Henry Holiday's depiction of the Bellman in fhe front cover illustration to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark and Father Time from an allegorical English School painting (ca. 1610) depicting Queen Elizabeth I at Old Age.



That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.
Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd
their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.