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The bishop also had a gaol for the incarceration of offenders against his rights during fair-time. Tolls were levied at each gate of the city. The suspension of civic authority during fair-time was for centuries a source of frequent quarrels. As late as the eighteenth century a ballad-singer was punished by the bishop’s officers.
For Example, on the Vol. of Dialogues are two Cardinals washing the Pope's Hands under a Cloud that often bespatters them with Blood, signifying that in spight of all his Pretensions he has a Hand in the Broils of Italy. And before him the Sun setting in a Cloud, and a Blind Ballad-Singer making Sonnets upon the brightness of its Lustre.
In a former letter I pointed out that the only relaxation from dreary toil enjoyed in Mayo is found at the cattle-fairs, and little country races to which they give rise. There are no amusements at all at Connemara. One ballad-singer and one broken-legged piper are the only ministers to public hilarity that I have yet seen. Nothing more dreary can be imagined than the existence of the inhabitants.
I then told of Darby's appearance that night in the barrack, disguised as a ballad-singer; how in this capacity he passed the sentry, and was present in the room when the officers entered to decide the wager; that he had quitted it soon after their arrival, and only returned on hearing the noise of the scuffle between Crofts and myself.
Inez recollected the singular intimations of the ballad-singer upon the mountain, which seemed to warn her of impending danger, and her mind was full of vague forebodings. She sat listening to every sound at the gate, or footstep on the stairs. She would take up her guitar and strike a few notes, but it would not do; her heart was sickening with suspense and anxiety.
"I'm very glad you did," answered Dennis Wayman, cordially; "you've just come in time to take a snack of dinner with me and my missus, so you can sit down, and make yourself at home, without ceremony." The captain was too good-natured to refuse an invitation that seemed proffered in such a hearty spirit. And beyond this, he wanted to hear more about Jenny Milsom, the ballad-singer.
Some of the crowd were smoking, some laughing, others gathering round a ballad-singer, who was chanting one of Rochester's own licentious ditties; some were buying quack medicines and remedies for the plague, the virtues of which the vendor loudly extolled; while others were paying court to the dames, many of whom were masked.
Nay, they must not only be obeyed, fed, and defended, but admired too; and that their lay-followers do sincerely, as a shirtless fellow with a cudgel under his arm doth a face-wringing ballad-singer, a water-bearer on the floor of a playhouse, a wide-mouthed poet that speaks nothing but blathers and bombast.
O, your old-remembered guest of a beggar becomes as well acquainted with you as he is with his dish as intimate as one of the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with which his own trade is especially conversant. Who is he? why, he has gone the vole has been soldier, ballad-singer, travelling tinker, and is now a beggar.
O, your old-remembered guest of a beggar becomes as well acquainted with you as he is with his dish as intimate as one of the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with which his own trade is especially conversant. Who is he? why, he has gone the vole has been soldier, ballad-singer, travelling tinker, and is now a beggar.
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