June 13.
Signs
“Of the Times,”
NEW AND OLD.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Liverpool, 6th June, 1826.
Sir,—The pages of The Every-Day Book, notwithstanding a few exceptions, have afforded me unqualified pleasure, and having observed your frequent and reiterated requests for communications, I have been induced to send you the following doggrels.
I ought to promise that they formed part of the sign of an alehouse, formerly standing in Chapel-street, near St. Nicholas church in this town, but which is now taken down to make room for a costly pile of warehouses since erected on the site.
The sign represented (elegantly, of course) a man standing in a cart laden with fish, and holding in his right hand what the artist intended to represent a salmon. The lines are to be supposed to be spoken by the driver:—
This salmon has got a tail
It’s very like a whale,
It’s a fish that’s very merry,
They say it’s catch’d at Derry;
It’s a fish that’s got a heart,
It’s catch’d and put in Dugdale’s cart.
This truly classic production of the muse of Mersey continued for several years to adorn the host’s door, until a change in the occupant of the house induced a corresponding change of the sign, and the following lines graced the sign of “The Fishing Smack:”—
The cart and salmon has stray’d away,
And left the fishing-boat to stay.
When boisterous winds do drive you back,
Come in and drink at the Fishing Smack.
Whilst I am upon the subject of “signs,” I cannot omit mentioning a punning one in the adjoining county (Chester) on the opposite side of the Mersey, by the highway-side, leading from Liscard to Wallasea. The house is kept by a son of Crispin, and he, zealous of his trade, exhibits the representation of a last, and under it this couplet:—
All day long I have sought good beer,
And at the last I have found it here.
I do not know, sir, whether the preceding nonsense may be deemed worthy of a niche in your miscellany; but I have sent it at a venture, knowing that originals, however trifling, are sometimes valuable to a pains-taking (and, perhaps, wearied) collector.
I am, Sir, your obliged,
Lector.
By publishing the letter of my obliging correspondent “Lector,” who transmits his real name, I am enabling England to say—he has done his duty.
Really if each of my readers would do like him I should be very grateful. While printing his belief that I am a “pains-taking” collector, I would interpose by observing that I am far, very far, from a “wearied” one: and I would fain direct the attention of every one who peruses these sheets to their collections, whether great or small, and express an earnest desire to be favoured with something from their stores; in truth, the best evidence of their receiving my sheets favourably will be their contributions towards them. While I am getting together and arranging materials for articles that will interest the public quite as much as any I have laid before them, I hope for the friendly aid of well-wishers to the work, and urgently solicit their communications.