an end before Mr. Austin had
a chance to regale his customers." Puddings seem to have been the
_forte_ of this Austin. Twelve or thirteen years before this last
pudding he had baked one, for a wager, ten feet deep in the Thames, near
Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of
lime. It was taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with
great relish, its only