* A precept of the Koran.
“And thieves too, from Mercury downwards, Uncle Timothy.”
“Conveyancers, sirrah! sworn under the Horns never to beg when they can steal. Better lose my purse than my patience. Thou, scapegrace! rob best me of my patience, and beggest nought but the question.”
“Were not the beggars once a jovial crew, sir?” addressing ourselves to the middle-aged gentleman with the satirical nose.
“Right merry! Gentlemen—
'Sweeter than honey
Is other men's money.'
“The joys of to-day were never marred by the cares of to-morrow; for to-morrow was left to take care of itself; and its sun seldom went down upon disappointment. The beggar, * though his pockets be so low, that you might dance a jig in one of them without breaking your shins against a halfpenny; while from the other you might be puzzled to extract as much coin as would pay turnpike for a walking-stick, sings with a light heart; his fingers no less light! playing administrators to the farmer's poultry, and the good housewife's sheets that whiten every hedge!
* “Cast our nabs and cares away,—
This is Beggars' Holiday;
In the world look out and see
Who's so happy a king as he?
At the crowning of our king,
Thus we ever dance and sing.
Where's the nation lives so free
And so merry as do we?
Be it peace, or be it war,
Here at liberty we are.
Hang all Harmanbccks! we cry,
And the Cuffinquiers, too, by.
We enjoy our ease and rest,
To the fields we are not press'd;
When the subsidy's increas'd,
We are not a penny cost;
Nor are we called into town
To be troubled with a gown;
Nor will any go to law
With a beggar for a straw.
All which happiness he brags
He doth owe unto his rags!”
Of all the mad rascals that belong to this fraternity, the
Abraham-Man is the most fantastic. He calls himself by
the name of Poor Tom, and, coming near to any one, cries
out “Poor Tom's a-cold!” Some are exceedingly merry, and do
nothing but sing songs, fashioned out of their own brains;
some will dance; others will do nothing but laugh or weep;
others are dogged, and so sullen, both in look and speech,
that, spying but small company in a house, they boldly
enter, compelling the servants, through fear, to give them
what they demand, which is commonly something that will
yield ready money. The “Upright Man” (who in ancient times
was, next to the king and those “o' th' blood,” in dignity,)
is not a more terrible enemy to the farmer's poultry than
Poor Tom.
How finely has Shakspeare spiritualized this strange
character in the part of Edgar in King Lear!
The middle aisle of old St. Paul's was a great resort for
beggars.
“In Paul's Church, by a pillar,
Sometimes ye have me stand, sir,
With a writ that shews
What care and woes
I pass by sea and land, sir.
With a seeming bursten belly,
I look like one half dead, sir,
Or else I beg With a wooden leg,
And with a night-cap on my head, sir.”
Blind Beggars Song.
Wit and Drollery. Jovial Poems. 1682.
Mendicity is a monarchy; it is governed by peculiar laws, and has a language of its own. Reform has waged war to the knife with it. The soap-eater, whose ingenious calling was practised in the streets of London as far back as Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, is admonished to apply the raw material of his trade to an exterior use; * and the tatterdemalions of the Beggar's Opera no longer enjoy the privileges that belonged to their ancestors three centuries ago, when the Barbican, Turnmill Street, and Houndsditch, rang with their nocturnal orgies; and where not unfrequently “an alderman hung in chains” gratified their delicate appetites; as in more recent times,