INTRODUCTION. HE LIFE AND PRANKS OF LONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER: This tract is given to our readers with confidence, as an amusing specimen of the popular stories of our ancestors. But whether the heroine was a real or fictitious personage it is not our present purpose to enquire, yet a dissertation on the question might furnish a discussion of no trifling extent. The earliest edition of Long Meg that we have been able to find bears the following title :-The Life and Pranks of Long Meg of Westminster. Imprinted at London by William How for Abraham Veale, dwellinge in Paul's Church yard, at the Sign of the Lambe, 1582. This is in the Black Letter, and contains fifteen chapters, the concluding one being "The mad pranks she played the waterman at Lambeth!" which finishes with the couplet of "If any man ask who brought this to passe The work was evidently very popular, and several chap-book editions and penny story-book versions, which are abridged copies of the original. are still extant, from one of which now in the British Museum we here give an entire reprint with a facsimile of the title page, and of the crude woodcuts to be found in the body of the work : THE HISTORY OF LONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER. CHAP. I. Where Meg was born, her coming up to London, and her Usage to the honest Carrier. N the reign of Henry VIII. was born in Lancashire, a maid called LONG MEG. At eighteen years old she came to London to get her a service. Father Willis, the carrier, being the waggoner and her neighbour, brought her up with some other lasses. After a tedious journey, being in sight of the desired city, she demanded the cause why they looked sad?— "We have no money," said one, "to pay our fare." So Meg replies, "If that be all I shall answer your demands," and this put them in some comfort. But as soon as they came to St. John's Street, Willis demanded their money. "Say what you will have," quoth she. "Ten shillings a piece," said he. "But we have not so much about us," said she." |