Merrie England in the Olden Time, Vol. 2

The reader will find many words, grammar, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure which does not conform with modern English usage. Many of the poems were written in the 17th century and before and have been transcribed as found. DW
CONTENTS

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.