His wallets ahint and afore did hang,

In as good order as wallets could be;
A long kail-gooly hang down by his side,

And a meikle nowt-horn to rout on had he.1

Despite all these preparations for gathering supplies of food, we learn that "It happened ill, it happened warse, It happened sae that he did die;" and everything was done to give him as good a lyke-wake as though he had been the Larry of a later generation, who was untimely "stretched" at the expense of a paternal government. The ballad is worth remembering, if only for its description of the confusion wrought by the "humble beggar" returning to life, and finally enjoying the good things that had been provided to console his bearers. When brought to "Duket's Kirk-yard," he had obstinately and selfishly declined to be buried, decently and contentedly:

He cry'd, I'm ca[u]ld, I'm unca ca[u]ld,

Fu' fast ran the folk, and fu' fast ran he;
But he was first hame at his ain ingle-side,
And he helped to drink his ain dirgie.

We are beginning to escape from the delusion that the abjectlypoor in England found much help from those clamorous Protestants who enriched themselves by the dissolution of the Monasteries. As in the case of the lay-impropriators, who still unblushingly retain Church property, so was it in those days; people who hold stolen-goods are seldom found to be generous. The writer of A Supplication of the Poore Commons: 1546 (Reprinted, and edited by J. Meadows Cowper, for the Early English Text Soc., 1871, Extra Series, xiii.), probably written by Henry Brinklow, "Roderyck Mors," acknowledges, whilst hating and

1 We retain the original spelling, as usual. Need we explain to our Southron countrymen some few of the words employed?"Sunket" has not here any of the provincial meanings given in Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic & Prov. Words, ii. 828, 8th edition, 1874; not indefinitely the "something," of 1776 Herd's Glossary, but simply "sops" or "sippets," to stretch or tighten the man's "in'ards.' Thus, in James Ballantyne's best poem, "The Wee Raggit Laddie," we find, "But aitmeal parritch straughts thy guts,

An' thick Scotch kail."

(See his Gaberlunzie's Wallet: wherein the present Editor made his own first public appearance; having drawn and engraved for it "John Knox's Corner, Netherbow," and etched the "Cathedral of St. Giles, Edinburgh." The other illustrations were by "Dot": Alexander Ritchie, A.R.S.A., beloved by all who knew him.)

A nievefull is a clenched-fist full; a "dad" is a hunk, or lump, of "bannock" or pease-meal cake. Bree is broth or kail, generally; but herring-brie is the brine of salted-herrings. A kail-goolie, or gully, is a large clasp-knife, fit for cutting cabbage-stalks. On the cow's-horn he blew noisily, as a signal, on approaching a house.

reviling the "Reformed" churchmen, that the poor had been helped more liberally from the monasteries than they were afterwards by those who plundered these monasteries under pretence of zeal for the Anti-Papal Reformation. Begging friars and plump abbots, no doubt, may have had sins enough to answer for; but the virtues of their despoilers were so shy as to become invisible. Some claimants hoped that all the good things wrenched from the Catholics would be scattered broadcast to fill their own hungry maws:

"But alas! thei failed of theyr expectation, and are now in more penurye then euer they were. For, although the sturdy beggers gat all the deuotion of the good charitable people from them, yet had the pore impotent creatures some relefe of theyr scrappes, where as nowe th[e]ye haue nothing. The[n] had they hospitals, and almeshouses to be lodged in, but nowe they lye and storue in the stretes. Then was their number great, but nowe much greater. And no merueil, for ther is in sted of these sturdy beggers [i.e. the Monks and Friars, against whom Simon Fish wrote his Supplicatyon for the Beggers, about 1529], crept in a sturdy sorte of extorsioners. These me[n] cesse not to oppresse vs.' &c. (p. 79.)

Of course, before the monasteries were despoiled, Simon Fish, in his "Supplicatyon," 1529, could admit of no virtue existing among their inhabitants. He asserts roundly that the poor reaped no benefit from them. "Dyuers of your [i.e. Henry VIII.'s] noble predecessours, Kinges of this realme, haue gyuen londes to monasteries to giue a certein somme of money yerely to the poore people, wherof, for the aunciente of the tyme, they giue neuer one peny: They haue lyke wise giuen to the[m] to haue a certeyn masses said daily for theim, whereof they say neuer one."-(Supplicatyon for the Beggers, Re-edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, M.A., in the same No. xiii., Extra Series, Early English Text Society.) Such haters of "Popery" admit of no merit in their opponents.

We have already written concerning the later generation of vagrants, three Introductions back. But here, because we sorely needed it ourselves, we unblushingly retain "The Beggars' Chorus;" although a copy occurs also in the Roxburghe Collection (it comes very late, however, iii. 676): Mr. Wm. Chappell will generously forgive our trespass or petty larceny.

Our Bagford ballad-singer boldly avows his independence, in the final verse, when demanding "Why, who would be a King, when a Beggar lives so well?" He thus recalls to memory the question indignantly asked by King James V., in 1529, when he saw the "bravery" of Johnnie Armstrong, the Borderfreebooter, of Gilnockie tower: " 'What wants [i.e. lacks] the knave, that a king should have?" A contented beggar asserts his own lofty superiority, by disregarding the superfluities of

BAGFORD.

luxurious Dives. To him the modern significance of "What wants he?"-as being equivalent to "What desires he?". becomes sufficiently demonstrative. How little is absolutely necessary was perceived by one who was a king indeed, "Aye, every inch a king!" Lear himself, when struck with frenzied admiration of the bareness of Mad Tom, in the storm, exclaims "Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the [civet-]cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on's are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor forked animal as thou art!"

In modern days the hint has not been lost. In 1807, if not earlier, a merry singer (probably Tom Dibdin) thus indulged society with what he called "Vocal and rhetorical imitations of Beggars and Ballad-singers." It forms for us an appropriate

finale :

There's a difference to be seen, 'Twixt a beggar and a Queen,
And I'll tell you the reason why.

A Queen cannot swagger, And get drunk like a beggar,
Nor be half so happy as I, as I!

Nor be half so happy as I.

Merry Proteus of old, As by Ovid we're told,
Could vary his shape as he chose;

'Tis proper that he my model should be

When in Charity's name I impose. &c.

Then a Sailor from the Wars, cover'd over with scars,
And from all, great and small, do I beg;
My knuckles I hold flat, and in t'other arm my hat,
And thus I contract up my leg! &c.

In another disguise, I appear to want eyes,

But eyes very soon I can find;

Led by my little dog, Thro' the villages I jog,

And no one suspects but I'm blind!

With a hump on my back, People's charity I sack,
And in that I'm at home to a T;

With a snuffle in my nose, I their feelings discompose,
And in this way contract up my knee! &c.

Then there's Dolly and I, When our ballads we cry,
On a couple of stools take our stand;

The people all crowd, while she bawls aloud,

And I takes my fiddle in hand. &c.1

The Songster's Museum, printed at Gosport, n.d.. about 1807, by W. M. Martin, Middle-street, and sold by B. Crosby and Co., Stationers' Court, London. We omit the prose patter, &c., and adopt two variations of text in verses 3 and 5 from The Lyre, Edinburgh, 1824, ii. 262 (which omits the second verse, and adds the following to finish):

:

To make the wretched blest, private charity is best,
The common beggar spurns at your laws;
Though I reprobate the train, yet I mean to beg again,
To solicit your smiles and applause,

We must not omit to mention another ballad, The Jovial Beggar's Merry Crew; to the tune of "A Figg for France," printed for J. Deacon, at the Angel. It begins, "There was a jovial Beggar old, who often lodged in the cold." Roxb. Coll.,

iv. 51.

Thus, in our introduction to the "Jovial Crew" (pp. 189-194), and here, we have noticed some of the chief among the other memorable ballads, celebrating the "Jovial Beggars" who lived in earlier days. We plead guilty to the charge of Bohemian sympathy with them. It almost tempts one to follow their example, and escape from the turmoil of a discontented moneygrubbing world (were it not that we have always the seclusion of Nirgends College for a refuge), like Robert Browning's faithful Forester, after "The Flight of the Duchess":

So, I shall find out some snug corner
Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,

Turn myself round, and bid the world good-night;
And sleep a sound sleep, till the trumpet's blowing
Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen),
To a world where will be no further throwing
Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!

And a Begging we will go, we'll go, we'll go,

6

And a Begging we will go.

A Bag for my Oatmeal,
another for my Salt,
A little pair of Crutches,
to see how I can Halt:
And a Begging, etc.

A Bag for my Bread,

another for my Cheese, A little Dog to follow me to gather what I leese: And a Begging, etc.

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