The sellers of food are of course among these. "_Hot Peascod_," and "_Hot Sheep's-feet_," are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. "_Hot Wardens_," and "_Hot Codlings_," are not the cries which invite us to taste of stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a charcoal fire; also roasted chesnuts, and potatoes steaming in a shining apparatus, with savoury salt-butter to put between the "fruit" when cut; the London pieman still holds his ground in spite of the many penny pie-shops now established. Rice-milk is yet sold out in halfpennyworths. But furmety, barley broth, greasy sausages--"bags of mystery," redolent of onions and marjoram--crisp brown flounders, and saloop are no longer in request. The cry of "_Water-cresses_" used to be heard from some barefoot nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had dipped her foot into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to the citizens' breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now cultivated, like cabbages, in market-gardens. The cry of "_Rosemary and Briar_" once resounded through the throughfares; and every alley smelt "like Bucklersbury in simple time," when the whole street was a mart for odoriferous herbs. Cries like these are rare enough now; yet we do hear them occasionally, when crossing some bye-street, and have then smelt an unwonted fragrance in the air; and as someone has truly said that scents call up the most vivid associations, we have had visions of a fair garden afar off, and the sports of childhood, and the song of the lark that:-- "At my window bade good morrow Through the sweet briar." Then comes a pale-looking woman with little bunches in her hand, who, with a feeble voice, cries "_Buy my sweet Briar, any Rosemary?_" There are still, however, plenty of saucy wenches--of doubtful morality--in the more crowded and fashionable thoroughfares, who present the passengers with moss-roses, and violets. Gay tells us:-- "Successive cries the seasons' change declare, And mark the monthly progress of the year. Hark! how the streets with treble voices ring, To sell the bounteous product of the spring." We no longer hear the cries which had some association of harmonious sounds with fragrant flowers. The din of "noiseful gain" exterminated them. [Illustration] [Illustration: THE WATER CARRIER. "Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?"]