"What d'ye lack?--What d'ye lack?--Clocks--watches--barnacles?--What d'ye lack?--Watches--clocks--barnacles?--What d'ye lack, sir? What d'ye lack, madam?--Barnacles--watches--clocks? What d'ye lack, noble sir?--What d'ye lack, beauteous madam?--God bless your reverence, the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your reverence's eyes. Buy a pair of David Ramsay's barnacles. The king, God bless his sacred Majesty! never reads Hebrew or Greek without them. What d'ye lack? Mirrors for your toilets, my pretty madam; your head-gear is something awry--pity, since it so well fancied. What d'ye lack? a watch, Master Sargeant?--a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as steady and true as your own eloquence? a watch that shall not lose thirteen minutes in a thirteen years' lawsuit--a watch with four wheels and a bar-movement--a watch that shall tell you, Master Poet, how long the patience of the audience will endure your next piece at the Black Bull." The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had this advantage over those who, in the present day, use the public papers for the same purpose, that they could in many cases adapt their address to the peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers. This direct and personal mode of invitation to customers became, however, a dangerous temptation to the young wags who were employed in the task of solicitation during the absence of the principal person interested in the traffic; and, confiding in their numbers and civic union, the 'prentices of London were often seduced into taking liberties with the passengers, and exercising their wit at the expense of those whom they had no hopes of converting into customers by their eloquence. If this were resented by any act of violence, the inmates of each shop were ready to pour forth in succour; and in the words of an old song which Dr. Johnson was used to hum,-- "Up then rose the 'prentices all, Living in London, both proper and tall." Desperate riots often arose on such occasions, especially when the Templars, or other youths connected with the aristocracy, were insulted, or conceived themselves so to be. Upon such occasions, bare steel was frequently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death sometimes ensued on both sides. The tardy and inefficient police of the time had no other resource than by the Alderman of the ward calling out the householders, and putting a stop to the strife by overpowering numbers, as the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon the stage. [Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]