"The clear spring dawn is breaking, and there cometh with the ray, The stripling boy with 'shining face,' and dame in 'hodden grey:' Rude melody is breathed by all--young--old--the strong, and weak; From manhood with its burly tone, and age with treble squeak. Forth come the little busy 'Jacks' and forth come little 'Jills,' As thick and quick as working ants about their summer hills; With baskets of all shapes and makes, of every size and sort; Away they trudge with eager step, through alley, street, and court. A spicy freight they bear along, and earnest is their care, To guard it like a tender thing from morning's nipping air; And though our rest be broken by their voices shrill and clear, There's something in the well-known 'cry' we dearly love to hear. 'Tis old, familiar music, when 'the old woman runs' With 'One-a-penny, two-a-penny, Hot Cross Buns!' Full many a cake of dainty make has gained a great renown, We all have lauded 'Gingerbread' and 'Parliament' done brown; But when did luscious 'Banburies,' or dainty 'Sally Lunns,' E'er yield such merry chorus theme as 'One-a-penny buns!' The pomp of palate that may be like old Vitellius fed, Can never feast as mine did on the sweet and fragrant bread; When quick impatience could not wait to share the early meal, But eyed the pile of 'Hot Cross Buns,' and dared to snatch and steal. Oh, the soul must be uncouth as a Vandal's Goth's, or Hun's, That loveth not the melody of 'One-a-penny Buns!'" And so, awaking in the early morning, we hear the streets ringing with the cry, "Hot Cross Buns." And perhaps when all that we have wrought shall be forgotten, when our name shall be as though it had been written on water, and many institutions great and noble shall have perished, this little bun will live on unharmed. Others, as well as ourselves, will, it may be, lie awake upon their beds, and listen to the murmurs going to and fro within the great heart of London, and, thinking on the half-forgotten days of the nineteenth century, wonder perhaps whether, in these olden times, we too heard the sound of "Hot Cross Buns." The street Pieman with his "cry," of "Pies all hot! hot!! hot!!!--Penny pies, all hot! hot!!--fruit, eel, beef, veal or kidney pies! pies, all hot-hot-hot," is one of the most ancient of street callings, and to London boys of every degree, "Familiar in their mouths as household words." Nor is the itinerant trade in pies--"Eel, beef, veal, kidney or fruit," confined to the great metropolis. All large provincial towns have, from a time going back much farther than even the proverbial "oldest inhabitant" can recollect, had their old and favourite "Penny Pieman," or, "_Old-all-Hot!_" as folks were ever wont to call him. He was generally a merry dog, and mostly to be found where merriment was going on, he scrupled not to force his way through the thickest of the crowd, knowing that the very centre of action was the best market for his wares.