hout taking a day's journey at
the least through miry ways to some considerable market-town, the pedlar
was the merchant and newsman of the neighbourhood. He was as loquacious
as a barber. He was nearly as ubiquitous as the Wandering Jew. He had
his winter circuit and his summer circuit. He was as regular in the
delivery of news as the postman; nay, he often forestalled that
government official in bringing down the latest intelligence of a landing
on the French coast; of an execution at Tyburn; of a meteor in the sky;
of a strike at Spitalfields; and of prices in the London markets. He was
a favourite with the village crones, for he brought down with him the
latest medicines for ague, rheumatism, and the evil. He wrote
love-letters for village beauties. He instructed alehouse politicians in
the last speech of Bolingbroke, Walpole, or Pitt. His tea, which often
had paid no duty, emitted a savour and fragrance unknown to the dried
sloe-leaves vended by ordinary grocers. He was the milliner of rural
belles. He was the purveyor for village songsters, having ever in his
pack the most modern and captivating lace and ribbons, and the newest
song and madrigal. He was competent by his experience to advise in the
adjustment of top-knots and farthingales, and to show rustic beaux the
last cock of the hat and the most approved method of wielding a cane. He
was an oral 'Belle Assemblee.' He was full of "quips and cranks and
wreathed smiles." 'Indifferent' honest, he was not the less welcome for
being a bit of a picaroon. Autolycus, the very type of his
profession,--and such as the pedlar was in the days of Queen Bess, such
also was he in the days of George II.,--was littered under Mercury, and a
snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. His songs would draw three souls out
of one weaver. His pack was furnished with

"Lawn, as white as driven snow;
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow;
Gloves, as sweet as damask roses,
Masks for faces and for noses;
Bugle-bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden quoifs and stomachers
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,--
What maids lack from head to heel."

Then did he chant after the following fashion, at "holy-ales and
festivals"--

"Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear--a?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the