Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896]

by John Stephen Farmer

NOTES

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.

Stanza IX, line 2. Bing out of the Rom-vile;

i.e. to Tyburn, then the place of execution: Rom-vile = London.

The Song Of The Begger

The Description of Love is an exceedingly scarce little "garland" which first appeared in 1620; but of that edition no copies are known to exist. Of the sixth edition, from which this example is taken, one copy is in the British Museum and another in the library collected by Henry Huth Esq. A somewhat similar ballad occurs in the Roxburgh Collection I, 42 (the chorus being almost identical), under the title of "The Cunning Northern Beggar". The complete title is A Description of Love. With certain Epigrams, Elegies, and Sonnets. And also Mast. Iohnson's Answere to Mast. Withers. With the Crie of Ludgate, and the Song of the Begger. The sixth Edition. London, Printed by M. F. for FRANCIS COULES at the Upper end of the Old-Baily neere Newgate, 1629.

Stanza II, line I. If a Bung be got by the Hie-law, i.e. by
Highway robbery.

The Maunder's Initation

John Fletcher(1579—1625), dramatist, a younger son of Dr. Richard Fletcher afterwards bishop of London, by his first wife Elizabeth, was born in December 1579 at Rye in Sussex, where his father was then officiating as minister. A 'John Fletcher of London' was admitted 15 Oct. 1591 a pensioner of Bene't (Corpus) College, Cambridge, of which college Dr. Fletcher had been president. Dycc assumes that this John Fletcher, who became one of the bible-clerks in 1593, was the dramatist. Bishop Fletcher died, in needy circumstances, 15 June 1596, and by his will, dated 26 Oct. 1593, left his books to be divided between his sons Nathaniel and John.

The Beggar's Bush was performed at Court at Christmas 1622, and was popular long after the Restoration.

Fletcher was buried on 29 Aug. 1625 at St. Saviour's, Southwark. 'In the great plague, 1625,' says Aubrey (Letters written by Eminent Persons, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 352), 'a knight of Norfolk or Suffolk invited him into the countrey. He stayed but to make himselfe a suite of cloathes, and while it was makeing fell sick of the plague and died.'

The High Pad's Boast

See Note to "The Maunder's, Initiation", ante.

The Merry Beggars

Little is known of the birth or extraction of Richard Brome, and whether he died in 1652 or 1653 is uncertain. For a time he acted as servant to Ben Jonson. The Jovial Crew was produced in 1641 at The Cock-pit, a theatre which stood on the site of Pitt Place running out of Drury Lane into Gt. Wild St.

Stanza I, line 5. Go-well and Com-well = outgoing and incoming.

A Mort's Drinking Song

See Note to "The Merry Beggars," ante.

"A Beggar I'll Be"

This ballad is from the Bagford Collection which, formed by John
Bagford (1651-1716), passed successively through the hands of James
West (president of the Royal Society), Major Pearson, the Duke of
Roxburghe and Mr. B. H. Bright, until in 1845 it and the more
extensive Roxburghe Collection became the property of the nation.

Stanza II, line 1. Maunder = beggar. Line 2. filer = pickpocket; filcher = thief. Line 3. canter = a tramping beggar or rogue. Line 4. lifter = a shop-thief.

Stanza IV, line 8. Compter (or Counter), King's
Bench, nor the Fleet, all prisons for debtors.

Stanza V, line 6, jumble = to copulate.

Stanza VIII, line 5. With Shinkin-ap-Morgan, with Blue-cap, or Teague = With a Welshman, Scotchman, or Irishman—generic: as now are Taffy, Sandy, and Pat.

A Budg And Snudg Song

Chappell in Popular English Music of the Olden Time says that this song appears in The Canting Academy (2nd ed. 1674) but the writer has been unable to find a copy of the book in question. The song was very popular, and many versions (all varying) are extant. The two given have been carefully collated. The portions in brackets [ ],- -for example stanza II, line 6, stanza III, lines 1—7, stanza IV, lines 5—8 etc.—only appear in the New Canting Dict. (1725). It was sung to the tune now known as There was a jolly miller once lived on the river Dee.

Title. Budge = "one that slips into a house in the dark, and taketh cloaks, coats, or what comes next to hand, marching off with them" (B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, 1690). Snudge = "one that lurks under a bed, to watch an opportunity to rob the house"—(B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, 1690).

Stanza I, line 7. Whitt= Newgate (see Note p. 204).

Stanza V, line 3. Jack Ketch, the public hangman 1663-1686.

The Maunder's Praise Of His Strowling Mort

The Triumph of Wit by J. Shirley is a curious piece of bookmaking—scissors and paste in the main—which ran through many editions. Divided into three parts, the first two are chiefly concerned with "the whole art and mystery of love in all its nicest intrigues", "choice letters with their answers" and such like matters. Part III contains "the mystery and art of Canting, with the original and present management thereof, and the ends to which it serves, and is employed: Illustrated with poems, songs and various intrigues in the Canting language with the explanation, etc." The songs were afterwards included in The New Canting Dict. (1725), and later on in Bacchus and Venus (1731).

Title. Strowling Mort = a beggar's trull:—"pretending to be widows, sometimes travel the countries … are light-fingered, subtle, hypocritical, cruel, and often dangerous to meet, especially when the ruffler is with them" (B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, 1690).

Stanza I, line 1. Doxy—"These Doxes be broken and spoyled of their maydenhead by the upright men, and then they have their name of Doxes, and not afore. And afterwards she is commen and indifferent for any that wyll use her".—Harman, Caveat, p. 73. Line 3. prats = buttocks or thighs. Line 4. wap = to copulate (also stanza IV, line i).

Stanza II, line 4. clip and kiss = to copulate.

The Rum-Mort's Praise Of Her Faithless Maunder

Obviously a companion song to the previous example: See Note ante. Rum-Mort = a beggar or gypsy queen.

Stanza I, line 1. Kinching-cove = (literally) a child or young lad: here as an endearment. Line 4. Clapperdogeon = "The Paillard or Clapperdogeons, are those that have been brought up to beg from their infancy, and frequently counterfeit lameness, making their legs, arms, and hands appear to be sore"—Triumph of Wit, p. 185.

Stanza II, line 1. Dimber-damber = a chief man in the Canting
Crew, or the head of a gang. Line 2. Palliard (See note Stanza
I). Line 3. jockum =penis. Line 4. glimmer =
fire; here, a pox or clap.

Stanza V, line 1. crank (or counterfeit-crank)—"These that do counterfet the cranke be yong knaves and yonge harlots that deeply dissemble the falling sickness".—(Harman, Caveat, 1814, p. 33). Line 1. dommerar= a beggar feigning deaf and dumb. Line 2. rum-maunder = to feign madness. Line 3. Abram-cove = a beggar pretending madness to cover theft. Line 4. Gybes well jerk'd = pass or license cleverly forged.

The Black Procession

See Note as to J. Shirley on page 209.

Frisky Moll's Song

John Harper (d. 1742), actor, originally performed at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby squires, fox-hunters, etc., proving himself what Victor calls 'a jolly facetious low comedian'. His good voice was serviceable in ballad opera and farce. On account of his 'natural timidity', according to Davies, he was selected by Highmore, the patentee, in order to test the status of an actor, to be the victim of legal proceedings taken under the Vagrant Act, 12 Queen Anne, and on 12 Nov. 1733 he was committed to Bridewell as a vagabond. On 20 Nov. he came before the chief justice of the Kings Bench. It was pleaded on his behalf that he paid his debts, was well esteemed by persons of condition, was a freeholder in Surrey, and a householder in Westminster. He was discharged amid acclamations on his own recognisance.

The Canter's Serenade

The New Canting Dictionary (1725) is, in the main, a reprint of The Dictionary of the Canting* Crew (c. 1696) compiled by B. E. The chief difference is that the former contains a collection of Canting Songs, most of which are included in the present collection.

Stanza I, line 3. palliards—see Note, p. 210, ten lines from bottom.

"Retoure My Dear Dell"

See Note to "The Canter's Serenade." This song appears to be a variation of a much older one, generally ascribed to Chas II, entitled I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.

The Vain Dreamer

See Note to "The Canter's Serenade."

"When My Dimber Dell I Courted"

See Note to "The Canter's Serenade." The first two stanzas appear in a somewhat different form as "a new song" to the time of Beauty's Ruin in The Triumph of Wit (1707), of which the first stanza is as follows:—

When Dorinda first I courted,
She had charms and beauty too;
Conquering pleasures when she sported,
The transport it was ever new:
But wastful time do's now deceive her,
Which her glories did uphold;
All her arts can ne'er relieve her,
Poor Dorinda is grown old.

Stanza I, line 4. Wap = the act of kind. Dimber dell = pretty wench—"A dell is a yonge wenche, able for generation, and not yet knowen or broken by the upright man … when they have beene lyen with all by the upright man then they be Doxes, and no Dells."— (HARMAN).

Stanza III, line 3. Upright-men—"the second rank of the Canting tribes, having sole right to the first night's lodging with the Dells."—(B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, 1696).

The Oath Of The Canting Crew

Bamfylde Moore Carew, the King of the Gypsies, born in 1693, was the son of the Rector of Bickley, near Tiverton. It is related that to avoid punishment for a boyish freak he, with some companions, ran away and joined the gypsies. After a year and a half Carew returned for a time, but soon rejoined his old friends. His career was a long series of swindling and imposture, very ingeniously carried out, occasionally deceiving people who should have known him well. His restless nature then drove him to embark for Newfoundland, where he stopped but a short time, and on his return he pretended to be the mate of a vessel, and eloped with the daughter of a respectable apothecary of Newcastle on Tyne, whom he afterwards married. He continued his course of vagabond roguery for some time, and when Clause Patch, a king, or chief of the gypsies, died, Carew was elected his successor. He was convicted of being an idle vagrant, and sentenced to be transported to Maryland. On his arrival he attempted to escape, was captured, and made to wear a heavy iron collar, escaped again, and fell into the hands of some friendly Indians, who relieved him of his collar. He took an early opportunity of leaving his new friends, and got into Pennsylvania. Here he pretended to be a Quaker, and as such made his way to Philadelphia, thence to New York, and afterwards to New London, where he embarked for England. He escaped impressment on board a man- of-war by pricking his hands and face, and rubbing in bay salt and gunpowder, so as to simulate smallpox. After his landing he continued his impostures, found out his wife and daughter, and seems to have wandered into Scotland about 1745, and is said to have accompanied the Pretender to Carlisle and Derby. The record of his life from this time is but a series of frauds and deceptions, and but little is absolutely known of his career, except that a relative, Sir Thomas Carew of Hackern, offered to provide for him if he would give up his wandering life. This he refused to do, but it is believed that he eventually did so after he had gained some prizes in the lottery. The date of his death is uncertain. It is generally given, but on no authority, as being in 1770 but 'I. P.', writing from Tiverton, in Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. IV, p. 522, says that he died in 1758. The story of his life in detail is found in the well-known, and certainly much-printed, Life and Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the earliest edition of which (1745) describes him on the title-page as "the Noted Devonshire Stroller and Dogstealer". This book professes to have been "noted by himself during his passage to America", but though no doubt the facts were supplied by Carew himself, the actual authorship is uncertain, though the balance of probability lies with Robert Goadby, a printer and compiler of Sherborne Dorsetshire, who printed an edition in 1749. A correspondent of Notes and Queries, however, states that Mrs. Goadby wrote it from Carew's dictation. [N. and Q. 2 S iii. 4; iv. 330, 440, 522],

Line 1. Crank Cuffin = Queer Cove = a rogue. Line 9. Stop-hole Abbey, "the nick-name of the chief rendezvous of the Canting Crew ".—(B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, 1696). Line 17. Abram = formerly a mendicant lunatic of Bethlehem Hospital who on certain days was allowed to go out begging: hence a beggar feigning madness. Ruffler crack = an expert rogue. Line 18. Hooker = "peryllous and most wicked Knaves… for, as they walke a day times, from house to house, to demaund Charite… well noting what they see… that will they be sure to have… for they customably carry with them a staffe of V. of VI. foote long, in which within one ynch of the tope thereof, ys a lytle hole bored through, in which hole they putte an yron hoke, and with the same they wyll pluck unto them quickly anything that they may reche therewith."—(Harman, Caveat, 1869, p. 35, 36). Line 19. Frater = "such as beg with a sham-patent or brief for Spitals, Prisons, Fires, etc."—(B. E.). Line 20. Irish toyle = a beggar-thief, working under pretence of peddling pins, lace, and such-like wares. Line 21. Dimber-damber = the chief of a gang: also an expert thief. Angler = hooker (see ante). Line 23. swigman = a beggar peddling haberdashery to cover theft and roguery. Clapperdogeon = a beggar born and bred, see note p. 210, tenth line from bottom. Line 24. Curtal—"a curtall is much like to the upright man (that is, one in authority, who may "call to account", "command a share", chastise those under him, and "force any of their women to serve his turn"), but hys authority is not fully so great. He useth commonly to go with a short cloke, like to grey Friers, and his woman with him in like livery, which he calleth his Altham if she be hys wyfe, and if she be his harlot, she is called hys Doxy."—(HARMAN). Line 25. Whip-jack = a rogue begging with a counterfeit license. Palliard = a beggar born and bred. Patrico = a hedge-priest. Line 26. Jarkman = "he that can write and reade, and sometime speake latin. He useth to make counterfaite licenses which they call gybes, and sets to seales, in their language called Jarkes. "—(HARMAN). Line 27. Dommerar = a rogue pretending deaf and dumb. Romany = a gipsy. Line 28. The family = the fraternity of vagabonds.

"Come All You Buffers Gay"

In the Roxburghe Collection (ii. 504) is a ballad upon which the present song is clearly based. It is called The West Country Nymph, or the little maid of Bristol to the time of Young Jemmy (i.e. the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's natural son). The first stanza runs—

Come all you maidens fair,
And listen to my ditty,
In Bristol city fair
There liv'd a damsel pretty.

The Potato Man

Stanza II, line 2. Cly = properly pocket, but here is obviously meant the contents.

Stanza IV, line 1. Blue bird's-eye = a blue and silk handkerchief with white spots.

A Slang Pastoral

Of R. Tomlinson nothing is known. The Dr. Byrom whose poem is here parodied is perhaps best remembered as the author of a once famous system of shorthand. He was born in 1691, went to the Merchant Taylor's School, and at the age of 16 was admitted a pensioner of Trinity College Cambridge. It was here that he wrote My time, O ye muses. He died in 1763, and his poems, no inconsiderable collection, were published in 1773.

"Ye Scamps, Ye Pads, Ye Divers"

Stanza I, line 1. The lay = a pursuit, a scheme: here = thievery and roguery in general.

Stanza IV, line 4. Like Blackamore Othello &c.—the reference is to Othello, v. 2. "Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then—put out the light."

The Sandman's Wedding

Though George Parker's name is not formally attached to this "Cantata" there would appear little doubt, from internal evidence, that it, with the two songs immediately following, forms part of a characteristic series from the pen of this roving soldier-actor. Parker was born in 1732 at Green Street, near Canterbury and was 'early admitted', he says, 'to walk the quarterdeck as a midshipman on board the Falmouth and the Guernsey'. A series of youthful indiscretions in London obliged him to leave the navy, and in or about 1754 to enlist as a common soldier in the 2Oth regiment of foot, the second battalion of which became in 1758 the 67th regiment, under the command of Wolfe. In his regiment he continued a private, corporal, and sergeant for seven years, was present at the siege of Belleisle, and saw service in Portugal, Gibraltar, and Minorca. At the end of the war he returned home as a supernumerary excise-man. About 1761 his friends placed him in the King's Head inn at Canterbury where he soon failed. Parker went upon the stage in Ireland, and in company with Brownlow Ford, a clergyman of convivial habits, strolled over the greater part of the island. On his return to London he played several times at the Haymarket, and was later introduced by Goldsmith to Colman. But on account of his corpulence Colman declined his services. Parker then joined the provincial strolling companies, and was engaged for one season with Digges, then manager of the Edinburgh Theatre. At Edinburgh he married an actress named Heydon, from whom, however, he was soon obliged to part on account of her dissolute life. Returning again to London, he set up as wandering lecturer on elocution, and in this character travelled with varying success through England. In November 1776 he set out on a visit to France, and lived at Paris for upwards of six months on funds supplied by his father. His resources being exhausted, he left Paris in the middle of July 1777 on foot. On reaching England he made another lecturing tour, which proved unsuccessful. His wit, humour, and knowledge of the world rendered him at one time an indispensable appendage to convivial gatherings of a kind; but in his later days he was so entirely neglected as to be obliged to sell gingerbread-nuts at fairs and race-meetings for a subsistance. He died in Coventry poorhouse in April 1800.

The Happy Pair and The Bunter's Christening and The Masqueraders

See note (ante) to "The Sandman's Wedding". Life's Painter etc. ran through several editions.

The Flash Man of St. Giles

Stanza II, line 7. Drunk as David's sow = beastly drunk. Grose (Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue) says: One David Lloyd, a Welshman, who kept an ale-house at Hereford, had a sow with six legs, which was an object of great curiosity. One day David's wife, having indulged too freely, lay down in the sty to sleep, and a company coming to see the sow, David led them to the sty, saying, as usual, "There is a sow for you! Did you ever see the like?" One of the visitors replied, "Well, it is the drunkenest sow I ever beheld." Whence the woman was ever after called "Davy's sow."

A Leary Mot

Stanza III, line 1. Cock and Hen Club = a free-and-easy for both sexes.

Stanza IV, line 4. Tom Cribb—see note p. 223.

"The Night Before Larry was Stretched"

Neither the authorship nor the date of these inimitable verses are definitely known. According to the best authorities, Will Maher, a shoemaker of Waterford, wrote the song. Dr. Robert Burrowes, Dean of St. Finbar's Cork, to whom it has been so often attributed, certainly did not. Often quoted in song book and elsewhere. Francis Sylvester Mahony, better known as "Father Prout" contributed to Froser's Magazine the following translation into the French.

La mort de Socrate.

Par l'Abbé de Prout, Curé du Mont-aux-Cressons, près de Cork.

A la veille d'être pendu,
Notr' Laurent reçut dans son gite,
Honneur qui lui était bien dû,
De nombreux amis la visite;
Car chacun scavait que Laurent
A son tour rendrait la pareille,
Chapeau montre, et veste engageant,
Pour que l'ami put boire bouteille,
Ni faire, à gosier sec, le saut.

"Helas, notre garden!" lui dis-je,
"Combien je regrette ton sort!
Te voilà fleur, que sur sa tige
Moisonne la cruelle mort!"—
"Au diable," dit-il, "le roi George!
Ça me fait la valeur d'un bouton;
Devant le boucher qui m'égorge,
Je serai comme un doux mouton,
Et saurai montrer du courage!"

Des amis déjà la cohorte
Remplissait son étroit réduit:
Six chandelles, ho! qu'on apporte,
Donnons du lustre à cette nuit!
Alors je cherchai à connaitre
S'il s'était dument repenti?
"Bah! c'est les fourberies des prêtres
Les gredins, ils en ont menti,
Et leurs contes d'enfer sont faux!"

L'on demande les cartes. Au jeu
Laurent voit un larron qui triche;
D'honneur tout rempli, ìl prend feu,
Et du bon coup de poign l'affiche.
"Ha, coquìn! de mon dernier jour
Tu croyais profiler, peut-être;
Tu oses me jouer ce tour!
Prends ça pour ta peine, vil traître!
Et apprends à te bien conduire!"

Quand nous eûmes cessé nos ébats,
Laurent, en ce triste repaire
Pour le disposer au trépas,
Voit entrer Monsieur le Vicaire.
Apres un sinistre regard,
Le front de sa main il se frotte,
Disant tout haut, "Venez plus tard!"
Et tout has, "Vilaine calotte!"
Puis son verre il vida deux fois.

Lors il parla de l'echaufaud,
Et de sa dernière cravate;
Grands dieux! que ça paraissait beau
De la voïr mourir en Socrate!
Le trajet en chantant il fit—
La chanson point ne fut un pseaume;
Mais palit un peu quand il vit
La statute de Roy Guillaume—
Les pendards n'aiment pas ce roi!

Quand fut au bout de son voyage,
Le gibet fut prêt en un clin:
Mourant îl tourna de visage
Vers la bonne ville de Dublin.
Il dansa la carmagnole,
Et mount comme fit Malbrouck;
Puis nous enterrâmes le drôle
Au cimetière de Donnybrook
Que son âme y soit en repos!

Stanza V, line 3. Kilmainham, a gaol near Dublin.

Stanza VI, line 7. King William, the statute of William III erected on College Green in commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne. It was long the object of much contumely on the part of the Nationalists. It was blown to pieces in 1836, but was subsequently restored.

The Song of the Young Prig

Said to have been written by Little Arthur Chambers, the Prince of Prigs, who was one of the most expert thieves of his time. He began to steal when he was in petticoats, and died a short time before Jack Sheppard came into notice. Internal evidence, however, renders this attributed authorship very improbable.

Stanza I, line 1. Dyots Isle, i.e., Dyot St., St. Giles, afterwards called George St. Bloomsbury, was a well-known rookery where thieves and their associates congregated.

Stanza II, line 3. And I my reading learnt betime From studying pocket-books. "Pocket-book" = reader.

Stanza IV, line 1. To work capital = to commit a crime punishable with death. Previous to 1829 many offences, now thought comparatively trivial, were deemed to merit the extreme penalty of the law.

The Milling Match

Tom Cribb's Memorial to Congress: With a Preface, Notes, and Appendix. By One of the Fancy. London, Longmans & Co., 1819. There were several editions. Usually, with good reason, ascribed to Thomas Moore. It may be remarked that, though the Irish Anacreon's claim to fame rests avowedly on his more serious contributions to literature, he was, nevertheless, never so popular as when dealing with what, in the early part of the present century, was known as THE FANCY. Pugilism then took the place, in the popular mind, that football and cricket now occupy. Tom Cribb was born at Hanham in the parish of Bitton, Gloucestershire, in 1781, and coming to London at the age of thirteen followed the trade of a bell-hanger, then became a porter at the public wharves, and was afterwards a sailor. From the fact of his having worked as a coal porter he became known as the 'Black Diamond,' and under this appellation he fought his first public battle against George Maddox at Wood Green on 7 Jan. 1805, when after seventy-six rounds he was proclaimed the victor, and received much praise for his coolness and temper under very unfair treatment. In 1807 he was introduced to Captain Barclay, who, quickly perceiving his natural good qualities, took him in hand, and trained him under his own eye. He won the championship from Bob Gregson in 1808 but in 1809 he was beaten by Jem Belcher. He subsequently regained the belt. After an unsuccessful venture as a coal merchant at Hungerford Wharf, London, he underwent the usual metamorphosis from a pugilist to a publican, and took the Golden Lion in Southwark; but finding this position too far eastward for his aristocratic patrons he removed to the King's Arms at the corner of Duke Street and King Street, St. James's, and subsequently, in 1828, to the Union Arms, 26 Panton Street, Haymarket. On 24 Jan. 1821 it was decided that Cribb, having held the championship for nearly ten years without receiving a challenge, ought not to be expected to fight any more, and was to be permitted to hold the title of champion for the remainder of his life. On the day of the coronation of George IV, Cribb, dressed as a page, was among the prizefighters engaged to guard the entrance to Westminster Hall. His declining years were disturbed by domestic troubles and severe pecuniary losses, and in 1839 he was obliged to give up the Union Arms to his creditors. He died in the house of his son, a baker in the High Street, Woolwich, on 11 May 1848, aged 67, and was buried in Woolwich churchyard, where, in 1851, a monument representing a lion grieving over the ashes of a hero was erected to his memory. As a professor of his art he was matchless, and in his observance of fair play he was never excelled; he bore a character of unimpeachable integrity and unquestionable humanity.

Ya Hip, My Hearties!

Stanza III, line 8. Houyhnhnms. A race of horses endowed with human reason, and bearing rule over the race of man—a reference to Dean Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726).

Sonnets For The Fancy

Pierce Egan, the author of the adventures of Tom and Jerry was born about 1772 and died in 1849. He had won his spurs as a sporting reporter by 1812, and for eleven years was recognised as one of the smartest of the epigrammatists, song-writers, and wits of the time. Boxiana, a monthly serial, was commenced in 1818. It consisted of 'Sketches of Modern Pugilism', giving memoirs and portraits of all the most celebrated pugilists, contemporary and antecedent, with full reports of their respective prize-fights, victories, and defeats, told with so much spirited humour, yet with such close attention to accuracy, that the work holds a unique position. It was continued in several volumes, with copperplates, to 1824. At this date, having seen that Londoners read with avidity his accounts of country sports and pastimes, he conceived the idea of a similar description of the amusements pursued by sporting men in town. Accordingly he announced the publication of Life in London in shilling numbers, monthly, and secured the aid of George Cruikshank, and his brother, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, to draw and engrave the illustrations in aquatint, to be coloured by hand. George IV had caused Egan to be presented at court, and at once accepted the dedication of the forthcoming work. This was the more generous on the king's part because he must have known himself to have been often satirised and caricatured mercilessly in the Green Bag literature by G. Cruikshank, the intended illustrator. On 15 July 1821 appeared the first number of Life in London; or, 'The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant friend, Corinthian Jem, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis.' The success was instantaneous and unprecedented. It took both town and country by storm. So great was the demand for copies, increasing with the publication of each successive number, month by month, that the colourists could not keep pace with the printers. The alternate scenes of high life and low life, the contrasted characters, and revelations of misery side by side with prodigal waste and folly, attracted attention, while the vivacity of dialogue and description never flagged.

Stanza III, line 10. New Drop. The extreme penalty of the law, long carried out at Tyburn (near the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park), was ultimately transferred to Newgate. The lament for "Tyburn's merry roam" was, without doubt, heart-felt and characteristic. Executions were then one of the best of all good excuses for a picnic and jollification. Yet the change of scene to Newgate does not appear to have detracted much from these functions as shows. "Newgate to-day," says a recent writer in The Daily Mail, is little wanted, and all but vacant, as a general rule. In former days enormous crowds were herded together indiscriminately—young and old, innocent and guilty, men, women, and children, the heinous offender, and the neophyte in crime. The worst part of the prison was the "Press Yard," the place then allotted to convicts cast for death. There were as many as sixty or seventy sometimes within these narrow limits, and most were kept six months and more thus hovering between a wretched existence and a shameful death. Men in momentary expectation of being hanged rubbed shoulders with others still hoping for reprieve. If the first were seriously inclined, they were quite debarred from private religious meditation, but consorted, perforce, with reckless ruffians, who played leap-frog, and swore and drank continually. Infants of tender years were among the condemned; lunatics, too, raged furiously through the Press Yard, and were a constant annoyance and danger to all. The "condemned sermon" in the prison chapel drew a crowd of fashionable folk, to stare at those who were to die, packed together in a long pew hung with black, and on a table in front was placed an open coffin. Outside, in the Old Bailey, on the days of execution, the awful scenes nearly baffle description. Thousands collected to gloat over the dying struggles of the criminals, and fought and roared and trampled each other to death in their horrible eagerness, so that hundreds were wounded or killed. Ten or a dozen were sometimes hanged in a row, men and women side by side.

The True Bottomed Boxer

The Universal Songster, or Museum of Mirth; forming the most complete collection of ancient and modern songs in the English language, with a classified Index… Embellished with a Frontispiece and wood cuts, designed by George Cruikshank etc. 3vols. London, 1825- 26. 8vo.

Stanza I, line 1. Moulsey-Hurst rig = a prize-fight: Moulsey- Hurst, near Hampton Court, was long a favorite venue for pugilistic encounters. Line 3. Fibbing a nob is most excellent gig = getting in a quick succession of blows on the head is good fun. Line 4. Kneading the dough = a good pummelling. Line 6. Belly-go-firsters = an initial blow, generally given in the stomach. Line 8. Measuring mugs for a chancery job = getting the head under the arm or 'in chancery'.

Stanza II, line 1. Flooring = downing (a man). Flushing = delivering a blow right on the mark, and straight from the shoulder. Line 5. Crossing = unfair fighting; shirking.

Stanza III, line 5. Victualling-office = the stomach. Line 6. Smeller and ogles = nose and eyes. Line 7. Bread-basket = stomach. Line 8. In twig = in form; ready.

Bobby And His Mary

[See ante for note on Universal Songster].

Stanza I, line 1. Dyot Street, see note page 222.

Stanza II, line 16. St. Pulchre's bell, the great bell of St. Sepulchre's Holborn, close to Newgate, always begins to toll a little before the hour of execution, under the bequest of Richard Dove, who directed that an exhortation should be made to "… prisoners that are within, Who for wickedness and sin are appointed to die, Give ear unto this passing bell."

Poor Luddy

Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841), the author of this song, was an actor and dramatist—an illegitimate son of Charles Dibdin the elder. He claimed to have written nearly 2000 songs.

The Pickpocket's Chaunt

Eugene François Vidocq was a native of Arras, where his father was a baker. From early associations he fell into courses of excess which led to his flying from the paternal roof. After various, rapid, and unexampled events in the romance of real life, in which he was everything by turns and nothing long, he was liberated from prison, and became the principal and most active agent of police. He was made chief of the Police de Sureté under Messrs. Delavau and Franchet, and continued in that capacity from the year 1810 till 1827, during which period he extirpated the most formidable gangs of ruffians to whom the excesses of the revolution and subsequent events had given full scope for daring robberies and iniquitous excesses. He settled down as a paper manufacturer at St. Mandé near Paris.

Of Maginn (1793-1842) it may be said he was, without question, one of the most versatile writers of his time. He is, perhaps, best remembered in connection with the Noctes Ambrosianæ, which first appeared in Blackwood, and with the idea of which Maginn is generally credited. He was also largely concerned with the inception of Fraser's. Maginn's English rendering of Vidocq's famous song first appeared in Blackwood for July 1829. For the benefit of the curious the original is appended. It will be seen that Maginn was very faithful to his copy.

En roulant de vergne en vergne [1]
Pour apprendre à goupiner, [2]
J'ai rencontré la mercandière, [3]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Qui du pivois solisait, [4]
Lonfa malura dondé.

J'ai rencontré la mercandière
Qui du pivois solisait;
Je lui jaspine en bigorne; [5]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Qu'as tu donc à morfiller? [6]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Je lui jaspine en bigorne;
Qu'as tu donc à morfiller?
J'ai du chenu pivois sans lance. [7]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Et du larton savonné [8]
Lonfa malura dondé.

J'ai du chenu pivois sans lance
Et du larton savonné,
Une lourde, une tournante, [9]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Et un pieu pour roupiller [10]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Une lourde, une tournante
Et un pieu pour roupiller.
J'enquille dans sa cambriole, [11]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Espérant de l'entifler, [12]
Lonfa malura dondé.

J'enquille dans sa cambriole
Espérant de l'entifler;
Je rembroque au coin du rifle, [13]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Un messière qui pionçait, [14]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Je rembroque au coin du rifle
Un messière qui pionçait;
J'ai sondé dans ses vallades, [15]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Son carle j'ai pessigué, [16]
Lonfa malura dondé.

J'ai sondé dans ses vallades,
Son carie j'ai pessigué,
Son carle et sa tocquante, [17]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Et ses attaches de cé, [18]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Son carle et sa tocquante,
Et ses attaches de cé,
Son coulant et sa montante, [19]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Et son combre galuché
Lonfa malura dondé.

Son coulant et sa montante
Et son combre galuché, [20]
Son frusque, aussi sa lisette, [21]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Et ses tirants brodanchés, [22]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Son frasque, aussi sa lisette
Et ses tirants brodanchés.
Crompe, crompe, mercandière, [23]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Car nous serions béquillés, [24]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Crompe, crompe, mercandière,
Car nous serions béquillés.
Sur la placarde de vergne, [25]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
II nous faudrait gambiller, [26]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Sur la placarde de vergne
Il nous faudrait gambiller,
Allumés de toutes ces largues, [27]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Et du trèpe rassemblé, [28]
Lonfa malura dondé.

Allumés de toutes ces largues
Et du trèpe rassemblé;
Et de ces charlots bons drilles, [29]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Tous aboulant goupiner. [30]
Lonfa malura dondé.

[1: Vergne, town.] [2: Goupiner, to steal.] [3: Mercandière, tradeswomen.] [4: Du pivois solisait, sold wine.] [5: Jaspine en bigorne, say in cant.] [6: Morfiller, to eat and drink.] [7: Chenu, good. Lance, water.] [8: Larton savonné, white bread.] [9: Lourde, door. Tournante, key.] [10: Pieu, bed. Roupiller, to sleep.] [11: J'enquille, I enter. Cambriole, room.] [12: Entifler, to marry.] [13: Rembroque, see. Rifle, fire.] [14: Mesisère man. Pionçait, as sleeping.] [15: Vallades, pockets.] [16: Carle, money. Pessigué, taken.] [17: Tocquante, watch.] [18: Attaches de ce, silver buckles.] [19: Coulant, chain. Montante, breeches.] [20: Combre galuché, laced hat.] [21: Frusque, coat. Lisette, waistcoat.] [22: Tirants brodanchés, embroidered stockings.] [23: Footnote: Crompe, run away.] [24: Béquilles, hanged.] [25: Placarde de vergne, public place.] [26: Gambiller, to dance.] [27: Allumés, stared at. Largues, women.] [28: Trèpe, crowd.] [29: Charlots bons drilles, jolly thieves.] [30: Aboulant, coming.]

Stanza XIII, line 5. Cotton, the ordinary at Newgate.

On the Prigging Lay

H. T. R., the English translator of Vidocq's Memoirs (4 vol., 1828-9), says of this and the following renderings from the French that they "with all their faults and all their errors, are to be added to the list of the translator's sins, who would apologise to the Muse did he but know which of the nine presides over Slang poetry." The original of "On the Prigging Lay" is as follows:—

Un jour à la Croix-Rouge
Nous étions dix à douze
(She interrupted herself with "Comme
à l'instant même.")
Nous étions dix à douze
Tous grinches de renom, [1]
Nous attendions la sorgue [2]
Voulant poisser des bogues [3]
Pour faire du billon. [4] (bis)

Partage ou non partage
Tout est à notre usage;
N'épargnons le poitou [5]
Poissons avec adresse [6]
Messières et gonzesses [7]
Sans faire de regout. [8] (bis)

Dessus le pont au change
Certain argent-de-change
Se criblait au charron, [9]
J'engantai sa toquante [10]
Ses attaches brillantes [11]
Avec ses billemonts. [12] (bis)

Quand douze plombes crossent, [13]
Ses pègres s'en retournant [14]
Au tapis de Montron [15]
Montron ouvre ta lourde, [16]
Si tu veux que j'aboule, [17]
Et piausse en ton bocsin. [18] (bis)

Montron drogue à sa larque, [19]
Bonnis-moi donc girofle [20]
Qui sont ces pègres-là? [21]
Des grinchisseurs de bogues, [22]
Esquinteurs de boutoques, [23]
Les connobres tu pas? [24] (bis)

Et vite ma culbute; [25]
Quand je vois mon affure [26]
Je suis toujours paré [27]
Du plus grand coeur du monde
Je vais à la profonde [28]
Pour vous donner du frais, (bis)

Mais déjà la patrarque, [29]
Au clair de la moucharde, [30]
Nous reluge de loin. [31]
L'aventure est étrange,
C'était l'argent-de-change,
Que suivait les roussins. [32] (bis)

A des fois l'on rigole [33]
Ou bien l'on pavillonne [34]
Qu'on devrait lansquiner [35]
Raille, griviers, et cognes [36]
Nous ont pour la cigogne [37]
Tretons marrons paumés. [38] (bis)

[1: Thieves] [2: Night] [3: Watches] [4: Money] [5: Let us be cautious] [6: Let us rob] [7: citizen and wife] [8: Awaken suspicion] [9: Cried "Thief.">[ [10: I took his watch.] [11: His diamond buckles] [12: His bank notes] [13: Twelve oclock strikes.] [14: The thieves] [15: At the cabinet] [16: Your door] [17: Give money] [18: Sleep at your house] [19: Asks his wife] [20: Says my love] [21: These thieves] [22: Watch stealers] [23: Burglers] [24: Do you not know them?] [25: Breeches] [26: Profit] [27: Ready] [28: Cellar] [29: Patrol] [30: The moon] [31: Look at us.] [32: Spies] [33: Laughs] [34: Jokes] [35: To weep] [36: Exempt, soldiers and gendarmes.] [37: Palace of justice] [38: Taken in the act]

The Lag's Lament

See Note ante, "On the Prigging Lay", The original runs as follows:—

Air: L'Heureux Pilote.

Travaillant d'ordinaire,
La sorgue dans Pantin, [1]
Dans mainte et mainte affaire
Faisant très-bon choppin, [2]
Ma gente cambriole, [3]
Rendoublée de camelotte, [4]
De la dalle au flaquet; [5]
Je vivais sans disgrâce,
Sans regout ni morace, [6]
Sans taff et sans regret. [7]

J'ai fait par comblance [8]
Giroude larguecapé, [9]
Soiffant picton sans lance, [10]
Pivois non maquillé, [11]
Tirants, passe à la rousse, [12]
Attachés de gratouse, [13]
Combriot galuché. [14]
Cheminant en bon drille,
Un jour à la Courtille
Je m'en étais enganté. [15]

En faisant nos gambades,
Un grand messière franc, [16]
Voulant faire parade,
Serre un bogue d'orient. [17]
Après la gambriade, [18]
Le filant sur l'estrade, [19]
D'esbrouf je l'estourbis, [20]
J'enflaque sa limace, [21]
Son bogue, ses frusques, ses passes, [22]
Je m'en fus au fourallis. [23]

Par contretemps, ma largue,
Voulant se piquer d'honneur,
Craignant que je la nargue
Moi que n' suis pas taffeur, [24]
Pour gonfler ses valades
Encasque dans un rade [25]
Sert des sigues a foison [26]
On la crible à la grive, [27]
Je m' la donne et m' esquive, [28]
Elle est pommée maron. [29]

Le quart d'oeil lui jabotte [30]
Mange sur tes nonneurs, [31]
Lui tire une carotte
Lui montant la couleur. [32]
L'on vient, on me ligotte, [33]
Adieu, ma cambriole,
Mon beau pieu, mes dardants [34]
Je monte à la cigogne, [35]
On me gerbe à la grotte, [36]
Au tap et pour douze ans. [37]

Ma largue n' sera plus gironde,
Je serais vioc aussi; [38]
Faudra pour plaire au monde,
Clinquant, frusque, maquis. [39]
Tout passe dans la tigne, [40]
Et quoiqu'on en juspine. [41]
C'est un f— flanchet, [42]
Douze longes de tirade, [43]
Pour un rigolade, [44]
Pour un moment d'attrait.

[1: Evening in Paris.] [2: A good booty.] [3: Chamber.] [4: Full of goods.] [5: Money in the pocket.] [6: Without fear or uneasiness.] [7: Without care.] [8: An increase.] [9: A handsome mistress.] [10: Drinking wine without water.] [11: Unadulterated wine.] [12: Stockings.] [13: Lace.] [14: Laced hat.] [15: Clad] [16: Citizen] [17: A gold watch] [18: Dance] [19: Following him in the boulevard.] [20: I stun him.] [21: I take off his shirt.] [22: I steal his watch, clothes and shoes.] [23: The receiving house.] [24: Coward] [25: Enters a shop.] [26: Steals money.] [27: They call for the guard.] [28: I fly] [29: Taken in the fact.] [30: The commissary questions him.] [31: Denounces his accomplices.] [32: Tell a falsehood.] [33: They tie me.] [34: My fine bed, my loves.] [35: The dock.] [36: They condemn me to the galleys.] [37: To exposure.] [38: Old.] [39: Rouge.] [40: In this world.] [41: Whatever people say.] [42: Lot.] [43: Twelve years of fetters.] [44: Fool.]

Stanza II, line 2. So gay, so nutty and so knowing—See Don
Juan, Canto XI, stanza …

Stanza VI, line i. Sir Richard Birnie the chief magistrate at Bow St.

"Nix My Doll, Pals, Fake Away"

Ainsworth in his preface to Rookwood makes the following remarks on this and the three following songs:—"As I have casually alluded to the flash song of Jerry Juniper, I may be allowed to make a few observations upon this branch of versification. It is somewhat curious with a dialect so racy, idiomatic, and plastic as our own cant, that its metrical capabilities should have been so little essayed. The French have numerous chansons d'argot, ranging from the time of Charles Bourdigné and Villon down to that of Vidocq and Victor Hugo, the last of whom has enlivened the horrors of his 'Dernier Jour d'un Condamne" by a festive song of this class. The Spaniards possess a large collection of Romances de Germania, by various authors, amongst whom Quevedo holds a distinguished place. We on the contrary, have scarcely any slang songs of merit. This barreness is not attributable to the poverty of the soil, but to the want of due cultivation. Materials are at hand in abundance, but there have been few operators. Dekker, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, have all dealt largely in this jargon, but not lyrically; and one of the earliest and best specimens of a canting-song occurs in Brome's 'Jovial Crew;' and in the 'Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew' there is a solitary ode addressed by the mendicant fraternity to their newly-elected monarch; but it has little humour, and can scarcely be called a genuine canting-song. This ode brings us down to our own time; to the effusions of the illustrious Pierce Egan; to Tom Moore's Flights of 'Fancy;' to John Jackson's famous chant, 'On the High Toby Spice flash the Muzzle,' cited by Lord Byron in a note to 'Don Juan;' and to the glorious Irish ballad, worth them all put together, entitled 'The Night before Larry was stretched.' This is attributed to the late Dean Burrowes, of Cork. [See Note, p. 220 Ed.]. It is worthy of note, that almost all modern aspirants to the graces of the Musa Pedestris are Irishmen. Of all rhymesters of the 'Road,' however, Dean Burrowes is, as yet, most fully entitled to the laurel. Larry is quite 'the potato!'

"I venture to affirm that I have done something more than has been accomplished by my predecessors, or contemporaries, with the significant language under consideration. I have written a purely flash song; of which the great and peculiar merit consists in its being utterly incomprehensible to the uninformed understanding, while its meaning must be perfectly clear and perspicuous to the practised patterer of Romany, or Pedler's French. I have, moreover, been the first to introduce and naturalize amongst us a measure which, though common enough in the Argotic minstrelsy of France, has been hitherto utterly unknown to our pedestrian poetry." How mistaken Ainsworth was in his claim, thus ambiguously preferred, the present volume shows. Some years after the song alluded to, better known under the title of 'Nix my dolly, pals,—fake away!' sprang into extra-ordinary popularity, being set to music by Rodwell, and chanted by glorious Paul Bedford and clever little Mrs. Keeley.

The Game Of High Toby

and

The Double Cross

See note to "Nix my Doll, Pals, etc.," ante.

The House Breaker's Song

G. W. M. Reynolds followed closely on the heels of Dickens when the latter scored his great success in The Pickwick Papers. He was a most voluminous scribbler, but none of his productions are of high literary merit.

The Faking Boy To The Crap Is Gone

The Nutty Blowen

The Faker's New Toast

and

My Mother

"Bon Gualtier" was the joint nom-de-plume of W. E. Aytoun and Sir Theodore Martin. Between 1840 and 1844 they worked together in the production of The Bon Gualtier Ballads, which acquired such great popularity that thirteen large editions of them were called for between 1855 and 1877. They were also associated at this time in writing many prose magazine articles of a humorous character, as well as a series of translations of Goethe's ballads and minor poems, which, after appearing in Blackwood's Magazine, were some years afterwards (1858) collected and published in a volume. The four pieces above mentioned appeared as stated in Tails Edinburgh Magazine under the title of "Flowers of Hemp, or the Newgate Garland," and are parodies of well-known songs.

The High Pad's Frolic

and

The Dashy, Splashy…. Little Stringer

Leman Rede (1802-47) an author of numerous successful dramatic pieces, and a contributor to the weekly and monthly journals of the day, chiefly to the New Monthly and Bentley's. He was born in Hamburgh, his father a barrister.

Some of the best parts ever played by Liston, John Reeve, Charles
Mathews, Keeley, and G. Wild were written by him.

The Bould Yeoman

The Bridle-Cull and his little Pop-Gun

Jack Flashman

Miss Dolly Trull

and

The By-Blow Of The Jug

See Note to "Sonnets for The Fancy" p. 225. Captain Macheath was one of Egan's latest, and by no means one of his best, productions. It is now very scarce.

The Cadger's Ball

John Labern, a once popular, but now forgotten music-hall artiste, and song-writer, issued several collections of the songs of the day. It is from one of these that "The Cadger's Ball" is taken.

"Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug"

The state of affairs described in this poem is now happily a thing of the past. Newgate, as a prison, has almost ceased to be. Only when the Courts are sitting do its functions commence, and then there is constant coming and going between the old city gaol and the real London prison of to-day, Holloway Castle.

The Leary Man

The Vulgar Tongue, by Ducarge Anglicus, is, as a glossary, of no account whatever; the only thing not pilfered from Brandon's Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime being this song. Where that came from deponent knoweth not.

A Hundred Stretches Hence

The Rogue's Lexicon, mainly reprinted from Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, is of permanent interest and value to the philologist and student for the many curious survivals of, and strange shades of meaning occurring in, slang words and colloquilisms after transplantation to the States. G. W. Matsell was for a time the chief of the New York police.

The Chickaleary Cove

Vance, a music-hall singer and composer in the sixties, made his first great hit in Jolly Dogs; or Slap-bang! here we are again. This was followed by The Chickaleary Cove: a classic in its way.

'Arry at a Political Picnic

The 'Arry Ballads' are too fresh in public memory to need extensive quotation. The example given is a fair sample of the series; which, taken as a whole, very cleverly "hit off" the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the London larrikin.

Stanza VIII, line 4. Walker = Be off!

"Rum Coves that Relieve us"

Heinrich Baumann, the author of Londonism en, an English-German glossary of cant and slang, to which "Rum Coves that Relieve us" forms the preface.

Villon's Good Night

Villon's Straight Tip

and

Culture in the Slums

William Ernest Henley, poet, critic, dramatist, and editor was born at Gloucester in 1849, and educated at the same city. In his early years (says Men of the Time) he suffered much from ill-health, and the first section of his Book of Verses (1888: 4th ed. 1893), In Hospital: Rhymes and Rhythms, was a record of experiences in the Old Infirmary, Edinburgh, in 1873-5. In 1875 he began writing for the London magazines, and in 1877 was one of the founders as well as the editor of London. In this journal much of his early verse appeared. He was afterwards appointed editor of The Magazine of Art, and in 1889 of The Scots, afterwards The National Observer. To these journals, as well as to The Athenaeum and Saturday Review he has contributed many critical articles, a selection of which was published in 1890 under the title of Views and Reviews. In collaboration with Robert Louis Stevenson he has published a volume of plays, one of which, Beau Austin, was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1892. His second volume of verses—The Song of the Sword—marks a new departure in style. He has edited a fine collection of verses, Lyra Heroica, and, with Mr. Charles Whibley, an anthology of English prose. In 1893 Mr. Henley received the honour of an L.L.D. degree of St. Andrew's university. At the present time he is also editing The New Review, a series of Tudor Translations, a new Byron, a new Burns, and collaborating with Mr. J. S. Farmer in Slang and its Analogues; an historical dictionary of slang.

"Villon's Straight Tip: Stanza I, line I. Screeve = provide (or work with) begging-letters. Line 2. Fake the broads = pack the cards. Fig a nag = play the coper with an old horse and a fig of ginger. Line 3. Knap a yack = steal a watch. Line 4. Pitch a snide = pass a false coin. Smash a rag = change a false note. Line 5. Duff = sell sham smugglings. Nose and lag = collect evidence for the police. Line 6. Get the straight = get the office, and back a winner. Line 7. Multy (expletive) = "bloody". Line 8. Booze and the blowens cop the lot: cf. "'Tis all to taverns and to lasses." (A. Lang).

Stanza II, line 1. Fiddle = swindle. Fence = deal in stolen goods. Mace = welsh. Mack = pimp. Line 2. Moskeneer = to pawn for more than the pledge is worth. Flash the drag = wear women's clothes for an improper purpose. Line 3. Dead-lurk a crib = house-break in church time. Do a crack—burgle with violence. Line 4. Pad with a slang = tramp with a show. Line 5. Mump and gag = beg and talk. Line 6. Tats = dice. Spot, (at billiards). Line 7. Stag = shilling.

Stanza III, line 2. Flash your flag = sport your apron. Line 4. Mug = make faces. Line 5. Nix = nothing. Line 6. Graft = trade. Line 7. Goblins = sovereigns. Stravag = go astray.

The Moral. Liner. /i>Up the spout and Charley Wag_ = expressions of dispersal. Line 2. Wipes = handkerchiefs. Tickers = watches. Line 3. Squeezer = halter. Scrag = neck.

"Tottie"

A Plank-Bed Ballad

and

The Rondeau of the Knock

G. R. Sims ("Dagonet") needs little introduction to present-day readers. Born in London in 1847, he was educated at Harwell College, and afterwards at Bonn. He joined the staff of Fun on the death of Tom Hood the younger in 1874, and The Weekly Despatch the same year. Since 1877 he has been a contributor to The Referee under the pseudonym of "Dagonet". A voluminous miscellaneous writer, dramatist, poet, and novelist, M. Sims shows yet no diminution of his versatility and power.

Wot Cher!

Our Little Nipper

and

The Coster's Serenade

Albert Chevalier, a "coster poet", music-hall artist, and musician of French extraction was born in Hammersmith. He is a careful, competent actor of minor parts, and sings his own little ditties extremely well.