Merrie England in the Olden Time, Vol. 2

* “Thom: Brewer, my Mus: Servant, through his proneness to good fellowshippe, having attained to a very rich and rubicund nose, being reproved by a friend for his too frequent use of strong drinkes and sacke, as very pernicious to that distemper and inflammation in his nose. 'Nay, faith,' says he, 'if it will not endure sacke, it is no nose for me.'”--L' Estrange, No. 578. Mr. Jenkins.

--(except with a cup of good liquor) of these musical itinerants, from whose doggrel a curious history of men and manners might be gleaned, to humour the anti-social disciples of those pious publicans who substituted their nasal twang for the solemn harmony of cathedral music; who altered St. Peter's phrase, 'the Bishop of your souls,' into 'the Elder (!!) of your souls;' for 'thy kingdom come,' brayed 'thy Commonwealth come!' and smuggled the water into their rum-puncheons, which they called wrestling with the spirit, and making the enemy weaker! 'Show me the popular ballads of the time, and I will show you the temper and taste of the people.' *

* “Robin Consciencean ancient ballad, (suggested by Lydgate's “London Lackpenny,”) first printed at Edinburgh in 1683, gives a curious picture of London tradesmen, &c. Robin goes to Court, but receives cold welcome; thence to Westminster Hall. “It were no great matter,” quoth the lawyers, “if Conscience quite were knock'd on the head.” He visits Smithfield, and discovers how the “horse-cowrsers' artfully coerce their “lame jades” to “run and kick.” Then Long Lane, where the brokers hold conscience to be “but nonsense.” The butter-women of Newgate-market claw him, and the bakers brawl at him. At Pye Corner, a cook, glancing at him “as the Devil did look o'er Lincoln,” threatens to spit him.

The salesmen of Snow Hill would have stoned him; the “fishwives” of Turn-again Lane rail at him; the London Prentices of Fleet Street, with their “What lack you, countryman?” seamper away from him. The “haberdashers, that sell hats I the mercers and silk-men, that live in Paternoster Row,” all set upon him. He receives no better treatment in Cheapside--A cheesemonger in Bread Street; “the lads that wish Lent were all the year,” in Fish Street; a merchant on the Exchange; the “gallant girls,” whose “brave shops of ware” were “up stairs and the drapers and poulterers of Graccchurch Street, to whom conscience was “Dutch or Spanish,” flout and jeer him. A trip to Southwark, the King's Bench, and to the Blackman Street demireps, proves that “conscience is nothing.” In St. George's Fields, “rooking rascals,” playing at “nine pins,” tell him to prate on till he is hoarse.” Espying a windmill hard by, he hies to the miller, whose excuse for not dealing with him was, that he must steal out of every bushel “a peek, if not three gallons.” Conscience then trudges on “to try what would befall i' the country,” whither we will not follow him.

I delight in a Fiddler's Fling, and revel in the exhilarating perfume of those odoriferous garlands * gathered on sunshiny holidays and star-twinkling nights, bewailing how disappointed lovers go to sea, and how romantic young lasses follow them in blue jackets and trousers!

* “When I travelled,” said the Spectator, “I took a particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the common people of the countries through which I passed; for it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude (though they are only the rabble of a nation), which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man.”

Old tales, old songs, and an old jest, Our stomachs easiliest digest. “Listen to me, my lovly shepherd's joye, And thou shalt heare, with mirth and muckle glee, Some pretie tales, which, when I was a boye, My toothless grandame oft hath told to mee.

Nay, rather than the tuneful race should be extinct, expect to see me some night, with my paper lantern and cracked spectacles, singing you woeful tragedies to love-lorn maids and cobblers' apprentices.” *

* Love in a Tub, a comedy, by Sir George Etherege.

And, carried away by his enthusiasm to the days of jolly Queen Bess, the Lauréat of Little Britain, with a countenance bubbling with hilarity, warbled con spirito, as a probationary ballad for the Itinerant ship, (!)

THE KNIGHTING OF THE SIRLOIN.

Elizabeth Tudor her breakfast would make

On a pot of strong beer and a pound of beefsteak,

Ere six in the morning was toll'd by the chimes--

O the days of Queen Bess they were merry old times!

From hawking and hunting she rode back to town,

In time just to knock an ambassador down;

Toy'd, trifled, coquetted, then lopp'd off a head;

And at threescore and ten danced a hornpipe to bed.

With Nicholas Bacon,1 her councillor chief,

One day she was dining on English roast beef;

That very same day when her Majesty's Grace *

Had given Lord Essex a slap on the face.

* When Queen Elizabeth came to visit Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, at his new house at Redgrave, she observed, alluding to his corpulency, that he had built his house too little for him. “Not so, madam,” answered he; “but your Highness has made me too big for my house!”

The term “your Grace' was addressed to the English Sovereign during the earlier Tudor reigns. In her latter years Elizabeth assumed the appellation of “Majesty” The following anecdote comprehends both titles. “As Queen Elizabeth passed the streets in state, one in the crowde cried first, 'God blesse your Royall Majestie!' and then, 'God blesse your Noble Grace!' 'Why, how now,' sayes the Queene, 'am I tenne groates worse than I was e'en now?'” The value of the old “Ryal,” or “Royall,” was 10s., that of the “Noble” 6s. Sd. The Emperor Charles the Fifth was the first crowned head that assumed the title of “Majesty.”

My Lord Keeper stared, as the wine-cup she kiss'd,

At his sovereign lady's superlative twist,

And thought, thinking truly his larder would squeak,

He'd much rather keep her a day than a week.

“What call you this dainty, my very good lord?”--

“The Loin,”--bowing low till his nose touch'd the