lly accommodate no more
than six lunatics. In 1644, the number had only increased to forty-four;
and the building had nearly perished for want of funds, when the city
raised a subscription and repaired it. After the great fire, it was
re-established on a much larger scale in Moorfields.]

[Footnote 176: Stowe's "Survey of London," Book i.]

[Footnote 177: "The Academy of Armory," Book ii. c. 3, p. 161. This is a
singular work, where the writer has contrived to turn the barren
subjects of heraldry into an entertaining Encyclopaedia, containing much
curious knowledge on almost every subject; but this folio more
particularly exhibits the most copious vocabulary of old English terms.
It has been said that there are not more than twelve copies extant of
this very rare work, which is probably not true. [It is certainly not
correct; the work is, however, rare and valuable.]]

[Footnote 178: In that curious source of our domestic history, the
"English Villanies" of Decker, we find a lively description of the
"Abram cove," or Abram man, the impostor who personated a Tom o' Bedlam.
He was terribly disguised with his grotesque rags, his staff, his
knotted hair, and with the more disgusting contrivances to excite pity,
still practised among a class of our mendicants, who, in their cant
language, are still said "to sham Abraham." This impostor was,
therefore, as suited his purpose and the place, capable of working on
the sympathy, by uttering a silly _maunding_, or demanding of charity,
or terrifying the easy fears of women, children, and domestics, as he
wandered up and down the country: they refused nothing to a being who
was as terrific to them as "Robin Good-fellow," or "Raw-head and
Bloody-bones." Thus, as Edgar expresses it, "sometimes with lunatic
bans, sometimes with prayers," the gestures of this impostor were "a
counterfeit puppet-play: they came with a hollow noise, whooping,
leaping, gambolling, wildly dancing, with a fierce or distracted look."
These sturdy mendicants were called "Tom of Bedlam's band of mad-caps,"
or "Poor Tom's flock of wild geese." Decker has preserved their "Maund,"
or begging--"Good worship master, bestow your reward on a poor man that
hath been in Bedlam without Bishopsgate, three years, four months, and
nine days, and bestow one piece of small silver towards his fees, which
he is indebted there, of 3_l._ 13_s._ 71/2_d._" (or to such effect).

Or, "Now dame, well and wisely, what will you give