Part 7

In 1711 another edition of Tempest's Cries was published, containing seventy-four plates, several of which can scarcely be called cries. They are popular "London Characters" rather than "criers." As the book, however, is extremely rare, and consequently costly, and as a history of the old London Cries would be very imperfect without a particular account of Tempest's volume being made, with a few words about Mauron, who designed, and Pearce Tempest, who engraved these cries, that which follows will not, we trust, be altogether out of place. Of Mauron, we can find no better account than the notice in Walpole.

"Marcellus Mauron--sometimes spelt Lauron, was born at the Hague in 1643, and learnt to paint of his father, with whom he came when young into England. Here he was placed with one La Zoon, a portrait-painter, and then with Flesshier, but owed his chief improvement to his own application. He lived several years in Yorkshire, and when he returned again to London he had very much improved himself in his art. He drew correctly, studied nature diligently, copied closely, and so surpassed all 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. Several prints were made from his works, and several plates he etched and scraped himself. A book on fencing, and the procession at the coronation of William and Mary, were designed by him. He lived in Bow-street, Covent-garden, on the west side, about three doors up, and at the back of Sir Godfrey Kneller's house in the Piazza; there he died of consumption March 11th, 1702."

Of Pearce Tempest, the engraver, the particulars collected by Vertue were so extremely slight that Horace Walpole merely enumerates him among those of whom nothing is known. It may be told of him, however, that he lived in the Strand, over-against Somerset House, and dying in 1717, was buried on the 14th of April, in the church-yard of St. Paul, Covent-garden.

The six woodcuts following are reduced copies of the engraved figures that appear in Marcellus Mauron _cum_ Tempest's "The Cryes of the City of London;" first we have:--

This engraving pretty well describes the occupation of the figure represented. He carries a barrel on his back--pens in his right hand, with a pint measure and funnel at his side. But since Mauron's time the cry of "_Fine Writing Ink_" has ceased to be heard in the streets of the metropolis, so we no longer hear:--

"My ink is good--as black as jet 'Tis used by Princes--and the state, If once you venture it to try, Of this I'm sure--none else you'll buy."

The demand for such an iron fork, or such a shovel as the old woman carries is now discontinued.

The man blowing a trumpet, "Troop, every one, one!" was a street seller of hobby-horses--toys for children of three hundred years ago.

"Call'st thou my love, hobby-horse; the hobby-horse is but a colt." _Love's Labour Lost_, Act iii., sc. 1.

He carried them, as represented in the engraving, in a partitioned frame, on his shoulder, and to each horse's head was a small flag with two bells attached. It was a pretty plaything for a "little master," and helped him to imitate the galloping of the real and larger hobby-horse in the pageants and mummeries that passed along the streets, or pranced in the shows at fairs and on the stage. Now-a-days we give a boy the first stick at hand to thrust between his legs as a Bucephalus--the shadow of a shadow--or the good natured grandpapa wishing to give my "young master" something of the semblance of the generous animal--for the horse is no less popular with boys than formerly, takes his charge to the nearest toyshop and buys him a painted stick on which is a sawn-out representation of a horse's head, which with the addition of a whip will enable him to:--

"Ride a cock-horse to Banbury-cross, To see what Tommy can buy; A penny white loaf, a penny white cake, And a twopenny apple-pie."

The _cries_ of singing birds are extinct; we have only bird-_sellers_. The above engraving, therefore represents a by-gone character.

In the earlier days, the above was at once a musical and a poetical cry. It must have come over the ear, telling of sunny gardens not a sparrow's flight from the City, such as that of the Bishop of Ely in Holborn, and of plenteous orchards which could spare their boughs as well as their fruit:--

"_D. of Glou._--My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there: I do beseech you send for some of them. _B. of Ely._--Marry, and I will, my lord, with all my heart." _Richard III._, act iii., sc. 4.

The "orange-women" of Ben Jonson we have figured to the life. The familiar mention of the orange-sellers in the "Silent Woman," and this very early representation of one of them, show how general the use of this fruit had become in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is stated, though the story is somewhat apocryphal, that the first oranges were imported by Sir Walter Raleigh. It is probable that about his time they first became an article of general commerce. We now consume about three hundred and fifty millions of oranges every year.

The class of bold young women--"Orange Wenches," that Nell Gwynne made famous is sufficiently alluded to in a passage in the _Spectator_, No. 141:

"But, indeed, by such representations, a poet sacrifices the best part of his audience to the worst; and, as one would think, neglects the boxes to write to the _orange-wenches_."

Rowe and other writers go far to prove that the "Orange Wenches" who frequented theatres had

"Other Fish to fry, and other Fruit to sell,"

beside supplying refreshment to the young gallants of the day.

In Douglas Jerrold's comedy of "_Nell Gwynne_," which was first represented at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 9th of January, 1833, with the following cast of characters:--

King Charles the Second MR. JONES.

Sir Charles Berkeley MR. FORRESTER.

Charles Hart, Major Mohun, Managers of the King's Theatre, Drury lane, 1667 MR. DURUSET.

Betterton, Manager of the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's-inn MR. DIDDEAR.

Joe Haynes MR. MEADOWS.

Counsellor Crowsfoot MR. BLANCHARD.

Stockfish MR. F. MATTHEWS.

Boy MASTER MACDONALD.

Nell Gwynne MISS TAYLOR.

Orange Moll MRS. KEELEY.

Mrs. Snowdrop MRS. DALY.

There is the following scene and song:--

_Enter_ NELL GWYNNE, _as orange girl, with orange basket. She carries a mask._

_Nell._ (_Sings._) "_Buy oranges!_" Ladies and cavaliers, vouchsafe to look at my basket! Maidens, ripen my fruit with your glances; buy my oranges, as bright as hope and as sweet as courtship.--Though they look as hard as gold, they'll melt in the mouth like a lover's promise.--Their juice is syrup, and their coats as thin as a poet's. Buy, gentlemen; or I'll vow that, being jealous, you hate yellow even in an orange.

_Betterton._ (_Aside._) It is--I'd swear to her face--the very girl!

_Charles._ (_Coming down with Nelly._) And have your oranges really all these virtues?

_Nell._ (_Aside._) So, my gallant mercer. All, and a thousand more;--there's nothing good that may not be said of the orange. It sets special examples to elder brothers, misers, and young travellers.

_Charles._ Aye? What example to elder brothers?

_Nell._ This; though full of age, it dwells quietly on the same branch with bud and blossom.

_Charles._ What does it teach misers?

_Nell._ That golden coats should cover melting hearts.

_Charles._ And, lastly, what may the young traveller learn of your orange?

_Nell._ This much; that he is shipped when green, that he may ripen on the voyage.

_Charles._ Prettily lectured.

_Betterton._ (_Aside._) The king seems dazzled with the wench.--I must secure her for the Duke's.

_Nell._ But, gentlemen, fair gentlemen, will no one lighten my basket? Buy my oranges!

SONG.--NELL GWYNNE.

Buy oranges!--No better sold,-- New brought in Spanish ships; As yellow bright as minted gold, As sweet as ladies' lips. Come, maidens, buy; nor judge my fruit From beauty's bait--the skin; Nor think, like fops, with gaudy suit, They're dull and crude within. Buy oranges!

Buy oranges!--Buy courtiers, pray, And as ye drain their juice, Then, cast the poor outside away, A thing that's served its use; Why, courtier, pause; this truth translate, Imprinted in the rind; However gay the courtier's state, 'Tis yet of orange kind. Buy oranges!

Buy oranges!--Coquetting fair,-- As sweet reproach come buy; And, as the fruit ye slice and share, Remember with a sigh-- A heart divided needs must cast The faith which is its soul; If, maidens, ye would have it last, Give none--if not the whole. Buy oranges!

(_The by-standers all applaud._)

The orange-woman who carried the golden fruit through every street and alley, with the musical cry of:--"_Fine Oranges and Lemons_," lasted for a century or two. Then the orange-woman became, as everything else became, a more prosaic person as she approached our own times. She was a barrow-woman at the end of the last century: and Porson has thus described her:--

"As I walked through the Strand, so cheerful and gay, I met a young girl a-wheeling a barrow; 'Fine fruit, sir,' says she, 'and a bill of the play.'"

The transformation was the same with the strawberry and cherry-women.

From the "Collection of Ancient Songs and Ballads, written on various subjects, and printed between the years MDLX. and MDCC." in the British Museum, and now known as the ROXBURGHE BALLADS, we take the ballad of:--

THE CRIES OF LONDON.

Tune--_The Merry Christ-church Bells_.

Hark! how the cries in every street Make lanes and allies ring: With their goods and ware, both nice and rare, All in a pleasant lofty strain; Come buy my gudgeons fine and new. Old cloaths to change for earthen ware, Come taste and try before you buy, Here's dainty poplin pears. Diddle, diddle, diddle dumplins, ho! With walnuts nice and brown. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Any old cloaths, suits, or coats. Come buy my singing birds. Oranges or lemons. Newcastle salmon. Come buy my ropes of onions, ho! Come buy my sand, fine silver sand. Two bunches a penny, turnips, ho! I'll change you pins for coney-skins. Maids, do you want any milk below? Here's an express from Admiral Hawke, The Admiral of renown. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Maids, have you any kitchen stuff? Will you buy fine artichoaks? Come buy my brooms to sweep your rooms. Will you buy my white-heart cabbages, ho! Come buy my nuts, my fine small nuts, Two cans a penny, crack and try. Here's cherries round, and very sound. Maids, shall I sweep your chimnies high? Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, goes the tinker's pan, With a merry cheerful sound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Here's fine herrings, eight a groat. Hot codlins, pies and tarts. New mackerel I have to sell. Come buy my Wellfleet oysters, ho! Come buy my whitings fine and new. Wives, shall I mend your husbands' horns? I'll grind your knives to please your wives, And very nicely cut your corns. Maids, have you any hair to sell. Either flaxen, black, or brown? Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Work for a cooper, maids give ear, I'll hoop your tubs and pails. Come Nell and Sue, and buy my blue. Maids, have you any chairs to mend? Here's hot spiced-gingerbread of the best, Come taste and try before you buy. Here's elder-buds to purge your bloods. But black your shoes is all the cry. Here's hot rice milk, and barley broth. Plumb-pudding a groat a pound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Here's fine rosemary, sage, and thyme. Come buy my ground ivy. Here's fatherfew, gilliflowers and rue. Come buy my knotted marjorum, ho! Come buy my mint, my fine green mint. Here's fine lavender for your cloaths. Here's parsley and winter-savory. And heart's-ease which all do choose. Here's balm and hissop, and cinquefoil, All fine herbs, it is well known. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Here's pennyroyal and marygolds. Come buy my nettle-tops. Here's water-cresses and scurvy-grass. Come buy my sage of virtue, ho! Come buy my wormwood and mugwort. Here's all fine herbs of every sort. Here's southernwood, that's very good, Dandelion and houseleek. Here's dragon's-tongue and wood-sorrel. With bear's-foot and horehound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Here's green coleworts and brocoli. Come buy my radishes. Here's fine savoys, and ripe hautboys. Come buy my young green hastings, ho! Come buy my beans, right Windsor beans. Two pence a bunch young carrots, ho! Here's fine nosegays, ripe strawberries. With ready picked salad, also. Here's collyflowers and asparagus. New prunes two-pence a pound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Here's cucumbers, spinnage, and French beans. Come buy my nice sallery. Here's parsnips and fine leeks. Come buy my potatoes, ho! Come buy my plumbs, and fine ripe plumbs. A groat a pound, ripe filberts, ho! Here's corn-poppies and mulberries. Gooseberries and currants also. Fine nectarines, peaches, and apricots. New rice two-pence a pound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Buy a rabbit, wild duck, or fat goose. Come buy a choice fat fowl. Plovers, teal, or widgeons, come buy my pigeons. Maids, do you want any small coal? Come buy my shrimps, my fine new shrimps, Two pots a penny, taste and try. Here's fine saloop, both hot and good. But Yorkshire muffins is the cry. Here's trotters, calf's feet, and fine tripes. Barrel figs, three-pence a pound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Here's new-laid eggs for ten a groat. Come buy water'd cod. Here's plaice and dabs, lobsters and crabs. Come buy my maids, and flounders, ho! Come buy my pike, my fine live pike. Two-pence a hundred cockles, ho! Shads, eels, and sprats. Lights for your cats. With haddocks, perch, and tench also. Here's carp and tench, mullets and smelts. Butter sixpence a pound. Let none despise the merry, merry cries Of famous London town.

Printed and sold at the Printing-office in _Bow-church-yard, London_.

"Holloway cheese-cakes" was once one of the London cries; they were sold by a man on horseback; and in "_Jack Drum's Entertainment_," a Comedy, 1601, in a random song, the festive character of this district is denoted:--

"Skip it and trip it nimbly, nimbly, Tickle it, tickle it, lustily, Strike up the tabor for the wenches favour, Tickle it, tickle it, lustily. Let us be seene on Hygate-Greene, To dance for the honour of Holloway. Since we are come hither, let's spare for no leather, To dance for the honour of Holloway."

Drunken Barnaby, at the "Mother Red Cap," at Holloway, found very bad company:--

_Veni_ Holloway, pileum rubrum, _In cohortem muliebrem_, _Me_ adonidem _vocant omnes_ _Meretricis_ Babylonis; _Tangunt_, _tingunt_, _molliunt_, _mulcent_, _At egentem_, _foris pulsant_.

Addison, the essayist and poet, 1672-1719, contributed a capital paper to the _Spectator_, on the subject of London Cries, which we deem so much to the purpose, that it is here reproduced _in extenso_.

THE SPECTATOR. No. 251. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18.

----_Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum, ----Ferrea vox_---- VIRG., En. 6., v. 625.

----A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, And throats of brass, inspir'd with iron lungs. DRYDEN.

There is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner, and frightens a country 'squire, than the _cries of London_. My good friend Sir _Roger_ often declares that he cannot get them out of his head, or go to sleep for them, the first week that he is in town. On the contrary, _Will Honeycombe_ calls them the _Ramage de la ville_, and prefers them to the sound of larks, and nightingales, with all the music of the fields and woods. I have lately received a letter from some very odd fellow upon this subject, which I shall leave with my reader, without saying anything further of it.

SIR,

I am a man out of all business, and would willingly turn my head to anything for an honest livelihood. I have invented several projects for raising many millions of money without burdening the subject, but I cannot get the parliament to listen to me, who look upon me forsooth as a crack, and a projector; so that despairing to enrich either myself or my country by this public-spiritedness, I would make some proposals to you relating to a design which I have very much at heart, and which may procure me a handsome subsistence, if you will be pleased to recommend it to the cities of London and Westminster.

The post I would aim at, is to be comptroller-general of the London cries, which are at present under no manner of rules or discipline. I think I am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great insight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent skill in music.

The cries of London may be divided into vocal and instrumental. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street for an hour together with the twankling of a brass kettle or a frying-pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds, as much as the breaking in of a thief. The sow-gelder's horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the liberties. I would therefore propose that no instrument of this nature should be made use of, which I have not tuned and licensed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her majesty's liege subjects.

Vocal cries are of a much larger extent, and indeed so full of incongruities and barbarisms, that we appear a distracted city to foreigners, who do not comprehend the meaning of such enormous outcries. Milk is generally sold in a note above _Ela_, and it sounds so exceedingly shrill, that it often sets our teeth on edge. The chimney-sweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he sometimes utters himself in the deepest bass, and sometimes in the sharpest treble; sometimes in the highest, and sometimes in the lowest note of the gamut. The same observation might be made on the retailers of small coal, not to mention broken glasses or brick-dust. In these therefore, and the like cases, it should be my care to sweeten and mellow the voices of these itinerant tradesmen, before they make their appearance in our streets, as also to accommodate their cries to their respective wares; and to take care in particular, that those may not make the most noise who have the least to sell, which is very observable in the venders of card matches, to whom I cannot but apply that old proverb of _Much cry, but little wool_.

Some of these last mentioned musicians are so very loud in the sale of these trifling manufactures, that an honest splenetic gentleman of my acquaintance bargained with one of them never to come into the street where he lived; but what was the effect of this contract? Why, the whole tribe of card-match-makers which frequent that quarter, passed by his door the very next day, in hopes of being bought off after the same manner.

It is another great imperfection in our London-cries, that there is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news should indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should not, however, be cried with the same precipitation as fire; yet this is generally the case: a bloody battle arms the town from one end to another in an instant. Every motion of the French is published in so great a hurry, that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likewise I would take upon me to regulate in such a manner, that there should be some distinction made between the spreading of a victory, a march, or an encampment, a Dutch, a Portugal, or a Spanish mail. Nor must I omit, under this head, those excessive alarms with which several boisterous rustics infest our streets in turnip-season; and which are more inexcusable, because these are wares which are in no danger of cooling upon their hands.

There are others who affect a very slow time, and are, in my opinion, much more tunable than the former; the cooper in particular swells his last note in a hollow voice, that is not without its harmony; nor can I forbear being inspired with a most agreeable melancholy, when I hear that sad and solemn air with which the public are very often asked, If they have any chairs to mend? Your own memory may suggest to you many other lamentable ditties of the same nature, in which music is wonderfully languishing and melodious.

I am always pleased with that particular time of the year which is proper for the pickling of dill and cucumbers; but alas! this cry, like the song of the nightingale, is not heard above two months. It would therefore be worth while to consider, whether the same air might not in some cases be adapted to other words.

It might likewise deserve our most serious consideration, how far, in a well-regulated city, those humourists are to be tolerated, who, not content with the traditional cries of their forefathers, have invented particular songs and tunes of their own: such as was not many years since, the pastry-man, commonly known by the name of the Colly-Molly-Puff; and such as is at this day the vender of powder and wash-ball, who, if I am rightly informed, goes under the name of _Powder-Watt_.

I must not here omit one particular absurdity which runs through this whole vociferous generation, and which renders their cries very often not only incommodious, but altogether useless to the public; I mean that idle accomplishment which they all of them aim at, of crying so as not to be understood. Whether or no they have learned this from several of our affected singers, I will not take upon me to say; but most certain it is, that people know the wares they deal in rather by their tunes than by their words: insomuch that I have sometimes seen a country boy run out to buy apples of a bellows-mender, and ginger-bread from a grinder of knives and scissors. Nay, so strangely infatuated are some very eminent artists of this particular grace in a cry, that none but their acquaintance are able to guess at their profession; for who else can know, _that work if I had it_, should be the signification of a corn-cutter.