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."
[Illustration]
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_.
[Illustration: COLLY-MOLLY-PUFF.]
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."
[Illustration: THOMAS BRITTON, _The Musical Small Coal Man_.]
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE WATER CARRIER. "Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?"]
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.
[Illustration: THE FIRST VIEW OF THE NEW RIVER--FROM LONDON.]
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."
[Illustration: COLEBROOKE COTTAGE.
----"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:--