The Green Man, on Finchley Common, under a trophy composed of two pipes crossed and a pot of beer, presents us with the following:—
“Call . Softly,
Drink . Moderate
Pay . Honourably,
Be Good . Company
Part . FRIENDLY
Go . HOME . quietly.
Let those lines be no MANS Sorrow
Pay to DAY and i’ll TRUST to Morrow.”
At Middleton, Co. Cork, the verses usually accompanying the sign of the Bee-hive are slightly altered to meet the emergency of the case, surgit amari aliquid:—
“Within this hive we’re all alive
With whisky sweet as honey;
If you are dry, step in and try,
But don’t forget the money.”
So old is the necessity of informing the public that they must pay for what they obtain, that even in the ruined city of Pompeii a similar caution is found. Above the door of a house, once inhabited by a surgeon, occurs the following laconic intimation:—“Eme et habebis.” And so widely spread is the evil, that even in Chinese towns the shopkeepers have found it necessary to inform the public on their signs—
“Former customers have inspired us with caution; no credit given here.”
One publican, at Littletown, in Durham, seems to have taken a somewhat opposite view, putting up, for a sign, the Bird in the Bush, but it may be doubted if his experience has confirmed him in a preference of the bird in the bush to the bird in the hand.
Another proverb illustrated is the Cow and Hare, at Stafford, Bottisham, (near Newmarket,) and other places, evidently suggested by the adage, “A cow may catch a hare.” This sign is mentioned, about 1708, in a rather curious memorandum from the pen of Partridge, the almanac-maker, at the commencement of a book of “the Cælestial Motions and Aspects for the years of our Lord 1708 to 1720.”[644] The MS. note is as follows:—“At the Cowe and Hare by Whitechappel Church, a rare rogue lives there, a pickpocket.” Of the same class as the Cow and Hare is Who’d ha’ thought it? which sometimes is seen on an ale-house sign, as, for instance, at North End, Fulham. A wag suggested this as the motto to the coat-of-arms of a certain baronet-brewer:
“Who’d ha’ thought it?
Hops had bought it.”
The sign of the Jolly Brewer—Who’d ha’ thought it? occurs in the Jersey Road, Hounslow. Originally, it seems to have implied that, after a hard struggle in some other walk of life, the landlord had succeeded in opening the long-wished-for ale-house. So in Holland: many country retreats of retired tradespeople bear such names as “Nooit gedacht,” (never expected,) &c.