The Pedlar.
This is his figure from Randle Holme, who describes him thus:—“He beareth argent, a crate carrier, with a crate upon his back, or; cloathed in russed, with a staffe in his left hand; hat and shoes sable.” He observes, that “this is also termed a pedlar and his pack,” and he carefully notes that the difference between a porter and a pedlar consists in this, that “the porter’s pack reacheth over his head and so answerable below; but the pedlar’s is a small truss, bundle, or fardel, not exceeding the middle of his head as in this figure.” Every reader of Shakspeare knows the word “fardel:”—
———“Who would fardels bear
To groan and sweat under a weary life,” &c.
Fardel means a burden, or bundle, or pack, and so Holme has called the pedlar’s pack. The word is well known in that sense to those acquainted with our earlier language. An Act of common council of the first of August, 1554, against “Abuses offered to Pauls,” recites, that the inhabitants of London, and others, were accustomed to make their common carriage of “fardels of stuffe, and other grosse wares and things thorow the cathedrall church of Saint Pauls,” and prohibits the abuse. There is an old book entitled, “a Fardel of Fancies;” that is, a variety of fancies fardelled or packed together in a bundle or burthen.
“Fancies” was a name for pleasant ballads, or poetical effusions;—and hence, because Orlando “hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind,” she calls him a “fancy monger.”
The Porter.
It is to be noted too, that a porter is clearly described by Holme. “He beareth vert, a porter carrying of a pack, argent, corked, sable; cloathed in tawney, cap and shoes sable. This is the badge and cognizance of all porters and carriers of burthens;” but that there may be no mistake, he adds, “they have ever a leather girdle about them, with a strong rope of two or three fouldings hanging thereat, which they have in readiness to bind the burdens to their backs whensoever called thereunto.”
The Porter’s Knot, now used,
did not exist in Randle Holme’s time. This subsequent invention consists of a strong fillet to encircle the head, attached to a curiously stuffed cushion of the width of the shoulders, whereon it rests, and is of height sufficient to bear thereon a box, or heavy load of any kind, which, by means of this knot, is carried on the head and shoulders; the weight thereof being borne equally by the various powers of the body capable of sustaining pressure, no muscles are distressed, but the whole are brought to the porter’s service in his labour of carrying.