"_Cler._ O! In the queen's time he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holiday eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room with double walls and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd; and there he lives by candlelight." The first class of noises, then, against which "Morose" protected his ears by "a huge turban of night-caps," is that of the ancient and far-famed LONDON CRIES. We have here the very loudest of them--fish-wives, orange-women, chimney-sweepers, broom-men, costard-mongers. But we might almost say that there were _hundreds_ of other cries; and therefore, reserving to ourselves some opportunity for a special enumeration of a few of the more remarkable of these cries, we shall now slightly group them, as they present themselves to our notice during successive generations. We shall not readily associate any very agreeable sounds with the voices of the "fish-wives." The one who cried "_Mackerel_" in Lydgate's day had probably no such explanatory cry as the "_Mackerel alive, alive ho!_" of modern times. In the seventeenth century the cry was "_New Mackerel_." And in the same way there was:-- [Illustration: NEW WALL-FLEET OYSTERS.] [Illustration: NEW FLOUNDERS.] [Illustration: NEW WHITING.] [Illustration: NEW SALMON.] The freshness of fish must have been a considerable recommendation in those days of tardy intercourse. But quantity was also to be taken into the account, and so we find the cries of "_Buy my dish of Great Smelts_;" "_Great Plaice_;" "_Great Mussels_." Such are the fish-cries enumerated in Lauron's and various other collections of "London Cries." [Illustration: BUY GREAT SMELTS.] [Illustration: BUY GREAT PLAICE.] [Illustration: BUY GREAT MUSSELS.] [Illustration: BUY GREAT EELS.] But, we are forgetting "Morose," and his "turban of night-caps." Was Hogarth familiar with the old noise-hater when he conceived his own:-- [Illustration: ENRAGED MUSICIAN.]