“catch the manners dying as they fall.”
I have lived through the extremity of one age, into the beginning of another, and I believe a better; yet the former has been too much detracted: every thing new is not, therefore, good; nor was every thing old, bad. When I was a boy, I speak of just after the French revolution broke out, my admiration and taste were pure and natural, and one of my favourites at all times, and in cherry-time especially, was the London barrow-woman. There are no barrow-women now. They are quite “gone out,” or, rather, they have been “put down,” and by many they are not even missed. Look around; there is not one to be seen.
In those days there were women on the earth; finely grown, every way well-proportioned, handsome, and in stature like Mrs. Siddons. I speak of London women. Let not the ladies of the metropolis conceive offence, if I maintain that some of their mothers, and more among their grandmothers, were taller and more robust than they. That they are otherwise may not be in their eyes a misfortune; should they, however, think it so “their schools are more in fault than they.” Be that as it may, I am merely stating a fact. They have declined in personal elevation, as they have increased in moral elevation.
At that time lived the London barrow-woman:—
Her hair loose curl’d, the rest tuck’d up between
Her neatly frill’d mob-cap, was scarcely seen;
A black chip-hat, peculiarly her own,
With ribbon puff’d around the small flat crown
Pinn’d to her head-dress, gave her blooming face
A jaunty openness and winning grace.
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On her legs were “women’s blacks,” or, in dry sunny weather, as at this season, stockings of white cotton, with black high-heeled shoes, and a pair of bright sparkling buckles; tight lacing distended her hips, which were further enlarged by her flowered cotton or chintz gown being drawn through the pocket-holes to balloon out behind, and display a quilted glazed petticoat of black or pink stuff, terminating about four inches above the ancles; she wore on her bosom, which was not so confined as to injure its fullness, a light gauze or muslin kerchief. This was her full dress, as she rolled through the street, and cried—
“Round and sound,
Two-pence a pound,
Cherries! rare ripe cherries!”
“Green and ripe gooseberries! amber-berries! ripe amber-berries!” “Currants! rare ripe currants!” ending, as she began, with cherries:—
“Cherries a ha’penny a stick!
Come and pick! come and pick
Cherries! big as plums!
Who comes? who comes?”