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The cries of London have ever been very popular, whether as broadsides, books, ballads, or engravings. Artists of all countries and times have delighted to represent those peculiarities of costume and character which belong to the history of street-cries, and the criers thereof. Annibale Carracci—1560-1609—has immortalized the cries of Bologna; and from the time of Elizabeth to that of Queen Victoria, authors, artists and printers combined, have presented the Cries and Itinerant Trades of London, in almost numberless forms, and in various degrees of quality, from the roughest and rudest wood-cut-blocks to the finest of copper and steel plate engravings, or skilfully wrought etchings. While many of the early English dramatists often introduced the subject, eminent composers were wont to “set to music” as catch, glee, or roundelaye, all the London Cries then most in vogue,—“They were, I ween, ryght merrye songs, and the musick well engraved.”

The earliest mention of London trade-cries is by Dan John Lydgate (1370-1450), a Monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St. Edmund’s, the friend and immediate follower of Geoffrey Chaucer, and one of the most prolific writers of his age this country has produced. To enumerate Lydgate’s pieces would be to write out the catalogue of a small library. No poet seems to have possessed a greater versatility of talents. He moves with equal ease in every mode of composition; and among his minor pieces he has left us a very curious poem entitled “London Lyckpeny,” i.e., London Lackpenny: this has been frequently printed; by Strutt, Pugh, Nicolas, and partly by John Stow in “A Survey of London,” 1598. There are two copies in the British Museum, Harl. MSS., 367 and 542. We somewhat modernize the text of the former and best of these copies, which differ considerably from each other.

“O Mayster Lydgate! the most dulcet sprynge
Of famous rethoryke, with balade ryall
The chefe orygynal.”
“The Pastyme of Plasure,” by Stephen Hawes, 1509.

In “London Lackpenny” we have a most interesting and graphic picture of the hero coming to Westminster, in term time, to obtain legal redress for the wrong he had sustained, and explain to a man of law his case—“How my goods were defrauded me by falsehood,” but being without the means to pay even the preliminary fee, he was sent—“from pillar to post,” that is from one Law-court to another, but although he “crouched, kneeled, prayed for God’s sake, and Mary’s love, he could not get from one the—mum of his mouth.” So leaving the City of Westminster—minus his hood, he walked on to the City of London, which he tells us was crowded with peripatetic traders, but tempting as all their goods and offers were, his lack-of-money prevented him from indulging in any of them—But, however, let Lackpenny, through the ballad, speak for himself:—

London Lackpenny.

To London once my steps I bent,
Where truth in no wise should be faint,
To Westminster-ward I forthwith went,
To a man of law to make complaint,
I said, “for Mary’s love, that Holy saint!
Pity the poor that would proceed,”
But, for lack of money, I could not speed.
And as I thrust the prese among, [crowd]
By froward chance my hood was gone,
Yet for all that I stayed not long,
Till to the King’s Bench I was come,
Before the Judge I kneeled anon,
And prayed him for God’s sake to take heed;
But, for lack of money, I might not speed.
Beneath them sat Clerks a great rout,
Which fast did write by one assent,
There stood up one and cryed about,
Richard, Robert, and John of Kent.
I wist not well what this man meant,
He cried so thick there indeed,
But he that lacked money, might not speed.
Unto the Common-place I yode thoo, [I went then]
Where sat one with a silken hood;
I did him reverence, for I ought to do so,
And told him my case as well as I could,
How my goods were defrauded me by falsehood.
I gat not a mum of his mouth for my meed,
And, for lack of money, I might not speed.
Unto the Rolls I gat me from thence,
Before the clerks of the Chancery,
Where many I found earning of pence,
But none at all once regarded me,
I gave them my plaint upon my knee;
They liked it well, when they had it read:
But, lacking money, I could not speed.
In Westminster Hall I found out one,
Which went in a long gown of ray; [velvet]
I crouched and kneeled before him anon,
For Mary’s love, of help I him pray.
“I wot not what thou meanest” gan he say:
To get me thence he did me bede,
For lack of money, I could not speed.
Within this Hall, neither rich nor yet poor
Would do for me ought, although I should die:
Which seeing, I gat me out of the door,
Where Flemings began on me for to cry:
“Master, what will you copen or buy? [chap or exchange]
Fine felt hats, or spectacles to read?
Lay down your silver, and here you may speed.”

Spectacles to read before printing was invented must have had a rather limited market; but we must bear in mind where they were sold. In Westminster Hall there were lawyers and rich suitors congregated,—worshipful men, who had a written law to study and expound, and learned treatises diligently to peruse, and titles to hunt after through the labyrinths of fine and recovery. The dealer in spectacles was a dealer in hats, as we see; and the articles were no doubt both of foreign manufacture. But lawyers and suitors had also to feed, as well as to read with spectacles; and on the Thames side, instead of the coffee-houses of modern date, were tables in the open air, where men every day ate of “bread, ribs of beef, both fat and full fine,” and drank jollily of “ale and wine,” as they do now at a horse-race:—