March.

Saint Taffie this year, in March will appear,
Drest in hur best Shacket, with Leek in hur Ear:
Red-Herring and Sheese, such dainties as these,
At every Corner hur Cousin her sees,

Honest Shinkin.

April.

Now enters the Spring, the Cuckcoo's on Wing,
Who many an honest Man seeks to hear sing;
When Cuckoo he crys, if that thou art wise,
Then tell the young impudent Cur that he lies,
never fear him.

May.

In the month of May, young Lambs they will play,
And so will young Lasses there's few will say nay,
They'll ramble all night, with Men for delight,
There's nothing like May-Dew for clearing the sight
of young Lasses.

June.

In the Month of June, there will be a Moon,
And in London-City each Day about Noon
Some hundred will Dine, and tipple good Wine,
I find by the Planets that this is a sign
of good living.

July.

Likewise in July, by Stars I descry,

If there be no Rain it may chance to be dry:
The weather, behold, not desperate cold,

And many a Man he will bury a Scold,
to his comfort.

August.

In August you'll find some Husbands unkind,
And won't let his Wife have a Garb to her mind:
But then with a frown, she'll fling out of Town,
And e're she returns back will Cuckold his Crown,
for a Coxcomb.

September.

In this Month repair, to Bartholomew-Fair,
And likewise to Southwark, then delicate Ware,
As Plump as a Doe, above and below,

You may have for little or nothing, I know,
in September.

October.

October indeed, will hasten with speed,

Together whole troops of the Billingsgate-Breed, Where Morning and Night, like Tygers they'll fight Before they'll be wrong'd in the least of their right, in their Oysters.

November.

November also, by [the] Planets I know,
That Lawyers by shoals do to Westminster go:
Yet mark what I say, the Counsellours they,
Without Gold or Silver will ne'r get the day
for their Clyents.

December.

In this Month likewise, Roast-Beef & minc'd-Pies
They will be sufficient the Rich to suffice:

This delicate Cheer, will be far and near,

And Christmas will be in December this Year,

I must tell ye.

This Almanack then the Wonder of Men,
Peruse it and read it well over agen:

Good People, for why? you cannot deny,

But this, in plain terms, is without e're a Lye,

therefore buy it.

Printed for P. Brooksby, J. Deacon, J. Blare, J. Back.

[In Black-letter: Date, as indicated above, 1691.]

50

55

60

65

70

The Jovial Crew;

"Squat on a green plot,

Dr, Beggars Bush.

we scorn a bench or settle, O! Plying and trying,

a spice of ev'ry trade; Razors we grind,

ring a pig, or mend a kettle, O. Come, what d'ye lack?

speak it out, my pretty maid.

"I'll set your scissors, while

my granny tells you plainly Who stole your barley-meal,

your butter, or your heart; Tell if your husband will

be handsome or ungainly, Ride in a coach and four,

or rough it in a cart."

BEARING in its double title the names of two famous comedies

-The Jovial Crew being by Richard Brome, acted at the Cockpit in 1641; the Beggars' Bush by Beaumont and Fletcher, probably before 1616-the cheerful ballad here following has little further connexion with either of them, except a similarity of subject.

The tune named, "From hunger and cold who lives more free," refers to a song in Richard Brome's comedy, "A Jovial Crew; or, the Merry Beggars," 1641, Act 1:

From hunger and cold who lives more free,

Or who more richly clad than we?

Our bellies are full, our flesh is warm;
And, against pride, our rags are a charm.
Enough is our Feast, and for to-morrow

Let rich men care, we feel no sorrow.

No sorrow, no sorrow, no sorrow, no sorrow,
Let rich men care, we feel no sorrow.

Each City, each Town, and every Village,
Affords us either an Alms or Pillage.
And if the weather be cold and raw,
Then, in a Barn we tumble in straw.

If warm and fair, by yea-cock and nay-cock,
The Fields will afford us a Hedge or a Hay-cock.

A Hay-cock, a Hay-cock, a Hay-cock, a Hay-rock,
The Fields will afford us a Hedge or a Haycock.

"From hunger and cold," is found in Playford's Select Ayres, 1659, p. 64. No composer's name is given. But the tune is none other than the celebrated "Packington's Pound": concerning which see Chappell's Popular Music, pp. 123, 124. words are in Merry Drollery, 1661, ii. 9; and Academy of Complements, 1670, p. 195.

The

In the 1650 edition of Witt's Recreations, sign Bb. 3 (and also in J. C. Hotten's reprint, of the jumbled-together editions,

n.d. but about 1870, p. 439), is given the humorous song of "The Gypsies"; which is taken from Ben Jonson's masque of "The Gipsies Metamorphosed," 1621: with a rude but characteristic woodcut of the Patrico and his bevy of Doxies. The song begins, "From the famous Peak of Derby," &c. The whole masque is full of movement, and of suggestion as to beggars and gipsies of that date. A ballad of The Cunning Northern Beggar is found in the Roxburghe Collection, i. 42, with a woodcut representing one who sings "I am a lusty beggar, and live by others giving." Other ballads of the maunding and canting crew are gathered in the same collection and volume, on pp. 474, 542, and 544: viz. The Maunding Souldier; The Beggar Boy of the North; and The Brave English Jipsie. For these see Mr. Wm. Chappell's Roxb. Bds., i. 137; iii. 110, 322, 329.

There was something in the freedom of a gipsy's or a beggar's life which specially recommended it to the minds of men who lived under the Stuart rule. Enemies to this dynasty may assert that it was the tyranny of the sovereign, and the oppressiveness of his nobles, which lent a false lustre by contrast to such a roving life. Certain it is, that the chief praise of these gentry, the beggars, is to be found written in the seventeenth century. Earlier, there had been heavy penalties inflicted upon them, ever since the time when the Dissolution of the Monasteries robbed them of one chief source of help.1 Fierce pamphlets were written against "Sturdy Beggars," by peevish economists and malignant cynics. Later, there was little allowance made for

But see, also, our extract (Introduction to "Beggars' Chorus") from A Supplicatyon for the Beggers; probably written by Simon Fish, about 1529, and also from A Supplication of the Poore Commons, 1546.

2 Chief among the sources of information concerning these professional mendicants must be mentioned the often-cited Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, commonly called Vagabones, 1567, 1573, by Thomas Harman. It has been several times reprinted-1. in 1814, for Triphook; 2. for the E. E. Text Soc., in 1869, edited by Mr. Fred. J. Furnivall; and also 3. in a popular and modernized form, by Messrs. Reeves and Turner, 1871, in their Book-Collectors Miscellany, vol. i. The E. E. T. Soc. reprinted another and less-known work, licensed to the author and printer, John Awdeley, in 1560 (we have seen the Althorp 1603 edition),-the rare little tractate entitled The Fraternitie of Vacabondes. As well of rufling Vacabondes, as of beggerley: of Women, as of Men of Gyrles, as of Boyes: with their proper names and qualities. With a description also of the craftie company of Cozeners and Sharpers, &c., &c. Imprinted at London by W. White, dwelling in Cow-lane, 1603. It is likely to be reprinted by the Rev. A. B. Grosart, in that admirable series of "Occasional Issues," which are among the most elegant and the most accurate recent reprints of our rarest carly English literature.

the romantic wanderings of unshackled liberty. Beggars were voted a nuisance. They have had a hard time of it, since, at the hands of the Poor Laws' Unrelieving Officers, with all the crushing machinery of county magistracy (such as send shoeless girls to prison and hard labour, for plucking a Spalding geranium); not forgetting the pretentious Mendicity-and-Charity Organization Societies, busy bodies who would have made short work of Lazarus and all the suffering beggars of Judea or Galilee improving them off the face of the earth by starvation and imprisonment, in punishment for the crimes of blindness, lameness, leprosy, and poverty.

Our present Bagford ballad dates with absolute certainty so early as the year 1671, when it was printed in Windsor Drollery, p. 96. With music, "new set by Mr. Church," the ballad reappears in the Pills to P. Mel., iii. 100. Still later, it was sung by Hemskirk, at Sadlers'-Wells, and published as a single-sheet of music; in which form we have a copy in our own collection, i. 35. Also in the Muses' Delight (Apollo's Cabinet), Liverpool, 1754, p. 132. Words alone are in the Vocal Miscellany, 1732, ii. 194; Coll. Diverting Sgs., 4to., 109; Choice Spirits' Chaplet, 1771, p. 348, etc. But in all of them "The Beggar' is imperfectly given, several verses being omitted: the sixth, eighth, and tenth. One of these, the sixth, mentions Hugh Peters, the Parliamentary preacher, and his fate. This verse dropped-out early. It serves to indicate that the ballad must have been written soon after the date of his execution, Oct. 1660. The mention of the beggars raising no Rebellion, of the quartered bodies exposed as traitors' above the City gates, of the Scottish Covenant, with the mongrel crew of Welsh Shenkin, Blue-Cap Jockey, and Irish Teague, beside the Cloak-Directory (compare the Cloak's-Knavery, "Come, buy my new ballad," 1663), all help to prove that it was written soon after the downfall of the Commonwealth. Added to them is the glancing at the poverty of those Cavaliers who had suffered sorely for their loyalty, and were left unhelped, unrewarded, after the Restoration. The contrast between the jovial beggar and the peevish sectarian rebels is chiefly made in the second part.

Another copy of our ballad is mentioned by W. C. Hazlitt (Handbook, p. 35), as "printed for W. Gilbertson, dwelling at the Bible in Giltspur-street. A sheet with five cuts." Date probably about 1660-63.

Richard Head, with Francis Kirkman, in the English Rogue, 1666-80, Part I., borrowed the vocabulary of canting words. Again, in 1737, there appeared a Collection of Songs in the Canting Dialect, employed by the Fraternity of Beggars and