Table Of Content

OJ g <-\J g CO L"^^"^^^0^0 5^^ CD -^^^^^=:ty>—~ CO Digitized bytine InternetArchive in 2008witii funding from IVIicrosoftCorporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/chapbool<sofeiglitOOaslituoft INTRODUCTION. Vlthough these Chap-books are very curious, and on many (Counts interesting, no attempt has yet been made to place ,cmbeforethepubhc in acollectedform, accompaniedbythe 'laracteristicengravings, without which theywouldlose much f theirvalue. Theyarethe relics of a happilypast age, one l^jch can never return, and we, in this our day of cheap, Icntiful, andgood literature, canhardlyconceive atimewhen hemajorpartofthis country,and tothelargerportionofits ulation, these little Chap-books werenearlythe onlymental ;abulum offered. Away from the towns, newspapers were — are indeed, and notworth much when obtainable poorlittle imsy sheets such as nowadays we should not dream of itherreadingor publishing, \nthverylittle newsinthem, and lat consisting principally of war items, and foreign news, hilst these latter books were carried in the packs of the .dlars, or Chapmen, toeveryvillage, andtoeveryhome. 'I Previous to the eighteenth century, these men generally iJarriedballads, asis sowellexemplifiedinthe "Winter'sTale," ;ji Shakespeare's inimitable conception, Autolycus. The trvant (Activ. sc. 3) welldescribeshisstock: "Hehathsongs, ].urstmoamne,rsorwiwthomgalno,veso.f aHllesihzaess;thneo pmrieltltiinesetr lcoavne ssoonfgist hfiosr j' luariddesn;ssoof\n*tdhioludtosb'awadnrdy,'fwahdiicnhgsis:'st'rjaungmep;whietrh'sauncdh d'etlhiucamtpe ( ;" and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it 1.'re, mean mischief, and break a foul gapintothematter, he lakes the maid to answer, 'Whoop, do me no harm, good ;ian;' puts him off, slights him, with 'Whoop, Ou me no Introduction. harm,good man.'" AndAutolycus, himself,hardlyexaggerated ia the style of his wares,judging bythosewhich have comedow^fe to us, when he praises the ballads: "How ausurer'swife waBjl brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden; and ho^4 shelonged to eatadders'heads, andtoads carbonadoed;" anAjc of a fish, that appeared upon the coast, on WednesdaythH ] fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, an<B( sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids;" for th^ wonders of both ballads, and early Chap-books, are manifok and bearstrange testimony to the ignorance, andcredulity, theirpurchasers. These ballads and Chap-books have, luckilj for us, been preserved by collectors, and although they scarce, are accessible to readers in that national blessing, th^ British Museum. Therethe Roxburghe, Luttrell,Bagford, an( other collections of black-letter ballads are easily obtainablcpl for purposes of study, and, although the Chap-books, to tht| uninitiated (owing tothedifficulties ofthe Catalogue), areno/ quite—so easy ofaccess, yet theretheyexist, and areasplendic^ series it is impossible to say a complete one, because somt are unique, and are in private hands, but so large, especiallj from the middle to the close of the last century, as to b< virtuallyso. I have confined myself entirelyto the books of the las, century, as, previous to it, therewereitvi, andalmostall black lettertracts have been published or noted; and, after it, th( books in circulation were chiefly veryinferior reprints ofthos<. alreadypublished. As theyare mostlyundated, I have foum some difficulty in attributing dates to them, as the guides. I such as type, woodengravings, etc.,—are here fallacious,many— I with theexception of Dicey'sseries havingbeen printed wit! old type, and anywoodblock beingused, if at allresembling the subject. I have not taken any dated in the Museum M Catalogue asbeingofthispresent century,even thoughinternal evidence showed they were earlier. The Museum date;^^^. 'B admittedly fallacious and merely approximate, and nearly;t are queried. For instance, nearly the whole of the beautitu/ Aldermary Churchyard (first) editions are put down a: httrodtution. vii — 1750? amanifestimpossibility, forthere could not have been such an eruption of one class of publication from one firm — in oneyear and anotheris dated 1700?, although the book from whichitis taken was not published until 1703. Still, as alinemust 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 havepublishednothingwhichis notdescribed inthe Museum Catalogueasbeingbetween theyears 1700 and 1800. In fact, the Chap-book proper did not exist before the formerdate, unless the Civil Warandpoliticaltracts canbeso termed. Doubtlessthesewerehawkedbythepedlars, butthey were not these pennyworths, suitable to everybody's taste, and withinthereach of anybody's purse, owing to their extremely lowprice,whichmust,oroughttohave,extractedever)'available copper in thevillage, when the Chapman opened his budget ofbrand-newbooks. In the seventeenth, and during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the popular books were generally in 8vo form, i.e. theyconsisted ofasheet ofpaperfoldedin eight,and making abookofsixteen pages but during theotherseventy- ; fiveyears theywere almostinvariably lamo, i.e. asheetfolded into twelve, and making twenty-four pages. After 1800 they rapidly declined. Thet)'pe and woodblocks weregettingworn out, and neverseemtohavebeen renewed publishersgotless ; scrupulous, and usedanywoodblockswithoutreferenceto the letter-press, until, after Grub Street authors had worked their wicked willupon them, Catnachburied them inadishonoured grave. But while theywere in theirprime, they mark an epoch in the literary histor}'of our nation, quite as much asthe higher types ofliterature do, andtheyhelp ustogaugethe intellectual capacity of the lower and lower middle classes of the last century. The Chapmanproper, 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, " viii Introduction. as described by Cotsgrave in his "Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues" (London, 1611), no longer exists. He isthere faithfullyportrayed underthe heading "Bissouart,m. Apaultrie Pedlar, who in a long packe or maund (which he carries forthe most part open, and (hanging from his necke) beforehim) hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, orothertrifling waretosell." Shakespeare uses the word in a somewhat different sense, makinghim more of a general dealer, as in "Love's Labour's ' Lost," Act ii. sc. i : ' / ''PrimessofFrance. Beautyisboughtbyjudgmentoftheeye, NotutteredbybasesaleofChapmen'stongues. Andin "Troilusand Cressida," Activ. sc. i : "Paris. FairDiomed,youdoasChapmendo, Dispraisethethingthatyoudesiretobuy." Unlike his modern congener, the colporteur, the Chap- man's life seems to have been an exceptionally hard one, especiallyif we can trust a description, professedlyby one o\ thefraternity, m "The HistoryofJohn Cheap the Chapman, a Chap-book published early in the present century. He appears, on his o\\-n confession, to have been as much of a rogue ashewell could be with impunityandwithoutabsolute]} transgressing the law, and, as his character was well known. very fewroofs would shelterhim, andhe hadto sleep in barns, orevenwith thepigs. He had totake outalicence, and was classed in old bye-laws and proclamations as "Hawkers, Vendors, Pedlars, petty Chapmen, and twruly people." In more modem times the literary Mercurydropped the somewhat besmirched title of Chapmen, and was euphoniously designatedthe "Travelling," "Flying,"or "RunningStationer." Little could he have dreamed that his little pennybooks wouldeverhave become scarce, andprizedby bookcollectors, and fetch high prices whenever the rare occasion happened thattheywere exposed for sale. I have taken out the prices paid in 1845 and 1847 for nine volumesof them, bought at