_Rhymes Of The Canting Crew._
[Footnote: Throughout these notes free use has been made of the
_National Dictionary of Biography_; a work which, without
question, contains the latest and most accurately sifted array of
biographical information, much of which could not be obtained from any
other source whatever.]
These lines are of little interest apart from the fact of being the
earliest known example of the Canting speech or Pedlar's French in
English literature. Sorry in point or meaning, they are sorrier still
as verse. Yet, antedating, by half a century or more, the examples
cited by Awdeley and Harman, they possess a certain value they carry
us back almost to the beginnings of Cant, at all events to the time
when the secret language of rogues and vagabonds first began to assume
a concrete form.
Usually ascribed to Thomas Dekker (who "conveyed" them bodily, and
with errors, to _Lanthorne and Candlelight_, published in 1609)
this jingle of popular Canting phrases, strung together almost at
haphazard, is the production of Robert Copland (1508-1547), the author of
_The Hye Way to the Spyttel House_, a pamphlet printed after
1535, and of which only two or three copies are now known. Copland was
a printer-author; in the former capacity a pupil of Caxton in the
office of Wynkyn de Worde.
The plan of _The Hye Way_ is simplicity itself. Copland, taking
refuge near St. Bartholomew's Hospital during a passing shower,
engages the porter in conversation concerning the "losels, mighty
beggars and vagabonds, the michers, hedge-creepers, fylloks and
luskes" that "ask lodging for Our Lord's sake". Thereupon is drawn a
vivid and vigorous picture of the seamy side of the social life of the
times. All grades of "vagrom men," with their frauds and shifts, are
passed in review, and when Copland asks about their "bousy" speech,
the porter entertains him with these lines.
Lines 2 and 4. _Bousy_ = drunken, sottish, dissipated. So Skelton
in _Elynoor Rommin_ (Harl. MSS. ed. Park, I. 416), 'Her face all
_bowsie_'. _Booze_ = to drink heavily, is still colloquial;
and, = to drink, was in use as early as A.D. 1300. Line 4. _Cove_
(or _Cofe_) = a man, an individual. _Maimed nace_
(_nase_ or _nazy_) = helplessly drunk; Lat. _nausea_ =
sickness; _cf_. line 9, '_nace gere_'. Line 5. _Teare_
(_toure_ or _towre_) = to look, to see. _Patrying cove_
(_patrico, patricove_, or _pattercove_) = a strolling
priest; _cf_. Awdeley, _Frat. of Vacabondes_ (1560), p. 6.:--
"A Patriarke Co. doth make marriages, and that is untill death depart
the married folke, which is after this sort: When they come to a dead
Horse or any dead Catell, then they shake hands and so depart, euery
one of them a seuerall way." The form _patrying cove_ seems to
suggest a derivation from 'pattering' or 'muttering'--the Pater-
noster, up to the time of the Reformation, was recited by the priest
in a low voice as far as 'and lead us not into temptation' when the
choir joined in. _Darkman_
_cace_ (or _case_) = a sleeping apartment or place--ward,
barn, or inn: _darkmans_ = night + Lat. _casa_ = house etc.:
'_mans_' is a common canting affix = a thing or place: _e.g.
lightmans_ = day; _ruffmans_ = a wood or bush;
_greenmans_ = the fields; _Chepemans_ = Cheapside market
etc. Line 6. _docked the dell_ = deflowered the girl: _dell_
= virgin; _see_ Harman, _Caveat_ (1575), p. 75:--'A dell is
a yonge wenche, able for generation, and not yet knowen or broken by
the upright man'. _Coper meke_ (or _make_) = a half-penny.
Line 7. _His watch_ = he: _my watch_ = I, or me: _cf_.
'his nabs' and 'my nabs' in modern slang. _Feng_ (A. S.) = to
get, to steal, to snatch. _Prounces nobchete_ = prince's hat or
cap: _cheat_ (A. S.) = thing, and mainly used as an affix: thus,
_belly-chete_ = an apron; _cackling-chete_ = a fowl;
_crashing-chetes_ = the teeth; _nubbing-chete_ = the
gallows, and so forth. Line 8. _Cyarum, by Salmon_--the meaning
of _cyarum_ is unknown: _by Salmon_ (or _Solomon_) = a
beggar's oath, _i.e_., by the altar or mass. _Pek my jere_
= eat excrement: _cf_. 'turd in your mouth'. Line 9. _gan_ =
mouth. _My watch_, see _ante_, line 7. _Nace gere_ =
nauseous stuff: _cf. ante_, line 4: _gere_ = generic for
thing, stuff, or material. Line 10. _bene bouse_ = strong drink
or wine.
_The Beggar's Curse_
Thomas Dekker, one of the best known of the Elizabethan pamphleteers
and dramatists, was born in London about 1570, and began his literary
career in 1597-8 when an entry referring to a loan-advance occurs in
Henslowe's _Diary_. A month later forty shillings were advanced
from the same source to have him discharged from
the Counter, a debtor's prison. Dekker was a most voluminous writer,
and not always overparticular whence he got, or how he used, the
material for his tracts and plays. _The Belman of London Bringing to
Light the Most Notorious Villanies that are now practised in the
Kingdome_ (1608) of which three editions were published in one
year, consists mainly of pilferings from Harman's _Caveat for Common
Curselors_ first published in 1566-7. He did not escape conviction,
however, for Samuel Rowlands showed him up in _Martin Mark-All_.
Yet another instance of wholesale "conveyance" is mentioned in the
Note to "Canting Rhymes" (_ante_). In spite of this shortcoming,
however, and a certain recklessness of workmanship, the scholar of to-
day owes Dekker a world of thanks: his information concerning the
social life of his time is such as can be obtained nowhere else, and
it is, therefore, now of sterling value.
_Lanthorne and Candlelight_ is the second part of _The Belman
of London_. Published also in 1608, it ran to two editions in 1609,
a fourth appearing in 1612 under the title of _O per se O, or a new
Cryer of Lanthorne and Candlelight, Being an Addition or Lengthening
of the Belman's Second Night Walke_. Eight or nine editions of this
second part appeared between 1608 and 1648 all differing more or less
from each other, another variation occurring when in 1637 Dekker
republished _Lanthorne and Candlelight_ under the title of
_English Villanies_, shortly after which he is supposed to have
died.
_"Towre Out Ben Morts"_
Samuel Rowlands, a voluminous writer _circa_ 1570-1628, though
little known now, nevertheless kept the publishers busy for thirty
years, his works selling readily for another half century. Not the
least valuable of his numerous productions from a social and
antiquarian point of view is _Martin Mark-All, Beadle of Bridewell;
his Defence and Answere to the Belman of London_ (see both Notes
_ante_).
Martin Markall delivers himself of a vivid and "originall" account of
"the Regiment of Rogues, when they first began to take head, and how
they have succeeded one the other successively unto the sixth and
twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth, gathered out of the Chronicle
of Crackropes" etc. He then criticizes somewhat severely the errors
and omissions in Dekker's Canting glossary, adding considerably to it,
and finally joins issue with the Belman in an attempt to give "song
for song". Dekker's "Canting Rhymes" (plagiarised from Copland) and
"The Beggar's Curse" thus apparently gave birth to the present verses
and to those entitled "The Maunder's Wooing" that follow.
Stanza I, line i. _Ben_ = Lat. _bene_ = good. _Mort_ =
a woman, chaste or not. Line 3. _Rome-cove_ = "a great rogue" (B.
E., _Dict. Cant. Crew_, 1690), _i.e_., an organizer, or the
actual perpetrator of a robbery: _quire-cove_ = a subordinate
thief--the money had passed from the actual thief to his confederate.
_Rom_ (or _rum_) and _quier_ (or _queer_) enter
largely into combination, thus--_rom_ = gallant, fine, clever,
excellent, strong; _rom-bouse_ = wine or strong drink; _rum-
bite_ = a clever trick or fraud; _rum-blowen_ = a handsome
mistress; _rum-bung_ = a full purse; _rum-diver_ = a clever
pickpocket; _rum-padder_ = a well-mounted highwayman, etc.: also
_queere_ = base, roguish; _queer-bung_ = an empty purse;
_queer-cole_ = bad money; _queer-diver_ = a bungling
pickpocket; _queer-ken_ = a prison; _queer-mart_ = a
foundered whore, and so forth. _Budge_ = a general verb of
action, usually stealthy action: thus, _budge a beak_ = to give
the constable the slip, or to bilk a policeman; _to budge out_
(or _off_) = to sneak off; _to budge an alarm_ = to give
warning.
_The Maunder's Wooing_
_See_ previous Note.
Stanza II, line 2. _Autem mort_ = a wife; thus Harman,
_Caveat_ (1575):--"These Autem Mortes be maried wemen, as there
be but a fewe. For Autem in their Language is a Churche; so she is a
wyfe maried at the Church, and they be as chaste as a Cowe I have,
that goeth to Bull every moone, with what Bull she careth not." Line
5. _wap_ = to lie carnally with.
Stanza IV, line 5. _Whittington_ = Newgate, from the famous Lord
Mayor of London who left a bequest to rebuild the gaol. After standing
for 230 years Whittington's building was demolished in 1666.
Stanza V, line 2. _Crackmans_ = hedges or bushes. _Tip lowr
with thy prat_ = (literally) get money with thy buttocks,
_i.e._ by prostitution.
Stanza VI, line 2. _Clapperdogen_ = (B. E. _Dict. Cant.
Crew,_ 1690) "a beggar born and bred"; also Harman, _Caveat_,
etc. p. 44:--" these go with patched clokes, and have their morts with
them, which they call wives."
_"A Gage Of Ben Rom-Bouse"_
Thomas Middleton, another of the galaxy of Elizabethan writers
contributing so many sidelights on Shakspeare's life and times, is
supposed to have been of gentle birth. He entered Gray's Inn about
1593 and was associated with Dekker in the production of _The
Roaring Girl_, probably having the larger share in the composition.
Authorities concur in tracing Dekker's hand in the canting scenes, but
less certainly elsewhere. The original of Moll Cut-purse was a Mary
Frith (1584--1659), the daughter of a shoemaker in the Barbican.
Though carefully brought up she was particularly restive under
discipline, and finally became launched as a "bully, pickpurse,
fortune-teller, receiver and forger" in all of which capacities she
achieved considerable notoriety. As the heroine of _The Roaring
Girl_ Moll is presented in a much more favorable light than the
facts warrant.
Line 11. _And couch till a palliard docked my dell_ = (literally)
'And lie quiet while a beggar deflowered my girl', but here probably =
while a beggar fornicates with my mistress.
_"Bing Out, Bien Morts"_
[See Note to "The Beggar's Curse"]. Dekker introducing these verses
affirms "it is a canting song not ... composed as those of the
Belman's were, out of his owne braine, but by the Canter's themselves,
and sung at their meetings", in which, all things considered, Dekker
is probably protesting overmuch.
Stanza V, line 3. _And wapping dell that niggles well_ = a harlot
or mistress who "spreads" acceptably.