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• under no manner of rules or difcipline. I think I am pretty well qualified for this place, as being a man of very strong lungs, of great infight into all the branches of our British trades and manufactures, and of a competent fkill in mufick..

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The cries of London may be divided into vocal and inftrumental. As for the latter they are at prefent under a very great diforder. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole ftreet for an hour together, with the twanking of a brass-kettle, or a frying pan. The watch'man's thump at midnight startles us in our beds, as much as the breaking in of a thief. The fowgelders horn has indeed fomething mufical in it, but this is feldom heard within the liberties. I would therefore propofe, that no inftrument of this nature fhould be made ufe of, which I have not tuned and licenfed, after having carefully examined in what manner it may affect the ears of her Majefty's liege fubjects..

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Vocal cries are of a much larger extent, and indeed fo full of incongruities and barbarifms, that we appear a diftracted city to foreigners, who do not comprehend the meaning of fuch enormous outcries. Milk is generally fold in a note a'bove Ela, and in founds fo exceeding fhrill, that' it often fets our teeth on edge. The chimney. fweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he fometimes utters himfelf in the deepest bafe, and fome. times in the fharpeft treble; fometimes in the higheft, and fometimes in the loweft note of the gamut. The fame obfervation might be made on the retailers of fmall coal, not to mention broken glaffes or brick-duft, In these therefore, and the like cafes, it fhould be my care to fweeten and mellow the voices of thefe itinerant tradefmen, before they make their appearance in our streets, as alfo to accommodate their cries to their refpective wares; and to take care in particular,

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that those may not make the most noife who • have the leaft to fell, which is very obfervable in the venders of card-matches, to whom I cannot but apply that old proverb of Much cry but little • wool.

Some of thefe laft-mentioned musicians are fo very loud in the fale of thefe trifling manufactures, that an honeft fplenetick Gentleman of my ac⚫quaintance bargained with one of them never to " come into the street where he lived: But what was the effect of this contract? Why, the whole tribe of card-match-makers which frequent that quarter, paffed by his door the very next day, in hopes of being bought off after the fame manner.

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It is another great imperfection in our London cries, that there is no just time nor measure obferved in them. Our news fhould indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a com modity that will not keep cold. It fhould not,, however, be cried with the fame precipitation as fire: Yet this is generally the cafe. A bloody battle alarms the town from one end to another ⚫ in an inftant. Every motion of the French is publifhed in fo great a hurry, that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likewife I would take upon me to regulate in fuch a manner, that there fhould be fome diftinctions ⚫ made between the fpreading of a victory, a march, or an incampment, a Dutch, a Portugal, or a Spanish mail. Nor muft I omit under this head thofe exceffive alarms with which feveral boifter→ ous rufticks infeft our streets in turnip-feafon ; and which are more inexcufeable, because thefe are wares which are in no danger of cooling upon their hands.

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There are others who affect a very flow time, and are, in my opinion, much more tuneable than the former; the cooper in particular fwells 'his last note in an hollow voice, that is not with

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out its harmony; nor can I forbear being infpired with a moft agreeable melancholy, when I hear that fad and folemn air with which the public are very often afked, if they have any chairs to mend? Your own memory may fuggeft to you many other lamentable ditties of the fame nature, in which the mufick is wonderfully languifhing and melodious.

I am always pleased with that particular time • of the year which is proper for the pickling of ⚫ dill and cucumbers; but alas, this cry, like the fong of the nightingale, is not heard above two • months. It would therefore be worth while to confider, whether the fame air might not in fome • cafes be adapted to other words.

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• It might likewife deserve our moft ferious confideration, how far, in a well regulated city, thofe humourifts are to be tolerated, who, not contented with the traditional cries of their forefathers, have invented particular fongs and tunes of their own: Such as was not many years fince, the pastry man, commonly known by the name of the Colly-Molly-Puff; and fuch as is at this day the vender of powder and wash-balls, who, if I am rightly informed, goes under the name of Powder-Wat..

'I must not here omit one particular abfurdity which runs through this whole vociferous generation, and which renders their cries very often 'not only incommodious, but altogether ufelefs to the publick; I mean, that idle accomplishment which they all of them aim at, of crying fo as not to be understood. Whether or no they have learned this from feveral of our affected fingers, 'I will not take upon me to fay; but moft certain it is, that people know the wares they deal in rather by their tunes than their words; infomuch that I have fometimes feen a country boy run out to buy apples of a bellows-mender, and ginger

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bread from a grinder of knives and fciffars. Nay fo ftrangely infatuated are fome very eminent artifts of this particular grace in a cry, that none but their acquaintance are able to guefs at their profeffion; for who elfe can know, that Work if I had it, fhould be the fignification of a corn

• cutter?

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Forafmnch therefore as perfons of this rank are feldom men of genius or capacity, I think it would be very proper, that fome men of good fenfe and found judgment fhould prefide over thefe public cries who thould permit none to lift, up their voices in our streets, that have not tune⚫able throats, and are not only able to overcome the noife of the croud, and the rattling of coaches, ⚫ but also to vend their respective merchandifes in apt phrases, and in the most distinct and agreeable founds. I do therefore humbly recommend myself as a perfon rightly qualified for this post; and if I meet with fitting encouragement, fhall 'communicate fome other projects which I have by me, that may no lefs conduce to the emolument of the publick.

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I am, Sir, &c.

RALPH CROTCHET.'

THE

THE

INDE X.

A

ABfence of lovers, death in love, Number 241.

How to be made easy, ibid.

Abftinence, the benefits of it, N. 195.
Accompts, their great usefulness, N. 174.

Acofta, his anfwer to Limborch touching the multi-
plicity of ceremonies in the Jewish religion, N.
213.

Action, a threefold divifion of our actions, N.
213. No right judgment to be made of them,

174.
Admiration, one of the moft pleafing paffions,

N. 237.
Adverfity, no evil in itself, N.
237.
Advertisement from Mr. Sly the haberdafher, N.
187. About the lottery-ticket, 191.

.

Ambition, by what to be measured, N. 188. Many
times as hurtful to the princes who are led by it
as the people, 200. Moft men fubject to it, 219,
224. Of use when rightly directed, 219.
Annihilation, by whom defired, N. 210. The most
abject of wishes, ibid.

Apes, what women fo called, and described, N. 244.
Apollo's temple on the top of Leucate, by whom
frequented, and for what purpose, N. 223.
Apothecary, his employment, N. 195.

Appetites, fooner moved than the paffions, N. 208.
Argument, rules for the management of one, N.
197. Argumentum Bafilinum, what, 239. Socra-
tes his way of arguing, ibid. In what manner
managed by states and communities, ibid.
Hh

VOL. III.

Argus,

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