Text divider from 'The Whistling Daughter', a chapbook printed in Glasgow in 1802
The HUMOURS of ROSEMARY LANE.
Ye bloods and ye bucks that rove thro' the city,Step into Rag-fair, you'll see humours pretty,There's Dolly and Fanny, and amorous Kitty,Each pleasant evening a bart'ring their ware;There you'll see salesmen double-hand dealers,The doors are adorn'd with parrots and taylors,Beer-houses in plenty to call jolly sailors,I mean the West end, Sir, of Rosemary Lane.
Some Billingsgate faggots their fish are a crying,With strong beer and gin their goblets are plying,Every corner adorn'd with women a plying,Breeches for weavers and dressers of hair;Confectioners, chandlers, and pye-shops in plenty,Supplying each person with bits that are dainty,Mountebank doctors to cure all that are tainsy,That smack of the sweets of Rosemary Lane.
In midst of the throng, hear old clothes a bauling,Old hat folks old shoe folks old wig folks, are calling,The barkers the passengers pulling and hauling,Do you want clothes, Sir? yes, this is their game;Meazley pork, rotten bacon, and sausages frying,Stinking beef, veal & mutton, greazy fellows a crying,The scent almost stifles you as you pass by them,So delicious the food, Sir, in Rosemary Lane.
Some picking of pockets, and usurers cheating,Pawnbrokers and Jews are a filching and stealing,Some whores in their callers their faces bewailing,By means of the fire they carry in their tail;From Wapping, Denmark street from the Banks of SaltpetreEach slash doth repair to screen from the weather,Where knave, thief, & whore do all cling together,Serenading the humours of Rosemary Lane.
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