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.