London tricks are old as London's history, and from the days of Chaucer the countryman's fear of London's vastness and the cheats practised by her nimble-witted rogues have passed into literature. In the year 1450 John Lydgate sang the sorrows of a simple Kentish wight, who found that, go where he would in London, he could not speed without money:
"To London once, my stepps I bent, Where trouth in no wyse shoulf be faynt; To Westmynster ward I forthwith went, To a man of law to make complaynt. I sayd, 'for Mary's love, that holy saynt! Pity the poor that would proceede;' But for lack of mony I cold not spede."
After going among the lawyers of King's Bench, the Flemings of Westminster Hall with their hats and spectacles, the cloth men and drapers of Cheapside, and the butchers of Eastcheap, poor Lackpenny found that nowhere, without money, could he be sped in London. His final adventure and reflections were these:
"Then hyed I me to Belynsgate; And one cryed 'hoo, go we hence!' I prayd a barge man for God's sake, That he wold spare me my expence. 'Thou scapst not here,' quod he, 'under 2 pence, I lyst not yet bestow my almes dede;' Thus lacking mony I could not spede.
"Then I convayed me into Kent; For of the law wold I meddle no more Because no man to me tooke entent, I dyght me to do as I dyd before. Now Jesus that in Bethlem was bore, Save London, and send trew lawyers there mede, For who so wants mony with them shall not spede."
Again one might quote that old Roxburghe ballad, "The Great Boobee," in which a country yokel is made to tell how he was made to look foolish when he resolved to plough no more, but to see the fashions of London:
"Now as I went along the street, I carried my hat in my hand, And to every one that I did meet I bravely bent my band. Some did laugh, some did scoff, And some did mock at me, And some did say I was a woodcock, And a great Boobee.
"Then I did walk in haste to Paul's, The steeple for to view, Because I heard some people say It should be builded new. When I got up unto the top, The city for to see, It was so high, it made me cry, Like a great Boobee.
"Next day I through Pye-corner past, The roast meat on the stall Invited me to take a taste; My money was but small: The meat I pickt, the cook me kickt, As I may tell to thee, He beat me sore, and made me rore, Like a great Boobee."