And, in propria persona, Judy, his connubial crony ! To "Sellenger's" brisk, rattling "Round," O'er roasted crabs and cakes and ale dine, and afterwards resume their sport, when Venator having caught a "gallant trout," mine hostess cooks it for their supper; then (joined by "brother Peter" and his friend) they have "a gentle touch at singing and drinking, but the last with moderation;" they tell tales, or sing ballads, or make a catch," retire in good time to rest, and lie in sheets that smell of lavender! Touching these "honest " alehouses of the olden time, what a meeting was that ("in the dangerous year 1655") between Walton and Bishop Sanderson "near to Little Britain," where the poor prelate, dressed in "sad-coloured clothes, and, God knows, far from costly, had been to buy a book which he then had in his hand." How (the two friends being loth to part!) they stood under a penthouse," and immediately the wind rose, and the rain increased so much" that they repaired to a "cleanly house," and had "bread, cheese, ale, and a fire for "their ready money," and how much to the contentment of Izaac was their talk! Coleridge pronounced Pilgrim's Progress the next best book after the Bible. Uncle Timothy prefers to that high place the Book of Common Prayer, and puts (not irreverently,) Piscator on a par with the Pilgrim. When, vexed with "man's ingratitude," a hard thought has crossed his mind, the Angler, with his Arcadian beauty and cheerful piety, never failed to restore his spirit to its hopeful, happy tone, and make it at peace with the world. A popular Country-Dance and Ballad tune. Yet full of pleasant joyousness! And Mr. Mawworm's psalms and hymns? 10 "Packington's Pound," says Whalley, seems to have been at first a Country-Dance,-probably so styled from the inventor of it,-in which the performers were 'pounded' or inclosed by each other." Nightingale, the Ballad-Singer, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, asks Cokes whether he shall sing his ballad to the tune of Paggington's" (i. e. Packington's) "Pound." ..... " The City Magnates have always been jealous of Bartholomew Fair, considering it, naturally enough! as a formidable rival to their Lord Mayor's Show. During the Commonwealth, on a certain " August, foure and twentieth eve, being the day before the Apostolick Fayre.” "Entring through Duck-lane at the Crowne, The soveraigne cit began to frowne, As if 't abated his renowne, the paint did so o'retop him, 'Downe with these dagons!' then quoth he, Jove crop him! 'I'le have no puppet-playes,' quoth he, See an old ballad (no date) entitled "The Dagonizing of Bartholomew Fayre, caused through the Lord Maiors command for the battering doune the vanities of the Gentiles comprehended in Flag and Pole appertayning to Puppet-Play." .... Or crop-ear'd Jack,12 that saint demure! 13 12 See Hall's Loathsomnesse of Long Haire, 1653. Among the Harleian Manuscripts (No. 6396) is a Parody upon Carew's beautiful Song, "Ask me no more where Jove bestows," called a Dialogue between Captain Long-haire and Alderman Short-haire, of which the following is a specimen. C. L. Ask me no more why I do waire My hair so far below myne eare: For the first man that e'er was made 'Tis that which, being largely grown, 13 "That will not smell of sin, Cut shorter than their eyebrows! when the conscience More wretches than the counters." -Ben Jonson. "Nay," quoth the cock; "but I beshrew us both, There are moral virtues whose bloom will tolerate but very little breath. The more men talk about their virtue and their religion, the less they are likely to be believed. "Perpetual use of strong perfumes," (says Bishop Hall) "argues a guiltinesse of some unpleasing savour. The With their sanctimonious visor Make this wicked world the wiser? 15 case is the same spiritually; an over-glorious outside of Profession implyes some inward filthiness that would faine escape notice." 14 "The holy page with horny fists was gall'd, And he was gifted most that loudest bawl'd." 15 Williams, Bishop of Lincoln (temp. Charles I.) asking Sir John Lambe "what sort of people these Puritans were?" Sir John replied, "that to the world they seemed to be such as would not swear, wh-(?), or be drunk; but they would lie, cozen, and deceive; that they would frequently hear two sermons a-day, &c." Hume remarks, "that that sect was more averse to such irregularities as proceed from excess of gaiety and pleasure, than to those enormities which are most destructive to society." What says honest Izaac Walton? "Of this party " (the Puritans) "there were many that were possessed of an high degree of spiritual wickedness; I mean with an innate, restless, radical pride and malice; I mean not those lesser sins which are more visible and more properly carnal, and sins against a man's self, as gluttony, drunkenness, and the like-but sins of a higher nature, because more unlike to the nature of God, which is love, and mercy, and peace, and more like the devil, (who is no glutton, nor can be drunk, and yet is a devil); those wickednesses of malice and revenge, and opposition, and a complacence in working and beholding confusion. Men whom pride and self-conceit had made to over-value their own wisdom and become pertinacious, and to hold foolish and unmannerly disputes against those men which they ought to reverence, and those laws which they ought to obey.” It was with the Puritan as with Paddy in the play, ""Tisn't whether I tell a truth Tempting treason 16 to its worst, or a lie, but whether I tell a lie or a devil of a lie! If I'm to get more kicks than coppers for telling the truth, of course I shall get more coppers than kicks for telling a lie; so here goes for a thumper!" 16 The Scotch mercenaries, who had been brought into England to fight the battles of the rebellious Parliament, and the English army were at this time (1647) crying out for their arrears of pay, which the sequestrations and compositions extorted from the royalists, the selling Irish lands, plundering the bishops' sees, &c. &c. were not suffi cient to provide for without the excise tax, which, from its novelty and oppression, was particularly unpopular. The "bonny Blue-Caps" might therefore have marched home to their "gude oatmeale, long and short kale,” as penniless as they marched from them, had not the lucky circumstance of having King Charles in their keeping enabled them to make a bargain to deliver him up to the regicides. The price was fixed at two hundred thousand pounds, which is ludicrously recorded in an old ballad entitled “The Poore Committee-Man's Accompt Avouched by Britannicus." Aug. 26, 1647. This Britannicus was one Marchamont Nedham, or Needham, a Commonwealth pamphleteer, a model of political prostitutes," as he has been very properly styled. He wrote "Mercurius Britannicus," a Grub-Street republican weekly paper-afterwards "Mercurius Pragmaticus," a royalist paper-and after that "Mercurius Politicus," which was devoted to the protectorate! This old ballad is exceedingly bitter against the northern marauders for their pride, "nastie pestilence," dissimulation and treason. |