* * * * * * *
Since Lydgate’s time the cries of London have been a stock subject for ballads and children’s books, of which, in various forms, some hundreds must have appeared within the last two centuries. The cuts, unless from the hand of a Rowlandson or a Cruikshank, are usually of the mechanical order; and one finds copies of the same illustrations, though differently treated, constantly reappearing.
In the books there is usually a cut on each page, with a cry printed above or underneath, and in addition a verse of descriptive poetry, which, if not of the highest order, serves its purpose.
With his machine and ass to help
To draw the frame along,
Pray mark the razor-grinder’s yelp
The burden of his song.
His patched umbrella quick aloft
He mounts if skies should lower,
Then laughing whirls his wheel full oft,
Nor heeds the falling shower.
A well-known collection is that entitled “Habits & Cryes of the City of London, drawne after the Life; P. [Pearce] Tempest, excudit,” containing seventy-four plates, drawn by Marcellus Laroon [Lauron], and republished in 1711. The first edition, with only fifty illustrations, had appeared some three-and-twenty years earlier; and many of the copper-plates in the later issue were so altered as to bring the costume into the fashion of the time of republication. The hats had their high crowns cut down into low; and shoe-buckles were substituted for laces. Otherwise the plates,—with the exception of some of the faces, which were entirely re-engraved,—were left in their original condition.[4] The letter-press descriptions are in English, French, and Italian. The engraver, Marcellus Lauron, or Captain Laroon, who was born in London, has left on record that his family name was Lauron, but being always called Laroon, he adopted that spelling in early life. Of the seventy-four plates, those representing eccentric characters, etc., are omitted from the list that follows:—
Any Card Matches or Save Alls?
Pretty Maids, Pretty Pins, Pretty Women!
“I remember,” says Hone, “that pins were disposed of in this manner, in the streets by women. Their cry was a musical distich:—
‘Three Rows a Penny pins,
Short, Whites, and Mid-dl-ings!’”
