On the contrary, it is a fact too well known, that there are many servants who rise too early, particularly those who attend to the flattery of men who sneak into houses, pretending to be in love with their charming persons, merely for the purpose of obtaining the surest mode of robbing the house, either then or in future.
There are hundreds of old women who take charge of the children of those who go out for daily hire. These Nurses drag the infants in all sorts of ways about the streets for the whole day, and sometimes treat them very ill, and, imitating the mode usually adopted by the vulgar part of nurses in families, to pacify the squalling and too often hungry infants, terrify them with a threat that Tom Poker, David Stumps, or Bonaparte, are coming to take them away. This custom of frightening children, which was practised in very early times, was made use of by the Spanish nurses after the defeat of the Armada. Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” part I, sec. 2: “Education a cause of Melancholy. There is a great moderation to be had in such things as matters of so great moment, to the making or marring of a childe. Some fright their children with beggars, bugbears, and hobgoblins, if they cry or be otherways unruly.”
Among the very few single prints published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there is one engraved on wood, measuring twenty inches by thirteen; it contains multitudes of figures, and is so great a rarity, that the author has seen only one impression of it, which is in the truly valuable and interesting collection of prints presented in the most liberal manner to the British Museum by Sir Joseph and Lady Banks.
This print, which has escaped the notice of all the writers on the Graphic Art, is entitled, “Tittle-Tattle, or the several Branches of Gossipping;” at the foot of the print are the following verses, evidently in a type and orthography of a later time:
1.
At childbed when the gossips meet,
Fine stories we are told;
And if they get a cup too much,
Their tongues they cannot hold.
2.
At market when good housewives meet,
Their market being done,
Together they will crack a pot
Before they can get home.
3.
The bakehouse is a place, you know,
Where maids a story hold,
And if their mistresses will prate,
They must not be controll’d.
4.
At alehouse you see how jovial they be,
With every one her noggin;
For till the skull and belly be full
None of them will be jogging.
5.
To Church fine ladies do resort,
New fashions for to spy,
And others go to Church sometimes,
To shew their bravery.
6.
Hot-house makes a rough skin smooth,
And doth it beautify;
Fine gossips use it every week,
Their skins to purify.
7.
At the conduit striving for their turn,
The quarrel it grows great,
That up in arms they are at last,
And one another beat.
8.
Washing at the river’s side
Good housewives take delight;
But scolding sluts care not to work,
Like wrangling queens they fight.
9.
Then gossips all a warning take,
Pray cease your tongue to rattle;
Go knit, and sew, and brew, and bake,
And leave off Tittle-Tattle.
SMITHFIELD SALOOP.
Plate XXVIII.