The Cries of London: Exhibiting Several of the Itinerant Traders of Antient and Modern Times

There are few subjects, perhaps, so eagerly attended to by the young as those related by their venerable parents when assembled round the fire-side, but more particularly descriptions of the customs and habits of ancient times. Now as the Cries of London are sometimes the topic of conversation, the author of the present work is not without the hope of finding, amongst the more aged as well as juvenile readers, many to whom it may prove acceptable, inasmuch as it not only exhibits several Itinerant Traders and other persons of various callings of the present day, but some of those of former times, collected from engravings executed in the reigns of James I., Charles I. and during the Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, and which, on account of their extreme rarity, are seldom to be seen but in the most curious and expensive Collections.

In the perusal of this volume the collector of English Costume, as well as the Biographer, may find something to his purpose, particularly in the old dresses, as it was the custom for our forefathers to wear habits peculiar to their station, and not, as in the present times, when a linen-draper's apprentice, or a gentleman's butler, may, in the boxes of the theatre, by means of his dress, and previously to uttering a word, be mistaken for the man of fashion.