We have observed in our old statutes, and in the pages of authors of various kinds, that separate mention is made of the Watchman and the Bellman. No doubt there were several degrees of office in the ancient Watch and Ward system, and that part of the office of the old Watch, or Bellman, was to bless the sleepers, whose door he passed, which blessing was often sung or said in verse--hence Bellman's verse. These verses were in many cases, the relics of the old incantations to keep off elves and hobgoblins. There is a curious work by Thomas Dekker--otherwise Decker,--entitled: "The Bellman of London. Bringing to light the most notorious Villanies that are now practised in the Kingdom, Profitable for Gentlemen, Lawyers, Merchants, Citizens, Farmers, Masters of Households and all sortes of servants to Marke, and delightful for all men to Reade, _Lege, Perlege, Relege_." Printed at London for Nathaniel Butter, 1608. Where he describes the Bellman as a person of some activity--"the child of darkness; a common nightwalker; a man that had no man to wait upon him, but only a dog; one that was a disordered person, and at midnight would beat at men's doors, bidding them (in mere mockery) to look to their candles, when they themselves were in their dead sleeps." Stow says that in Queen Mary's day one of each ward "began to go all night with a bell, and at every lane's end, and at the ward's end, gave warning of fire and candle, and to help the poor and pray for the dead." Milton, in his "Il Penseroso," has:-- "Far from the resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm, To bless the doors from nightly harm." In "A Bellman's Song" of the same date, we have:-- "Maidens to bed, and cover coal, Let the mouse out of her hole, Crickets in the chimney sing, Whilst the little bell doth ring; If fast asleep, who can tell When the clapper hits the bell?" Herrick, also, has given us a verse of Bellman's poetry in one of the charming morsels of his "Hesperides:"-- "From noise of scare-fires rest ye free, From murders Benedicite; From all mischances that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night, Mercy secure ye all, and keep The goblin from ye while ye sleep. Past one o'clock, and almost two, My masters all, 'Good day to you!'" But, with or without a bell, the real prosaic watchman continued to make the same demand as his predecessors for lights through a long series of years; and his demand tells us plainly that London was a city without lamps. But though he was a prosaic person, he had his own verses. He addressed himself to the "maids." He exhorted them to make their lanthorns "bright and clear." He told them how long their candles were expected to burn. And, finally, like a considerate lawgiver, he gave reason for his edict:-- "That honest men that walk along, May see to pass safe without wrong."