Vol. I.—17.
London Cries.
London Cries.
“Buy a fine singing-bird!”
The criers of singing birds are extinct: we have only the bird-sellers. This [engraving], therefore, represents a by-gone character: it is from a series of etchings called the “Cries of London,” by Marcellus Lauron, a native of the Hague, where he was born in 1653. He came to England with his father, by whom he was instructed in painting. He drew correctly, studied nature diligently, copied it closely, and so surpassed his contemporaries in drapery, that sir Godfrey Kneller employed him to clothe his portraits. He likewise excelled in imitating the different styles of eminent masters, executed conversation pieces of considerable merit, and died at London in 1705. His “London Cries” render his name familiar, on account of the popularity which these performances still possess, and there being among them likenesses of several “remarkable people” of the times. “Lauron’s Cries” are well known to collectors, with whom the portrait of a pedlar, if a “mentioned print,” is quite as covetable as a peer’s.
Mr. Fenn of East Dereham, Norfolk, writing to the Rev. Mr. Granger, who was the Linnæus of “engraved British portraits,” sends him a private etching or two of a “Mr. Orde’s doing,” and says, “He is a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and is exceedingly lucky in taking off any peculiarity of person. Mr. Orde is a gentleman of family and fortune, and in these etchings makes his genius a conveyance of his charity, as he gives the profits arising from the local sale of the impressions in the University, to the originals from whom he draws his likenesses.—Randal, the orangeman, got enough by the sale of himself to equip himself from head to food: he always calls his oranges, &c. by some name corresponding to the time he sells them; as, at the commencement, Commencement oranges; at a musical entertainment, Oratorio oranges. By this humour he is known throughout the University, where he is generally called Dr. Randal. His likeness, manner, and gait, are exactly taken off.—The Clare-hall fruit-woman too is very striking, as indeed are all the etchings.”[131]
Mr. Malcolm tells of a negro-man abroad, who cried “balloon lemons, quality oranges, quality lemons, holiday limes, with a certain peculiarity, and whimsicality, that recommended him to a great deal of custom. He adventured in a lottery, obtained a prize of five thousand dollars, became raving mad, through excess of joy, and died in a few days.”
Lauron’s “London Cries” will be further noticed: in the mean time it may suffice to say, that this is the season wherein a few kidnappers of the feathered tribe walk about with their little prisoners, and tempt young fanciers to “buy a fine singing bird.”