before, and had a crab found upon him at the very time of grinning; upon which the best judges of grinning declared it as their opinion, that he was not to be looked upon as a fair grinner, and therefore ordered him to be set aside as a cheat. The prize, it seems, fell at length upon a cobler, Giles Gorgon by name, who produced several new grins of his own invention, having been used to cut faces for many years together over his last. At the very first grin he cast every human feature out of his countenance; at the second he became the face of a 10 spout, at the third a baboon, at the fourth the head of a bassviol, and at the fifth a pair of nut-crackers. The whole assembly wondered at his accomplishments, and bestowed the ring on him unanimously: but, what he esteemed more than all the rest, a country-wench, whom he had wooed in vain for above five years before, was so charmed with his grins and the applauses which he received on all sides that she married him the week following, and to this day wears the prize upon her finger, the cobler having made use of it as his wedding-ring. This paper might perhaps seem very impertinent, if it grew 20 serious in the conclusion. I would nevertheless leave it to the consideration of those who are the patrons of this monstrous trial of skill, whether or no they are not guilty, in some measure, of an affront to their species, in treating after this manner the 'human face divine,' and turning that part of us which has so great an image impressed upon it, into the image of a monkey; whether the raising such silly competitions among the ignorant, proposing prizes for such useless accomplishments, filling the common people's heads with such senseless ambitions and inspiring them with such absurd ideas of superiority 30 and pre-eminence, has not in it something immoral as well as ridiculous.-L. No. 251. On the London Cries; letter describing them. Linguæ centum sunt, oraque centum, There is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner and frights a country squire than the cries of London. My good friend Sir Roger often declares that he cannot get them out of his head, or LONDON CRIES. 275 On the go to sleep for them, the first week that he is in town. contrary, Will Honeycomb calls them the Ramage de la ville, and prefers them to the sounds of larks and nightingales, with all the music of the fields and woods. I have lately received a letter from some very odd fellow upon this subject, which I shall leave with my reader, without saying any thing farther of it. 'SIR, 'I am a man out of all business, and would willingly turn my head to any thing for an honest livelihood. I have invented several 10 projects for raising many millions of money without burdening the subject, but I cannot get the parliament to listen to me; who look upon me, forsooth, as a crack and a projector: so that, despairing to enrich either myself or my country by this publicspiritedness, I would make some proposals to you relating to a design which I have very much at heart, and which may procure me a handsome subsistence, if you will be pleased to recommend it to the cities of London and Westminster. 'The post I would aim at, is to be comptroller-general of the London cries, which are at present under no manner of rules 20 or discipline. I think I am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great insight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent skill in music. 'The cries of London may be divided into vocal and instrumental. As for the latter, they are at present under a very great disorder. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street for an hour together with the twancking of a brass kettle or a frying-pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds, as much as the breaking in 30 of a thief. The sow-gelder's horn has indeed something musical in it, but this is seldom heard within the liberties. I would therefore propose that no instrument of this nature should be made use of, which I have not tuned and licensed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her majesty's liege subjects. 'Vocal cries are of a much larger extent, and indeed so full of incongruities and barbarisms, that we appear a distracted city to foreigners who do not comprehend the meaning of such enormous outcries. Milk is generally sold in a note above Ela", and in • sounds so exceedingly shrill, that it often sets our teeth on edge. The chimney-sweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he sometimes utters himself in the deepest base, and sometimes in the sharpest treble; sometimes in the highest, and sometimes in the lowest note of the gamut. The same observation might be made on the retailers of small-coal, not to mention broken glasses or brick-dust. In these therefore, and the like cases, it should be my care to sweeten and mellow the voices of these itinerant tradesmen, before they make their appearance in our streets, as also to accommodate their cries to their respective wares: and to 10 take care in particular, that those may not make the most noise who have the least to sell, which is very observable in the vendors of card matches, to whom I cannot but apply that old proverb of "Much cry, and little wool." 'Some of these last mentioned musicians are so very loud in the sale of these trifling manufactures, that an honest splenetic gentleman of my acquaintance bargained with one of them never to come into the street where he lived: but what was the effect of this contract? why, the whole tribe of card-match-makers which frequent that quarter, passed by his door the very next day, in 20 hopes of being bought off after the same manner. 'It is another great imperfection in our London cries, that there is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news should indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should not, however, be cried with the same precipitation as fire; yet this is generally the case: a bloody battle alarms the town from one end to another in any instant. Every motion of the French is published in so great a hurry, that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likewise I would take upon me to regulate in such a manner, 30 that there should be some distinction made between the spreading of a victory, a march, or an encampment, a Dutch, a Portugal, or a Spanish mail. Nor must I omit, under this head, those excessive alarms with which several boisterous rustics infest our streets in turnip-season; and which are more inexcusable, because these are wares which are in no danger of cooling upon their hands. 'There are others who affect a very slow time, and are, in my opinion, much more tuneable than the former; the cooper in particular swells his last note in an hollow voice, that is not 40 without its harmony: nor can I forbear being inspired with a LONDON CRIES. 277 most agreeable melancholy when I hear that sad and solemn air with which the public are very often asked, if they have any chairs to mend ? Your own memory may suggest to you many other lamentable ditties of the same nature, in which the music is wonderfully languishing and melodious. 'I am always pleased with that particular time of the year which is proper for the pickling of dill and cucumbers; but alas! this cry, like the song of the nightingale, is not heard above two months. It would therefore be worth while to consider whether 10 the same air might not in some cases be adapted to other words. 'It might likewise deserve our most serious consideration how far, in a well regulated city, those humourists are to be tolerated, who, not contented with the traditional cries of their forefathers, have invented particular songs and tunes of their own: such as was, not many years since, the pastry-man, commonly known by the name of colly-molly-puff: and such as is at this day the vender of powder and wash-balls, who, if I am rightly informed, goes under the name of Powder Watt. 'I must not here omit one particular absurdity which runs 20 through this whole vociferous generation, and which renders their cries very often not only incommodious, but altogether useless to the public: I mean, that idle accomplishment which they all of them aim at, of crying so as not to be understood. Whether or no they have learned this from several of our affected singers, I will not take upon me to say; but most certain it is, that people know the wares they deal in rather by their tunes than by their words; insomuch that I have sometimes seen a country boy run out to buy apples of a bellows-mender, and ginger-bread from a grinder of knives and scissars. Nay, so strangely infatuated are 30 some very eminent artists of this particular grace in a cry, that none but their acquaintance are able to guess at their profession; for who else can know, that "Work if I had it,” should be the signification of a corn-cutter. 'Forasmuch therefore as persons of this rank are seldom men of genius or capacity, I think it would be very proper, that some man of good sense and sound judgment should preside over these public cries, who should permit none to lift up their voices in our streets that have not tuneable throats, and are not only able to overcome the noise of the crowd, and the rattling of coaches, 40 but also to vend their respective merchandises in apt phrases, and in the most distinct and agrecable sounds. I do therefore humbly recommend myself as a person rightly qualified for this post; and, if I meet with fitting encouragement, shall communicate some other projects which I have by me, that may no less conduce to the emolument of the public. 'I am, Sir, &c. 'RALPH CROTCHET.' No. 295. On Pin Money; the Spectator condemns it. Prodiga non sentit pereuntem fœmina censum: But woman-kind that never knows a mean, 'MR. SPECTATOR, DRYDEN. 'I am turned of my great climacteric 1, and am naturally a man of a meek temper. About a dozen years ago I was married for my sins, to a young woman of a good family, and of an high 10 spirit; but could not bring her to close with me, before I had entered into a treaty with her longer than that of the Grand Alliance". Among other articles, it was therein stipulated that she should have 400l. a year for pin money, which I obliged myself to pay quarterly into the hands of one who acted as her plenipotentiary in that affair. I have ever since religiously observed my part in this solemn agreement. Now, Sir, so it is, that the lady has had several children since I married her; to which, if I should credit our malicious neighbours, her pin money has not a little contributed. The education of these my children 20 who, contrary to my expectation, are born to me every year, straitens me so much that I have begged their mother to free me from the obligation of the above-mentioned pin money, that it may go towards making a provision for her family. This proposal makes her noble blood swell in her veins, insomuch that finding me a little tardy in her last quarter's payment, she threatens me every day to arrest me; and proceeds so far as to |