CHAPTER I.
My friends,”—continued Mr. Bosky, after an approving smack of the lips, and “Thanks, my kind mistress! many happy returns of St. Bartlemy!” had testified the ballad-singer's hearty relish and gratitude for the refreshing draught over which he had just suspended his well-seasoned nose, *—“never may the mouths be stopped—
* “Thom: Brewer, my Mus: Servant, through his proneness to
good fellowshippe, having attained to a very rich and
rubicund nose, being reproved by a friend for his too
frequent use of strong drinkes and sacke, as very pernicious
to that distemper and inflammation in his nose. 'Nay,
faith,' says he, 'if it will not endure sacke, it is no
nose for me.'”—L' Estrange, No. 578. Mr. Jenkins.
—(except with a cup of good liquor) of these musical itinerants, from whose doggrel a curious history of men and manners might be gleaned, to humour the anti-social disciples of those pious publicans who substituted their nasal twang for the solemn harmony of cathedral music; who altered St. Peter's phrase, 'the Bishop of your souls,' into 'the Elder (!!) of your souls;' for 'thy kingdom come,' brayed 'thy Commonwealth come!' and smuggled the water into their rum-puncheons, which they called wrestling with the spirit, and making the enemy weaker! 'Show me the popular ballads of the time, and I will show you the temper and taste of the people.' *
* “Robin Consciencean ancient ballad, (suggested by
Lydgate's “London Lackpenny,”) first printed at Edinburgh in
1683, gives a curious picture of London tradesmen, &c. Robin
goes to Court, but receives cold welcome; thence to
Westminster Hall. “It were no great matter,” quoth the
lawyers, “if Conscience quite were knock'd on the head.” He
visits Smithfield, and discovers how the “horse-cowrsers'
artfully coerce their “lame jades” to “run and kick.” Then
Long Lane, where the brokers hold conscience to be “but
nonsense.” The butter-women of Newgate-market claw him, and
the bakers brawl at him. At Pye Corner, a cook, glancing at
him “as the Devil did look o'er Lincoln,” threatens to spit
him.
The salesmen of Snow Hill would have stoned him; the
“fishwives” of Turn-again Lane rail at him; the London
Prentices of Fleet Street, with their “What lack you,
countryman?” seamper away from him. The “haberdashers, that
sell hats I the mercers and silk-men, that live in
Paternoster Row,” all set upon him. He receives no better
treatment in Cheapside—A cheesemonger in Bread Street; “the
lads that wish Lent were all the year,” in Fish Street; a
merchant on the Exchange; the “gallant girls,” whose “brave
shops of ware” were “up stairs and the drapers and
poulterers of Graccchurch Street, to whom conscience was
“Dutch or Spanish,” flout and jeer him. A trip to Southwark,
the King's Bench, and to the Blackman Street demireps,
proves that “conscience is nothing.” In St. George's Fields,
“rooking rascals,” playing at “nine pins,” tell him to prate
on till he is hoarse.” Espying a windmill hard by, he hies
to the miller, whose excuse for not dealing with him was,
that he must steal out of every bushel “a peek, if not three
gallons.” Conscience then trudges on “to try what would
befall i' the country,” whither we will not follow him.
I delight in a Fiddler's Fling, and revel in the exhilarating perfume of those odoriferous garlands * gathered on sunshiny holidays and star-twinkling nights, bewailing how disappointed lovers go to sea, and how romantic young lasses follow them in blue jackets and trousers!
* “When I travelled,” said the Spectator, “I took a
particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are
come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the
common people of the countries through which I passed; for
it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted
and approved by a multitude (though they are only the rabble
of a nation), which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to
please and gratify the mind of man.”
Old tales, old songs, and an old jest,
Our stomachs easiliest digest.
“Listen to me, my lovly shepherd's joye,
And thou shalt heare, with mirth and muckle glee,
Some pretie tales, which, when I was a boye,
My toothless grandame oft hath told to mee.
Nay, rather than the tuneful race should be extinct, expect to see me some night, with my paper lantern and cracked spectacles, singing you woeful tragedies to love-lorn maids and cobblers' apprentices.” *
* Love in a Tub, a comedy, by Sir George Etherege.