In Chepe (Cheapside) he saw "_much people_" standing, who proclaimed the merits of their "_velvets, silk, lawn, and Paris thread_." These, however, were shopkeepers; but their shops were not after the modern fashion of plate-glass windows, and carpeted floors, and lustres blazing at night with a splendour that would put to shame the glories of an eastern palace. They were rude booths, the owners of which bawled as loudly as the itinerants; and they went on bawling for several centuries, like butchers in a market, so that, in 1628, Alexander Gell, a bachelor of divinity, was sentenced to lose his ears and to be degraded from the ministry, for giving his opinion of Charles I., that he was fitter to stand in a Cheapside shop with an apron before him, and say "What do ye lack, what do ye lack? What lack ye?" than to govern a kingdom. Then to the Chepe I began me drawn, Where much people I saw for to stand; One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn; Another he taketh me by the hand, "Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land." I never was used to such things indeed; And, wanting money, I might not speed. Then went I forth by London Stone, Throughout all Canwyke Street: Drapers much cloth me offered anon; Then comes in one crying "Hot sheep's feet;" One cried mackerel, rushes green, another gan greet; One bade me buy a hood to cover my head; But, for want of money, I might not speed. The London Stone, the _lapis milliaris_ (mile stone) of the Romans, has never failed to arrest the attention of the "Countryman in Lunnun." The Canwyke Street of the days of John Lydgate, is the Cannon Street of the present. "_Hot sheep's feet_," which were cried in the streets in the time of Henry V., are now sold _cold_ as "sheep's trotters," and vended at the doors of the lower-priced theatres, music-halls, and public-houses. Henry Mayhew in his "London Labour and the London Poor," estimates that there are sold weekly 20,000 sets, or 80,000 feet. The wholesale price at the "trotter yard" is five a penny, which gives an outlay by the street sellers of £3,033 6s. 8d. yearly. The cry which is still heard and tolerated by law, that of _Mackerel_ rang through every street. The cry of _Rushes-green_ tells us of by-gone customs. In ages long before the luxury of carpets was known in England, the floors of houses were covered with rushes. The strewing of rushes in the way where processions were to pass is attributed by our poets to all times and countries. Thus at the coronation of Henry V., when the procession is coming, the grooms cry-- "More rushes, more rushes." _Not worth a rush_ became a common comparison for anything worthless; the rush being of so little value as to be trodden under foot. _Rush-lights_, or candles with rush wicks, are of the greatest antiquity.