User:Hillbillyholiday/Articles/Aniseed Robin

Aniseed Robin famous hermaphrodite street-vendor.

''The names of some of the common liquors were--aqua vitae, aniseed water; aqua mirabilis, cinnamon water; aqua salis, clove water; aqua dulcis, plague water; cholick water, which in short, was Geneva. These and many more; but aqua vitae and aniseed water were the favouriete liquors, and in time the latter prevailed; the quantity drank was prodigious. It was the Geneva of this times; it was cried about the streets, of which the memory of Anniseed Robin [sic] will be a never-dying testimony; who was so well known in Leadenhall and the Stock Market for his liquor and his briad-brimmed hat, that it became proverbial when we saw a moan's hat hanging about his ears, to say that he looks like an Anniseed Robin.''

''The bum-boats continue to this day crying a dram of the bottle in the river among the ships--this was the dram-drinking age. A sudden stop was put to it, for the French out-did them exceedingly; and pouring in their brandy at a cheap rate, the physicians recommended it, and people took their drams in plain brandy.''

Daniel Defoe: "The famous Aniseed Robin...was so well known in Leaden-Hall and the Stocks-Market for his liquor, and his broad-brimmed hat, that it became proverbial, when we saw a man's hat hanging about his ears, to say, he looks like Aniseed Robin."

The Country Wife play:

''In the opening scene, Horner's medical co-conspirator compares him to a famous hermaphrodite, the street-vendor Aniseed Robin--as if removing the organs of one sex gave him the attributes of both, causing sexuality to proliferate rather thatn wither. (In a strangely beautiful song of the period, Aniseed Robin 'got a Child of Maid, and yet is no man / Was fot with child by man, and is no woman.')''*


 * "Dainty Fine Aniseed Water", from the John Hilton, Catch as Catch Can, 2nd edn. (1652), performed by The Baltimore Consort on CD The Art of the Bawdy Song (Dorian, 1992), track 16; cf. CW 1.i.249 (where Friedman cites Charles Cotton's poem on Aniseed Robin).

Mul-Sack marriage
John Cottington aka Mul-Sack. From the Newgate Calendar:

''One evening Mul-Sack was drinking at the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street when he observed what he thought was a beautiful woman; and being naturally pretty amorous, and at that time in particular warm with his favourite liquor, he made his addresses to her. Madam appeared to be none of the coyest, for she received him very freely, only nothing but matrimony would go down with her, which did not thoroughly please him. "Yet why," thought he at last, "should I be against it? I can keep myself and a wife very well, and I never saw a woman whom I could like better than this; therefore, hang it! I'll e'en take her, for better for worse." Upon this he immediately gave her his hand, and there were no more words to the bargain, but away they tramped to the Fleet together; where divinity linked their hands, pronounced them man and wife, and prayed heartily for their welfare; in particular, that they might be successful in their honest and lawful endeavours for the procreation of children, which, as the holy office of the Church informs us, is the principal end of matrimony.''

''But how was our jolly bridegroom deceived at night when he found himself espoused to an hermaphrodite, and that the lady he had married was no other than a person well known by the name of Aniseed Robin? The redundancy of nature was soon discovered, and the bride confessed her fault, or, if you please, his fault, with abundance of seeming contrition, while poor Mul-Sack had nothing more to do in bed than to go to sleep as usual.''