The fourth show is the most interesting to us, because of its bearing on the ironmongers' trade and work. It presents the Lemnian forge at which are Vulcan, the smith, and his servans, the Cyclopes, working on the anvils. The smiths sing to the sounding of the anvil in praise of iron:

Brave iron, brave hammer, from your sound,

The art of musicke has her ground;

On the anvile thou keep'st time,

Thy knick-a-knock is a smithes best chyme.

Yet thwick-a-thwack,

Thwick, thwacka-thwack, thwack,

Make our brawny sinews crack,
Then pit-a-pat pat, pit-a-pat,

Till thickest barres be beaten flat.

We shooe the horses of the sunne,

Harness the dragons of the moone,

Forge Cupid's quiver, bow and arrowes,

And our dame's coach that's drawn with sparrowes.

Till thwick-a-thwack, etc.**

The passage has onomatopoetic value, suggesting by its sound the hammering on the anvil. The manifold uses of iron are also mentioned: it is used in the manufacture of implements of war, ships, bulwarks, furnaces, and tools for practically all trades. The dialogue between Jove and Vulcan, though undramatic, is interesting on account of its praise of iron:

33 Cf. Whittier's Shoemakers.

"Rap, rap! upon the well worn stone
How falls the polished hammer!

Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown

A quick and merry clamor."

In Jordan's The Cheaters Cheated, are lines on ironmongers.

Iron, best of metals, pride of minerals.

Hart of the earth, hand of the world, which fals
Heavy when it strikes home. By iron's strong charmes
Ryots lye bound. Warre stops her rough allarmes.
Iron, earthquakes strikes in foes; knits friends in love;
Iron's that mainehinge on which the world doth move;
No kingdomes globe can turne, even, smooth and round,
But that his axletree in iron is found;

For armies wanting iron are puffes of wind,

And but for iron, who, thrones of peace would mind?"

The imitative and the childish tendencies of artisans have frequently been mentioned. The spectacle of the Lord Mayor's Show, therefore, played a large part in the imagination of artisans and citizens, and may have had an influence on their love of acting and mimicry. The mayor, with gold chain and scarlet robe, on horseback, the procession, the spectacles, and the homage paid to former greatness lingered in the imagination of the bourgeois class, especially the craftsmen's wives and apprentices. Each apprentice with ambition cherished the dim possibility that he would become, in the indefinite future, Lord Mayor. The homage paid, however, was chiefly to the outward ceremonies (the average craftsman regarding the Mayor and aldermen as a boy does a procession of soldiers) and was inclined

"Cf. Whittier's Shipbuilders.

"Up,- Up,- in nobler toil than ours
No craftsmen bear a part;

We make of nature's giant powers
The slaves of human art."

35 Interest in material representations of grandeur and greatness are also manifested in Murley, the brewer, in Drayton and Munday's Sir John Oldcastle. He is prevailed on, through the promise of knighthood, to give freely of his wealth. The golden spurs which represented knighthood are fondled by him as toys would be by a child.

to disregard the trying and responsible nature of the office.

Such a highly spectacular and bombastic ceremony was naturally subject to ridicule and burlesque. Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle ridicules the love of craftsmen for pomp and glory. The Lord Mayor's Show and its clumsy wooden representations are ridiculed in Shirley's A Contention for Honor and Riches, 1633, and Honoria and Mammon, 1652. Several ballads; e. g., Oh, London is a fine Town, describe the clumsy imitations of nobility on the part of craftsmen.

As a conclusion, the Lord Mayor's Show may be said to be a very old ceremony, and one that still exists in certain sections of the world. Although it is true that each company vaunted itself over all others in its Lord Mayor's Show, nevertheless, co-operation and mutual support on the part of all the companies, especially of the twelve great ones, were stressed. Extravagant and spectacular to the extreme, the Lord Mayor's Show had, nevertheless, a place in art; and, in its insistence on justice, fraternity, co-operation, industry, and patriotism, it upheld the original idea and purpose of the guild system.

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CHAPTER 11

THE CRAFTSMAN AND HIS WORK

Before considering craftsmen at work it will be interesting to discuss a few charming ballads in which they appear. Two fantastic ballads are The Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow,1 Robin Goodfellow being a fairy apprentice to a tailor; and The Miller and the King's Daughter. We shall discuss Elizabethan ballads far more realistic than these which still border on folklore, though to a lesser extent than medieval ballads do. They present sovereigns traveling incognito, like Haroun Alraschid, among citizens. These ballads have a fresh, out-of-door atmosphere. They deal with the advancement of craftsmen, and their favorite theme; i. e., that of being associated with royalty. The advancement of these craftsmen is not dependent on any artistic skill or initiative on their part, but on sheer good fortune; hence these ballads differ from that on Whittington.

King James I and the Tinkers was apparently written during the reign of James I. The mender of kettles and lover of ale meets the king whom he does not know; they drink healths to each other. The tinker expresses his desire to see the king, who is hunting on the border. He is greatly surprised to find that this 1 Percy Socy. Pub., vol. 2.

Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, vol. 1, p. 315. ' Percy Socy. Pub., vol. 17, p. 109.

stranger is the king. The sovereign is so pleased with the tinker that he gives him money and land, and knights him. The tinker's pride in his craft is expressed in the last stanza :

Sir John of the Dale he has land, he has fee,
At the court of the king who so happy as he?
Yet still in his Hall hangs the tinker's old sack,
And the budget of tools which he bore at his back.

Several charming ballads deal with millers and present them as substantial and prosperous citizens. An instance is The Miller in his best array. It presents a prosperous miller who rides singing to Manchester to woo a baker's daughter. The other suitors from the artisan ranks, however, are delineated somewhat better than the miller. Thus, the glover borders his gloves with bleeding hearts pierced with darts. The butcher woos her, but she is afraid that he may dress her as he does a calf. The tailor woos her, promising her rich clothing and strange fashions. The miller wins her by talking of his wealth and mill, but especially by teaching her "to daunce a downe."

Two companion ballads make interesting illustrations of this type, and present variety in characterization. These are: A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield in Sherwood and of King Henry the Seconde and A Merry Ballad of the Miller and King Henry the second. Neither of these Elizabethan ballads has relation to actual history; it is hardly conceivable that an aristocratic Norman king could fraternize, as the one in the ballad does, with a miller. The first ballad Shirburn Ballads, p. 116. "Shirburn Ballads, p. 216. • Shirburn Ballads, p. 311.