[Roxburghe Collection, IV. 51.] The Jovial Beggars Merry Crew. They do but onely Cheat the Poor, 'tis pitty them to give. TUNE OF, A Figg for France. [Three woodcuts, two we give to the left, stands an old man with a staff : (like our Beggar of p. 872).] Twho often lodged in the Cold, He fram'd himself a Wooden Leg, But tho' the world us Beggars call, And tho' the world us Beggars call, And when we see a Spark go by, But tho' the world us Beggars call, [There are two cuts; the one above, to left; the other of two naked boys holding a wreath, with the astrological symbol of Mercury above.] If some will not pull out their Purse, And tho' the world us Beggars call, And some that do like Cripples lye, 40 48 I was brought up to th' Begging Trade, Sometimes in Farmers Barns lye we, Then let the world us Beggars call, 64 No Plots against us can there be, Other Folks Children we do take, Printed for I. Deacon at the Angel in Guilt-spur-street, without Newgate. [In Black-letter. Five woodcuts in all. Date, not later than 1678-9.] 72 80 1A Mort was a Doxy or female-companion, of illicit connexion. While still a maiden, she had been called a Dell. 2 This ballad was written by a foe to beggars, who had no skill in preserving the dramatic characteristics. This self-condemnation is a blunder. GROUP OF POEMS ON "O Woman! in our hours of ease, By the light quivering aspen made; WOMAN scarcely appears in this third volume of the Bagford Ballads. She is absent, not merely from the lesser-portion represented in our pages, but almost throughout, with exception of some lines addressed to Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, and the present small group of lovers' verses at the extreme end of the collection. It is not without significance that, in the almost total deficiency of feminine interests, affection, and graceful delicacy, we find little beyond a residuum of bitter polemical literature. The cruelty and intolerance, the sectarian and partizan spitefulness. of the ballads already given, connected with the fictitious "Popish Plot," or of the disputed Elections which so speedily followed it, offer no pleasant substitute for either the lovers' dialogues or the romantic stories that had earlier drawn attentive listeners around street ballad-singers. Valuable as we may deem our third volume to be, when considered as historical material, let us own that it offers to view a disagreeable state of society. Women seem, all at once, to have retired from the scene. Except some casual allusions to Mrs. Cellier, Mother Cresswell,3 1 They begin "My Muse begs pardon of your Grace, that she," etc. (Bagford Coll., iii. 28). The date of the poem is 1667, six years before her death. With the adjacent lines, "To you, as fast as Verses' feet can move," it would have immediately preceded Edmund Gayton's Votive Song, which opens our final division. But as it was neither a ballad nor a song, itself, we omitted it from its own place, and transferred it to the present Introduction to the group. Our Appendix gives a brief abstract of certain other broadside verses of the Bagford Collection, not necessary to be reprinted in extenso. 2 One of the 186 Loyal Songs is Newgate's Salutation, or a Dialogue between Sir William] W[aller] and Mrs. Cellier, p. 108. There were scandals afloat, connecting the names of genethliacal John Gadbury and Mrs. Elizabeth Cellier, "The Popish Midwife," in closer bonds of intimacy than a participation in the Meal-Tub Plot (according to the untrustworthy evidence of Thomas Dangerfield, Bagf. Coll., iii. 51, introd, notes, and Appendix). We borrow from Roxb. Coll., i. 384, two appropriate woodcuts, for our pp. 793, 882. Doubly suggestive: the astrologer and the man of gallantry being typified, in his relation both to the admiring public and to lovely woman, when she "stoops to folly." 3 "Mother Cresswell," as she was profanely called, seems to have borne as bad a reputation in her day as Mother Needham, "Mother H-," or Mrs. or others of doubtful reputation, and a few brief glimpses of our Charles the Second's Queen, Catharine of Braganza, the characters that moved before us were men, by no means noble and generous. Some were politicians, indulging in dark intrigues; others were libellers and perjurers, who richly deserved the punishment of whipping and pillory, which not all of them escaped. The remainder were the victims of their denunciations, many being absolutely innocent, while others were the dupes of their own rash ambition. So much ferocious bigotry, so much sordid baseness. are brought into prominence during the troubled years from 1678 to 1685, as represented by these Bagford Ballads, that we might imagine ourselves transported into a more than usually degraded world. We seem to be dealing with madmen, yelling Milligan in later times. in connexion with "Old She is mentioned in contemporary ballads sometimes Player," "railing Rabsheka," Sir Thomas, who had a weakness that way. Thus in the ballad of "Oates's Boarding School at Camberwell," 1683: There all Provision shall be made To entertain the best; Old Mother Cresswel of our Trade, For to rub down our Guests: Three hundred of the briskest Dames In Park or field e're fell; Whose amorous eyes shall charm the flames O' th' Saints at Camberwell.... Player may meet his Mistress here Sometimes Sir Robert's Wife; [i.e. Clayton, “ Ishban"] They, free from care, in joys may share; There was mention of "flogging at Cresswell's" in a song at the Loyal Feast in Westminster Hall, on July 10, 1684. When Traytors did at Pop'ry rail, Then Johnson wrote his Patron's Creed, Julian his Pattern, and his Text, A meaner Theam he scorns: [i.e. Monmouth.] [Russell's] A Narrative of the Old Plot. (This of course, alludes to Samuel Johnson's book, Julian the Apostate, 1680, which was intended to influence the public mind towards the Exclusion of the Duke of York, by showing how a ruler's misbelief acted injuriously on his subjects, and how they were justified in rebellion. See pp. 785 and 820.) against one another, almost with fiends. We scarcely recognize the sober Englishman, the type of our nation, who conquered so many difficulties, and with a clear conscience, amid a thousand difficulties and temptations, fought for the right and conquered; And so he bore, without abuse, The grand old name of Gentleman: It is quite true that, if we look closely enough, we can even here behold a few spotless natures, men firm for the truth, unfaltering in their faith, and unappalled by obloquy or death. But they were, then, as now and ever, few amid the multitude. It is with the sensation of having passed through a suffocating atmosphere that we return again to the society of Woman, in the final group of ballads. The second of them is but a scrap, within a madman's rhymed-verse soliloquy. The third is a mocking accompaniment, or parody, to an amatory lyric. The fifth is a scurrilous, and not over-cleanly Satire on married women, in general, and on a Philosophical Wife in particular. But the fourth is a genuine token of affection and "Love's Triumph." Preceding all four is a poetical Address. |