'Twas but to learn what female fate was sung;
If no sad maid the castle shut from light,
I heeded not the giant and the knight.
Sweet Cinderella, even before the ball,
How did I love thee—ashes, rags, and all!
What bliss I deemed it to have stood beside,
On every virgin when thy shoe was tried!
How longed to see thy shape the slipper suit!
But, dearer than the slipper, loved the foot.
As for "the streete cryes all about": according to London Lickpenny, among the street-cries in the fifteenth century were: Hot Pease! Hot Fine Oatcakes! Whitings maids, Whitings! Have you any old boots? Buy a mat! New Brooms, green brooms! with a general hullabaloo of What d'ye lack? and now and again a bawling of Clubs! to summon the tag, rag, and bobtail to a row.