A History of the Cries of London Part 14

But here we must pause awhile to make a pa.s.sing remark--even if it be no more than a mere wayside nod to the memory of Thomas Britton, the celebrated "Musical Small Coal Man,"--1654-1714.--to whom Britain is greatly indebted for the introduction and cultivation of concerted music, and whose influence has been indirectly felt in musical circles throughout the world:--

"Of Thomas Britton every boy And Britain ought to know; To Thomas Britton, 'Small Coal Man.'

All Britain thanks doth owe."[8]

This singular man had a small coal shop at the corner of a pa.s.sage in Aylesbury-street, Clerkenwell-green, and his concert-room! which was over that, could only be reached by stairs from the outside of the house. The facetious Ned Ward, confirms this statement, thus:--

"Upon Thursdays repair To my palace, and there Hobble up stair by stair; But I pray ye take care-- That you break not your s.h.i.+ns by a stumble."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS BRITTON, _The Musical Small Coal Man_.]

Britton was buried in the church-yard of Clerkenwell, being attended to the grave by a great concourse of people, especially by those who had been used to frequent his concerts.

To resume our argument, we may ask what chance would an aged man now have with his flattering solicitation of "_Pretty Pins, pretty Women_?" and the musical distich:--

"Three-rows-a-penny, pins, Short whites, and mid-de-lings!"

Every stationer's or general-shop can now supply all the "_Fine Writing-ink_," wanted either by clerks or authors. There is a grocer's shop, or co-operative store at every turn; and who therefore needs him who cried aloud "_Lilly white Vinegar, three-pence a quart_?" When everybody, old and young, wore wigs--when the price for a common one was a guinea, and a journeyman had a new one every year; when it was an article in every city apprentice's indenture that his master should find him in "One good and sufficent wig, yearly, and every year, for, and during, and unto the expiration of the full end and term of his apprentices.h.i.+p"--then, a wig-seller made his stand in the street, or called from door to door, and talked of a "_Fine Tie, or a fine Bob-wig sir?_" Formerly, women cried "_Four pair for a s.h.i.+lling, Holland Socks_," also "_Long Thread Laces, long and strong_," "_Scotch or Russian Cloth_," "_Buy any Wafers or Wax_."

"_London's Gazette, here?_" The history of cries is a history of social changes. Many of the _working_ trades, as well as the vendors of things that can be bought in every shop, are now nearly banished from our thoroughfares. "_Old Chairs to mend_," or "_A bra.s.s Pot or an iron Pot to mend?_" still salutes us in some retired suburb; and we still see the knife-grinder's wheel; but who vociferates "_Any work for John Cooper?_"

The trades are gone to those who pay scot and lot. What should we think of prison discipline, now-a-days, if the voice of lamentation was heard in every street, "_Some Bread and Meat for the poor Prisoners; for the Lord's sake, pity the Poor_?" John Howard put down this cry. Or what should we say of the vigilance of excise-officers if the cry of "_Aqua Vitae_" met our ears? The Chiropodist has now his guinea, a country villa, and railway season ticket; in the old days he stood at corners, with knife and scissors in hand, crying "_Corns to pick_." There are some occupations of the streets, however, which remain essentially the same, though the form be somewhat varied. The sellers of food are of course among these.

"_Hot Peascod_," and "_Hot Sheep's-feet_," are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. "_Hot Wardens_," and "_Hot Codlings_," are not the cries which invite us to taste of stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a charcoal fire; also roasted chesnuts, and potatoes steaming in a s.h.i.+ning apparatus, with savoury salt-b.u.t.ter to put between the "fruit" when cut; the London pieman still holds his ground in spite of the many penny pie-shops now established. Rice-milk is yet sold out in halfpennyworths. But furmety, barley broth, greasy sausages--"bags of mystery," redolent of onions and marjoram--crisp brown flounders, and saloop are no longer in request.

The cry of "_Water-cresses_" used to be heard from some barefoot nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had dipped her foot into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to the citizens' breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now cultivated, like cabbages, in market-gardens. The cry of "_Rosemary and Briar_" once resounded through the throughfares; and every alley smelt "like Bucklersbury in simple time," when the whole street was a mart for odoriferous herbs. Cries like these are rare enough now; yet we do hear them occasionally, when crossing some bye-street, and have then smelt an unwonted fragrance in the air; and as someone has truly said that scents call up the most vivid a.s.sociations, we have had visions of a fair garden afar off, and the sports of childhood, and the song of the lark that:--

"At my window bade good morrow Through the sweet briar."

Then comes a pale-looking woman with little bunches in her hand, who, with a feeble voice, cries "_Buy my sweet Briar, any Rosemary?_" There are still, however, plenty of saucy wenches--of doubtful morality--in the more crowded and fas.h.i.+onable thoroughfares, who present the pa.s.sengers with moss-roses, and violets. Gay tells us:--

"Successive cries the seasons' change declare, And mark the monthly progress of the year.

Hark! how the streets with treble voices ring, To sell the bounteous product of the spring."

We no longer hear the cries which had some a.s.sociation of harmonious sounds with fragrant flowers. The din of "noiseful gain" exterminated them.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WATER CARRIER. "Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?"]

This was formerly a very popular London cry, but has now become extinct, although it was long kept in vogue by reason of the old prejudices of old fas.h.i.+oned people, whose sympathy was with the complaints of the water-bearer, who daily vociferated in and about the environs of London, "Any fresh and fair spring water here! none of your pipe sludge?"--though their own old tubs were often not particularly nice and clean to look at, and the water was likely to receive various impurities in being carried along the streets in all weathers.--"Ah dear?" cried his customers, "Ah dear! Well, what'll the world come to!--they won't let poor people live at all by-and-bye--Ah dear! here they are breaking up all the roads and footpaths again, and we shall be all under water some day or another with all their fine new fandangle goings on, but I'll stick to the poor old lame and nearly blind water-carrier, as my old father did before me, as long as he has a pailful and I've a penny, and when we haven't we must go to the workhouse together."

This was the talk and reasoning of many honest people of that day, who preferred taxing themselves, to the daily payment of a penny and very often twopence to the water-carrier, in preference to having "_Company's water_" at a fixed or _pro-rata_ sum per annum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST VIEW OF THE NEW RIVER--FROM LONDON.]

This is seen immediately on coming within view of Sadler's Wells, a place of dramatic entertainment; after manifold windings and tunnellings from its source the New River pa.s.ses beneath the arch in the engraving, and forms a basin within the large walled enclosure, from whence diverging main pipes convey the water to all parts of London. At the back of the boy angling on the wall is a public-house, with tea-gardens and skittle-ground, and known as _Sir Hugh Myddleton's Head_, also as _Deacon's Music Hall_, which has been immortalized by Hogarth in his print of EVENING. But how changed the scene from what he represented it! To this stream, as the water nearest London favourable to sport, anglers of inferior note _used_ to resort:--

"Here 'gentle anglers,' and their rods withal, Essaying, do the finny tribe enthral.

Here boys their penny lines and bloodworms throw, And scare, and catch, the 'silly fish' below."

We have said above, anglers _used_ to resort, and we have said so advisedly, as that portion of the river is now arched over to the end of Colebrooke Row.

The New River, Islington, its vicinity, and our own favourite author--Charles Lamb, are, as it were, so inseparably bound together, that we hope to be excused for occupying a little of our reader's time with _Elia_--His Friends--His Haunts--His Walks, and Talk(s), particularly about the neighbourhood of:--

"----Islington!

Thy green pleasant pastures, thy streamlet so clear, Old cla.s.sic village! to _Elia_ were dear-- Rare child of humanity! oft have we stray'd On Sir Hugh's pleasant banks in the cool of the shade.

"Joy to thy spirit, aquatic Sir Hugh!

To the end of old time shall thy River be New!

Thy Head, ancient Parr,[9] too, shall not be forgotten; Nor thine, Virgin (?) Queen, tho' thy timbers are rotten."

George Daniel's "_The Islington Garland_."

Into the old parlour of the ancient "Sir Hugh Myddleton's Head"--_Elia_, would often introduce his own, for there he would be sure to find, from its proximity to Sadler's Wells Theatre, some play-going old crony with whom he could exchange a convival "crack," and hear the celebrated Joe Grimaldi call for his tumbler of rum-punch; challenging Boniface to bring it to a _rummer_! Many a gleeful hour has been spent in this once rural hostelrie. But:--"All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLEBROOKE COTTAGE.

----"to Colebrooke-row, within half a stone's throw of a cottage; endeared to me, in later years by its being the abode of 'as much virtue as can live.'" Hone, in his _Every-day Book_, Oct. 10, 1827.]

Colebrooke Row was built in 1708. Here Charles Lamb, resided with his sister Mary, from 1823 to 1826; during which period--viz, on Tuesday, the 29th March, 1825, he closed his thirty-three years' clerks.h.i.+p at the East India House. Lamb very graphically describes the event in a letter to Bernard Barton, dated September 2, 1823, thus:--

"When you come Londonward, you will find me no longer in Covent Garden; I have a cottage in Colebrooke Row, Islington--a cottage, for it is detached--a white house, with six good rooms in it. The New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking-pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; and behind is a s.p.a.cious garden, with vines (I a.s.sure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without pa.s.sage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great lord, never having had a house before."

And again, in the November following, in a letter to Robert Southey, he informs the bard, who had promised him a call, that he is "at Colebrooke Cottage, left hand coming from Sadler's Wells." It was here that that amiable bookworm, George Dyer, editor of the Delphin Cla.s.sics, walked quietly into the New River from Charles Lamb's door, but was soon recovered, thanks to the kind care of Miss Lamb.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD QUEEN'S HEAD.]

The late Mr. George Daniel, of Canonbury Square, Islington, who formerly possessed the "ELIZABETHAN GARLAND," which consists of Seventy Ballads, printed between the years 1559 and 1597; a pleasing chatty writer and great snapper-up of unconsidered literary trifles, was an old friend and jolly companion of Charles Lamb's and frequently accompanied him in his favourite walks on the banks of the New River, and to the ancient hostelries in and round-about "Merrie Islington." At the Old Queen's Head, they, in company with many retired citizens, and thirsty wayfarers, met, on at least one occasion, with Theodore Hook, indulged in reminiscences of bygone days, merrily puffed their long pipes of the true "Churchwarden" or _yard of clay_ type, and quaffed nut-brown ale, out of the festivious tankard presented by a choice spirit!--one Master Cranch,--to a former host; and in the old oak parlour, too, where, according to tradition, the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh received, "full souse" in his face, the humming contents of a jolly Black Jack[10] from an affrighted clown, who, seeing clouds of tobacco-smoke curling from the knight's nose and mouth, thought he was all on fire! fire!! fire!!!.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANONBURY TOWER.

"Here stands the tall relic, old Canonbury Tow'r, Where Auburn's sweet bard won the muse to his bow'r, The Vandal that pulls thy grey tenements down, When falls the last stone, may that stone crack his crown!"

G. Daniel's "_The Islington Garland_."]

Lamb took special delight in watching the setting sun from the top of old Canonbury Tower, until the cold night air warned him to retire. He was intimate with Goodman Symes, the then tenant-keeper of the Tower, and bailiff of the Manor, and a brother antiquary in a small way; who took pleasure in entertaining him in the antique panelled chamber where Goldsmith wrote his _Traveller_, and supped frugally on b.u.t.termilk; and in pointing to a small portrait of Shakespeare, in a curiously carved gilt frame, which Lamb would look at longingly. He was never weary of toiling up and down the winding and narrow stairs of this suburban pile, and peeping into its quaint corners and cupboards, as if he expected to discover there some hitherto hidden clue to its mysterious origin.

"What village can boast like fair Islington town Such time-honour'd worthies, such ancient renown?

Here jolly Queen Bess, after flirting with Leicester, 'Undumpish'd,' herself, with d.i.c.k Tarlton her Jester.

"Here gallant gay Ess.e.x, and burly Lord Burleigh Sat late at their revels, and came to them early; Here honest Sir John took his ease at his inn-- Bardolph's proboscis, and Jack's double chin.

From Islington, Charles Lamb moved to Enfield Chase Side, there he lived from 1827 to 1833, shut out almost entirely from the world, and his favourite London in particular.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES LAMB'S HOUSE, ENFIELD.]

Lamb, in a merry mood, writing to Novello, in 1827, says:--

"We expect you four (as many as the table will hold without squeezing) at Mrs. Westwood's _Table d'Hote_ on Thursday. You will find the _White House_ shut up, and us moved under the wing of the _Phoenix_, which gives us friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry we have none, but cleanly accommodings [_sic._] at the _Crown and Horse-shoes_.

"Yours harmonically, "C. L.

"Vincentio (what, ho!) Novello, a Squire.

66, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields."