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.
At Creggin, Montgomeryshire, the Rodney Pillar Inn is distinguished by a double signboard, on one side of which is the following verse:—
Under these trees, in sunny weather, Just try a cup of ale, however; And if in tempest, or in storm, A couple then to make you warm: But when the day is very cold. Then taste a mug a twelvemonth old.
On the reverse are these lines:—