Midnight feastings are great wasters,
Servants' riots undoe masters.
When you heare this ringing bell,
Thinke it is your latest knell:
Foure a clock, the cock is crowing,
I must to my home be going:
When all other men doe rise,
Then must I shut up mine eyes."
The exceeding popularity of the Bellman of London induced Samuel Rowlands to bring out his Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell, his Defence and Answere to the Belman of London, discovering the long-concealed Originall and Regiment of Rogues when they first began to take head, and how they have succeeded, &c. Printed for John Budge, &c., 4to. 1610. The object of this publication was to expose Dekker's Bellman, which Rowlands says was only a "vamp up" of Harman's Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors; but Harman himself was only a borrower, and the origin of his work is The Fraternitye of Vacabondes, printed prior to 1565. Greene's Ground-work of Coney-catching is another work which may be pointed out as having been taken from the same original. But as these tracts do not contain any "bellman's songs," I need not now dwell upon them.
Among the many curious musical works printed in London at the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the following century, I can scarcely point out a more desirable volume than one with this title: Melismata, Musical Phansies fitting the Court, City, and Country Humours, to three, four, and five voices: