“Mon in the mone stond and streit,
On is bot-forke is burthen he bereth,
Hit is muche wonder that he na doun slyt
For doute lest he valle he shoddreth and skereth.
When the forst freseth muche chele he byd
The thornes beth kene is hattren to-tereth
N’is no wytht in the world that wot when he syt
Ne, bote hit bee the hegge, whot wedes he wereth.”
For all this, his life seems to be very merry, for one of the Roxburghe Ballads (i. f., 298) informs us that—
“Our Man in the Moon drinks Clarret,
With powderbeef, turnep and carret;
If he doth so, why should not you
Drink until the sky looks blue.”
From whence they obtained the information it is difficult to say, but it was a well-established fact with the old tobacconists that he could enjoy his pipe. Thus he is represented on some of the tobacconists’ papers in the Banks Collection puffing like a steam-engine, and underneath the words, “Who’ll smoake with ye Man in ye Moon?” If these frequent allusions in songs and plays were not enough to remind the Londoners that there was such a being, they could see him daily amongst the figures of old St Paul’s—
“The Great Dial is your last monument; where bestow some half of the three score minutes to observe the sauciness of the Jacks[443] that are above the Man in the Moon there; the strangeness of their motion will quit your labour.”—Decker’s Gull’s Hornbook.
[402] Coryatt’s Crudities, London, 1776, p. 15, reprinted from the edition of 1611.
[403] In those early days the sign alone of a house was not thought to give sufficient publicity. Touters (crieurs) were therefore sent about town (a custom dating from the Romans.) Thus in the “Crieries de Paris,” (Barbazan, Fabliaux et Contes, vol. ii., p. 277,)—
“D’autres cris on fait plusieurs,
Qui long seraient à reciter.
L’on crie vin nouveau et vieux,
Duquel l’on donne à tater.”
These touters had their statutes and privileges granted to them by Philip Auguste in 1258, some of which are very curious.