The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #44681   Message #869982
Posted By: delphinium
19-Jan-03 - 01:08 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: London's Ordinary
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: London's Ordinary
There are more verses that come after those posted by Masato above. Here they are, transcribed (by me) from the Bodleian ballads site mentioned above and from listening to the Tale of Ale. I am posting them now because I'm following the Tale of Ale Project (but I can't make out where the Dutchmen go - can someone correct this?)

The hosiers will dine at the Leg,
The drapers at the sign of the Brush,
The fletchers to Robin Hood will go,
And the spendthrift to Beggar's Bush.

The pewterers to the Quart Pot,
The coopers will dine at the Hoop,
The cobblers to the Last will go,
And the bargemen to the Scoop.

The carpenters will dine at the Axe,
The colliers will dine at the Sack,
Your fruiterer he to the Cherry Tree,
Good fellows no liquor will lack.

The goldsmiths to the Three Cups,
Their money they count as dross,
Your puritan to the Pewter Can,
And your papists to the Cross.

The weavers will dine at the Shuttle,
The Glover will unto the Glove,
The maidens all to the Maidenhead,
And true lovers unto the dove.

The saddlers will dine at the Saddle,
The painters to the Green Dragon,
The Dutchman will go to the sign of the [Throw?]
Where each man may drink his flagon.

The chandlers will dine at the Scales,
The salters at the sign of the Bag,
The porters take pain at the Labour-in-Vain,
And the horse courser to the White Nag.

Thus every man in his humour,
From north unto the south,
But he that hath no money in his purse,
May dine at the sign of the Mouth.

The swaggerers will dine at the Fencers,
But those that have lost their wits,
With Bedlam Tom let there be their home,
And the Drum the drummers best fit.

The cheater will dine at the Chequer,
The pickpocket at a blind ale house
Till taken and tried up Holbourn they ride,
And make their end at the gallows.

Notes:

In the verses posted previously, "roars" should be "roarers".
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897 & Dictionary of Phrase and Fable 1898:
Roaring Boys or Roarers: The riotous blades of Ben Jonson's time, whose delight it was to annoy quiet folk. At one time their pranks in London were carried to an alarming extent.

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One. XIV. Some Political and Social Aspects of the Later Elizabethan and Earlier Stewart Period. § 24. Growth of London and its causes page 32? Note 97.
Nothing can be said here of other favourite centres of intellectual and social intercourse, among which the taverns—to be distinguished carefully from lesser and more evanescent places of entertainment—did duty for the clubs of later London life. T[homas]. Heywood gives a short list of them in one of the songs inserted in The Rape of Lucrece [ca. 1607, publ. 1609], in another of which the cries of London are reproduced. By 1633, the number of these taverns was reckoned at 211. Cf. Sandys, W., Festive Songs, etc., u.s. (introduction), and see Vatke, T., "Wirthshäuser und Wirthshausleben" in Culturbilder aus Alt-England.
As to "ordinaries" (the fashionable tables d'hôte of the day), see the amusing tract
The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or The Walkes in Powles, 1604 (Percy Soc. Publ., 1845, vol. V). To the main walk of the great gothic church of St. Paul's, a club open to all—even to those who came only to dine with duke Humphrey—there are frequent allusions in our dramatists. (Bobadill was a "Paul's man," and Falstaff "bought Bardolph in Paul's." See, also, L. Barry's Ram-Alley, act IV, sc. 1, and Mayne's City-Match, act III, sc. 3.) These and other features of London life are described in numerous works of easy access; for a graphic picture of Elizabethan London, drawn with the author's usual felicity of touch, the reader may be referred to the section "Le Pays Anglais" in vol. II of Jusserand's Histoire Littéraire du Peuple Anglais.

From Project Gutenberg:
re Every Man in His Humour by Ben Jonson (1601?) but performed 1599?
The term "humour," then applied to any oddity of manner, is used to designate the prevailing traits of a number of distinctly defined characters, illustrative of London manners. The braggart soldier, the clever servant, the avaricious and jealous husband, the gay young men and even the gulls, are all, obviously, suggested by the common types in Plautus...

Questions:

1. "ploughmen unto the Clown" ? – relationship between ploughmen and clowns/fools, esp. re Jan. 6 in traditional English rites (e.g. straw Bear)?

2. "The Dutchman will go to the sign of the [Throw?]" – can't make this out from the song or ballad sheet.