|My friends,”--continued Mr. Bosky, after an approving smack of the
lips, and “_Thanks_, my kind mistress! many happy returns of St. Bartlemy!”
had testified the ballad-singer's hearty relish and gratitude for the
refreshing draught over which he had just suspended his well-seasoned
nose, *--“never may the mouths be stopped--
* “Thom: Brewer, my Mus: Servant, through his proneness to
good fellowshippe, having attained to a very rich and
rubicund nose, being reproved by a friend for his too
frequent use of strong drinkes and sacke, as very pernicious
to that distemper and inflammation in his nose. 'Nay,
faith,' says he, 'if it will not endure sacke, it is _no
nose_ for me.'”--L' Estrange, No. 578. Mr. Jenkins.
--(except with a cup of good liquor) of these musical itinerants, from
whose doggrel a curious history of men and manners might be gleaned,
to humour the anti-social disciples of those pious publicans who
substituted their nasal twang for the solemn harmony of cathedral music;
who altered St. Peter's phrase, 'the Bishop of your souls,' into
'the Elder (!!) of your souls;' for 'thy kingdom come,' brayed 'thy
Commonwealth come!' and smuggled the water into their rum-puncheons,
which they called _wrestling with the spirit_, and making the _enemy
weaker!_ 'Show me the popular ballads of the time, and I will show you
the temper and taste of the people.' *
* “Robin Consciencean ancient ballad, (suggested by
Lydgate's “London Lackpenny,”) first printed at Edinburgh in
1683, gives a curious picture of London tradesmen, &c. Robin
goes to Court, but receives cold welcome; thence to
Westminster Hall. “It were no great matter,” quoth the
lawyers, “if Conscience quite were knock'd on the head.” He
visits Smithfield, and discovers how the “horse-cowrsers'
artfully coerce their “lame jades” to “run and kick.” Then
Long Lane, where the brokers hold conscience to be “but
nonsense.” The butter-women of Newgate-market claw him, and
the bakers brawl at him. At Pye Corner, a cook, glancing at
him “as the Devil did look o'er Lincoln,” threatens to spit
him.
The salesmen of Snow Hill would have stoned him; the
“fishwives” of Turn-again Lane rail at him; the London
Prentices of Fleet Street, with their “What lack you,
countryman?” seamper away from him. The “haberdashers, that
sell hats I the mercers and silk-men, that live in
Paternoster Row,” all set upon him. He receives no better
treatment in Cheapside--A cheesemonger in Bread Street; “the
lads that wish Lent were all the year,” in Fish Street; a
merchant on the Exchange; the “gallant girls,” whose “brave
shops of ware” were “up stairs and the drapers and
poulterers of Graccchurch Street, to whom conscience was
“Dutch or Spanish,” flout and jeer him. A trip to Southwark,
the King's Bench, and to the Blackman Street demireps,
proves that “conscience is nothing.” In St. George's Fields,
“rooking rascals,” playing at “nine pins,” tell him to prate
on till he is hoarse.” Espying a windmill hard by, he hies
to the miller, whose excuse for not dealing with him was,
that he must steal out of every bushel “a peek, if not three
gallons.” Conscience then trudges on “to try what would
befall i' the country,” whither we will not follow him.
I delight in a Fiddler's Fling, and revel in the exhilarating perfume
of those odoriferous garlands * gathered on sunshiny holidays and
star-twinkling nights, bewailing how disappointed lovers go to sea, and
how romantic young lasses follow them in blue jackets and trousers!
* “When I travelled,” said the Spectator, “I took a
particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are
come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the
common people of the countries through which I passed; for
it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted
and approved by a multitude (though they are only the rabble
of a nation), which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to
please and gratify the mind of man.”
Old tales, old songs, and an old jest,
Our stomachs easiliest digest.
“Listen to me, my lovly shepherd's joye,
And thou shalt heare, with mirth and muckle glee,
Some pretie tales, which, when I was a boye,
My toothless grandame oft hath told to mee.
Nay, rather than the tuneful race should be extinct, expect to see me
some night, with my paper lantern and cracked spectacles, singing you
woeful tragedies to love-lorn maids and cobblers' apprentices.” *
* Love in a Tub, a comedy, by Sir George Etherege.
And, carried away by his enthusiasm to the days of jolly Queen Bess, the
Lauréat of Little Britain, with a countenance bubbling with hilarity,
warbled _con spirito_, as a probationary ballad for the _Itinerant
ship_, (!)
THE KNIGHTING OF THE SIRLOIN.
Elizabeth Tudor her breakfast would make
On a pot of strong beer and a pound of beefsteak,
Ere six in the morning was toll'd by the chimes--
O the days of Queen Bess they were merry old times!
From hawking and hunting she rode back to town,
In time just to knock an ambassador down;
Toy'd, trifled, coquetted, then lopp'd off a head;
And at threescore and ten danced a hornpipe to bed.
With Nicholas Bacon,1 her councillor chief,
One day she was dining on English roast beef;
That very same day when her Majesty's Grace *
Had given Lord Essex a slap on the face.
* When Queen Elizabeth came to visit Sir Nicholas Bacon,
Lord Keeper, at his new house at Redgrave, she observed,
alluding to his corpulency, that he had built his house too
little for him. “Not so, madam,” answered he; “but your
Highness has made me too big for my house!”
The term “your Grace' was addressed to the English Sovereign
during the earlier Tudor reigns. In her latter years
Elizabeth assumed the appellation of “Majesty” The following
anecdote comprehends both titles. “As Queen Elizabeth passed
the streets in state, one in the crowde cried first, 'God
blesse your Royall Majestie!' and then, 'God blesse your
Noble Grace!' 'Why, how now,' sayes the Queene, 'am I tenne
groates worse than I was e'en now?'” The value of the old
“Ryal,” or “Royall,” was 10s., that of the “Noble” 6s. Sd.
The Emperor Charles the Fifth was the first crowned head
that assumed the title of “Majesty.”
My Lord Keeper stared, as the wine-cup she kiss'd,
At his sovereign lady's superlative twist,
And thought, thinking truly his larder would squeak,
He'd much rather keep her a day than a week.
“What call you this dainty, my very good lord?”--
“The Loin,”--bowing low till his nose touch'd the
board--
“And--breath of our nostrils, and light of our eyes! *
Saving your presence., the ox was a prize.”
* Queen Elizabeth issued an edict commanding every artist
who should paint the royal portrait to place her “in a
garden with a full light upon her, and the painter to put
any shadow in her face at his peril!” Oliver Cromwell's
injunctions to Sir Peter Lely were somewhat different. The
knight was desired to transfer to his canvass all the
blotches and carbuncles that blossomed in the Protector's
rocky physiognomy. Sir Joshua Reynolds, ( -------- with
fingers so lissom, Girls start from his canvass, and ask us
to kiss 'em!) having taken the liberty of mitigating the
utter stupidity of one of his “Pot-boilers,” i. e. stupid
faces, and receiving from the sitter's family the reverse of
approbation, exclaimed, “I have thrown a glimpse of meaning
into this fool's phiz, and now none of his friends know
him!” At another time, having painted too true a likeness,
it was threatened to be thrown upon his hands, when a polite
note from the artist, stating that, with the additional
appendage of a tail, it would do admirably for a monkey, for
which he had a commission, and requesting to know if the
portrait was to be sent home or not, produced the desired
effect. The picture was paid for, and put into the fire!
“Unsheath me, mine host, thy Toledo so bright.
Delicious Sir Loin! I do dub thee a knight.
Be thine at our banquets of honour the post;
While the Queen rules the realm, let _Sir Loin_ rule the
roast!
And'tis, my Lord Keeper, our royal belief,
The Spaniard had beat, had it not been for _beef_!
Let him come if he dare! he shall sink! he shall quake!
With a duck-ing, Sir Francis shall give him a Drake.
Thus, Don Whiskerandos, I throw thee my glove!
And now, merry minstrel, strike up 'highly Love,'
Come, pursey Sir Nicholas, caper thy best--
Dick Tarlton shall finish our sports with a jest.”
The virginals sounded, Sir Nicholas puff'd,
And led forth her Highness, high-heel'd and be-ruff'd--
Automaton dancers to musical chimes!
O the days of Queen Bess, they were merry old times!
“And now, leaving Nestor Nightingale to propitiate Uncle Timothy for
this interpolation to his Merrie Mysteries, let us return and pay our
respects, not to the dignified Count Haynes, the learned Doctor
Haynes, but to plain Joe Haynes, the practical-joking Droll-Player of
Bartholomew Fair: *
* Antony, vulgo Tony Aston, a famous player, and one of
Joe's contemporaries. The only portrait (a sorry one) of
Tony extant, is a small oval in the frontispiece to the
Fool's Opera, to which his comical harum-scarum
autobiography is prefixed.
In the first year of King James the Second, * our hero set up a booth
in Smithfield Rounds, where he acted a new droll, called the Whore
of Babylon, or the _Devil and the Pope_. Joe being sent for by Judge
Pollixfen, and soundly rated for presuming to put the pontiff into such
bad company, replied, that he did it out of respect to his Holiness; for
whereas many ignorant people believed the Pope to be a blatant beast,
with seven heads, ten horns, and a long tail, like the Dragon of
Wantley's, according to the description of the Scotch Parsons! he
proved him to be a comely old gentleman, in snow-white canonicals, and
a cork-screw wig. The next morning two bailiffs arrested him for twenty
pounds, just as the _Bishop of Ely_ was riding by in his coach. Quoth
Joe to the bailiffs, “Gentlemen, here is my cousin, the Bishop of Ely;
let me but speak a word to him, and he will pay the debt and charges.”
* Catholicism, though it enjoined penance and mortification,
was no enemy, at appointed seasons, to mirth. Hers were
merry saints, for they always brought with them a holiday. A
right jovial prelate was the Pope who first invented the
Carnival! On that joyful festival racks and thumbscrews,
fire and faggots, were put by; whips and hair-shirts
exchanged for lutes and dominos; and music inspired equally
their diversions and devotions.
The Bishop ordered his carriage to stop, whilst Joe (close to his ear)
whispered, “My Lord, here are a couple of poor waverers who have
such terrible _scruples of conscience_, that I fear they'll hang
themselves.”--“Very well,” said the Bishop. So calling to the bailiffs,
he said, “You two men, come to me to-morrow, and I'll satisfy you.” The
bailiffs bowed, and went their way; Joe (tickled in the midriff, and
hugging himself with his device) went his way too. In the morning the
bailiffs repaired to the Bishop's house. “Well, my good men,” said his
reverence, “what are your scruples of conscience?”--“Scruples!” replied
the bailiffs, “we have no scruples, We are bailiffs, my Lord, who
yesterday arrested _your cousin Joe Haynes_ for twenty pounds. Your
Lordship promised to _satisfy_ us to-day, and we hope you will be as
good as your word.” The Bishop, to prevent any further scandal to his
name, immediately paid the debt and charges.
The following theatrical adventure occurred during his pilgrimage to the
well-known shrine,
“Which at Loretto dwelt in wax, stone, wood.
And in a fair white wig look'd wondrous fine.”
It was St. John's day, and the people of the parish had built a stage in
the body of the church, for the representation of a tragedy called the
_Decollation of the Baptist._ * Joe had the good luck to enter just as
the actors were leaving off their “damnable faces,” and going to begin.
* The Chester Mysteries, written by Randle or Ralph Hig-den,
a Benedictine of St. Werburg's Abbey in that city, were
first performed during the mayoralty of John Arneway, who
filled that office from 1268 to 1276, at the cost and
charges of the different trading companies therein. They
were acted in English (“made into partes and pagiantes”)
instead of in Latin, and played on Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday in Whitsun week. The companies began at the abbey
gates, and when the first pageant was concluded, the
moveable stage (“a high scaffolde with two rowmes; a higher
and a lower, upon four wheeles”) was wheeled to the High
Cross before the Mayor, and then onward to every street, so
that each street had its pageant. “The Harrowing of Hell” is
one of the most ancient Miracle Plays in our language. It is
as old as the reign of Edward the Third, if not older. The
Prologue and Epilogue were delivered in his own person by
the actor who had the part of the Saviour. In 1378, the
Scholars of St. Paul's presented a petition to Richard the
Second, praying him to prohibit some “inexpert people” from
representing the History of the Old Testament, to the
serious prejudice of their clergy, who had been at great
expense in order to represent it at Christmas. On the 18th
July, 1390, the Parish Clerks of London played Religious
Interludes at the Skinners' Well, in Clerkenwell, which
lasted three days. In 1409, they performed The Creation of
the World, which continued eight days. On one side of the
lowest platform of these primitive stages was a dark pitchy
cavern, whence issued fire and flames, and the howlings of
souls tormented by demons. The latter occasionally showed
their grinning faces through the mouth of the cavern, to the
terrible delight of the spectators! The Passion of Our
Saviour was the first dramatic spectacle acted in Sweden, in
the reign of King John the Second. The actor's name was
Lengis who was to pierce the side of the person on the
cross. Heated by the enthusiasm of the scene, he plunged his
lance into that person's body, and killed him. The King,
shocked at the brutality of Lengis, slew him with his
scimetar; when the audience, enraged at the death of their
favourite actor, wound up this true tragedy by cutting off
his Majesty's head!
They had pitched upon an ill-looking surly butcher for _King Herod_,
upon whose chuckle-head a gilt pasteboard crown glittered gloriously by
the candlelight; and, as soon as he had seated himself in a rickety old
wicker chair, radiant with faded finery, that served him for a throne,
the orchestra (three fifes and a fiddle) struck up a merry tune, and
a young damsel began so to shake, her heels, that with the help of a
little imagination, our noble comedian might have fancied himself in his
old quarters at St. Bartholomew, or Sturbridge Fair. *
* Stourbridge, or Sturbridge Fair, originated in a grant
from King John to the hospital of lepers at that place. By a
charter in the thirtieth year of Henry the Eighth, the fair
was granted to the magistrates and corporation of Cambridge.
In 1613 it became so popular, that hackney coaches attended
it from London; and in after times not less than sixty
coaches plied there. In 1766 and 1767, the “Lord of the Tap,”
dressed in a red livery, with a string over his shoulders,
from whence depended spigots and fossetts, entered all the
booths where ale was sold, to determine whether it was fit
beverage for the visitors. In 1788, Flockton exhibited at
Sturbridge Fair. The following lines were printed on his
bills:--
“To raise the soul by means of wood and wire,
To screw the fancy up a few pegs higher;
In miniature to show the world at large,
As folks conceive a ship who 've seen a barge.
This is the scope of all our actors' play,
Who hope their wooden aims will not be thrown away!”
The dance over, King Herod, with a vast profusion of barn-door majesty,
marched towards the damsel, and in “very choice Italian” (which the
parson of the parish composed for the occasion, and we have translated)
thus complimented her:
“Bewitching maiden I dancing sprite!
I like thy graceful motion:
Ask any boon, and, honour bright!
It is at thy devotion.”
The _danseuse_, after whispering to a saffron-complexioned crone,
who played _Herodias_, fell down upon both knees, and pointing to the
_Baptist_, a grave old farmer! exclaimed,
“If, sir, intending what you say,
Your Majesty don't flatter,----
I would the Baptist's head to-day
Were brought me in a platter.”
The bluff butcher looked about him as sternly as one of Elkanah's *
blustering heroes, and, after taking a fierce stride or two across the
stage to vent his royal choler, vouchsafed this reply,
* Elkanah Settle, the City Lauréat, after the Revolution,
kept a booth at Bartholomew Fair, where, in a droll, called
St. George for England, he acted in a dragon of green
leather of his own invention. In reference to the sweet
singer of “annual trophies” and “monthly wars” hissing in
his own dragon, Pope utters this charitable wish regarding
Colley,
“Avert it, heaven, that thou, my Cibber, e'er Shouldst wag a
serpent-tail in Smithfield Fair!”
“Fair cruel maid, recall thy wish,
O pray think better of it!
I'd rather abdicate, than dish
The cranium of my _prophet_.”
Miss still continued pertinacious and positive.
“Your royal word's not worth a fig,
If thus in flams you glory;
I claim your promise for my jig,
The _Baptist's_ upper story.”
This satirical sally put the imperial butcher upon his mettle; he bit
his thumbs, scratched his carrotty poll, paused; and, thinking he had
lighted on a loop-hole, grumbled out with stiff-necked profundity,
“ A wicked oath, like sixpence crack'd,
Or pie-crust, may be broken.”
The _damsel_, however, was “down upon him” before he could articulate
“Jack Robinson,” with
“But not the promise of a King,
Which is a _royal token_.”
This polished off the rough edges of his Majesty's misgivings, and the
decollation of John the Baptist followed; but the good people, resolving
to make their martyr some small amends, permitted his representative to
receive absolution from a _portly priest_ who stood as a spectator at
one corner of the stage; while the two soldiers who had decapitated
him in effigy, with looks full of contrition, threw themselves into the
confessional, and implored the ghostly father to assign them a stiff
penance to expiate their guilt. Thus ended this tragedy of tragedies,
which, with all due deference to Joe's veracity, we suspect to have had
its origin in _Bartholomew Fair._
Joe Haynes shuffled off his comical coil on Friday, the 4th of April
1701. The Smithfield muses mourned his death in an elegy, * a rare
broadside, with a black border, “printed for J. B. near the Strand,
1701.”
* “An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Joseph Haines, the late
Famous Actor in the King's Play-House,” &c. &c.
“Lament, you beaus and players every one,
The only champion of your cause is gone:
The stars are surly, and the fates unkind,
Joe Haines is dead, and left his Ass behind!
Ah, cruel fate! our patience thus to try,
Must Haines depart, while asses multiply?
If nothing but a player down would go,
There's choice enough besides great Haines the beau!
In potent glasses, when the wine was clear,
Thy very looks declared thy mind was there.
Awful, majestic, on the stage at sight,
To play (not work) was all thy chief delight:
Instead of danger and of hateful bullets,
Roast beef and goose, with harmless legs of pullets!
Here lies the Famous Actor, Joseph Haines,
Who, while alive, in playing took great pains,
Performing all his acts with curious art,
Till Death appear'd, and smote him with his dart.”
Thomas Dogget, the last of our triumvirate, was “a little lively sprat
man.” He dressed neat, and something fine, in a plain cloth coat and
a brocaded waistcoat. He sang in company very agreeably, and in public
very comically. He was the _Will Kempe_ of his day. He danced the
Cheshire Round full as well as the famous _Captain George_, but with
more nature and nimbleness. *
* Dogget had a sable rival. “In Bartholomew Fair, at the
Coach-House on the Pav'd Stones at Hosier-Lane-End, you
shall see a Black that dances the Cheshire Rounds, to the
admiration of all spectators.” Temp. William Third.
Here, too, is Dogget's own bill! “At Parker's and Dogget's
Booth, near Hosier-Lane-End, during the time of Bartholomew
Fair, will be presented a New Droll, called Fryar Bacon, or
the Country Justice; with the Humours of Tollfree the
Miller, and his son Ralph, Acted by Mr. Dogget. With variety
of Scenes, Machines, Songs, and Dances. Vivat Rex, 1691.”
A writer in the Secret Mercury of September 9, 1702, says, “At last, all
the childish parade shrunk off the stage by matter and motion, and enter
a hobbledehoy of a dance, and Dogget, in old woman's petticoats and red
waistcoat, as like Progue Cock as ever man saw. It would have made a
stoic split his lungs if he had seen the temporary harlot sing and weep
both at once; a true emblem of a woman's tears!” He was a faithful,
pleasant actor. He never deceived his audience; because, while they
gazed at him, he was working up the joke, which broke out suddenly into
involuntary acclamations and laughter. He was a capital face-player and
gesticulator, and a thorough master of the several dialects, except the
Scotch; but was, for all that, an excellent Sawney.
[Illustration: 0026]
His great parts were Fondlewife, in the Old Bachelor; Ben, in Love for
Love; Hob, in the Country Wake, &c. Colley Cibber's account of him is
one glowing panegyric. Colley played Fondle wife so completely after
the manner of Dogget, copying his voice, person, and dress with such
scrupulous exactness, that the audience, mistaking him for the original,
applauded vociferously. Of this Dogget himself was a witness, for he sat
in the pit..
“Whoever would see him pictured, * may view him in the character of
Sawney, at the Duke's Head in Lynn-Regis, Norfolk.” Will the jovial
spirit of Tony Aston point out where this interesting memento hides
its head? “Go on, I'll follow thee.” He died at Eltham in Kent, 22nd
September 1721.
* The only portrait of Dogget known is a small print,
representing him dancing the Cheshire Round, with the motto
“Ne sut or ultra crepidam
** Baddeley, the comedian, bequeathed a yearly sum for ever,
to be laid out in the purchase of a Twelfth-cake and wine,
for the entertainment of the ladies and gentlemen of Drury
Lane Theatre.
How small an act of kindness will embalm a man's memory! Baddeley's
Twelfth Cake ** shall be eaten, and Dogget's coat and badge * rowed for,
While Christmas frolics, and while Thames shall flow.
“And shall not,” said Mr. Bosky, “a bumper flow, in spite of the '_Sin
of drinking healths?_” ** to
Three merry men, three merry men,
Three merry men they be!
Two went dead, like sluggards, in bed;
One in his shoes died of a noose
That he got at Tyburn-Tree!
Three merry men, three merry men,
Three merry men are we!
Push round the rummer in winter and summer,
By a sea-coal fire, or when birds make a choir
Under the green-wood tree!
The sea-coal burns, and the spring returns,
And the flowers are fair to see;
But man fades fast when his summer is past,
Winter snows on his cheeks blanch the rose--
No second spring has he!
Let the world still wag as it will,
Three merry wags are we!
A bumper shall flow to Mat, Thomas, and Joe
A sad pity that they had not for poor Mat
Hang'd dear at Tyburn-Tree.
* “This day the Coat and Badge given by Mr. Dogget, will
be rowed for by six young watermen, out of their
apprenticeship this year, from the Old Swan at Chelsea.”--
Daily Advertiser, July 31, 1753.
** The companion books to the “Sin of Drinking healths,”
were the “Loathsomness of Long Haire,” and the “Unlove-
liness of Love Locks,” by Messrs. Praise-God-Barebones and
Fear-the-Lord Barbottle.