| “Upon Thursdays repair To my palace, and there Hobble up stair by stair; But I pray ye take care— That you break not your shins by a stumble.” |
Thomas Britton,
The Musical Small Coal Man.
Britton was buried in the church-yard of Clerkenwell, being attended to the grave by a great concourse of people, especially by those who had been used to frequent his concerts.
To resume our argument, we may ask what chance would an aged man now have with his flattering solicitation of “Pretty Pins, pretty Women?” and the musical distich:—
| “Three-rows-a-penny, pins, Short whites, and mid-de-lings!” |
Every stationer’s or general-shop can now supply all the “Fine Writing-ink,” wanted either by clerks or authors. There is a grocer’s shop, or co-operative store at every turn; and who therefore needs him who cried aloud “Lilly white Vinegar, three-pence a quart?” When everybody, old and young, wore wigs—when the price for a common one was a guinea, and a journeyman had a new one every year; when it was an article in every city apprentice’s indenture that his master should find him in “One good and sufficent wig, yearly, and every year, for, and during, and unto the expiration of the full end and term of his apprenticeship”—then, a wig-seller made his stand in the street, or called from door to door, and talked of a “Fine Tie, or a fine Bob-wig sir?” Formerly, women cried “Four pair for a shilling, Holland Socks,” also “Long Thread Laces, long and strong,” “Scotch or Russian Cloth,” “Buy any Wafers or Wax.” “London’s Gazette, here?” The history of cries is a history of social changes. Many of the working trades, as well as the vendors of things that can be bought in every shop, are now nearly banished from our thoroughfares. “Old Chairs to mend,” or “A brass Pot or an iron Pot to mend?” still salutes us in some retired suburb; and we still see the knife-grinder’s wheel; but who vociferates “Any work for John Cooper?” The trades are gone to those who pay scot and lot. What should we think of prison discipline, now-a-days, if the voice of lamentation was heard in every street, “Some Bread and Meat for the poor Prisoners; for the Lord’s sake, pity the Poor?” John Howard put down this cry. Or what should we say of the vigilance of excise-officers if the cry of “Aqua Vitæ” met our ears? The Chiropodist has now his guinea, a country villa, and railway season ticket; in the old days he stood at corners, with knife and scissors in hand, crying “Corns to pick.” There are some occupations of the streets, however, which remain essentially the same, though the form be somewhat varied. The sellers of food are of course among these. “Hot Peascod,” and “Hot Sheep’s-feet,” are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. “Hot Wardens,” and “Hot Codlings,” are not the cries which invite us to taste of stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a charcoal fire; also roasted chesnuts, and potatoes steaming in a shining apparatus, with savoury salt-butter to put between the “fruit” when cut; the London pieman still holds his ground in spite of the many penny pie-shops now established. Rice-milk is yet sold out in halfpennyworths. But furmety, barley broth, greasy sausages—“bags of mystery,” redolent of onions and marjoram—crisp brown flounders, and saloop are no longer in request.
The cry of “Water-cresses” used to be heard from some barefoot nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had dipped her foot into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to the citizens’ breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now cultivated, like cabbages, in market-gardens. The cry of “Rosemary and Briar” once resounded through the throughfares; and every alley smelt “like Bucklersbury in simple time,” when the whole street was a mart for odoriferous herbs. Cries like these are rare enough now; yet we do hear them occasionally, when crossing some bye-street, and have then smelt an unwonted fragrance in the air; and as someone has truly said that scents call up the most vivid associations, we have had visions of a fair garden afar off, and the sports of childhood, and the song of the lark that:—
| “At my window bade good morrow Through the sweet briar.” |