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THE cries of London may be divided into vocal and inftrumental. As for the latter they are at present under a very great disorder. A freeman of London has the privilege of disturbing a whole street for an hour together with the twankling of a brafs kettle or a frying pan. The watchman's thump at midnight startles us in our beds, as much as the breaking in of a thief. The fow-gelder's horn has indeed fomething mufical in it, but this is fel'dom heard within the liberties. I would therefore propofe, that no inftrument of this nature should 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.

VOCAL cries are of a much larger extent, and indeed fo full of incongruities and barbarisms, that we appear a distracted city to foreigners, who do not comprehend the meaning of fuch enormous outcries. Milk is gene6 rally fold in a note above Ela, and in founds fo exceeding thrill, that it often fets our teeth on edge The chimney-sweeper is confined to no certain pitch; he fometimes utters himself in the deepest base, and fometimes in the sharpest treble; fometimes in the highest, and sometines in the lowest note of the gamut. The fame obfervation might be made on the retailers of fmall-coal, not to mention broken-glaffes or brick-düft. In these therefore, and the like cafes, it should be my care to sweeten and mellow the voices of these itinerant tradefimen, before they make their appearance in our streets, as allo to accommodate their cries to their refpective wares; and to take care in particular, 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.

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Some of thefe läft mentioned muficians are fo very loud in the sale of these trifling manufactures, that an honeft fplenetic gentleman of my acquaintance 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-inakers 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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Ir is another great imperfection in our London cries, that there is no juft time nor measure obferved in them. Our news fhould indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. It should 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 published in fo great a hurry, that one would think the enemy were at our gates. This likeways I would take upon me to regulate in fuch a manner, that there fhould be fome ditinction made between the fpreading of a victory, a march, or an encampment, a Dutch, a Portugal, or a Spanish mail. Nor muft I omit, under this head, thofe • exceffive alarms with which feveral boisterous ruftics infest our streets in turnip-feafon; and which are more inexcufable, because these are wares which are in no danger of cooling upon their hands.

THERE are others who affect a very flow time, and are, in my opinion, much more tunable than the former; <the cooper in particular fwells his last note in an hollow voice, that is not without 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 asked, if they have any chairs to mend? Your own memory may fuggeft to you many o<ther lamentable ditties of the same nature, in which the mufic is wonderfully languifhing and melodious.

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I AM always pleafed with that particular time of the which is proper for the pickling of dill and cucumnber; 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.

IT might likewife deferve our most serious confideration, how far, in a well regulated city, thofe humourists are to be tolerated, who, not contented with the tradi tional cries of their forefathers, have invented particular fongs and tunes of their own: fuch as was not many years fince, the pastry-man, commonly known by the name of the colly-moll-puff; and fuch as is at this day

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the vender of powder and wafh-balls, who, if I am rightly informed, goes under the name of Powder-watt.

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 useless to the public; I mean, that idle accomplishment which they all of theni ain 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 say; but most certain it is, that people 'know the wares they deal in rather by their tunes than " by their words; infomuch that I have fometimes seen a country boy run out to buy apples of a bellows mender, and ginger-bread from a grinder of knives and fciffars. Nay, fo ftrangely infatuated are fome very eminent artists of this particular grace in a cry, that none but their acquaintance are able to guefs at their profeffion;. for who elle can know, that work if I had it, should be the fignification of a corn-cutter?

FORASMUCH therefore as perfons of this rank are feldom men of genius or capacity, I think it would be 6 very proper, that fome man of good fenfe and found judgment fhould prefide over thefe public cries, who hould permit none to lift up their voices in our ftreets, that have not tuneable throats, and are not only able to overcome the noife of the croud, and the rattling of coaches, but also to vend their respective merchandises in apt phrafes, and in the most distinct and agreeable founds. I do therefore humbly recommend myself as a perfon rightly qualified for this poft; 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 public.

I am, SI R, &c.

VOL. III.

Cc

Ralph Crotchet:

THE

THE

INDE X.

A

A

BSENCE of lovers, death in love, N. 241. how to be made eafy, ibid.

Abftinence, the benefits of it, N. 195.

Accompts, their great usefulness, N. 174.

Acefta, his anfwer to Limborch, touching the multiplicity of ceremonies in the Jewish religion, "N. 213.

Action, a threefold divifion of our actions, ibid. No right judgment to be made of them, N. 174

Admiration, one of the most pleafing paffions, N. 237. Adverfity, no evil in itself, ibid.

Advertisement from Mr Sly the haberdasher, 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. Most men fubject to it, 219, 224. Of ufe when rightly directed, 219.

Annihilation, by whom defired, N. 210. ject of wishes, ibid.

The most ab

Apes, what women fo called, and defcribed, N. 244. Appollo'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. Socrates his way of arguing, ib. In what manner managed by states and communities, ib.

Argus, his qualifications and employments under Juno, N. 250.

Ariftanetus his letters, fome account of them, N. 238. Ariftotle, the inventor of fyllogifm, N. 239.

Atheists, great zealots, N. 185. and bigots, ib. Their opinions downright nonfenfe, ib.

Б

BAUDY-HOUSES, frequented by wife men, not

out of wantonnefs but ftratagem, N. 190.

Beggars, Sir Andrew Freeport's opinion of them, N. 232. .
Boileau cenfured, and for what, N. 209.

Butts: the adventure of a but on the water, N. 175.

C

CAPRICE often acts in the place of reafon, N. 191.
Cafiilian: the ftory of a Caftilian hufband and his

wife, N. 198.

Charles the Great, his behaviour to his fecretary, who had
debauched his daughter, N. 181.

Children, the unnaturalness in mothers of making them
fuck a ftranger's milk, N. 246.

Chinefe, the punishment among them for parricide, N. 189.
Christian religion, the clear proof of its articles, and ex-
cellency of its doctrines, N. 186, 213.

Club: the the-romp club, N. 217. Methods obferved by
that elub, ib.

Club-law, a convincing argument, N. 239,

Coke-houfe difputes, N. 197.

Comfort, what, and where found, N. 195.

Conquefts, the vanity of them, N. 180.

Conftancy in fufferings, the excelleney of it, N. 237.
Cordeliers, their ftory of St. Francis their founder, N. 245.
Cornaro, Lewis, a remarkable inftance of the benefit of
temperance, N. 195.

Coverley, Sir Roger de, a dispute between him and Sir An-
drew Freeport, N. 174.

Cowards naturally impudent, N. 231.

Credulity in women infamous, N. 190.

Cries of London, require fome regulation, N. 251.
Cunning, the accomplishment of whom, N. 225.

Curiofity, one of the strongest and most lafting of our ap-
petites, N. 237.

Gyneas, Pyrrhus's chief minifter, his hand fom reproof to
that prince, N. 180,

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