Street cries of the world

BILBERRIES.
PLATE XXV.

BlLBERRlES are a modern article and were first brought to London about forty years ago by countrymen, who appeared in their smock-frocks, with every character of rusticity. In the course of a little time, bilberries were so eagerly bought that it induced many persons to become vendors, and they are now brought to the markets as a regular article of consumption for the season.

These berries mostly grow in Hertfordshire, from whence indeed they are brought to town in very high perfection, and are esteemed by the housewife as wholesome food when made into a pudding; and, though usually sold at fourpence a pint, they are sometimes admitted to the genteel table in a tart.

Dr. Buchan has the following remarks on the Bilberry-bush; he says that it is “a little tough shrubby plant, common in our boggy woods, and upon wet heaths. The stalks are tough, angular, and green; the leaves are small; they stand singly, not in pairs, and are broad, short, and indented about the edges. The flowers are small but pretty, their colour is a faint red, and they are hollow like a cup. The berries are as large as the biggest pea; they are of a blackish colour, and of a pleasant taste. A syrup made of the juice of bilberries, when not over ripe, is cooling and binding.”

Among the former Cries of London, those of Elderberries, Dandelion, &c. were not unfrequent, and each had in its turn physicians as well as village doctresses to recommend them. “The inner part of the Elderberry-tree,” says Dr. Buchan, “is reputed to cure dropsies, when taken in time, frequently repeated and long persevered in; a cooling ointment is made by boiling the flowers in lard till they are crisp, and then straining it off; the juice of the berries boiled down with sugar, or without, till it comes to the consistence of honey, is the celebrated rob of elder, highly extolled in colds and sore throats, though of late years it seems to have yielded to the preparations of black currants. Wine is made from elderberries, which somewhat resembles Frontiniac in flavour.”

The same author says of Dandelion, that “the root is long, large, and white within; every part of the plant is full of milky juice, but most of all the root, from which, when it is broken, it flows plentifully, and is bitterish, but not disagreeable to the taste.”

The leaves are sometimes eaten as sallad when very young, and in some parts of the Continent they are blanched like celery for this purpose; taken this way, in sufficient quantity, they are a remedy for the scurvy.

Bryant, in his “Flora Diætetica,” page 103, says, “The young tender leaves are eaten in the spring as lettuce, they being much of the same nature, except that they are rather more more detergent and diuretic. Boerhaave greatly recommended the use of dandelion in most chronical distempers, and held it capable of resolving all kinds of coagulations, and most obstinate obstructions of the viscera, if it were duly continued. For these purposes the stalks may be blanched and eaten as celery.”

There is a fashion in the Cries of London as there are “tides in the affairs of men,” particularly in articles that are used as purifiers of the blood. About fifty years ago. nothing but Scurvy-grass was thought of, and the best scurvy-grass ale was sold. in Covent Garden, at the public-house at the corner of Henrietta Street.

SIMPLERS.
PLATE XXVI.

THOSE persons who live in the country and rise with the sun can bear testimony to the activity of the Simpler, who commences his selections from the ditches and swampy grounds at that early period of the day, and after he has filled a large pack for his back, trudges for fifteen miles to the London markets, where perhaps he is the first who offers goods for sale; he then returns back and sleeps in some barn until the next succeeding sun. Such an instance of rustic simplicity is William Friday, whose portrait is exhibited in the annexed plate. This man starts from Croydon, with champignons, mushrooms, &c. and is alternately snail-picker, leech-bather, and viper-catcher. Simpling is not confined to men; but women, particularly in some counties, often constitute a greater part of the community, and they appear to be a distinct class of beings. The plate which accompanies this description exhibits three women Simplers returning from market to Croydon; they were sketched on the Stockwell Road, and are sufficient to shew their gait.

The Simplers, particularly the women, are much attached to brass rings, which they display in great profusion upon almost. every finger: their faces and arms are sunburnt and freckled, and they live to a great age, notwithstanding their constant. wet and heavy burthens, which are always carried on the loins.

To the exertions of these poor people the public are much indebted, as they supply our wants every day; indeed the extensive sale of their commodities, which they dispose of to the herb-shops in Covent Garden, Fleet, and Newgate Markets, must at once declare them to be a most useful set of people. Among the numerous articles culled from the hedges and the springs the following are a few in constant consumption: water-cresses, dandelions, scurvy-grass, nettles, bitter-sweet, cough-grass, feverfew, hedge mustard, Jack by the hedge, or sauce-alone.

Dr. Buchan observes, that “Bitter-sweet is a common wild plant with weak but woody stalks, that runs among our hedges and bears bunches of pretty blue flowers in summer, and in autumn red berries; the stalks run to ten feet in length, but they cannot support themselves upright; they are of a bluish colour, and, when broken, have a very disagreeable smell like rotten eggs. The leaves are oval, but sharp-pointed, and have each two little ones near the base; they are of a dusky green and indented, and they grow singly on the stalks. The flowers are small and of a fine purplish blue, with yellow threads in the middle; the berries are oblong.”

The same author, speaking of Cough-grass, says, “However offensive this weed may be in the fields and gardens, it is said to have its uses in medicine, and should teach us that the most common things are not therefore despicable, since it is certain that nothing was made in vain.”

The Doctor observes, that “Jack by the hedge, or sauce alone, is an annual plant, which perishes every year, but makes a figure in the spring, and is common in our hedges. The root is small, white, and woody, the stalks rise to the height of three feet, and are slender, channelled, hairy, and very straight. The leaves, which stand on long foot-stalks, are large. broad, short, and roundish; and those which grow on the stalk somewhat pointed at the extremities, and waved at the edges. They are of a pale yellow green colour, thin and slender, and being bruised, smell like onions or garlic. The flowers, which stand ten or a dozen together at the tops of the branches, are small and white, consisting each of four leaves; these are followed by slender pods, containing small longish seeds. It is found in hedges, and on bank sides, and flowers in May.”

Many of the simples of England are peculiar to particular spots, as the following extract from Gerarde’s Herbal, fol. 1633, Lond. edited by Thomas Johnson, will demonstrate. “Navel-wort, or wall penniwoort. The first kind of penniwoort groweth plentifully in Northampton upon every stone wall about the towne, at Bristow, Bathe, Wells, and most places of the West Countries, upon stone walls. It growth upon Westminster Abbey, over the doore that leadeth from Chaucer’s tombe to the old palace.” From an address to his courteous readers, it appears that Gerarde first established his Herbal in the year 1597, in the month of December, and that he then resided in Holborn. Thomas Johnson, Gerarde’s editor, dates his address to his reader from his house on Snow Hill, Oct. 22, 1633. Hence it will appear that any thing these writers may have said respecting the structure of the buildings or topography of the suburbs in which they herbarized, is to be depended upon,

Snails are brought to market by the Simpler, and continue to be much used by consumptive persons. There are various sorts which are peculiar to particular spots; for instance, at Gayhurst, in Buckinghamshire, the Helix Pomœria were there turned down for the use of Lady Venetia Digby when in a weak state. The house now belongs to Miss Wright, a descendant of Lord Keeper Wright, where these snails continue in great profusion. Near the old green-houses built by Kent in Kensington Gardens, the same snail is frequently found; it has a yellow shell, and was prescribed and placed there for William the Third.

Vipers formerly were sold in quantities at the Simpling Shops, but of late years they are so little called for that not above one in a month is sold in Covent Garden Market. There were regular viper catchers, who had a method of alluring them with a bit of scarlet cloth tied to the end of a long stick.

The following lines are extracted from a curious half-sheet print, entitled, “The Cries of London,” to the tune of “Hark, the merry merry Christ Church bells,” printed and sold at the printing office in Bow Church Yard, London. To this plate are prefixed two very curious old wood-blocks, one of a Galantie-show man, of the time of King William the Third, and the other of the time of James the First, representing a Salt-box man, and is perhaps one of the earliest specimens if that character. The lines alluded to are:

WASHER-WOMEN, CHAR-WOMEN, AND STREET NURSES.
PLATE XXVII.

PERHAPS there is not a class of people who work harder than those washer-women who go out to assist servants in what is called a heavy wash; they may be seen in the winter time, shivering at the doors, at three and four o’clock in the morning, and are seldom dismissed before ten at night, this hard treatment being endured for two shillings and sixpence a day. They may be divided into two classes, the industrious, who labour cheerfully to support their little ones, and, too often, an idle and cruel husband; and those that take snuff, drink gin, and propagate the scandal of the neighbourhood, seldom quitting the house of their employer without gaining the secrets of the family, which they acquire by pretending to tell the fortunes of every one in the house to the servants of the family, by the manner in which the grouts of the tea adhere to the sides of the tea-cup. Most of these people, who are generally round-shouldered and lop-sided, are so accustomed to chatter with the servants, that they acquire a habit of keeping their mouths open, either horizontally or perpendicularly; and it is evident from Hollar’s etchings ot Leonardo da Vinci’s caricatures that the latter must have studied the grimaces of this class of people. Some of these old washer-women, when they happen to meet with a discreet and silent domestic, will speak to the cat or the dog, and even hold conversation with themselves rather than lose the privilege of utterance.

These wretches are always full of complaints of their coughs, asthmas, or pains in the stomach, but these are mere efforts to procure an extra glass of cordial.

The Char-women are that description of people who go about to clean houses, either by washing the wainscot, scrubbing the floors, or brightening the pots and kettles; they are generally worse drabs, if possible, than the lowest order of washer-women; they will either filch the soap, steal the coals, or borrow a plate which they never return; and yet the women of this calling who conduct themselves with sobriety and honesty, are great acquisitions to single gentlemen, particularly students in the law.

Few families, however watchful they may be over the conduct of their servants, are aware of the extreme idleness and profligacy of some of them.

If the mistress of a house would for once rise at five o’clock, she might behold a set of squalid beings engaged in whitening the steps of the doors; she may even observe some of them, who have procured keys of the area gates, descend the steps to procure from the kitchen pails of hog-wash, with meat and bread wrapped up in tattered aprons; so that their servants, by thus getting rid of the door-cleaning business, remain in bed after the milkwoman, by the help of a string, has lowered her can into the area. This dishonesty of the servants has been extended, from a few broken crusts, to the more generous gift of half a loaf in a morning.

On the contrary, it is a fact too well known, that there are many servants who rise too early, particularly those who attend to the flattery of men who sneak into houses, pretending to be in love with their charming persons, merely for the purpose of obtaining the surest mode of robbing the house, either then or in future.

There are hundreds of old women who take charge of the children of those who go out for daily hire. These Nurses drag the infants in all sorts of ways about the streets for the whole day, and sometimes treat them very ill, and, imitating the mode usually adopted by the vulgar part of nurses in families, to pacify the squalling and too often hungry infants, terrify them with a threat that Tom Parker, David Stumps, or Bonaparte, are coming to take them away. This custom of frightening children, which was practised in very early times, was made use of by the Spanish nurses after the defeat of the Armada. Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” part 1, sec. 2: “Education a cause of Melancholy. There is a great moderation to be had in such things as matters of so great moment, to the making or marring of a childe. Some fright their children with beggars, bugbears, and hobgoblins, if they cry or be otherways unruly.”

Among the very few single prints published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there is one engraved on wood, measuring twenty inches by thirteen; it contains multitudes of figures, and is so great a rarity, that the author has seen only one impression of it, which is in the truly valuable and interesting collection of prints presented in the most liberal manner to the British Museum by Sir Joseph and Lady Banks.

This print, which has escaped the notice of all the writers on the Graphic Art, is entitled, “Tittle-Tattle, or the several Branches of Gossipping;” at the foot of the print are the following verses, evidently in a type and orthography of a later time:

SMITHFIELD SALOOP.
PLATE XXVIII.

ABOUT a century ago, almost every corner of the more public streets was occupied at midnight, until six or seven in the morning, by the sellers of frumenty, barley broth, cow-heel soup, and baked ox-cheek; and in those days when several hundreds of chairmen were nightly waiting in the metropolis, and it was the fashion for the bloods of the day to beat the rounds, as they termed it, there was a much greater consumption of such refreshments.

The scenes of vice at the above period were certainly far more frequent than they are at present, for hard drinking, and the visitation of brothels were then esteemed as the completion of what was termed genteel education; and it was no unusual thing to see the famous Quin, with his inseparable associate Frank Hayman, the painter, swearing at each other in the kennel, but both with a full determination to remain there until the watchman went his round.

The numerous songs of the day, and the incomparable plates by Hogarth, will sufficiently show the folly and vice of those drinking times, when the courtier, after attending the drawing-room of St. James’s, would walk in his full dress, with bag and sword, from the palace, to the diabolical coffee-room of Moll King, in Covent Garden, where he would mix, sit, and converse with every description of character.

Moll King’s was the house now the sign of the Green Man, and was a mere hovel, so destitute of accommodation that the principal chamber of vice was immediately over the coffee room, and could only be ascended by a drop ladder.
Saloop, the subject of this etching, has superseded almost every other midnight street refreshment, being a beverage easily made, and a long time considered as a sovereign cure for head-ache arising from drunkenness. But no person, unless he has walked through the streets from the hour of twelve, can duly paint the scenes of the saloop stall with its variety of customers.

Whoever may be desirous of tasting saloop in the highest perfection, may be gratified at Reid’s Coffee House,* No. 102, Fleet Street which was the first respectable house where it was to be had and established in the year 1719. [* The lovers of saloop can no longer enjoy their favourite beverage at this the original shop, it having been closed as a coffee-house in June 1833, the proprietor having been unfortunately too fond of liquor more spirituous than his own saloop. It is now a shoe-warehouse. N.] The following lines are painted on a board, and suspended in the coffee room:

The following extract respecting saloop, is taken from p. 38 of “Flora Diætetica, or History of Esculent Plants,” by Charles Bryant, of Norwich, 1783. “Orchis Masoula. This is very common in our woods, meadows, and pastures, and the powdered roots of it are said to be the saloop which is sold in the shops; but the shop roots come from Turkey.

“The flowers of most of the plants of this genus are indiscriminately called cuckoo-flowers by the country people. Though it has been affirmed that saloop is the root of the mascula only, yet those of the morio, and of some other species of orchis, will do equally as well, as I can affirm from my own experience; consequently to give a description of the mascula in particular will be useless. As most country people are acquainted with these plants by the name of cuckoo-flowers, it certainly would be worth their while to employ their children to collect the roots for sale; and though they may not be quite so large as those that come from abroad, yet they may be equally as good, and as they are exceedingly plentiful, enough might annually be gathered for our own consumption, and thus a new article of employment would be added to the poorer sort of people.

“The time for taking them up is when the seed is about ripe, as then the new bulbs are fully grown; and all the trouble of preparing them is, to put them, fresh taken up, into scalding hot water for about half a minute; and on taking them out, to rub off the outer skin; which done, they must be laid on tin plates, and set in a pretty fierce oven for eight or ten minutes, according to the size of the roots; after this, they should be removed to the top of the oven, and left there till they are dry enough to pound.

“Saloop is a celebrated restorative among the Turks, and with us it stands recommended in consumptions, bilious cholics, and all disorders proceeding from an acrimony in the juices.

“Some people have a method of candying the roots, and thus prepared they arc very pleasant, and may be eaten with good success against coughs and inward soreness.”

SMITHFIELD PUDDING.
PLATE XXIX.

IT would be almost criminal to proceed in my account of the present cry without passing a due encomium on the subject of it. The good qualities of an English pudding, more especially when it happens to be enriched with the due portion of enticing plums, are well known to most of us. It is a luxury to which our Gallic neighbours are entire strangers, and an article of cookery worth any dozen of their harlequin kickshaws.

The justly-celebrated comedian, Ned Shuter, was so passionately fond of this article that he would never dine without it, and anything that led to the bare mention of a pudding would burst the silence of a couple of hours’ smoking; he was on one occasion known to lay down his pipe, and to exclaim, that the dinner the gentleman had just described would have been a very good one if there had but been a plum-pudding. The places where this excellent commodity is chiefly exposed to sale in the manner described in the engraving, are those of the greatest traffic or publicity, such as Smithfield on a market morning, where waggoners, butchers, and drovers, are sure to find their pence for a slice of hot pudding. Fleet Market, Leadenhall, Honey Lane, and Spital Fields, have each their hot-pudding men. In the lowest neighbourhoods in Westminster, where the soldiers reside cook-shops find great custom for their pudding. The stalls, near the Horse Guards always have large quantities ready cut into penny slices, piled up like boards in a timber-yard.

At the time of relieving guard, vendors of pudding are always to be found on the parade. There is a black man, a handsome, well-made fellow, remarkably clean in his person, and always drest in the neatest manner, who never fails to sell his pudding; he also frequents the Regent’s Park on a Sunday afternoon, and, though he has no wit, his nonsense pleases the crowd. This person, who is now at the top of his calling, had a predecessor of the name of Eglington, who likewise carried on the business of a tailor.

He was a well-made and very active man, and by reason of his being seen in various parts of London nearly at the same time, was denominated the “Flying Pudding Man,” His principal walk was in the neighbourhood of Fleet Market and Holborn Bridge, and his smartness of dress and quickness of repartee gained the attention of his customers; he seldom appeared but in a state of perfect sobriety, and many curious anecdotes are related of him.

On the approach of Edmonton Fair, wishing to see the sports and pastimes of the place, he ordered his wife to make as many puddings as to fill a hackney coach. This being done, on the morning of the opening of the fair a coach was hired for the puddings, and the pudding man and pudding lady took their seats by the side of the coachman. On their arrival at the fair he put on his well-known dress, and instantly commenced his cry of “pudding,” whilst the lady supplied him from the coach. In a few hours’ time, when his stock was all disposed of, he resumed his best attire, and with his fair spouse proceeded to visit the various shows.

His well-known features were soon recognized by thousands who frequented the fair, and their jeers of “hot, hot, smoking hot,” resounded from booth to booth. At the close of the day this constant couple walked home well laden with the profits they had made. There is hardly a fight on the Scrubs,* nor a walking match on Blackheath, that are not visited by the pudding men. [* Wormholt or Wormwood Scrubs, in the parish of Hammersmith. The following is extracted from the Sporting Magazine, Oct. 1802, p. 15. “On Thursday a pitched battle, for twenty guineas a side, was fought between O’Donnel and Pardo Wilson, brother-in-law to Belcher: and the ground fixed upon for the combat was the Scrubs, through which the Paddmgton canal runs, about four miles from Hyde Park Corner.” Wormholt Scrubs has long been rented of the parish of Hammersmith by the Government as an exercise ground for the cavalry. At the present time Wormholt Scrubs in traversed by three railways, the London and Birmingham, the Great Western, and one now making to join the two former ones with the Thames. N.]

When malefactors were executed at Tyburn, the pudding men of the day were sure to be there, and indeed so many articles were sold, and the cries of new milk, curds and whey, spice cakes, barley sugar, and hot spice gingerbread, were so numerous and loud that this place on the day of execution were usually designated by the thousands of blackguards who attended it under the appellation of Tyburn Fair. The reader may see a faithful representation of this melancholy and humourous scene by the inimitable Hogarth, in the Execution Plate of his Idle Apprentice. In this engraving he will also find a correct figure of the triangular gallows, commonly called the “Three-legged Mare,” and which stood upon the site afterwards occupied by the turnpike house, at the end of Oxford Street.

In many instances the pudding sold in the streets has a favourable aspect, and under some circumstances perhaps proves a delicious treat to the purchaser.

Nothing can be more gratifying than to enable a poor little chimney-sweeper to indulge his appetite with a luxury before which he has for some minutes been standing with a longing inclination; and as this gratification can be accomplished at a very trifling expense, it were surely much better to behold it realized than to see the canting Tabernacle beggar carry away the pennies he has obtained to the gin shop. It gives the writer great pleasure to state to the readers of Jonas Hanway’s little tract in defence of cimney-sweepers, that, after witnessing with the most painful sensations the great and wanton cruelty which has for years been exercised upon that defenceless object the infant chimney-sweeper, he has of late frequently visited several houses of their masters, where he found in some instances that they had much better treatment than formerly, and, to the credit of many of the masters, that the boys had been as well taken care of, as to bedding and food, as the nature of their wretched calling could possibly admit of. By three or four of the principal master chimney-sweepers, the boys were regaled on Sundays with the old English fare of roast beef and plum pudding. Whatever may be the opinion of grave and elderly persons with respect to the lads of the present day, who as soon as they are indulged with a dandy coat by their silly mothers strut about like jackdaws and attempt to look big, even upon their grandfathers, yet we must declare, and perhaps to the satisfaction of these little men of sixteen, that they do not stand alone, for even some of the chimney-sweepers’ boys, particularly those of the higher masters, regard the custom of dancing about the streets on May-day as low and vulgar, and prefer visiting the tea gardens, where they can display their shirt collars drawn up to their eyes.

Certain it is that the greater number of those who now perambulate the streets as chimney-sweeps on May-day, are in reality disguised gypsies, cinder-sifters, and nightmen. Nor is the protraction of this ceremony in modern times from one to three days, even by its legitimate owners, unworthy of notice in this place; inasmuch as there is good reason for supposing that the money collected during the first two of those days is transferred to the pockets of the masters, instead of being applied for the benefit of the poor boys, whilst the well-meant benevolence of the public is shamefully deluded.

THE BLADDER MAN.
PLATE XXX.

WITHIN the memory of the author’s oldest friends, London has been visited by men similar to Bernardo Millano, whose figure is pourtrayed in the following Plate. About sixty years ago there was a Turk, of a most pompous appearance, who entertained crowds in the street by playing on an instrument of five strings passed over a bladder, and drawn up to the ends of a long stick, something like that exhibited in the etching, and which instrument is said to have been the original hurdy-gurdy. This Turk contrived by the assistance of his nose, which was a pretty large one, to produce a noise with which most of the spectators seemed to be pleased. The splendour of his dress, and the pomposity of his manner, procured him a livelihood for some years. His success induced other persons to imitate him; the most remarkable of whom was the famous Matthew Skeggs, who actually played a concerto on a broomstick, at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, in the character of Signor Bumbasto. His portrait was painted by Thomas King, a particular friend of Hogarth, and engraved by Houston. Skeggs, who then kept a public-house, the sign of the “Hoop and Bunch of Grapes,” in St. Alban’s Street. now a part of Waterloo Place, published it himself. Skegg’s. celebrity is noticed in the following extract from G. A. Stevens: “The choice spirits have ever been famous for their talents as musical artists. They usually met at the harvest-homes of grape gathering. There, exhilarated by the pressings of the vintage, they were wont to sing songs, tell stories, and show tricks, from their first emerging until their perihelion under the presidentship of Mr. George Alexander Stevens, Ballad-Laureat to the Society of Choice Spirits, and who appeared at Ranelagh in the character of Comus, supported by those drolls of merry memory. Unparalleled were their performances, as first fists upon the salt-box, and initimable the variations they would twang upon the forte and piano Jew’s harp; excellent was Howard in the chin concerto, whose nose also supplied the unrivalled tones of the bagpipe. Upon the sticcado, Matt. Skeggs remains still unrivalled. And we cannot now boast of one real genius upon the genuine hurdy-gurdy. Alas! these stars are all extinguished; and the remains of ancient British harmony are now confined to the manly music of the marrow-bones and cleavers. Everything must sink into oblivion. Corn now grows where Troy town stood; Ranelagh may be metamorphosed into a methodists’ meeting-house; Vaux-Hall cut into skittle alleys; the two Theatres converted into auction rooms; and the New Pantheon become the stately habitation of some Jew pawnbroker: nay, the Sons of Liberty themselves, &c.”

Much about this time another Bladder-man was in high estimation, whose portrait has been handed down to us in an etching by Miller, from a most spirited drawing by Gravelot. The following verses, which set forth his woeful situation, are placed at the foot of the Plate:

Some few years since a whimsical fellow attracted public notice by passing strings over the skull of a horse, upon which he played as a fidler. Another man, remarkably tall and thin, made a square violin, upon which he played for several years, particularly within the centre arches of Westminster Bridge.

To the eternal honour of the street-players of former times, it will ever be remembered that the great Purcell condescended to set one of their elegies to music. “Thomas Farmer, in 1684, lived in Martlet Court, in Bow Street, Covent Garden. He was originally one of the London street waits, and his elegy was set to music by Purcell.” See Hawkins’s History of Music, Vol. V. p. 18.

The Guardian, No; 1, March 12, 1713, notices the famous John Gale. “There was, I remember, some years ago, one John Gale, a fellow that played upon a pipe, and diverted the multitude by dancing in a ring they made about him, whose face became generally known, and the artists employed their skill in delineating his features, because every man was judge of the similitude of them.”

A sort of guitar or cittern, and also the fiddle, were used in this country so early as the year 1364, and may be seen upon a brass monumental plate to the memory of Robert. Braunche and his two wives, in the choir of St. Margaret’s Church at Lynn. The subject alluded to is the representation of a Peacock feast, consisting of a long table with twelve persons, besides musicians and other attendants. Engravings of this very curious monument may be seen in Gough’s Sepuchral Monuments, vol. i. p. 115; in Carter’s Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, vol. ii. plate 15; and in Cotman’s Norfolk Brasses, Pl. III. p. 4.