This first appeared in 1566. It was very popular, and soon ran through four editions, the last being “augmented and enlarged by the first author thereof, with the tale of the second taking of the counterfeit Crank, and the true report of his behaviour and punishment, most marvellous to the hearer or reader thereof.”
_William Gryffith_ 1566 _ib._ _ib._ 1567 . . . . . . . . 1567 _Henry Middleton_ 1573
The printer of the third edition is not known. The book is dedicated, somewhat inconsistently, considering the nature of the subject, to Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury. It gives, like the _Liber Vagatorum_, short but graphic descriptions of the different kinds of beggars, and concludes with a cant dictionary.
The next work on this subject which appeared in England was published nine years later:—
_The Fraternitye of Vacabondes, with a Description of the crafty Company of Cousoners and Shifters; whereunto also is adioyned the XXV Orders of Knaues, other wise called a Quartern of Knaues. Confirmed for ever by Cocke Lorell._ (_London by John Awdeley_, 4to. 1575.)[8]
Some have conjectured that it was an original compilation by Audley, the printer; but this little book, perhaps more than Harman’s, shows traces of the German work. The “XXV Orders of Knaues” is nearly the number described in the _Liber Vagatorum_, and the tricks, and description of beggars’ dresses in both are very similar. There are the rogues with patched cloaks, who begged with their wives and “doxies;” those with forged licenses and letters, who pretended to collect for hospitals; those afflicted with the falling sickness, a numerous number; some without tongues, carrying letters, pretending they have been signed and sealed by the authorities of the towns from whence they came; others, “freshe-water mariners,” with tales of a dreadful shipwreck, and many more, all described in similar words, whether in the pages of the _Liber Vagatorum_, Harman, or Audley. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the German account, being in the hands of the people abroad half a century before anything of the kind was issued here, copies must have found their way to England, and that from these the other two were in a great measure derived.