Dowie’s was much resorted to by the Lords of Session for “Meridians,” as well as in the evening for its Edinburgh ale. The ale was Younger’s. That brewer, together with his friends, instituted a Club there, which they sportively called the “College of Doway.” Johnnie Dowie is described as having been the sleekest and kindest of landlords. Nothing could equal the benignity of his smile when he brought in a bottle of “the Ale” to a company of well-known and friendly customers. It was a perfect treat to see his formality in drawing the cork, his precision in filling the glasses, his regularity in drinking the healths of all present in the first glass (which he always did, and at every successive bottle), and then his douce civility in withdrawing. Johnnie always wore a cocked hat, and buckles at knees and shoes, as well as a crutched cane.[52] Not so polished as Burns’ verses, but perhaps more suited to the Genius loci, are the lines written up in a certain old tap-room:—
He that doath upon the table sit, A pot of porter shall for-fe-it.
[52] Hone’s Year Book.
The following additional specimens of tap-room verse are typical of their kind, and may be said to contain the be-all and end-all of the host’s proverbial philosophy. The first is taken from an Inn at Sittingbourne, where it hangs framed and glazed over the door:—
Call frequently, Drink moderately, Pay honourably, Be good company, Part friendly, Go home quietly.
The second is longer, but perhaps not quite so comprehensive:—
All you that bring tobacco here, Must pay for pipes as well as beer; And you that stand before the fire, I pray sit down by good desire; {228} That other folks as well as you, May see the fire and feel it too. Since man to man is so unjust, I cannot tell what man to trust: My Liquor’s good, ’tis no man’s sorrow, Pay to-day. I’ll trust to-morrow.
It may not be amiss to devote a few lines to the signboard artists. The following passage in Whimzies: or a New Cast of Characters (1631) gives an early example of the way in which many a village signboard has been painted. “He (a painter) bestowes his Pencile on an aged piece of decayed canvas in a sooty ale-house, when Mother Redcap must be set out in her Colours. Here hee and his barmy Hostess drew both together, but not in like nature; she in Ale, he in Oyle, but her commoditie goes better downe, which he meanes to have his full share of, when his worke is done. If she aspire to the Conceite of a Signe, and desire to have her Birch-pole pulled downe, he will supply her with one.”
It seems that in the last century, the palmy days of signboards, the best signs were produced by the coach-painters, who derived their skill from the custom amongst the wealthy of having their coach panels decorated with a variety of subjects.
Artists of renown have lent their genius to this branch of art. Hogarth painted a sign called the Man loaded with Mischief, and this sign is still in existence in an alehouse in Oxford Street; it represents a man bearing on his back and shoulders a woman, a magpie and an ape. A similar painting may be seen before an inn on the road to Madingley, about a mile from Cambridge. Richard Wilson, R.A., painted a sign called The Loggerheads, which has given its name to a village near Mold, in North Wales. The Royal Oak, by David Cox, which is the sign of an inn at Bettws-y-Coed, is well known to all lovers of North Wales, and was a few years ago the subject of a law-suit. At Wargrave, a pretty Thames-side village near Henley, is an inn called the George and Dragon. One side of its sign was painted by Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A., who has chosen the battle with the dragon for his subject. The other side was painted by Mr. Hodgson, A.R.A., and is a representation of St. George refreshing himself with a pot of beer after the mighty encounter.