the my camsance St arm a

Armance in the twin Time Te Sezona per i de fetale vas GL The mes na pas ever taken 227 T : semKair at vi he, in we put a Taff Greenock, Anse of the new Test Edesty and LACK, Xia waza then seemed the crester A & me car. Mr: Wan his Mewnia of Java Wet, teates an anecdote of the trope

Mr Was entered in occversation with the engineer of the boat pemme pas to hum the method of waiting the ente With a footre he demonstrated to him what was meant Not wreeding, however, be at last, under the impulse of the ruling passion, threw off his overcat, and putting his hand to the engine himself, shewed the practical application of his lecture. Previously to this, the back-stroke of the steamboat engine was either unknown, or not generally acted on. The practice was to stop the engine entirely, a considerable time before the vessel reached the point of mooring, in order to allow for the gradual and natural diminution of her speed.'

in the building-yard of John and Charles Wood, Port-Glasgow, during the previous winter, at the instance of the above-mentioned Henry Hell, who was a simple uneducated man, of an inventive and speculative turn of mind, who amused himself with projects, while his more practical wife kept a hotel and suite of baths

It is a great pity that Henry Bell's Comet was not preserved, which it would have been entitled to be, as a curiosity. It was wrecked one day, by running ashore on the

on

The

Highland coast, when Bell himself was board-no lives, however, being lost. annexed representation of the proto-steamer of Europe, was obtained by Mr Williamson, from an original drawing which had been in the possession of Henry Bell, and was marked with his signature.

BALLAD-SINGERS AND GRUB-STREET POETS.

It was in reality Montaigne, who made the shrewd but now somewhat musty remark: 'Let me have the making of a nation's ballads, and I care little who makes its laws.' The old Frenchman had observed the powerful effect of caustic satire wedded to popular tunes. It has been told, with truth, how Lilliburlero gave the finishingstroke to the Great Revolution of 1688, and 'sung King James II. out of his three kingdoms;' and it is equally historic, that Béranger was a power in the state, seriously damaging to the stability of the restored Bourbon dynasty.

It

Shakspeare has happily delineated the popular love of ballads, in the sheep-shearer's feast-scene of The Winter's Tale. The rustics love 'a ballad in print,' for then they are sure they are true;' and listen with easy credulity to those which tell of 'strange fish,' and stranger monstrosities. must not be imagined that Autolycus's pack contains caricatured resemblances of popular ballads; for the Roxburghe, Pepysian, and other collections, preserve specimens of lyrics, seriously published and sold, which are quite as absurd as anything mentioned by Shakspeare. In the British Museum is one entitled Pride's Fall: or a Warning for all English Women, by the example of a Strange Monster, lately born in Germany, by a Merchant's proud Wife at Geneva; which is adorned with a grim woodcut of the monster, and is intended to frighten women from extravagant fashions in dress.

'From the head to the foot
Monster-like was it born,
Every part had the shape

Of Fashions daily worn.'

The moral of the story is, that all women should 'take heed of wanton pride,' and remember that this sin is rapidly bringing forth a day of judgment, and the end of the world. Such moralities were like the ballad of Autolycus, 'written to a very doleful tune,' and chanted by a blind fiddler to an equally doleful fiddle. Shakspeare has expressed his contempt for the literary merits of these effusions, when he makes Benedick speak of picking out his eyes with a ballad-maker's pen; but the pages Percy, Ritson, and Evans are sufficient to establish the claim of many balladists to attention and respect, for the simple imagery and natural beauty of their effusions.

Gifford says, 'in Jonson's time, scarcely any ballad was printed without a wood-cut illustrative of its subject. If it was a ballad of "pure love," or of "good life," which afforded no scope for the graphic talents of the Grub-Street Apelles, the portrait of "good Queen Elizabeth," magnificently adorned with the globe and sceptre, formed no unwelcome substitute for her loyal subjects.' Ballad-buyers were fond of seeing these familiar wood-cuts, they were 'old favourites,' and so wellworn by printers, that it is not unusual to find cuts, evidently executed in the days of James I., worked by ballad-printers during the reign of Anne; so indestructible were the coarse old woodengravings which were then used to adorn' the doleful tragedies,' or 'merry new ballads' of the Grub-Street school of sentiment.

The constables kept a wary eye on the political or immoral ballad-singer of London; but Chettle,

GRUB-STREET POETS.

in Kind Heart's Dream, 1592, notes 'that idle, upstart generation of ballad-singers,' who ramble in the outskirts, and are able to spread more pamphlets, by the state forbidden, than all the booksellers in London; for only in this city is straight search; abroad, small suspicion; especially of such petty pedlars.' A dozen groats' worth of ballads is said to be their stock in trade; but they all dealt in the pamphlets of a few leaves, that were industriously concocted on all popular subjects by the hack-writers of the day.

In the curious view of the interior of the Royal Exchange, executed by Hollar in 1644, and depicting its aspect when crowded by merchants and visitors, we see one of these itinerant ballad and pamphlet mongers plying her trade among the

the story.

The great Civil War was a prolific source of balladwriting and pamphleteering. It would not be easy to carry libel to greater length than it was then carried, and especially by ballad-singers. These 'waifs and strays,' many of them being the productions of men of some literary eminence, have been gathered into volumes, affording most vivid reminiscences of the strong party-hatred of the time. The earliest of these collections was published in 1660, and is entitled Ratts Rhimed to Death: or, the Rump-parliament hang'd up in the Shambles the title sufficiently indicating the violent character of the songs, gathered under this strange heading. They were formerly printed on loose sheets,' says the collector to the reader; adding, I hope you will pardon the ill tunes to which they are to be sung, there being none bad enough for them. Most of them are too coarse for modern quotation; the spirit of all may be gathered from the opening stanza of one:

'Since sixteen hundred forty and odd,
We have soundly been lash'd with our own rod,
And have bow'd ourselves down at a tyrant's nod-
Which nobody can deny.'

The violent personality of others may be understood in reading a few stanzas of A Hymn to the Gentle Craft, or Hewson's Lamentation. Colonel Hewson was one of Cromwell's most active officers, and said to have originally been a shoemaker; he had by accident lost an eye.

'Listen awhile to what I shall say,

Of a blind cobbler that's gone astray,
Out of the parliament's highway.

Good people, pity the blind!

His name you wot well is Sir John Hewson,
Whom I intend to set my muse on,
As great a warrior as Sir Miles Lewson.

Good people, pity the blind!

He'd now give all the shoes in his shop,
The parliament's fury for to stop,
Whip cobbler, like any town-top.

Good people, pity the blind!

Oliver made him a famous lord,
That he forgot his cutting-board;
But now his thread 's twisted to a cord.

Good people, pity the blind!

Sing hi, ho, Hewson !-the state ne'er went upright, Since cobblers could pray, preach, govern, and fight; We shall see what they'll do now you're out of sight.

Good people, pity the blind!'

GRUB-STREET POETS.

the hangings in the Houses of Parliament, and wainscot the rooms; one stanza of this ditty we give as a sample of the whole : 'Come, buy the old tapestry-hangings Which hung in the House of Lords, That kept the Spanish invasion And powder plot on records: A musty old Magna Charta That wants new scouring and cleaning, Writ so long since and so dark too, That 'tis hard to pick out the meaning. Quoth Jemmy, the bigoted king, Quoth Jemmy, the politick thing; With a threadbare-oath, And a Catholic troth,

For some time after the Restoration, the popular songs were all on the court-side, and it was not until Charles II.'s most flagrant violations of political liberty and public decency, that they took an opposite turn. The court then guarded itself by imposing a licence upon all ballad-singers and pamphleteers. One John Clarke, a bookseller, held this right to license of Charles Killigrew, the Master of the Revels, and advertised in the London Gazette of 1682 as follows: These are to give notice to all ballad-singers, that they take out licences for singing and selling of ballads and small books, according to an ancient custom. And all persons concerned are hereby desired to take notice of, and to suppress, all mountebanks, rope-dancers, prizeplayers, and such as make shew of motions and strange sights, that have not a licence in red and black letter, under the hand and seal of the said Charles Killigrew, Master of Revels to his Majesty.' In 1684, a similar advertisement orders all such persons 'to come to the office to change their licences as they are now altered.' The court had reason for all this, for the ballad-singers had become as wide-mouthed as in the days of Cromwell; while the court-life gave scope to obscene allusion that exceeded anything before attempted. The short reign of James II., the birth of the Prince of Wales, and advent of the Prince of Orange, gave new scope for personal satire. Of all the popular songs ever written, none had greater effect than Lilliburlero (attributed to Lord Wharton), which Burnet tells us 'made an impression on the king's army that cannot be imagined by those that saw it not. The whole army, and at last the people, both in city and country, were singing it perpetually. And perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect.' Some of these songs were written to popular old tunes; that of Old Simon the King accompanied the Sale of Old State Household Stuff, when James II. was reported to have had an intention to remove

That never was worth a farthing!'

The birth of the Prince of Wales was a fertile theme for popular rhymes, written to equally popular tunes. The first verse of one, entitled Father Petre's Policy Discovered; or the Prince of Wales proved to be a Popish Perkin, runs thus: "In Rome there is a most fearful rout; And what do you think it is about? Because the birth of the babe's come out.

Sing lullaby baby, by, by, by.'

The zest with which such songs would be sung in times of great popular excitement can still be imagined, though scarcely to its full extent. Another, on The Orange, contains this strong stanza:

"When the Army retreats,

And the Parliament sits, To vote our King the true use of his wits; "Twill be a sad means,

these wandering stationers,' as they were termed, with their literary wants, a band of Grub-street authors existed, in a state of poverty and degradation of which we now can have little idea, except by referring to contemporary writers. The halfstarved hacks are declared to fix their highest ideas of luxurious plenty in

'Gallons of beer and pounds of bullock's liver.' Pope in the Dunciad, has given a very low picture of the class:

'Not with less glory mighty Dulness crown'd,
Shall take through Grub Street her triumphant
round:

And, her Parnassus glancing o'er at once,
Behold a hundred sons, and each a dunce.'

In Fielding's Author's Farce, 1730, we are introduced to a bookseller's workroom, where his hacks are busy concocting books for his One of

shop.

them complains that he has not dined these two days,' and the rest find fault with the disagreeable character of

their

employ

ment; when the bookseller enters, and the following conversation

ensues:

'Book. Fie upon it, gentlemen!what, not at your pens? Do you consider, Mr Quibble, that it is above a fortnight since your Letter from a Friend in the Country was published? Is it not high time for an answer to come out? At this rate, before your answer is printed, your letter will be forgot: I love to keep a controversy up warm. I have had authors who have writ a pamphlet in the morning, answered it in the afternoon, and

compromised the

matter at night.

GRUB-STREET POETS.

This last hit seems levelled at Defoe, who in reality concocted a very seriously-told ghost-story, The Apparition of Mrs Veal, to enable a bookseller to get rid of an unsaleable book, Drelincourt on Death, which was directly puffed by the ghost assuring her friend, Mrs Bargrave, that it was the best work on the subject.

Pope and his friends amused and revenged themselves on Curll the bookseller, who was the chief publisher of trashy literature in their day, by an imaginary account of his poisoning and preparation for death, as related by 'a faithful, though unpolite historian of Grub Street.' In the course of the narrative, instructions are given how to find Mr Curll's authors, which indicates the povertystricken character of the tribe: At a tallowchandler's in Petty France, half-way under the blind arch, ask for the historian; at the Bedstead

Quibble. Sir, I will be as expeditious as possible.

Book. Well, Mr Dash, have you done that murder

yet?

and Bolster, a music-house in Moorfields, two translators in a bed together; at a blacksmith's shop in the Friars, a Pindaric writer in red stockings; at Mr Summers's, a thief-catcher's in Lewkner's Lane, the man that wrote against the impiety of Mr Rowe's plays; at the farthing piehouse, in Tooting Fields, the young man who is writ

ing my new pas-
torals; at the
laundress's,

at

the Hole-in-thewall, in Cursitor's Alley, up three pair of stairs, the author of my church history; you may also speak to the gentleman who lies by him in the flock-bed, my index-maker.' Grub Street no

longer

appears

by name in any London Direc

tory; yet it still

exists and pre

about a few moral reflections to place before it.

Book. Very well; then let me have a ghost finished

by this day seven-night.

Dash. What sort of a ghost would you have, sir? The last was a pale one.

Book. Then let this be a bloody one.'

Its contiguity to the artillery-ground in Bunhill Fields, where the city trainband exercised, is amusingly alluded to in The Tatler, No. 41, where their redoubtable doings are narrated: 'Happy was it that the greatest part of the achievements of this day was to be performed near Grub Street, that there might not be wanting a sufficient number of faithful historians, who being eye-witnesses of these wonders, should impartially transmit them to posterity.'

The concocters of News-letters were among the most prolific and unblushing authors of Grub street literature.' Steele, in the periodical just quoted, alludes to some of them by name: 'Where Prince Eugene has slain his thousands, Boyer has slain his ten thousands; this gentleman can, indeed, be never enough commended for his courage and intrepidity during this whole war.' Mr Buckley has shed as much blood as the former.' 'Mr Dyer Mr Dyer was particularly famous for dealing in whales, insomuch that in five months' time he brought three into the mouth of the Thames, besides two porpuses and a sturgeon. The judicious and wary Mr I. Dawks hath all along been the rival of this great writer, and got himself a reputation from plagues and famines, by which he destroyed as great multitudes, as he has lately done by the sword. In every dearth of news, Grand Cairo was sure to be unpeopled.'

This mob of unscrupulous scribblers, and the ballad-singers who gave voice to their political pasquinades, occasioned the government much annoyance at times. The pillory and the jail were tried in vain.

'Heedless on high stood unabashed Defoe.'

It was the ambition of speculative booksellers to get a government prosecution, for it insured the sale of large editions. Vamp, the bookseller in Foote's play, called the Author, 1757, makes that worthy shew the side of his head and his ears, cropped in the pillory for his publications; yet he has a certain business pride, and declares, in the year forty-five, when I was in the treasonable way, I never squeaked; I never gave up but one author in my life, and he was dying of a consumption, so it never came to a trial. The poor ballad-singers, less fortunate, could be seized at once, and summarily punished by any magistrate.

The newspapers of the day often allude to these persecutors. The Middlesex grand jury, in 1716, denounced 'the singing of scandalous ballads about the streets as a common nuisance; tending to alienate the minds of the people.' The Weekly Packet, which gives this information, adds, we hear an order will be published to apprehend those who cry about, or sing, such scandalous papers.' Read's Weekly Journal tells us, in July 1731, that three hawkers were committed to Tothill Fields Bridewell, for crying about the streets a printed paper called Robin's Game, or Seven's the Main;' a satire on the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole. In July 1763, we are told 'yesterday evening two women were sent to Bridewell, by Lord Bute's order, for singing political ballads before his lordship's door in South Audley Street.' State prosecutions have never

old houses, are on both sides the way; and the whole neighbourhood is depressing to the spirits, through its hopeless air of poverty.

224

MINSTRELS' FESTIVAL AT TUTBURY.

succeeded in repressing political satire; it has died a natural death for want of strong food!

The Minstrels' Festival at Tutbury. The castle of Tutbury was a place of great strength, built shortly after the Conquest by Henry de Ferrars, one of William's Norman noblemen, who had received the gift of large possessions in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and the neighbouring counties. It stands upon a hill so steep on one side that it there needs no defence, whilst the other three were strongly walled by the first owner, who lost his property by joining in the rebellion of Simon de Montfort against Henry III. It was afterwards in the possession of the Dukes of Lancaster, one of whom, the celebrated John of Gaunt, added to its fortifications. During the civil war, it was taken and destroyed by the parliamentary forces; and the ruins only now remain.

During the time of the Dukes of Lancaster, the little town of Tutbury was so enlivened by the noble hospitality they kept up, and the great concourse of people who gathered there, that some regulations became necessary for keeping them in order; more especially those disorderly favourites of both the high and low, the wandering jongleurs or minstrels, who displayed their talents at all festive-boards, weddings, and tournaments. A court was therefore appointed by John of Gaunt, to be held every year on the day after the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin, being the 16th of August, to elect a king of the minstrels, try those who had been guilty of misdemeanours during the year, and grant licences for the future year, all which were accompanied by many curious observances.

The wood-master and rangers of Needwood Forest began the festivities by meeting at Berkley Lodge, in the forest, to arrange for the dinner which was given them at this time at Tutbury Castle, and killed, as also another which was their yearly where the buck they were allowed for it should be present to the prior of Tutbury for his dinner. These animals having received their death-blow, the master, keepers, and deputies met on the Day of Assumption, and rode in gay procession, two and two, into the town, to the High Cross, each carrying a green bough in his hand, and one bearing the buck's head, cut off behind the ears, garnished with a rye of pease and a piece of fat fastened to each of the antlers. The minstrels went on foot, two and two, before them, and when they reached the cross, the keeper blew on his horn the various hunting signals, which were answered by the others; all passed on to the churchyard, where, alighting from their horses, they went into the church, the minstrels playing on their instruments during the time of the offering of the buck's head, and whilst each keeper paid one penny as an offering to the church. Mass was then celebrated, and all adjourned to the good dinner which was prepared for them in the castle; towards the expenses of which the prior gave them thirty shillings.

bailiff's house, in Tutbury, where the steward of the On the following day, the minstrels met at the court, and the bailiff of the manor, who were noblemen of high rank, such as the Dukes of Lancaster, Ormond, or Devonshire, with the woodmaster, met them. A procession was formed to go to church, two trumpeters walking first, and then