"THE MOURNING CROWN"
In Phœnix Alley, (now Hanover Court,) Long Acre, John Taylor, the Water Poet, kept a tavern, with the sign of "the Mourning Crown," but this being offensive to the Commonwealth (1652), he substituted for a sign his own head with this inscription—
"There's many a head stands for a sign;
Then, gentle reader, why not mine?"
He died here in the following year; and his widow in 1658.
John Timbs
Club Life of London Vol. II
London, 1866