Note 22 — 1810.
Reading edition
The satirical humours of this sign, which dates back from a recondite period, find a place in Larwood's valuable History of Signboards, who gives us further particulars from his own exhaustive researches. 'In Holland, in the seventeenth century, it was used, but the king was left out, and a lawyer added. Each person said exactly the same as our signboards, but the farmer answered:—
You may fight, you may pray, you may plead, But I am the farmer who lays the eggs—
i.e. finds the money.
'This enumeration of the various performances coupled with the word all has been used in numerous different epigrams; an address to James the First, in the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has:-
The Lords craveth all,
The Queene granteth all,
The Ladies of honour ruleth all,
The Lord-Keeper sealed all,
The Intelligencer marred all,
The Parliament pass'd all,
He that is gone opposed himself to all,
The Bishops soothed all,
The Judges pardoned all,
The Lords buy, Rome spoil'd all,
Now, Good King, mend all,
Or else The Devil will have all.
'This again seems to have been imitated from a similar description of the state of Spain in Greene's Spanish Masquerade, 1589:—
The Cardinals solicit all,
The King grauntes all,
The Nobles confirm all,
The Pope determines all,
The Clergie disposeth all,
The Duke of Medina hopes for all,
Alonzo receives all,
The Indians minister all,
The Soldiers eat all,
The People paie all,
The Monks and Friars consume all,
And the Devil at length will carry away all.'