A poetical landlord or a poetical customer has frequently produced verses, more or less appropriate, for a signboard. We give a selection of these effusions. At an inn at Norwich, known as the Waterman, kept by a barber, this couplet is written under the sign:— Roam not from pole to pole, but step in here, Where nought excels the shaving but the beer. At an Inn at Collins’ End, where the unfortunate King Charles, while a prisoner at Caversham, is said to have played at bowls, are these lines:— Stop, traveller, stop; in yonder peaceful glade, His favourite game the royal martyr played; Here stripped of honours, children, freedom, rank, Drank from the bowl and bowled for what he drank; Sought in a cheerful glass his cares to drown, And changed his guinea ere he lost his crown. The Robin Hood and Little John is not an uncommon sign in that part of the country which was the scene of their exploits, and where their fame still lingers. The sign is frequently accompanied with a rhyme, of which the following is a specimen:— To Gentlemen and Yeomen good, Come in and drink with Robin Hood, If Robin Hood is not at home, Come in and drink with Little John. A tale is told of how a poor author, who was once staying at the sign of the White Horse on the Old Bath Road, after partaking rather heartily of the good cheer provided, found that he could not discharge the _shot_. In recompense to his host for letting him off, he wrote beneath his signboard the lines:— My White Horse shall beat the Bear, And make the Angel fly; Shall turn the Ship quite bottom up, And drink the Three Cups dry. In consequence, it is alleged, of this facetious praise of his own house at the expense of his rivals, mine host got a good deal of their custom. On one of the windows of the same White Horse was written:— {225} His liquor’s good, his pot is just, The Landlord’s poor, and cannot trust; For he has trusted to his sorrow, So pay to-day, he’ll trust to-morrow. These lines occur on the signboard of the Waggon and Horses, Brighton:— Long have I travelled far and near, On purpose to find out good beer, And at last I’ve found it here. The couplet, written on a signboard at Chadderton, near Manchester, seems, at any rate from the outside of the Inn, to be what a logician might call a _non sequitur_:— Although the engine’s smoke be black, If you walk in I’ve ale like sack. The following doggerel inscription is said in the _Year Book_ to have been written over the door of an ale house between Sutton and Potton, in Bedfordshire:— Butte Beere, Solde Hear, by Timothy Dear. Cum. tak. a. mugg of mye. trinker. cum trink. Thin. a. ful. Kart. of mye. verry. stron. drink Harter, that. trye. a. cann. of mye. titter, cum. tatter And. wynde. hup. withe, mye. sivinty-tymes weaker, thin, water.