London’s Early Modern Tourists
Samuel Rowlands’s poem
A straunge ſighted Traueller and the broadside ballad
entitled
The Great Boobee describe the unpleasant
experience early modern London often inflicted on the unwary country tourist.
Both texts present a traveller enthralled by the magnificence of the city’s
urbs, but oblivious to the dangers London’s complex
communitas could pose. In addition to the spectacle
London provided, the city’s economic growth enticed newcomers with the
possibility of financial success. However, investments were often a dubious
adventure for inexperienced country gallants, who were easily duped by
unscrupulous business partners. In both works, the references to familiar
tourist destinations of London presume an audience aware of London’s physical
and social layout, especially as they contain a subculture of criminal
con-artists, or conny-catchers.
Rowlands’s poem acts as a warning against and condemnation of
London’s street crime, while the anonymously authored
The Great
Boobee resonates with the tourist-speaker’s retrospective
self-critique and self-satire ending on an optimistic note. Ultimately, the
tension in tone between the two works reflects the variable experience of
London’s new arrivals, who were soon to be either uncharitably initiated into or
expelled from London.
Both texts were printed with London’s consumers of popular literature in mind.
Rowlands was a pamphleteer
working in London between 1600 and 1630. In 1608, the short poem,
A straunge ſighted Traueller, appeared in
Humors looking glass, which was printed by Edward Allde for the
book seller William Ferebrand. The titles of the other poems in this book, such
as
Of one that couſned a Cut-purſe and
A drunken fray, indicate that
Rowlands often took criminals and unruly denizens as his subject
matter.
The Great Boobee (
[Wing G1664](mol:WING1)) is a broadside ballad, printed on one
side of an unfolded sheet of paper.
Broadside ballads were
a form of popular literature read and sung in the public spaces of early
modern London ([Hehmeyer](mol:HEHM1)). (BB) Like most broadside
ballads, the sheet is undated. The colophon states that it was
Printed for
F. Coles, in [VVine- ſtreet](mol:WINE1), on
[Saffron-hill](mol:SAFF2), near [Hatton-Garden](mol:HATT1)
.
[Donald Wing](mol:WING1)
suggests a printing date of 1663, which is reasonable given the material
evidence, although the ballad may have been in circulation some years earlier.
A Francis Coles had a shop in the [Old Bailey](mol:OLDB1) at the sign of the Half Bowl (at the
sign of the Lamb from 1663 on); material evidence derived from book title
pages, ballads, and colophons listing F.
Coles suggests that this Francis Coles belonged to a consortium of ballad printers that
included Thomas Vere, John Wright, John Clark, and others. The Francis Coles
at the [Vine Street](mol:WINE1) ([Wine Street](mol:WINE1)) address was likely a different man, perhaps a
son, selling from this shop in the 1660s and 1670s and perhaps earlier. The
[BBTI
record](http://bbti.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/) suggests that the Francis Coles of the [Old Bailey](mol:OLDB1)
and the Francis Coles of
[Vine/Wine Street](mol:WINE1) were the same man. The [Vine/Wine](mol:WINE1) address appears in an
undated parodic broadside ballad rendering of Charles I’s January 1648 scaffold speech ([Wing M475bA](mol:WING1)), other undated ballads
([STC 16862](mol:STC1); [Wing D1566C](mol:WING1), [J804B](mol:WING1), [H3011](mol:WING1), [P2041](mol:WING1), [P3372](mol:WING1), [R32A](mol:WING1), [T1779](mol:WING1), [W164A](mol:WING1)), and
titles from 1668 ([Wing K733](mol:WING1)) and
1678 ([Wing S3448A](mol:WING1)). (JJ)
The central event of both texts is the tricking and subsequent robbery of an
unsuspecting, sight-seeing traveller from the country. The refrain and title of
The Great Boobee is a pejorative appellation, which
the ballad’s speaker alternately receives from others and applies to himself.
Sailors attach the term
boobee (a derivation of the Spanish
bobo meaning fool) to a species of sea bird, which is
easily caught after it lands on the deck of a ship (
[OED boobee, n.2.](mol:OEDI1)). The title is an apt metaphor
for the speaker of the poem, who is befriended and then robbed by a female
cut-purse purporting to be the speaker’s cousin. Rowlands describes his subject
as
AN honeſt Country foole being gentle bred
(
[1](mol:ROWL3)).
Rowlands’s less pejorative description indicates a certain sympathy
for London’s victims, a sentiment absent from
The Great
Boobee. Like the Great Boobee, Rowlands’s traveller is befriended
and toured around the city before finally being robbed, an event precipitating
his decision to leave London (
[17–20](mol:ROWL3)).
The element of London’s communitas responsible for the
inhospitable reception of rustic newcomers is described by the poet-pamphleteer,
Robert Greene. In his five
pamphlets on the subject, he reveals the tricks of the con-artists’ trade in a
series of pamphlets on Conny-catching. A conny
is a
dupe, a gull, the victim of a ’conny-catcher’
([OED conny, n.10.](mol:OEDI1)). A conny
is also a rabbit
([OED conny, n.2.a.](mol:OEDI1)). Thus, the
term conny-catcher
invokes the metaphor of predator and prey, which is apt
for the relationship between a thief and his mark. (BB) Published in 1591, The
Second Part of Conny-catching explains how those who steal
purses frequent the tourist locales mentioned in
The Great
Boobee and
Rowlands’s
poem, looking for the kinds of naive newcomers described in the ballad and poem.
These thieves make
their cheife walks [Paules](mol:STPA2),
the[Weſtminſter](mol:WEST6), [Exchange](mol:ROYA1), Plaies, [and the] [Beare
garden](mol:BEAR1)
, where crowds hide them as they stalk the tourists (
[103](mol:GREE1)). Greene explains how when the nip
(purse cutter) and foist (purse stealer)
spie a Farmer or Marchant, whome they
ſuſpect to be well monied, they followe him hard
looking for an opportunity to
run into him and take his money in the confusion (
[103](mol:GREE1)). Anticipating the circumstances of the robbery
in
The Great Boobee, Greene warns that
the woman Foiſt
is the moſt daungerous, for commonlie there is ſome olde hand, or mout[h] fair
ſtrumpet, who inueigleth either ſome ignorant man or ſome youth to folly: ſhe
hath ſtraight foiſts him of all that hee hath
(
[108](mol:GREE1)). In
Greene’s descriptions, country visitors are robbed either by
clandestine theft or by trickery. These techniques rely on both the gullibility
of the victims and the crowded areas the thieves operate in. The speaker in
The Great Boobee is robbed in a crowded vintner’s
shop in
[Smithfield](mol:SMIT1). Here, the Foist is able to
disappear into the crowd and the traveler is left with a bill he cannot pay. In
this scenario, the thief benefits from her knowledge of the
urbs, the alleys between streets and buildings, and her
sense of the
communitas—that is the likelihood of being
caught. The tourist becomes a fool due to his lack of knowledge regarding both
urbs and
communitas of London.
Greene, the author of
The Great Boobee, and
Rowlands all capitalize on the reading public’s desire to take
pleasure in their special knowledge of the city. This knowledge provides a sense
of belonging that contrasts with the superficiality of a tourist’s interest in
London’s great landmarks. As evidenced by the two poems’ focus on London’s
famous sites, both tourists are able to experience the
urbs,
but leave themselves open to the threats of the city’s
communitas. Gaping in wonder at the spectacle of the city
below him, the Great Boobee forgets he is in public and begins to cry (
[2.46–48](mol:GREA5)). His counterpart in
Rowlands’s poem is likewise distracted by the sights
in the time leading up to his robbery. It is the height of
[Saint Paul’s](mol:STPA2) (
[2.46](mol:GREA5)); the monstrousness of the whale bones at
[Whitehall](mol:WHIT5) (
[Rowlands 12](mol:ROWL3)); and the lifelike portraits of the kings at the
[Royal Exchange](mol:ROYA1) (
[2.43–45](mol:GREA5)) that capture their attention. Meanwhile, they miss the
threatening social dynamics to which a more experienced Londoner would, perhaps,
remain alert. A seasoned Londoner would likely find it gratifying to contrast
his knowledge of the city with that of the two travellers.
Rowlands’s traveler and the Great Boobee function to
consolidate the Londoner’s sense of superiority vis-à-vis the new arrivals to
the city.
The most striking difference between the content of the two texts is the tone of
their respective endings: one is a celebration, the other a condemnation of
London. The two poems represent alternate possible outcomes available to
London’s new arrivals. Rowlands’s stranger leaves London convinced that he has
encountered the devil ([19–20](mol:ROWL3)), while
the Great Boobee imagines transcending the stigma of his past naiveté by
becoming an actor brave enough to play before the Bears ([2.75–80](mol:GREA5)). After what is likely a brusque and
disagreeable initiation, new arrivals must decide whether to chart a new course
in the frequently unforgiving urban landscape or return to their provincial
point of origin. Thomas Dekker’s
Gull’s Hornbook is a collection of sardonic
encouragement and admonition for young country gallants attempting to make
London their home.
Dekker’s newcomers
resemble those figured in
Rowlands’s
poem and
The Great Boobee: their fathers are
old
worm-eaten farmer[s]
who have died and left
five hundred a year
to their
sons.
Dekker invites those who
would
strive to fashion
to
whiff down these observations. For if he once get but to
walk by the book (and I see no reason but he may, as well as fight by the book)
[Paul’s](mol:STPA2) may be proud of him
(
[88](mol:DEKK8)). The Great Boobee admires the gallants he meets
recalling,
they were very gay
(
[2.12](mol:GREA5)).
Ultimately, he comes to believe that if he can get a licence, he will, like the
gallants, make a life in London. This is a more optimistic endnote than
Rowlands allows for his poem, which
concludes with his traveler’s exodus and his claim that London contains visions
of the devil. The demonic vision constitutes a moral judgement directed against
the criminal opportunism of London’s
communitas.
The beginnings of the two poems provide hints regarding the decision each
traveller ultimately makes to either stay, or return to the country. The reason
for the Great Boobee’s and Rowlands’s
traveller’s decision to journey to London likely lies in the collective
attention focused on the city as a centre of commerce and prestige. The Great
Boobee comes from a wealthy estate ([1.5–8](mol:GREA5)). After
being unsuccessful at school, he tries farming, but is declared incompetent so
he travels to London ([1.13–25](mol:GREA5)) for ſome Vaſhions for
to ſee
([1.30](mol:GREA5)). The draw toward London is
its novelty. This motivation is echoed by William Fennor’s characterization of
young gallants, that never [give] over plodding with himself how he might
get into the books of some goldsmith, haberdasher, silkman, woollen- or
linen-draper
([443](mol:FENN1)). Throughout the
early modern period, London experienced rapid growth owing primarily to its
important position in world trade ([Sheppard
125](mol:SHEP1)). The lure of highly valued objects—great edifices, or finely
crafted goods—attract both businessmen and recently un-landed gentlemen to the
city. Fennor goes on to explain how an aspiring country gallant, dazzled by the
possibility of financial success and prestige of participating in the great
commerce of London, finds himself penniless after the city’s criminals are
through with him ([444](mol:FENN1)). The draw of
London—as a city frequented by kings and port to ships from around the world—for
marginally educated youths must have been enormous. Like the Great Boobee,
Rowlands’s
Country foole is
by an odde conceited humor led, / To trauell and
ſome Engliſh faſhions ſee
(
[3](mol:ROWL3)). This
odde conceited humor
is legible as the simple mimetic curiosity inspired by
large concentrations of people. The prestige of participating in London despite
humble origins—and perhaps leaving a mark in a great city—is summed up by
Dekker’s mocking advice that country
gallants ascending the tower of
[Saint Paul’s](mol:STPA2)
should carve their name somewhere in the monument,
or for want of a name [and
literacy], the mark which you clap on your sheep
(
[91](mol:DEKK8)).
Both
The Great Boobee and
A straunge
ſighted Traueller acknowledge the draw London’s
urbs had upon curious country people, but also the
challenges that the criminal element of the city presented to a newcomer’s
successful integration into the
communitas. Both poems
dramatize the threat of conny-catching that contemporary pamphleteers address.
The publication of such pamphlets and poems indicates a London audience eager to
know about their own city’s criminal underworld.
The Great
Boobee and
Rowlands’s
poem also touch on the powerful draw London had for young country people with
enough freedom to indulge their curiosity regarding the land’s greatest city and
its landmarks. However, the curiosity terminates in an ultimatum: either weather
the assaults of the urban
communitas, or give up and go home.
The optimism of the Great Boobee leans toward the first possibility.
Alternately, the straunge ſighted Traueller’s flight from the city combined with
his bitter denunciation of London as demonic indicts the
civitas’s often inhospitable reception of inexperienced
newcomers. Taken together, the two works illuminate the anxiety new arrivals to
London experienced and the stereotypes established Londoners assigned them.