Chapter VI: Epilogue (2)

"Since these are merry, why should we take care?
Musicians, like Camelions, must live by the Aire;
Then let's be blithe and bonny, no good meeting baulk,
What though we have no money, we shall find Chalk."

The best known collection of cries is "The Cryes of the City of London. Drawne after the Life. P. Tempest, _Excudit_," a small folio volume, which when published, in 1688, consisted of only fifty plates, as the following advertisement, extracted from the _London Gazette_ of May 28-31, 1688, sufficiently proves:--

"There is now published the Cryes and Habits of London, lately drawn
after the Life in great variety of Actions. Curiously Engraven upon 50
Copper plates, fit for the Ingenious and Lovers of Art. Printed and
Sold by P. Tempest, over-against Somerset House, in the Strand."

Samuel Pepys, the eccentric diarist, who died 1703, left to Magdalene College, Cambridge, an invaluable collection of ballads, manuscript naval memoirs, ancient English poetry, three volumes of "Penny Merriments," and a numerous assemblage of etchings and engravings. Among the latter are a number of Tempest's Cries in the first state. These are still preserved in the Pepysian Library in the same College.

In 1711 another edition of Tempest's Cries was published, containing seventy-four plates, several of which can scarcely be called cries. They are popular "London Characters" rather than "criers." As the book, however, is extremely rare, and consequently costly, and as a history of the old London Cries would be very imperfect without a particular account of Tempest's volume being made, with a few words about Mauron, who designed, and Pearce Tempest, who engraved these cries, that which follows will not, we trust, be altogether out of place. Of Mauron, we can find no better account than the notice in Walpole.

"Marcellus Mauron--sometimes spelt Lauron, was born at the Hague in 1643, and learnt to paint of his father, with whom he came when young into England. Here he was placed with one La Zoon, a portrait-painter, and then with Flesshier, but owed his chief improvement to his own application. He lived several years in Yorkshire, and when he returned again to London he had very much improved himself in his art. He drew correctly, studied nature diligently, copied closely, and so surpassed all his contemporaries in drapery, that Sir Godfrey Kneller employed him to clothe his portraits. He likewise excelled in imitating the different styles of eminent masters, executed conversation pieces of considerable merit. Several prints were made from his works, and several plates he etched and scraped himself. A book on fencing, and the procession at the coronation of William and Mary, were designed by him. He lived in Bow-street, Covent-garden, on the west side, about three doors up, and at the back of Sir Godfrey Kneller's house in the Piazza; there he died of consumption March 11th, 1702."

Of Pearce Tempest, the engraver, the particulars collected by Vertue were so extremely slight that Horace Walpole merely enumerates him among those of whom nothing is known. It may be told of him, however, that he lived in the Strand, over-against Somerset House, and dying in 1717, was buried on the 14th of April, in the church-yard of St. Paul, Covent-garden.

The six woodcuts following are reduced copies of the engraved figures that appear in Marcellus Mauron _cum_ Tempest's "The Cryes of the City of London;" first we have:--

This engraving pretty well describes the occupation of the figure represented. He carries a barrel on his back--pens in his right hand, with a pint measure and funnel at his side. But since Mauron's time the cry of "_Fine Writing Ink_" has ceased to be heard in the streets of the metropolis, so we no longer hear:--

"My ink is good--as black as jet
'Tis used by Princes--and the state,
If once you venture it to try,
Of this I'm sure--none else you'll buy."

The demand for such an iron fork, or such a shovel as the old woman carries is now discontinued.

The man blowing a trumpet, "Troop, every one, one!" was a street seller of hobby-horses--toys for children of three hundred years ago.

"Call'st thou my love, hobby-horse; the hobby-horse is but a colt."
_Love's Labour Lost_, Act iii., sc. 1.

He carried them, as represented in the engraving, in a partitioned frame, on his shoulder, and to each horse's head was a small flag with two bells attached. It was a pretty plaything for a "little master," and helped him to imitate the galloping of the real and larger hobby-horse in the pageants and mummeries that passed along the streets, or pranced in the shows at fairs and on the stage. Now-a-days we give a boy the first stick at hand to thrust between his legs as a Bucephalus--the shadow of a shadow--or the good natured grandpapa wishing to give my "young master" something of the semblance of the generous animal--for the horse is no less popular with boys than formerly, takes his charge to the nearest toyshop and buys him a painted stick on which is a sawn-out representation of a horse's head, which with the addition of a whip will enable him to:--

"Ride a cock-horse to Banbury-cross,
To see what Tommy can buy;
A penny white loaf, a penny white cake,
And a twopenny apple-pie."

The _cries_ of singing birds are extinct; we have only bird-_sellers_. The above engraving, therefore represents a by-gone character.

In the earlier days, the above was at once a musical and a poetical cry. It must have come over the ear, telling of sunny gardens not a sparrow's flight from the City, such as that of the Bishop of Ely in Holborn, and of plenteous orchards which could spare their boughs as well as their fruit:--

"_D. of Glou._--My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
I do beseech you send for some of them.
_B. of Ely._--Marry, and I will, my lord, with all my heart."
_Richard III._, act iii., sc. 4.

The "orange-women" of Ben Jonson we have figured to the life. The familiar mention of the orange-sellers in the "Silent Woman," and this very early representation of one of them, show how general the use of this fruit had become in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is stated, though the story is somewhat apocryphal, that the first oranges were imported by Sir Walter Raleigh. It is probable that about his time they first became an article of general commerce. We now consume about three hundred and fifty millions of oranges every year.

The class of bold young women--"Orange Wenches," that Nell Gwynne made famous is sufficiently alluded to in a passage in the _Spectator_, No. 141:

"But, indeed, by such representations, a poet sacrifices the best part
of his audience to the worst; and, as one would think, neglects the
boxes to write to the _orange-wenches_."

Rowe and other writers go far to prove that the "Orange Wenches" who frequented theatres had

"Other Fish to fry, and other Fruit to sell,"

beside supplying refreshment to the young gallants of the day.

In Douglas Jerrold's comedy of "_Nell Gwynne_," which was first represented at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 9th of January, 1833, with the following cast of characters:--

King Charles the Second MR. JONES.

Sir Charles Berkeley MR. FORRESTER.

Charles Hart, Major Mohun, Managers of
the King's Theatre, Drury lane, 1667 MR. DURUSET.

Betterton, Manager of the Duke's Theatre,
Lincoln's-inn MR. DIDDEAR.

Joe Haynes MR. MEADOWS.

Counsellor Crowsfoot MR. BLANCHARD.

Stockfish MR. F. MATTHEWS.

Boy MASTER MACDONALD.

Nell Gwynne MISS TAYLOR.

Orange Moll MRS. KEELEY.

Mrs. Snowdrop MRS. DALY.

There is the following scene and song:--

_Enter_ NELL GWYNNE, _as orange girl, with orange basket. She carries
a mask._

_Nell._ (_Sings._) "_Buy oranges!_" Ladies and cavaliers, vouchsafe to
look at my basket! Maidens, ripen my fruit with your glances; buy my
oranges, as bright as hope and as sweet as courtship.--Though they
look as hard as gold, they'll melt in the mouth like a lover's
promise.--Their juice is syrup, and their coats as thin as a poet's.
Buy, gentlemen; or I'll vow that, being jealous, you hate yellow even
in an orange.

_Betterton._ (_Aside._) It is--I'd swear to her face--the very girl!

_Charles._ (_Coming down with Nelly._) And have your oranges really
all these virtues?

_Nell._ (_Aside._) So, my gallant mercer. All, and a thousand
more;--there's nothing good that may not be said of the orange. It
sets special examples to elder brothers, misers, and young travellers.

_Charles._ Aye? What example to elder brothers?

_Nell._ This; though full of age, it dwells quietly on the same branch
with bud and blossom.

_Charles._ What does it teach misers?

_Nell._ That golden coats should cover melting hearts.

_Charles._ And, lastly, what may the young traveller learn of your
orange?

_Nell._ This much; that he is shipped when green, that he may ripen on
the voyage.

_Charles._ Prettily lectured.

_Betterton._ (_Aside._) The king seems dazzled with the wench.--I must
secure her for the Duke's.

_Nell._ But, gentlemen, fair gentlemen, will no one lighten my basket?
Buy my oranges!

SONG.--NELL GWYNNE.

Buy oranges!--No better sold,--
New brought in Spanish ships;
As yellow bright as minted gold,
As sweet as ladies' lips.
Come, maidens, buy; nor judge my fruit
From beauty's bait--the skin;
Nor think, like fops, with gaudy suit,
They're dull and crude within.
Buy oranges!

Buy oranges!--Buy courtiers, pray,
And as ye drain their juice,
Then, cast the poor outside away,
A thing that's served its use;
Why, courtier, pause; this truth translate,
Imprinted in the rind;
However gay the courtier's state,
'Tis yet of orange kind.
Buy oranges!

Buy oranges!--Coquetting fair,--
As sweet reproach come buy;
And, as the fruit ye slice and share,
Remember with a sigh--
A heart divided needs must cast
The faith which is its soul;
If, maidens, ye would have it last,
Give none--if not the whole.
Buy oranges!

(_The by-standers all applaud._)

The orange-woman who carried the golden fruit through every street and alley, with the musical cry of:--"_Fine Oranges and Lemons_," lasted for a century or two. Then the orange-woman became, as everything else became, a more prosaic person as she approached our own times. She was a barrow-woman at the end of the last century: and Porson has thus described her:--

"As I walked through the Strand, so cheerful and gay,
I met a young girl a-wheeling a barrow;
'Fine fruit, sir,' says she, 'and a bill of the play.'"

The transformation was the same with the strawberry and cherry-women.

From the "Collection of Ancient Songs and Ballads, written on various subjects, and printed between the years MDLX. and MDCC." in the British Museum, and now known as the ROXBURGHE BALLADS, we take the ballad of:--

THE CRIES OF LONDON.

Tune--_The Merry Christ-church Bells_.

Hark! how the cries in every street
Make lanes and allies ring:
With their goods and ware, both nice and rare,
All in a pleasant lofty strain;
Come buy my gudgeons fine and new.
Old cloaths to change for earthen ware,
Come taste and try before you buy,
Here's dainty poplin pears.
Diddle, diddle, diddle dumplins, ho!
With walnuts nice and brown.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Any old cloaths, suits, or coats.
Come buy my singing birds.
Oranges or lemons. Newcastle salmon.
Come buy my ropes of onions, ho!
Come buy my sand, fine silver sand.
Two bunches a penny, turnips, ho!
I'll change you pins for coney-skins.
Maids, do you want any milk below?
Here's an express from Admiral Hawke,
The Admiral of renown.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Maids, have you any kitchen stuff?
Will you buy fine artichoaks?
Come buy my brooms to sweep your rooms.
Will you buy my white-heart cabbages, ho!
Come buy my nuts, my fine small nuts,
Two cans a penny, crack and try.
Here's cherries round, and very sound.
Maids, shall I sweep your chimnies high?
Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, goes the tinker's pan,
With a merry cheerful sound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Here's fine herrings, eight a groat.
Hot codlins, pies and tarts.
New mackerel I have to sell.
Come buy my Wellfleet oysters, ho!
Come buy my whitings fine and new.
Wives, shall I mend your husbands' horns?
I'll grind your knives to please your wives,
And very nicely cut your corns.
Maids, have you any hair to sell.
Either flaxen, black, or brown?
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Work for a cooper, maids give ear,
I'll hoop your tubs and pails.
Come Nell and Sue, and buy my blue.
Maids, have you any chairs to mend?
Here's hot spiced-gingerbread of the best,
Come taste and try before you buy.
Here's elder-buds to purge your bloods.
But black your shoes is all the cry.
Here's hot rice milk, and barley broth.
Plumb-pudding a groat a pound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Here's fine rosemary, sage, and thyme.
Come buy my ground ivy.
Here's fatherfew, gilliflowers and rue.
Come buy my knotted marjorum, ho!
Come buy my mint, my fine green mint.
Here's fine lavender for your cloaths.
Here's parsley and winter-savory.
And heart's-ease which all do choose.
Here's balm and hissop, and cinquefoil,
All fine herbs, it is well known.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Here's pennyroyal and marygolds.
Come buy my nettle-tops.
Here's water-cresses and scurvy-grass.
Come buy my sage of virtue, ho!
Come buy my wormwood and mugwort.
Here's all fine herbs of every sort.
Here's southernwood, that's very good,
Dandelion and houseleek.
Here's dragon's-tongue and wood-sorrel.
With bear's-foot and horehound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Here's green coleworts and brocoli.
Come buy my radishes.
Here's fine savoys, and ripe hautboys.
Come buy my young green hastings, ho!
Come buy my beans, right Windsor beans.
Two pence a bunch young carrots, ho!
Here's fine nosegays, ripe strawberries.
With ready picked salad, also.
Here's collyflowers and asparagus.
New prunes two-pence a pound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Here's cucumbers, spinnage, and French beans.
Come buy my nice sallery.
Here's parsnips and fine leeks.
Come buy my potatoes, ho!
Come buy my plumbs, and fine ripe plumbs.
A groat a pound, ripe filberts, ho!
Here's corn-poppies and mulberries.
Gooseberries and currants also.
Fine nectarines, peaches, and apricots.
New rice two-pence a pound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Buy a rabbit, wild duck, or fat goose.
Come buy a choice fat fowl.
Plovers, teal, or widgeons, come buy my pigeons.
Maids, do you want any small coal?
Come buy my shrimps, my fine new shrimps,
Two pots a penny, taste and try.
Here's fine saloop, both hot and good.
But Yorkshire muffins is the cry.
Here's trotters, calf's feet, and fine tripes.
Barrel figs, three-pence a pound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Here's new-laid eggs for ten a groat.
Come buy water'd cod.
Here's plaice and dabs, lobsters and crabs.
Come buy my maids, and flounders, ho!
Come buy my pike, my fine live pike.
Two-pence a hundred cockles, ho!
Shads, eels, and sprats. Lights for your cats.
With haddocks, perch, and tench also.
Here's carp and tench, mullets and smelts.
Butter sixpence a pound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London town.

Printed and sold at the Printing-office in _Bow-church-yard, London_.

"Holloway cheese-cakes" was once one of the London cries; they were sold by a man on horseback; and in "_Jack Drum's Entertainment_," a Comedy, 1601, in a random song, the festive character of this district is denoted:--

"Skip it and trip it nimbly, nimbly,
Tickle it, tickle it, lustily,
Strike up the tabor for the wenches favour,
Tickle it, tickle it, lustily.
Let us be seene on Hygate-Greene,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.
Since we are come hither, let's spare for no leather,
To dance for the honour of Holloway."

Drunken Barnaby, at the "Mother Red Cap," at Holloway, found very bad company:--

_Veni_ Holloway, pileum rubrum,
_In cohortem muliebrem_,
_Me_ adonidem _vocant omnes_
_Meretricis_ Babylonis;
_Tangunt_, _tingunt_, _molliunt_, _mulcent_,
_At egentem_, _foris pulsant_.

Addison, the essayist and poet, 1672-1719, contributed a capital paper to the _Spectator_, on the subject of London Cries, which we deem so much to the purpose, that it is here reproduced _in extenso_.

THE SPECTATOR.
No. 251. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18.

----_Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum,
----Ferrea vox_---- VIRG., En. 6., v. 625.

----A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,
And throats of brass, inspir'd with iron lungs. DRYDEN.

There is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner, and frightens a country 'squire, than the _cries of London_. My good friend Sir _Roger_ often declares that he cannot get them out of his head, or go to sleep for them, the first week that he is in town. On the contrary, _Will Honeycombe_ calls them the _Ramage de la ville_, and prefers them to the sound of larks, and nightingales, with all the music of the fields and woods. I have lately received a letter from some very odd fellow upon this subject, which I shall leave with my reader, without saying anything further of it.

SIR,

I am a man out of all business, and would willingly turn my head to anything for an honest livelihood. I have invented several projects for raising many millions of money without burdening the subject, but I cannot get the parliament to listen to me, who look upon me forsooth as a crack, and a projector; so that despairing to enrich either myself or my country by this public-spiritedness, I would make some proposals to you relating to a design which I have very much at heart, and which may procure me a handsome subsistence, if you will be pleased to recommend it to the cities of London and Westminster.

The post I would aim at, is to be comptroller-general of the London cries, which are at present under no manner of rules or discipline. I think I am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great insight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent skill in music.

The cries of London may be divided into vocal and instrumental. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street for an hour together with the twankling of a brass kettle or a frying-pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds, as much as the breaking in of a thief. The sow-gelder's horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the liberties. I would therefore propose that no instrument of this nature should be made use of, which I have not tuned and licensed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her majesty's liege subjects.

Vocal cries are of a much larger extent, and indeed so full of incongruities and barbarisms, that we appear a distracted city to foreigners, who do not comprehend the meaning of such enormous outcries. Milk is generally sold in a note above _Ela_, and it sounds so exceedingly shrill, that it often sets our teeth on edge. The chimney-sweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he sometimes utters himself in the deepest bass, and sometimes in the sharpest treble; sometimes in the highest, and sometimes in the lowest note of the gamut. The same observation might be made on the retailers of small coal, not to mention broken glasses or brick-dust. In these therefore, and the like cases, it should be my care to sweeten and mellow the voices of these itinerant tradesmen, before they make their appearance in our streets, as also to accommodate their cries to their respective wares; and to take care in particular, that those may not make the most noise who have the least to sell, which is very observable in the venders of card matches, to whom I cannot but apply that old proverb of _Much cry, but little wool_.

Some of these last mentioned musicians are so very loud in the sale of these trifling manufactures, that an honest splenetic gentleman of my acquaintance bargained with one of them never to come into the street where he lived; but what was the effect of this contract? Why, the whole tribe of card-match-makers which frequent that quarter, passed by his door the very next day, in hopes of being bought off after the same manner.

It is another great imperfection in our London-cries, that there is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news should indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should not, however, be cried with the same precipitation as fire; yet this is generally the case: a bloody battle arms the town from one end to another in an instant. Every motion of the French is published in so great a hurry, that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likewise I would take upon me to regulate in such a manner, that there should be some distinction made between the spreading of a victory, a march, or an encampment, a Dutch, a Portugal, or a Spanish mail. Nor must I omit, under this head, those excessive alarms with which several boisterous rustics infest our streets in turnip-season; and which are more inexcusable, because these are wares which are in no danger of cooling upon their hands.

There are others who affect a very slow time, and are, in my opinion, much more tunable than the former; the cooper in particular swells his last note in a hollow voice, that is not without its harmony; nor can I forbear being inspired with a most agreeable melancholy, when I hear that sad and solemn air with which the public are very often asked, If they have any chairs to mend? Your own memory may suggest to you many other lamentable ditties of the same nature, in which music is wonderfully languishing and melodious.

I am always pleased with that particular time of the year which is proper for the pickling of dill and cucumbers; but alas! this cry, like the song of the nightingale, is not heard above two months. It would therefore be worth while to consider, whether the same air might not in some cases be adapted to other words.

It might likewise deserve our most serious consideration, how far, in a well-regulated city, those humourists are to be tolerated, who, not content with the traditional cries of their forefathers, have invented particular songs and tunes of their own: such as was not many years since, the pastry-man, commonly known by the name of the Colly-Molly-Puff; and such as is at this day the vender of powder and wash-ball, who, if I am rightly informed, goes under the name of _Powder-Watt_.

I must not here omit one particular absurdity which runs through this whole vociferous generation, and which renders their cries very often not only incommodious, but altogether useless to the public; I mean that idle accomplishment which they all of them aim at, of crying so as not to be understood. Whether or no they have learned this from several of our affected singers, I will not take upon me to say; but most certain it is, that people know the wares they deal in rather by their tunes than by their words: insomuch that I have sometimes seen a country boy run out to buy apples of a bellows-mender, and ginger-bread from a grinder of knives and scissors. Nay, so strangely infatuated are some very eminent artists of this particular grace in a cry, that none but their acquaintance are able to guess at their profession; for who else can know, _that work if I had it_, should be the signification of a corn-cutter.

Forasmuch, therefore, as persons of this rank are seldom men of genius or capacity, I think it would be very proper, that some man of good sense and sound judgment should preside over these public cries, who should permit none to lift up their voices in our streets, that have not tunable throats, and are not only able to overcome the noise of the crowd, and the rattling of coaches, but also to vend their respective merchandises in apt phrases, and in the most distinct and agreeable sounds. I do therefore humbly recommend myself as a person rightly qualified for this post; and if I meet with fitting encouragement, shall communicate some other projects which I have by me, that may no less conduce to the emolument of the public.

I am,
Sir, &c.
RALPH CROTCHET.

A curious parallel might be carried out between the itinerant occupations which the progress of society has entirely superseded, and those which even the most advanced civilization is compelled to retain. We here only hastily glance at a few of these differences.

Of the street trades which are past and forgotten, the small-coal-man was one of the most remarkable. He tells the tale of a city with few fires; for who could now imagine a man earning a living by bawling "_Small Coals_" from door to door, without any supply but that in the sack which he carries on his shoulders? His cry had, however, a rival in that of "_Any Wood to cleave_."

* * * * *

But here we must pause awhile to make a passing remark--even if it be no more than a mere wayside nod to the memory of Thomas Britton, the celebrated "Musical Small Coal Man,"--1654-1714.--to whom Britain is greatly indebted for the introduction and cultivation of concerted music, and whose influence has been indirectly felt in musical circles throughout the world:--

"Of Thomas Britton every boy
And Britain ought to know;
To Thomas Britton, 'Small Coal Man.'
All Britain thanks doth owe."[8]

This singular man had a small coal shop at the corner of a passage in Aylesbury-street, Clerkenwell-green, and his concert-room! which was over that, could only be reached by stairs from the outside of the house. The facetious Ned Ward, confirms this statement, thus:--

"Upon Thursdays repair
To my palace, and there
Hobble up stair by stair;
But I pray ye take care--
That you break not your shins by a stumble."

Britton was buried in the church-yard of Clerkenwell, being attended to the grave by a great concourse of people, especially by those who had been used to frequent his concerts.

To resume our argument, we may ask what chance would an aged man now have with his flattering solicitation of "_Pretty Pins, pretty Women_?" and the musical distich:--

"Three-rows-a-penny, pins,
Short whites, and mid-de-lings!"

Every stationer's or general-shop can now supply all the "_Fine Writing-ink_," wanted either by clerks or authors. There is a grocer's shop, or co-operative store at every turn; and who therefore needs him who cried aloud "_Lilly white Vinegar, three-pence a quart_?" When everybody, old and young, wore wigs--when the price for a common one was a guinea, and a journeyman had a new one every year; when it was an article in every city apprentice's indenture that his master should find him in "One good and sufficent wig, yearly, and every year, for, and during, and unto the expiration of the full end and term of his apprenticeship"--then, a wig-seller made his stand in the street, or called from door to door, and talked of a "_Fine Tie, or a fine Bob-wig sir?_" Formerly, women cried "_Four pair for a shilling, Holland Socks_," also "_Long Thread Laces, long and strong_," "_Scotch or Russian Cloth_," "_Buy any Wafers or Wax_." "_London's Gazette, here?_" The history of cries is a history of social changes. Many of the _working_ trades, as well as the vendors of things that can be bought in every shop, are now nearly banished from our thoroughfares. "_Old Chairs to mend_," or "_A brass Pot or an iron Pot to mend?_" still salutes us in some retired suburb; and we still see the knife-grinder's wheel; but who vociferates "_Any work for John Cooper?_" The trades are gone to those who pay scot and lot. What should we think of prison discipline, now-a-days, if the voice of lamentation was heard in every street, "_Some Bread and Meat for the poor Prisoners; for the Lord's sake, pity the Poor_?" John Howard put down this cry. Or what should we say of the vigilance of excise-officers if the cry of "_Aqua Vitae_" met our ears? The Chiropodist has now his guinea, a country villa, and railway season ticket; in the old days he stood at corners, with knife and scissors in hand, crying "_Corns to pick_." There are some occupations of the streets, however, which remain essentially the same, though the form be somewhat varied. The sellers of food are of course among these. "_Hot Peascod_," and "_Hot Sheep's-feet_," are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. "_Hot Wardens_," and "_Hot Codlings_," are not the cries which invite us to taste of stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a charcoal fire; also roasted chesnuts, and potatoes steaming in a shining apparatus, with savoury salt-butter to put between the "fruit" when cut; the London pieman still holds his ground in spite of the many penny pie-shops now established. Rice-milk is yet sold out in halfpennyworths. But furmety, barley broth, greasy sausages--"bags of mystery," redolent of onions and marjoram--crisp brown flounders, and saloop are no longer in request.

The cry of "_Water-cresses_" used to be heard from some barefoot nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had dipped her foot into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to the citizens' breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now cultivated, like cabbages, in market-gardens. The cry of "_Rosemary and Briar_" once resounded through the throughfares; and every alley smelt "like Bucklersbury in simple time," when the whole street was a mart for odoriferous herbs. Cries like these are rare enough now; yet we do hear them occasionally, when crossing some bye-street, and have then smelt an unwonted fragrance in the air; and as someone has truly said that scents call up the most vivid associations, we have had visions of a fair garden afar off, and the sports of childhood, and the song of the lark that:--

"At my window bade good morrow
Through the sweet briar."

Then comes a pale-looking woman with little bunches in her hand, who, with a feeble voice, cries "_Buy my sweet Briar, any Rosemary?_" There are still, however, plenty of saucy wenches--of doubtful morality--in the more crowded and fashionable thoroughfares, who present the passengers with moss-roses, and violets. Gay tells us:--

"Successive cries the seasons' change declare,
And mark the monthly progress of the year.
Hark! how the streets with treble voices ring,
To sell the bounteous product of the spring."

We no longer hear the cries which had some association of harmonious sounds with fragrant flowers. The din of "noiseful gain" exterminated them.

This was formerly a very popular London cry, but has now become extinct, although it was long kept in vogue by reason of the old prejudices of old fashioned people, whose sympathy was with the complaints of the water-bearer, who daily vociferated in and about the environs of London, "Any fresh and fair spring water here! none of your pipe sludge?"--though their own old tubs were often not particularly nice and clean to look at, and the water was likely to receive various impurities in being carried along the streets in all weathers.--"Ah dear?" cried his customers, "Ah dear! Well, what'll the world come to!--they won't let poor people live at all by-and-bye--Ah dear! here they are breaking up all the roads and footpaths again, and we shall be all under water some day or another with all their fine new fandangle goings on, but I'll stick to the poor old lame and nearly blind water-carrier, as my old father did before me, as long as he has a pailful and I've a penny, and when we haven't we must go to the workhouse together."

This was the talk and reasoning of many honest people of that day, who preferred taxing themselves, to the daily payment of a penny and very often twopence to the water-carrier, in preference to having "_Company's water_" at a fixed or _pro-rata_ sum per annum.

This is seen immediately on coming within view of Sadler's Wells, a place of dramatic entertainment; after manifold windings and tunnellings from its source the New River passes beneath the arch in the engraving, and forms a basin within the large walled enclosure, from whence diverging main pipes convey the water to all parts of London. At the back of the boy angling on the wall is a public-house, with tea-gardens and skittle-ground, and known as _Sir Hugh Myddleton's Head_, also as _Deacon's Music Hall_, which has been immortalized by Hogarth in his print of EVENING. But how changed the scene from what he represented it! To this stream, as the water nearest London favourable to sport, anglers of inferior note _used_ to resort:--

"Here 'gentle anglers,' and their rods withal,
Essaying, do the finny tribe enthral.
Here boys their penny lines and bloodworms throw,
And scare, and catch, the 'silly fish' below."

We have said above, anglers _used_ to resort, and we have said so advisedly, as that portion of the river is now arched over to the end of Colebrooke Row.

The New River, Islington, its vicinity, and our own favourite author--Charles Lamb, are, as it were, so inseparably bound together, that we hope to be excused for occupying a little of our reader's time with _Elia_--His Friends--His Haunts--His Walks, and Talk(s), particularly about the neighbourhood of:--

"----Islington!
Thy green pleasant pastures, thy streamlet so clear,
Old classic village! to _Elia_ were dear--
Rare child of humanity! oft have we stray'd
On Sir Hugh's pleasant banks in the cool of the shade.

"Joy to thy spirit, aquatic Sir Hugh!
To the end of old time shall thy River be New!
Thy Head, ancient Parr,[9] too, shall not be forgotten;
Nor thine, Virgin (?) Queen, tho' thy timbers are rotten."
George Daniel's "_The Islington Garland_."

Into the old parlour of the ancient "Sir Hugh Myddleton's Head"--_Elia_, would often introduce his own, for there he would be sure to find, from its proximity to Sadler's Wells Theatre, some play-going old crony with whom he could exchange a convival "crack," and hear the celebrated Joe Grimaldi call for his tumbler of rum-punch; challenging Boniface to bring it to a _rummer_! Many a gleeful hour has been spent in this once rural hostelrie. But:--"All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."

----"to Colebrooke-row, within half a stone's throw of a cottage; endeared to me, in later years by its being the abode of 'as much virtue as can live.'" Hone, in his _Every-day Book_, Oct. 10, 1827.]

Colebrooke Row was built in 1708. Here Charles Lamb, resided with his sister Mary, from 1823 to 1826; during which period--viz, on Tuesday, the 29th March, 1825, he closed his thirty-three years' clerkship at the East India House. Lamb very graphically describes the event in a letter to Bernard Barton, dated September 2, 1823, thus:--

"When you come Londonward, you will find me no longer in Covent
Garden; I have a cottage in Colebrooke Row, Islington--a cottage, for
it is detached--a white house, with six good rooms in it. The New
River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking-pace
can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; and behind is a
spacious garden, with vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries,
parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old
Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all
studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome
drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a
great lord, never having had a house before."

And again, in the November following, in a letter to Robert Southey, he informs the bard, who had promised him a call, that he is "at Colebrooke Cottage, left hand coming from Sadler's Wells." It was here that that amiable bookworm, George Dyer, editor of the Delphin Classics, walked quietly into the New River from Charles Lamb's door, but was soon recovered, thanks to the kind care of Miss Lamb.

The late Mr. George Daniel, of Canonbury Square, Islington, who formerly possessed the "ELIZABETHAN GARLAND," which consists of Seventy Ballads, printed between the years 1559 and 1597; a pleasing chatty writer and great snapper-up of unconsidered literary trifles, was an old friend and jolly companion of Charles Lamb's and frequently accompanied him in his favourite walks on the banks of the New River, and to the ancient hostelries in and round-about "Merrie Islington." At the Old Queen's Head, they, in company with many retired citizens, and thirsty wayfarers, met, on at least one occasion, with Theodore Hook, indulged in reminiscences of bygone days, merrily puffed their long pipes of the true "Churchwarden" or _yard of clay_ type, and quaffed nut-brown ale, out of the festivious tankard presented by a choice spirit!--one Master Cranch,--to a former host; and in the old oak parlour, too, where, according to tradition, the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh received, "full souse" in his face, the humming contents of a jolly Black Jack[10] from an affrighted clown, who, seeing clouds of tobacco-smoke curling from the knight's nose and mouth, thought he was all on fire! fire!! fire!!!.

"Here stands the tall relic, old Canonbury Tow'r,
Where Auburn's sweet bard won the muse to his bow'r,
The Vandal that pulls thy grey tenements down,
When falls the last stone, may that stone crack his crown!"
G. Daniel's "_The Islington Garland_."]

Lamb took special delight in watching the setting sun from the top of old Canonbury Tower, until the cold night air warned him to retire. He was intimate with Goodman Symes, the then tenant-keeper of the Tower, and bailiff of the Manor, and a brother antiquary in a small way; who took pleasure in entertaining him in the antique panelled chamber where Goldsmith wrote his _Traveller_, and supped frugally on buttermilk; and in pointing to a small portrait of Shakespeare, in a curiously carved gilt frame, which Lamb would look at longingly. He was never weary of toiling up and down the winding and narrow stairs of this suburban pile, and peeping into its quaint corners and cupboards, as if he expected to discover there some hitherto hidden clue to its mysterious origin.

"What village can boast like fair Islington town
Such time-honour'd worthies, such ancient renown?
Here jolly Queen Bess, after flirting with Leicester,
'Undumpish'd,' herself, with Dick Tarlton her Jester.

"Here gallant gay Essex, and burly Lord Burleigh
Sat late at their revels, and came to them early;
Here honest Sir John took his ease at his inn--
Bardolph's proboscis, and Jack's double chin.

From Islington, Charles Lamb moved to Enfield Chase Side, there he lived from 1827 to 1833, shut out almost entirely from the world, and his favourite London in particular.

Lamb, in a merry mood, writing to Novello, in 1827, says:--

"We expect you four (as many as the table will hold without squeezing)
at Mrs. Westwood's _Table d'Hote_ on Thursday. You will find the
_White House_ shut up, and us moved under the wing of the _Phoenix_,
which gives us friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry we have none,
but cleanly accommodings [_sic._] at the _Crown and Horse-shoes_.

"Yours harmonically,
"C. L.

"Vincentio (what, ho!) Novello, a Squire.
66, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields."

The above represents one of the humble and wayside "Pubs" of the neighbourhood in which Charles Lamb is said to have tested the friendship of "fine" friends, by proposing to them a drink of unsophisticated porter from bright pewter pots. So did he treat Wordsworth, and that "Child of Nature" actress, Miss Frances Maria Kelly, who without hesitation entered the tavern, with:--

"The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door,
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,--
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day."

About the Midsummer of 1833, Charles Lamb and his sister removed to Bay-cottage, Church-street, Edmonton, kept by Mr. Walden, whose wife acted as a professional nurse. There, in that poor melancholy looking tenement, the delightful humourist found the home in which he breathed his last on Saturday, the 27th December, 1834. He was buried in:--

"Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!."
Byron's, _Beppo_. St. 80.

Time and circumstances have effectually disposed of the water-carrier, his occupation is gone, it is impossible London can ever again see a man bent beneath the weight of a yoke and two enormous pails, vociferating "_Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?_" But the cry of "Milk," or the rattle of the milk-pail will never cease to be heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through which it flows into the houses. The more extensive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The old cry was "_Any Milk here?_" and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of "_Fresh Cheese and Cream_;" and it then passed into "_Milk, maids below_;" and it was then shortened into "_Milk below_;" and was finally corrupted into "_Mio_," which some wag interpreted into _mi-eau_--_demi-eau_--half water. But it must still be cried, whatever be the cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we have. The days have long since passed when Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell was a village, and there were green pastures in Holborn, when St. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in meadows, and St. Martin's was literally in the fields. Slowly but surely does the baked clay of Mr. Jerry, "the speculative builder" stride over the clover and the buttercup; and yet every family in London may be supplied with milk by eight o'clock every morning at their own doors. Where do the cows abide? They are congregated in wondrous herds in the suburbs; and though in spring-time they go out to pasture in the fields which lie under the Hampstead and Highgate hills, or in the vales of Dulwich and Sydenham, and there crop the tender blade,--

"When proud pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Has put a spirit of youth in everything."

yet for the rest of the year the coarse grass is carted to their stalls, or they devour what the breweries and distilleries cannot extract from the grain harvest. Long before "the unfolding star wakes up the shepherd" are the London cows milked; and the great wholesale vendors of the commodity, who have it consigned to them daily from more distant parts to the various railway stations in the metropolis, bear it in carts to every part of the town, and distribute it to the hundreds of shopkeepers and itinerants, who are anxiously waiting to receive it for re-distribution amongst their own customers. It is evident that a perishable commodity which everyone requires at a given hour, must be so distributed. The distribution has lost its romance. Misson, in his "Travels" published at the beginning of the last century, tells of May-games of the London milkmaids thus:--"On the first of May, and the five or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of Silver-Plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribbons and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common milk pails. In this equipage, accompanied with some of their fellow milkmaids, and a bagpipe or fiddle, they go from door to door, dancing before the houses of their customers, in the midst of boys and girls that follow them in troops, and everybody gives them something." Alas! the May-games and pretty young country girls have both departed, and a milk-woman has become a very unpoetical personage. There are few indeed of milkwomen who remain. So it is with most of the occupations that associate London with the country.

"'Where are you going my pretty maid?'
'I'm going a milking, sir,' she said."]

Thirty years ago there appeared in the "Quarterly Review" a remarkable article on the Commissariat of London, from the pen of Dr. Andrew Wynter. In it we were told for how many miles the beasts brought annually to the metropolis would stretch, if ranged ten abreast in a seemingly interminable column. In order to convey some notion of the stupendous quantities of ale, beer, and porter consumed, Dr. Wynter fixed upon Hyde Park as his exhibition ground, and piled together all the barrels containing the malt liquor drunk by what, in 1854, was a population of two million and a half souls. He came to the conclusion that these barrels would form a thousand columns not far short of a mile in perpendicular height. And among other statistics, Dr. Wynter calculated that there were at that time about twenty thousand cows in the metropolitan and suburban dairies, some of which establishments contained five hundred cows apiece. He also noticed that, the London and suburban dairies could not alone supply the population of the metropolis, seeing that twenty thousand cows, giving on an average twelve quarts each per diem, would not yield more than two hundred and forty thousand quarts. If we suppose this quantity increased by the iron-tailed cow to three hundred thousand quarts, the allowance to each of the two millions and a half of human beings then living within the Bills of Mortality would be about a quarter of a pint per head. The "Quarterly" Reviewer, therefore, assumed that, to meet the existing demands of the tea-table, the nursery, and the kitchen, half as much again as three hundred thousand quarts was consumed annually in London. For this excess he looked to the country to supplement the efforts of the metropolis and of its suburbs as suppliers of milk, and noticed that the precious white liquid was brought daily to London from farms lying as far away as eighty miles from the metropolitan railway stations to which it was consigned.

Nothing can be more instructive and entertaining than to turn back in 1884 to facts, figures, calculations, estimates, and inferences which fitted the London of 1854. Instead of two millions and a half, the population resident at this moment within the metropolitan and city police districts amounts at least to four millions and three-quarters. The area already covered by the mighty town, which adds another big town to its entirety each successive year, is about four hundred and fifty thousand square acres, and there are more than seven hundred thousand houses to be provided for, of which it may be presumed that few can do without at least a pint of milk per diem. Assuming, however, that each member of this enormous population consumed no more than a quarter of a pint of milk--that is to say, a small tumblerful--per diem, we come to the astounding conclusion that nearly six hundred thousand quarts are wanted every day, nearly four million two hundred thousand quarts every week, and nearly two hundred and seventeen million quarts every year, to meet the demands of London. Few of us are able to fathom the meaning of two hundred million quarts of liquid until we are told what an immense reservoir, ten feet deep, it would take to hold such an amount. More intelligible are the calculations which tell us that, assuming a cow to yield ten--not twelve--quarts of milk daily, it would require nearly sixty thousand milch cows to maintain this supply from year's end to year's end. If these patient and valuable milkers are estimated as being worth no more than twenty-pounds apiece, they would represent in their aggregate a capital of little less than one million four hundred thousand pounds. Pure milk of a reliable character, costs five-pence per quart, and therefore, on the above basis, there is spent on milk, in the metropolis and its circumjacent districts, twelve thousand four hundred pounds per day, nearly eighty-seven thousand pounds per week, and considerably more than four and a half million pounds per annum. There are States which have made a considerable noise in the world, whose total revenue does not reach what London spends annually in milk alone. As for the distribution of this inconceivable amount of liquid, which is delivered every morning and afternoon in small quantities all over the enormous area of bricks-and-mortar to which we have referred, it would utterly baffle the most marvellous organiser and administrator that ever existed upon earth, to extemporise human machinery for carrying on so minute and yet so gigantic a trade. Nevertheless, how smoothly and imperceptibly, not only in this one small detail, but throughout the whole of its vast and endless complications and ramifications, does the commissariat of London work! We are told, for instance, that to distribute every sixteen gallons of milk one person is necessary, and that, without counting managers, clerks, shopmen and shopwomen, nearly five thousand human beings, assisted by more than fifteen hundred horses and mules, are needed to furnish London with milk every twenty-four hours. More than a quarter of a million pounds go yearly in wages to milkmen and milkwomen with whom we are all so familiar, and who will doubtless, acquire additional importance in the eyes of those who reflect that these humble servitors are but, in Pope's words, "parts of that stupendous whole" without whose useful, patient, and unintermitted labours the faultless machinery of the grandest camp of men that ever yet existed would instantly stand still.

Then it must not be forgotten that the milk trade exacts constant and unintermitted work from its employes--work from which neither Sundays nor holidays bring any relief--and demanding very early rising in the morning, to say nothing of the greatest personal cleanliness, and of an immense array of cans, varying from those capable of holding many gallons down to those which contain no more than half-a-pint--the milk-pail and its daily history might well attract notice from writers not inferior in grasp and imagination to Defoe or Dickens. In 1854 Dr. Wynter calculated that, as regards distribution, the commissariat of London was carried on by an army of one hundred thousand persons. In thirty years the population has all but doubled, and the machinery of distribution has been so improved that its working at present approaches very nearly to perfection. This perfection is due solely to freedom of trade and to universal competition, which so nicely adjust all the varying conditions of life, that, in serving themselves, they accomplish more than all the Governments on earth could effect by the most ingenious system of centralisation that human wit could devise.

_Attic Poet_:--"There is a pleasure in poetic pains
which only Poets know."]

In our neighbourhood, which, as the lodging-house-keepers advertise in _The Kingsland and Shacklewell Slopbasin_, and _The Dalston Dusthole_, is situate close to "Bus, Tram, and Rail," we have a milkman who is given to Poetry! and he circulates his "verses" pretty freely in the areas and letter-boxes about once a month.--

HOW F. WILSON MEETS HIS CUSTOMERS' VIEWS.

My readers may credit the words of my muse.
When telling how Wilson meets Customers' Views;
Wilson studies a straightforward system of trade,
Whereby to elicit encouraging aid.

The pure farm-house Milk he daily brings out,
Is such as we have no reason to doubt;
Encouraged in business his course he pursues,
And fails not in meeting his Customers' Views.

You'll not have occasion to doubt what I say,
When testing his Pure Milk day after day;
For cheapness and quality you'll find him in trade,
As you did when he first asked the public for aid.

His farm-house Milk and Eggs, which thoroughly please,
Are positive proofs of assertions like these;
'Tis certain that better can ne'er be supplied,
He trusts that in this you'll all coincide.

The highest of interest his Milk doth possess,
Thus boldly we state, for we cannot state less;
F. Wilson supplies what all purchasers choose,
And thus he is meeting his Customers' Views.

TERMS CASH.

Customers can have their Milk left in cans any time after 5 a.m.
Note the address * * *
All complaints to be addressed to Mr. F. Wilson.

This celebrated vendor of gingerbread, from his eccentricity of character, and extensive dealing in his particular way, was always hailed as the King of itinerant tradesmen. He was a constant attendant in the crowd at all metropolitan fairs, mob meetings, Lord Mayor's shows, public executions, and all other holiday and festive gatherings! In his person he was tall, well made, and his features handsome. He affected to dress like a person of rank; white and gold lace suit of clothes, lace ruffled shirt, laced hat and feather, white stockings, with the addition of a white apron. Among his harangues to gain customers, take the following piece as a fair sample of the whole:--