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REIGN OF CHARLES II. |
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Then what do you say lo these black pots three ? At noon, the haymakers sit them down,
If a man and his wife should not agree, [spill: To drink from their bottles of ale nut-brown ;
AAhy they'll tug and pull till their liquor doth In summer too, when the weather is warm,
In a leather bottel they may tug their fill, A good bottle full will do them no harm.
And pull away till their hearts do ake, Then the lads and the lasses begin to tattle,
And yet their liquor no harm can take. But what would they do without this bottle ? So I wish, &c. So I wish, &c.
Then what do you say to these flagons fine ? There's never a Lord, an Earl, or Knight,
Oh, they shall have no praise of mine, But in this bottle doth take delight;
For when a Lord is about to dine, For when he's hunting of the deer,
And sends them to be filled with wine, He oft doth wish for a bottle of beer.
The man with the flagon doth run away, Likewise the man that works in the wood,
Because it is silver most gallant and gay. A bottle of beer will oft do him good. So I wish, &c. So I wish, &c.
A leather bottel we know is good, And when the bottle at last grows old,
Far better, than glasses or cans of wood, And will good liquor no longer hold,
For when a man's at work in the field, Out of the side you may make a clout, Your glasses and pots no comfort will yield ; To mend your shoes when they're worn out;
But a good leather bottle standing by, Or take and hang it up on a pin,
Will raise his spirits, whenever he's dry. 'Twill serve to put hinges and odd things in. So I wish, &c. So I wish, &c.
As to leather bottles, Heywood thus enumerates the various descriptions, in his I'hilocothonista, 4to., 1635, p. 45 :—" Other bottles we have of leather, but they most used amongst the shepheards and harvest people of the countrey; small jacks we have in many ale-houses of the citie and suburbs, tipt with silver; besides the great black-jack and bombards at the court, which, when the Frenchmen first saw, they reported at their returne into- their countrey, that the Englishmen used to drink out of their boots." These bombards, according to Taylor, the water-poet, each held a gallon and a half, in the reign of James I.; and the merchants of London, who had to pay a tax of two bombards of wine to the Lieutenant of the Tower, out of every ship that brought wine into the river Thames, contended, but unsuccessfully, that they had been unduly increased in size. " When the bottle and jack stand together, 0 fie on't,
The bottle looks just like a dwarf to a giant; Then have we not reason the jacks to choose, For they will make boots, when the bottle mends shoes."
TURN AGAIN, WH1TTINGTON; " The tradition of Whittington's cat," says Mr. J. H. Burn, " has served to amuse and delight the childhood of many, many thousands; nor is it possible in more adult years to shake off the delusion cherished and imbibed in our youthful dreams. Still it has no reality; it is a pleasing fiction, so agreeable to our . better feelings, so happy in its believed results, that regret is excited when it happens not to be true."
" Sir Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, in the years 1397, 1406, and 1419, was born in 1360, the son of Sir William Whittington, Knight, a ad dame Joan his wife. He was therefore not a poor boy; and the story of his
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