A CHAPMAN.

From "The Cries and Habits of the City of London," by M. Lauron, 1709.

CHAP-BOOKS
OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

WITH

FACSIMILES, NOTES, AND INTRODUCTION

BY

JOHN ASHTON

London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1882

(All rights reserved)

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

INTRODUCTION.

Although these Chap-books are very curious, and on many accounts interesting, no attempt has yet been made to place them before the public in a collected form, accompanied by the characteristic engravings, without which they would lose much of their value. They are the relics of a happily past age, one which can never return, and we, in this our day of cheap, plentiful, and good literature, can hardly conceive a time when in the major part of this country, and to the larger portion of its population, these little Chap-books were nearly the only mental pabulum offered. Away from the towns, newspapers were rare indeed, and not worth much when obtainable—poor little flimsy sheets such as nowadays we should not dream of either reading or publishing, with very little news in them, and that consisting principally of war items, and foreign news, whilst these latter books were carried in the packs of the pedlars, or Chapmen, to every village, and to every home.

Previous to the eighteenth century, these men generally carried ballads, as is so well exemplified in the "Winter's Tale," in Shakespeare's inimitable conception, Autolycus. The servant (Act iv. sc. 3) well describes his stock: "He hath songs, for man, or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of 'dildos' and 'fadings:' 'jump her' and 'thump her;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'" And Autolycus, himself, hardly exaggerates the style of his wares, judging by those which have come down to us, when he praises the ballads: "How a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden; and how she longed to eat adders' heads, and toads carbonadoed;" and "of a fish, that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids;" for the wonders of both ballads, and early Chap-books, are manifold, and bear strange testimony to the ignorance, and credulity, of their purchasers. These ballads and Chap-books have, luckily for us, been preserved by collectors, and although they are scarce, are accessible to readers in that national blessing, the British Museum. There the Roxburghe, Luttrell, Bagford, and other collections of black-letter ballads are easily obtainable for purposes of study, and, although the Chap-books, to the uninitiated (owing to the difficulties of the Catalogue), are not quite so easy of access, yet there they exist, and are a splendid series—it is impossible to say a complete one, because some are unique, and are in private hands, but so large, especially from the middle to the close of the last century, as to be virtually so.

I have confined myself entirely to the books of the last century, as, previous to it, there were few, and almost all black-letter tracts have been published or noted; and, after it, the books in circulation were chiefly very inferior reprints of those already published. As they are mostly undated, I have found some difficulty in attributing dates to them, as the guides, such as type, wood engravings, etc., are here fallacious, many—with the exception of Dicey's series—having been printed with old type, and any wood block being used, if at all resembling the subject. I have not taken any dated in the Museum Catalogue as being of this present century, even though internal evidence showed they were earlier. The Museum dates are admittedly fallacious and merely approximate, and nearly all are queried. For instance, nearly the whole of the beautiful Aldermary Churchyard (first) editions are put down as 1750?—a manifest impossibility, for there could not have been such an eruption of one class of publication from one firm in one year—and another is dated 1700?, although the book from which it is taken was not published until 1703. Still, as a line must be drawn somewhere, I have accepted these quasi dates, although such acceptation has somewhat narrowed my scheme, and deprived the reader of some entertainment, and I have published nothing which is not described in the Museum Catalogue as being between the years 1700 and 1800.

In fact, the Chap-book proper did not exist before the former date, unless the Civil War and political tracts can be so termed. Doubtless these were hawked by the pedlars, but they were not these pennyworths, suitable to everybody's taste, and within the reach of anybody's purse, owing to their extremely low price, which must, or ought to have, extracted every available copper in the village, when the Chapman opened his budget of brand-new books.

In the seventeenth, and during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the popular books were generally in 8vo form, i.e. they consisted of a sheet of paper folded in eight, and making a book of sixteen pages; but during the other seventy-five years they were almost invariably 12mo, i.e. a sheet folded into twelve, and making twenty-four pages. After 1800 they rapidly declined. The type and wood blocks were getting worn out, and never seem to have been renewed; publishers got less scrupulous, and used any wood blocks without reference to the letter-press, until, after Grub Street authors had worked their wicked will upon them, Catnach buried them in a dishonoured grave.

But while they were in their prime, they mark an epoch in the literary history of our nation, quite as much as the higher types of literature do, and they help us to gauge the intellectual capacity of the lower and lower middle classes of the last century.

The Chapman proper, too, is a thing of the past, although we still have hawkers, and the travelling "credit drapers," or "tallymen," yet penetrate every village; but the Chapman, as described by Cotsgrave in his "Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues" (London, 1611), no longer exists. He is there faithfully portrayed under the heading "Bissoüart, m. A paultrie Pedlar, who in a long packe or maund (which he carries for the most part open, and (hanging from his necke) before him) hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, or other trifling ware to sell."

Shakespeare uses the word in a somewhat different sense, making him more of a general dealer, as in "Love's Labour's Lost," Act ii. sc. I:

"Princess of France. Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,

Not uttered by base sale of Chapmen's tongues."

And in "Troilus and Cressida," Act iv. sc. I:

"Paris. Fair Diomed, you do as Chapmen do,

Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy."

Unlike his modern congener, the colporteur, the Chapman's life seems to have been an exceptionally hard one, especially if we can trust a description, professedly by one of the fraternity, in "The History of John Cheap the Chapman," a Chap-book published early in the present century. He appears, on his own confession, to have been as much of a rogue as he well could be with impunity and without absolutely transgressing the law, and, as his character was well known, very few roofs would shelter him, and he had to sleep in barns, or even with the pigs. He had to take out a licence, and was classed in old bye-laws and proclamations as "Hawkers, Vendors, Pedlars, petty Chapmen, and unruly people." In more modern times the literary Mercury dropped the somewhat besmirched title of Chapmen, and was euphoniously designated the "Travelling," "Flying," or "Running Stationer."

Little could he have dreamed that his little penny books would ever have become scarce, and prized by book collectors, and fetch high prices whenever the rare occasion happened that they were exposed for sale. I have taken out the prices paid in 1845 and 1847 for nine volumes of them, bought at as many different sales. These nine volumes contain ninety-nine Chap-books, and the price paid for them all was £24 13s. 6d., or an average of five shillings each—surely not a bad increment in a hundred years on the outlay of a penny; but then, these volumes were bought very cheaply, as some of their delighted purchasers record.

The principal factory for them, and from which certainly nine-tenths of them emanated, was No. 4, Aldermary Churchyard, afterwards removed to Bow Churchyard, close by. The names of the proprietors were William and Cluer Dicey—afterwards C. Dicey only—and they seem to have come from Northampton, as, in "Hippolito and Dorinda," 1720, the firm is described as "Raikes and Dicey, Northampton;" and this connection was not allowed to lapse, for we see, nearly half a century later, that "The Conquest of France" was "printed and sold by C. Dicey in Bow Church Yard: sold also at his Warehouse in Northampton."

From Dicey's house came nearly all the original Chap-books, and I have appended as perfect a list as I can make, amounting to over 120, of their publications. Unscrupulous booksellers, however, generally pirated them very soon after issue, especially at Newcastle, where certainly the next largest trade was done in this class of books. The Newcastle editions are rougher in every way, in engravings, type, and paper, than the very well got up little books of Dicey's, but I have frequently taken them in preference, because of the superior quaintness of the engravings.

After the commencement of the present century reading became more popular, and the following, which are only the names of a few places where Chap-books were published, show the great and widely spread interest taken in their production:—Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock, Penrith, Stirling, Falkirk, Dublin, York, Stokesley, Warrington, Liverpool, Banbury, Aylesbury, Durham, Dumfries, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Whitehaven, Carlisle, Worcester, Cirencester, etc., etc. And they flourished, for they formed nearly the sole literature of the poor, until the Penny Magazine and Chambers's penny Tracts and Miscellanies gave them their deathblow, and relegated them to the book-shelves of collectors.

That these histories were known and prized in Queen Anne's time, is evidenced by the following quotation from the Weekly Comedy, January 22, 1708:—"I'll give him Ten of the largest Folio Books in my Study, Letter'd on the Back, and bound in Calves Skin. He shall have some of those that are the most scarce and rare among the Learned, and therefore may be of greater use to so Voluminous an Author; there is 'Tom Thumb' with Annotations and Critical Remarks, two volumes in folio. The 'Comical Life and Tragical Death of the Old Woman that was Hang'd for Drowning herself in Ratcliffe High-Way:' One large Volume, it being the 20th Edition, with many new Additions and Observations. 'Jack and the Gyants;' formerly Printed in a small Octavo, but now Improv'd to three Folio Volumes by that Elaborate Editor, Forestus, Ignotus Nicholaus Ignoramus Sampsonius; then there is 'The King and the Cobler,' a Noble piece of Antiquity, and fill'd with many Pleasant Modern Intrigues fit to divert the most Curious."

And Steele, writing in the Tatler, No. 95, as Isaac Bickerstaff, and speaking of his godson, a little boy of eight years of age, says, "I found he had very much turned his studies, for about twelve months past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, The Seven Champions, and other historians of that age.... He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton and loved St. George for being Champion of England."

As before said, their great variety adapted them for every purchaser, and they may be roughly classed under the following heads:—Religious, Diabolical, Supernatural, Superstitious, Romantic, Humorous, Legendary, Historical, Biographical, and Criminal, besides those which cannot fairly be put in any of the above categories; and under this classification and in this sequence I have taken them. The Religious, strictly so called, are the fewest, the subjects, such as "Dr. Faustus," etc., connected with his Satanic Majesty being more exciting, and probably paying better; whilst the Supernatural, such as "The Duke of Buckingham's Father's Ghost," "The Guildford Ghost," etc., trading upon man's credulity and his love of the marvellous, afford a far larger assortment. About the same amount of popularity may be given to the Superstitious Chap-books—those relating to fortune telling and the interpretation of Dreams and Moles, etc. But they were nothing like the favourites those of the Romantic School were. These dear old romances, handed down from the days when printing was not—some, like "Jack the Giant Killer," of Norse extraction; others, like "Tom Hickathrift," "Guy of Warwick," "Bevis of Hampton," etc., records of the doughty deeds of local champions; and others, again, "Reynard the Fox," "Valentine and Orson," and "Fortunatus," of foreign birth—hit the popular taste, and many were the editions of them. Naturally, however, the Humorous stories were the prime favourites. The Jest-books, pure and simple, are, from their extremely coarse witticisms, utterly incapable of being reproduced for general reading nowadays, and the whole of them are more or less highly spiced; but even here were shades of humour to suit all classes, from the solemn foolery of the "Wise Men of Gotham," or the "World turned upside down," to the rollicking fun of "Tom Tram," "The Fryer and the Boy," or "Jack Horner." In reading these books we must not, however, look upon them from our present point of view. Whether men and women are better now than they used to be, is a moot point, but things used to be spoken of openly, which are now never whispered, and no harm was done, nor offence taken; so the broad humour of the jest-books was, after all, only exuberant fun, and many of the bonnes histoires are extremely laughable, though to our own thinking equally indelicate. The old legends still held sway, and I have given four—"Adam Bell," "Robin Hood," "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green," and "The Children in the Wood"—all of them remarkable for their illustrations. History has a wide range from "Fair Rosamond," to "The Royal Martyr," Charles I., whilst, naturally, such books as "Robinson Crusoe," "George Barnwell," and a host of criminal literature found ready purchasers.

I have not included Calendars, and I have purposely avoided Garlands, or Collections of ballads, which equally come under the category of Chap-books. I should have liked to have noticed more of them, but the exigencies of publishing have prevented it; still, those I have taken seem to me to be the best fitted for the purpose I had in view, which was to give a fairly representative list: and I hope I have succeeded in producing a book at once both amusing and instructive, besides having rescued these almost forgotten booklets from the limbo into which they were fast descending.

CONTENTS.

CHAP-BOOKS
OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE HISTORY OF
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN.

The first printed metrical history of this Biblical episode is the book printed by Wynkyn de Worde, a book of fourteen leaves, and entitled "Thystorie of Jacob and his twelue Sones. Empȳrted at Lōdon in Fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne by Wynkyn de Worde" (no date). It is chiefly remarkable in connection with this book, as mentioning Chapmen.

"Now leaue we of them & speak we of the Chapman

That passed ouer the sea into Egipt land.

But truely ere that he thether came

The wind stiffly against them did stand;

And yet at the last an hauen they fand.

The Chapman led Joseph with a rope in the streat

Him for to bye came many a Lord great."

A metrical edition is still used in the performance of a sort of miracle play, entitled "Joseph and his Brothers. A Biblical Drama or Mystery Play." 1864. London and Derby.

The action of this piece is reported to be somewhat ludicrous, the performers being in their everyday dress, or, rather, in their Sunday attire. There is no scenery, and very little life or motion in connection with the dialogue, the quality of which may be judged by the following specimen:—

"(Joseph, weeping, offers Benjamin his goblet.)

Here, my son,

Drink from my Cup; the sentiment shall be

'Health and long life to your aged father.'

(Benjamin drinks.)

Now sing me one of your Hebrew Songs

To any National Air; for we in Egypt

Know little of the music of Chanaan.

Benjamin. If such be your wish, I'll sing the song

I often sing to soothe my father's breast

When he is sad with memory of the past.

(He sings.) Air, 'Phillis is my only joy,' etc.:—

Joseph was my favourite boy,

Rachel's firstborn Son and pride:

His father's hope, his father's joy,

Begotten in life's eventide," etc.

THE HISTORY
OF
Joseph and his Brethren,
WITH
Jacob's Journey into Egypt,
AND
HIS DEATH AND FUNERAL.

Illustrated with Twelve Cuts.

JOSEPH BROUGHT BEFORE PHAROAH.

Printed and Sold in Aldermary Church Yard,
Bow Lane, London.

THE HISTORY OF
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN.

JACOB'S LOVE TO JOSEPH, WITH JOSEPH'S FIRST
DREAM.

In Canaan's fruitful land there liv'd of late,

Old Isaac's heir blest with a vast estate;

Near Hebron Jacob sourjourned all alone,

A stranger in the land that was his own:

Dear to his God, for humbly he ador'd him,

As Isaac did, and Abraham before him.

And as he was of worldly wealth possest,

So with twelve sons the good old man was blest,

Amongst all whom none his affections won,

So much as Joseph, Rachel's first-born son,

He in his bosom lay, still next his heart,

And with his Joseph would by no means part:

He was the lad on whom he most did doat,

And gave to him a many colour'd coat.

This made his bretheren at young Joseph grudge,

And thought their father loved him too much.

At Jacob's love their hatred did encrease,

That they could hardly speak to him in peace.

But Joseph, (in whose heart the filial fear

Of his Creator early did appear)

Not being conscious to himself at all,

He had done ought to move his brethren's gall,

}Did unto them a dream of his relate,

Which (tho' it did increase his bretheren's hate,

Did plainly shew forth Joseph's future state

This is the dream, said Joseph, I did see:

The Corn was reap'd, and binding sheaves are we,

When my sheaf only was on a sudden found,

Both to arise and stand upon the ground.

}Then yours arose, which round about were laid,

And unto mine a low obeisance made,

Is this your dream, his brethren said?

Can your ambitious thoughts become so vain,

To think that you shall o'er your brethren reign?

Or that we unto you shall tribute pay,

And at your feet our servile necks should lay?

Believe us brother, this youll never see,

But your aspiring will your ruin be.

Thus Joseph's bretheren talk'd, and if before

They hated him, they did it now much more;

The father lov'd him, and the lad they thought,

Took more upon him, than indeed he ought.

But they who judge a matter e'er the time,

Are oftentimes involved in a crime:

'Tis therefore best for us to wait and see

What the issue of mysterious things will be;

For those that judge by meer imagination,

Will find things contrary to their expectation.

JOSEPH'S SECOND DREAM.

How bold is innocence! how fix'd it grows!

It fears no seeming friends nor real foes.

'Tis conscious of no guilt, nor base designs,

And therefore forms no plots nor countermines:

But in the paths of virtue walks on still,

And as it does none, so it fears no ill.

Just so it was with Joseph: lately he

Had dream'd a dream, and was so very free,

He to his bretheren did the dream reveal,

At which their hatred scarce they could conceal.

But Joseph not intending any ill,

Dream'd on again, and told his bretheren still.

Methought as on my slumb'ring bed I lay,

I saw a glorious light more bright than day:

The sun and moon, those glorious lamps of heaven,

With glittering stars in number seven,

Came all to me, on purpose to adore me,

And every one of them bow'd down before me:

And each one when they had thus obedience made,

Withdrew, nor for each other longer staid.

When Joseph thus his last dream had related,

Then he was by his bretheren much more hated.

This dream young Joseph to his father told,

Who when he heard it, thinking him too bold,

Rebuk'd him thus: What dream is this I hear?

You are infatuated, child I fear,

Must I, your mother, and your bretheren too,

Become your slaves and bow down to you.

Thus Jacob chid him, for at present he,

Saw not so far into futurity:

Yet he did wonder how things might succeed,

And what for Joseph providence decreed,

For well he thought those dreams wa'nt sent in vain

Yet knew not how he should these dreams explain.

For those things oft are hid from human eyes,

Which are by him that rules above the skies

Firmly decreed; which when they come to know,

The beauty of the work will plainly shew,

And all those bretheren which now Joseph hate,

Shall then bow down to his superior fate:

Old Jacob therefore, just to make a shew,

As if he was displeased with Joseph too,

Thus seem'd to chide young Joseph, but indeed

To his strange dreams he gave no little heed;

Tho' how to interpret them he could not tell,

Yet in the meanwhile he observ'd them well.

How great's the difference 'twixt a father's love,

And brethren's hatred may be seen above.

}They hate their brother for his dreams, but he,

Observes his words, and willing is to see

What the event in future times may be.

JOSEPH PUT INTO A PIT BY HIS BRETHEREN.

When envy in the heart of man does reign,

To stifle its effects proves oft in vain.

Like fire conceal'd, which none at first did know,

It soon breaks out and breeds a world of woe:

Young Joseph this by sad experience knew,

And his brethren's envy made him find it true:

For they, as in the sequel we shall see,

Resolv'd upon poor Joseph's tragedy;

That they together at his dream might mock,

Which they almost effected, when their flock

In Sechem's fruitful field they fed, for there

Was Joseph sent to see how they did fare:

Joseph his father readily obeys,

And on the pleasing message goes his ways.

Far off they know, and Joseph's coming note,

For he had on his many colour'd coat;

Which did their causeless anger set on fire,

And they against Joseph presently conspire:

Lo yonder doth the dreamer come they cry,

Now lets agree and act this tragedy.

And when we've slain him in some digged pit

Let's throw his carcase, and then cover it,

And if our father ask for him, we'll say,

We fear he's kill'd by some wild beast of prey.

}This Reuben heard, who was to save him bent,

And therefore said, (their purpose to prevent,)

To shed his blood I'll ne'er give my consent;

But into some deep pit him let us throw,

And what we've done there's none will know.

This Reuben said his life for to defend,

Till he could home unto his father send.

To Reuben's proposition they agree,

And what came of it we shall quickly see.

Joseph by this time to his brethren got,

And now affliction was to be his lot;

They told him all his dreams would prove a lye,

For in a pit he now should starve and die.

}Joseph for his life did now entreat and pray,

But to his tears and prayers they answered Nay,

And from him first his coat they took away.

}Then into an empty pit they did him throw,

And there left Joseph almost drown'd in woe,

While they to eating and to drinking go.

See here the vile effects of causeless rage,

In what black crimes does it oftimes engage.

Nearest relations! setting bretheren on

To work their brother's dire destruction.

But now poor Joseph in the pit doth lie,

'Twill be his bretheren's turn to weep and cry.

JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT.

As Joseph in the Pit condemn'd to die,

So did his grandfather on the altar lie,

The wood was laid, a sacrificing knife,

Was lifted up to take poor Isaac's life.

But heaven that ne'er design'd the lad should die,

Stopt the bold hand, and shew'd a lamb just by,

Thus in like manner did the all-wise decree,

His brethrens plots should disappointed be:

}For while within the Pit poor Joseph lay,

And they set down to eat and drink and play,

And with rejoicing revel out the day:

}Some Ishmaelitish merchants strait drew near,

Who to the land of Egypt journeying were,

To sell some balm and myrrh, and spices there.

This had on Judah no impressions made,

And therefore to his bretheren thus he said,

Come Sirs, to kill young Joseph is not good,

What profit will it be to spill his blood?

How are we sure his death we shall conceal?

The birds of air this murder will reveal.

Come let's to Egypt sell him for a slave,

And we for him some money sure may have;

So from his blood our hands shall be clear,

And we for him have no cause for fear.

To this advice they presently agreed,

And Joseph from the Pit was drawn with speed:

For twenty pieces they their brother sell

To the Ishmaelites, and thought their bargain well.

And thus they to their brother bid adieu,

For he was quickly carried out of view.

Reuben this time was absent, and not told

That Joseph was took out of the pit and sold,

He therefore to the pit return'd, that he

Might sit his father's Joy at liberty.

}But when, alas! he found he was not there,

He was so overcome with black despair,

To rend his garments he could not forbear;

Then going to his bretheren thus said he,

Poor Joseph's out, and whither shall I flee?

But they, not so concern'd, still kill'd a goat,

And in its blood they dipt poor Joseph's coat,

And that they all suspicion might prevent,

It by a stranger to their father sent,

Saying, We've found, and brought this coat to know

Whether 'tis thy son Joseph's coat or no.

This brought sad floods of tears from Jacob's eyes,

Ah! 'tis my son's, my Joseph's coat he cries:

Ah! woe is me, thus wretched and forlorn,

For my poor Joseph is in pieces torn:

}His sons and daughters comfort him in vain,

He can't but mourn while he thinks Joseph slain,

And yet those sons won't fetch him back again.

JOSEPH AND HIS MISTRESS.

How much for Joseph's loss old Jacob griev'd,

It was not now his time to be reliev'd:

And therefore let's to Egypt turn our thought,

Where we shall find young Joseph sold and bought,

By Potiphar a Captain of the Guard;