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II
Because of its aesthetic significance, its long life, and its wide distribution, Laroon's Cryes exercised more influence on the English tradition of itinerant trade depiction than any other series, foreign or domestic. Perhaps the most literal example of Laroon's influence occurs in those versions of the cries in which his designs have been miniaturized—a result of the increasing tendency to define this subject as the proper concern of illustrated children's books in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. A number of such miniatures are known to exist; one, entitled The Cries of London Engraved after ye Designs Made From Ye Life by M Lauron (E 12) published by John Bowles and measuring 10.5 x 7.5 cm., is in the Bodleian Library (Beall, p. 131). Another, The Cries of London; or, Child's Moral Instructor: for the Use of Schools, Private Families, Governesses, Tutors, &c . . . Vol. II published by Edward Ryland and measuring approximately 10.5 x 7.5 cm., is in the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library.[10]
The Morgan copy of Edward Ryland's plagiary of Laroon, until now the only known surviving copy of this children's book, is imperfect. It contains a frontispiece and twenty-nine numbered designs of what were probably
A hitherto unrecorded edition of another miniature cries which has come to light in the Ball collection may properly be mentioned here. The title page of this children's book reads, The Cries of London Calculated to Entertain the Minds of Old and Young Illustrated in Variety of Copper Plates neatly Engrav'd with an Emblematical Description of Each Subject. Vol. III. London Printed for H. Turpin. . . . This edition is approximately the same size and format as the Ryland edition mentioned above, and its title page is engraved in the same cursive style. In addition, the Turpin engravings showing criers against detailed backgrounds explicated by short verses are executed in the same popular manner as The Cries of London; or, Child's Moral Instructor. However, none of the prints included in this children's book shows
While it is not possible to clear up this matter concerning the identity of volume three of Ryland's ensemble, it is possible to throw new light on volume one. The first volume of The Cries of London; or, Child's Moral Instructor is mentioned in the NCBEL and in the Pierpont Morgan's Early Children's Books and Their Illustration where it is described as "apparently having not survived." Through the assistance of Wilbur Smith of UCLA's Special Collections and Gerald Gottlieb of the Pierpont Morgan, I have been able to locate two copies of this rare volume. The first of these little books is in the personal library of Rowland Knaster in Ennismore Gardens, London. Its existence is verified in a letter to d'Alte Welch concerning the missing portion of the title page to UCLA's volume two; the letter is preserved in Los Angeles by Wilbur Smith. The second copy of volume one of Ryland's Cries is in the collection of the Opies in Hampshire, England. According to a description kindly provided me by Peter Opie, the text of the title page, the layout, and the engraving of this copy are identical to that of volume two, except for the quotation, which reads: "To wake the Soul by tender Strokes of Art, To raise the Genius and to mend the Heart. Pope." The numbering is of course, "Vol. I" and "London" is followed by a colon (:) not a point (.). According to Mr. Opie, his copy contains thirty numbered plates each depicting a cry, and a frontispiece which is theatrical.
The final miniature inspired by Laroon's Cryes is Beall's E 16, [Cries of London] Engraved & Sold by I Kirkins St. Pauls Church Yard (Beall, p. 135). A unique edition of this miniature is in the Lilly Library. This particular copy does not contain E 16's initial plate, "I Waltho Van Clutterbanck," but begins with a title page pasted on the inside of the front cover: "The Cryes of London Engraved and Sold by I. Kirk, in St. Paul's Church Yard. Also all sorts of English and Dutch Toys. Engraving of Seals in stone Steel or Silver Also Silver & Copper Plates in the neatest manner and at the most Reasonable Rates." The Lilly copy contains twelve plates in all, four of which are not directly indebted to Laroon. The contents of these plates differ entirely from that given by Beall for E 16; they are: "a Longtail Pig, or a short tail Pig . . ."; "Buy a Mop, a pound Mop, or a Hair Broom"; "Who'll see my raree Show, my Gallantre Show"; "Buy my Quartern of Gudgeons, Buy my Plaice, Buy my Flounders"; "Hot Ginger-bread, Smoking Hot"; "Pray remember ye poor Prisoners"; "a Mutton Pie or an Eel Pie, come they are all Hott"; "Two a groat & four for sixpence Whitings Come Buy my Whitings"; "Scotch Cloth a groat a Yard"; "Hot Gray Pease, Hot Hot"; "Holloway Cheese Cake"; and "a White Line, Jack Line, or a Cloaths Line."
A number of other books whose lesser debts to Laroon have not been noticed deserves mention here. Virtually all the miniature Cries published by F. Newbery beginning around 1775 and continued by J. Harris fall into this category and bear the stamp of Laroon's iconography in varying degrees. One example from the numerous editions of these tiny volumes will suffice. An 1805 edition in the Ball collection published by Harris and not listed in Beall shows twenty-four of sixty-two plates inspired by Laroon. Two other miniatures, hitherto unrecorded, show the same kind of influence. In UCLA's The Jack-of-All-Trades, or the Merry Merry Cries of London: Improv'd. Describing the various Methods of Getting Money, in the Metropolis of this mighty Empire. Adorned with a Variety of Elegant Cuts, adapted to the Subject. London: Printed for Osborne and Griffin, and J. Mozley, Gainsborough (c. 1787), thirty-one of the miniature's seventy-two plates are bold plagiaries of designs in the Sayer edition of Laroon. And five of twenty-four plates in Miss Ball's Cries of London for the Instruction of Good Children Decorated with Twenty-four Cuts from Life (London, no date) also derive from Laroon.
Among its population of bizarre and exotic characters (a significant number of whom are dismembered), T. L. Busby's Costume of the Lower Orders of London (E 40) contains one figure with a Laroon ancestry, "Match Girl," who springs from the figure in "Any Card matches or Savealls." The attractively colored, carefully executed plates in this volume were clearly intended for framing. A smaller, less finished version was also issued with the title The Cries of London Drawn from Life. London: 1823, Artists Depository. Published in three parts, it contains three identical title pages and twenty-three additional plates. The title page to part one of the copy in the Lilly Library is a reduction of the Boitard title page first published in its completed state in the Sayer edition of Laroon; however, this illustration now shows not four but two children crowding round a magic lantern. Nine figures not in the 1820 version appear in the 1823 edition, and some of the characters carried forward from the sibling version of 1820 have been retouched. Beall records a Cries (E 45) with the same title as the 1823 volume under discussion (Beall, p. 168). The UCLA copy she mentions carries the number "3" on the upper left-hand corner of its title page and is in fact the third part of the 1823 edition of the Cries of London Drawn from Life.
Marcellus Laroon's influence is as extensive as the tradition of the cries itself. Both thrived until Victorian England's fear of the poor and the "outcast" made it increasingly difficult to celebrate or even record criers and itinerant vendors in an established artistic medium. At this point, they were delivered over to photography which, stripping them of the pelt of artistic life, rendered them as the sullen, lifeless shapes which illustrate the text of Henry Mayhew's London Labor and the London Poor, the first edition of which was published in book form in 1851.[11]
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