This will be found in “Windsor Drollery,” and, with music for three voices, by Thomas Holmes, in John Hilton’s “Catch that Catch Can;” and also Walsh’s “Catch Club.” Part II., p. 25.
| “Have you observ’d the wench in the street, She’s scarce any hose or shoes to her feet; And when she cries, she sings, ‘I have hot Codlings, hot Codlings.’ “Or have you ever seen or heard, The mortal with his Lyon tauny beard! He lives as merrily as heart can wish, And still he cries, ‘Buy a brush, buy a brush.’ “Since these are merry, why should we take care? Musicians, like Camelions, must live by the Aire; Then let’s be blithe and bonny, no good meeting baulk, What though we have no money, we shall find Chalk.” |
The best known collection of cries is “The Cryes of the City of London. Drawne after the Life. P. Tempest, Excudit,” a small folio volume, which when published, in 1688, consisted of only fifty plates, as the following advertisement, extracted from the London Gazette of May 28-31, 1688, sufficiently proves:—
“There is now published the Cryes and Habits of London, lately drawn after the Life in great variety of Actions. Curiously Engraven upon 50 Copper plates, fit for the Ingenious and Lovers of Art. Printed and Sold by P. Tempest, over-against Somerset House, in the Strand.”
Samuel Pepys, the eccentric diarist, who died 1703, left to Magdalene College, Cambridge, an invaluable collection of ballads, manuscript naval memoirs, ancient English poetry, three volumes of “Penny Merriments,” and a numerous assemblage of etchings and engravings. Among the latter are a number of Tempest’s Cries in the first state. These are still preserved in the Pepysian Library in the same College.
In 1711 another edition of Tempest’s Cries was published, containing seventy-four plates, several of which can scarcely be called cries. They are popular “London Characters” rather than “criers.” As the book, however, is extremely rare, and consequently costly, and as a history of the old London Cries would be very imperfect without a particular account of Tempest’s volume being made, with a few words about Mauron, who designed, and Pearce Tempest, who engraved these cries, that which follows will not, we trust, be altogether out of place. Of Mauron, we can find no better account than the notice in Walpole.
“Marcellus Mauron—sometimes spelt Lauron, was born at the Hague in 1643, and learnt to paint of his father, with whom he came when young into England. Here he was placed with one La Zoon, a portrait-painter, and then with Flesshier, but owed his chief improvement to his own application. He lived several years in Yorkshire, and when he returned again to London he had very much improved himself in his art. He drew correctly, studied nature diligently, copied closely, and so surpassed all his contemporaries in drapery, that Sir Godfrey Kneller employed him to clothe his portraits. He likewise excelled in imitating the different styles of eminent masters, executed conversation pieces of considerable merit. Several prints were made from his works, and several plates he etched and scraped himself. A book on fencing, and the procession at the coronation of William and Mary, were designed by him. He lived in Bow-street, Covent-garden, on the west side, about three doors up, and at the back of Sir Godfrey Kneller’s house in the Piazza; there he died of consumption March 11th, 1702.”
Of Pearce Tempest, the engraver, the particulars collected by Vertue were so extremely slight that Horace Walpole merely enumerates him among those of whom nothing is known. It may be told of him, however, that he lived in the Strand, over-against Somerset House, and dying in 1717, was buried on the 14th of April, in the church-yard of St. Paul, Covent-garden.
The six woodcuts following are reduced copies of the engraved figures that appear in Marcellus Mauron cum Tempest’s “The Cryes of the City of London;” first we have:—