Then went I forth by London stone, All the length of Canwick[7] Street; Drapers much cloth me offered anon; Then met I one, cried ‘Hot sheep’s feet!’ One, ‘mackerel!’ One did ‘rushes’ repeat. One offered a hood, to cover my head; But, for lack of money, I might not be sped. [7] Candlewick Street, now Cannon Street. Then I hied me to East-Cheap, One cries ‘ribs of beef,’ and many a pie; Pewter-pots they clattered in a heap; There was harp and pipe, and minstrelsy. ‘Yea, ’faith,’ and ‘nay, ’faith,’ some did cry. Some sang of Jenkyn and Gill for meed; But, for lack of money, I might not speed. Then into Cornhill anon I strode, Where was much stolen gear among; I saw where hung my own lost hood, That I had lost among the throng; To buy my own hood, I thought it wrong. I knew it as well as I did my creed; But, for lack of money, I might not speed. The taverner took me by the sleeve, ‘Sir,’ saith he, ‘now my wine assay’; I answered ‘that cannot much me grieve, A penny can do no more than it may.’ I drank a pint, and for it did pay; Yet sore a-hungered from thence I yede (_went_), And, wanting money, I could not speed.” He ends by saying how he at last went to Billingsgate and there tried to persuade a bargeman to row him across the river for nothing. But the bargeman declined to take any less than twopence, saying that he was not yet come to the time of life when he wished to practise active benevolence by the bestowal of alms. At last the poet got safely into Kent, and made up his mind to have no more to do with lawyers. The whole concludes with a pious wish for the welfare of London and of all honest lawyers:— “Save London, and send true lawyers their meed! For who-so lacks money, with them shall not speed!” The moral of the ballad is obvious. If you wish to go to law, you should go to London; and if you wish to go to London, you should first of all fill your purse.