self to see a play."-SHADWELL'S Sullen Lov ers. well-faced fellows, that have no sense beyond peruques and pantaloons, should be the only men with the ladies."-SHADWELL'S Epsom FOUR shillings the price of admittance to the Wells. boxes.-Ibid. "HAS the fellow that cries old clothes re "He asked me to be his second, which I could deemed the new velvet coat, which I believe he not in honour refuse. "Emilia. Granting that barbarous custom of duels, can anything be so ridiculous as to venture your life for another man's quarrel, right or wrong?"-Ibid. "HERE's a peruke, no flax in the world can be whiter. How delicately it appears by this coloured hanging! and let me advise you, ever while you live, if you have a fair peruke, get by a green or some dark-coloured hanging or curtain, if there be one in the room. Oh, it sets it off admirably."-SHADWELL's Humourists. "BE sure if your eyebrows be not black, to black 'em soundly. Ah, your black-eyebrow is your fashionable eyebrow. I hate rogues that wear eyebrows that are out of fashion." Ibid. "MUST I stay till by the strength of Terse claret you have wet yourself into courage ?" Ibid. This I suppose means tierce claret-claret drawn from the cask. The scene is a tavern, stole? Or the oyster woman her red pettycoat with silver lace on't? Has the Whetstone whore redeemed her mantoplice (?) and her silk dyed pettycoat with gold and silver lace ?"— Ibid. Miser. "HUGE Leicestershire pease-fed sheep, as rank as old he goats." This was before turnips or potatoes had been introduced to feed them. "A FELLOW that never wore a noble and po- In the same scene the following are mentioned lite garniture, or a white perriwig; one that as dainties, "fawns out of their dams' bellies ript, has not a bit of interest at Chatolins, or ever ate gelt goats, bruised venison, sucking rabbits, a good fricacy, sup, or ragoust in his life!"-shoulders of venison in the kell (?) with blood, young rooks, and new-hatched martins."-Ibid. Woman Captain. Ibid. "BREAK those windows, 'tis Normandy glass." "OUR young fellows imitate the French. Their summer-fashion of going open-breasted came to us at Michaelmas, and we wore it all-Ibid. winter; and their winter-fashion of buttoning close their strait long-waisted coats, that made them look like monkies, came not to us till March, and our coxcombs wore it all summer."-Ibid. Virtuoso. "I HAVE Choice good gloves, Amber, Orangery, Genoa, Romane, Frangipand, Neroty, Tuberose, Gessimine and Marshal; all manner of tires for the head, locks, tours, frowzes, and so forth; all manner of washes, almond water and mercury water for the complexion; the best Peter and Spanish paper that ever came over; the best pomatums of Europe, but one rare one, made of a lamb's caul and May dew. Also, all manner of confections of mercury and hog's bones to preserve present and to restore lost beauty." -Ibid. "I USE thee not as other noblemen do their pages, who let gentlemen's sons ride at the tails of their coaches, crowded with rascally footmen : 'tis a French mode. They used formerly to give 'em the same education with their sons, which made their fortunes; and 'twas a preferment then for a gentleman's younger son. Now they are bred to box and dice, and cheat with the footmen: after they're out of livery perhaps they turn to the recreation of the highway; or the top of their fortune is to take up in some troop, and there's an end of 'em.”—Ibid. Bury Fair. THE perfumer at the fair offers for sale, "pulvilios, sweet bags, perfumed boxes for your hoods and gloves, all sorts of sweets for your linen, Portugal sweets to burn in your cham SHADWELL'S Clodpate calls London "that ber."-Ibid. place of sin and sea coal." THE shawm and bandore mentioned as instru ""Tis a shame that a company of young ments of country music.-Ibid. "I KNEW the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityre Tus. They were brave fellows indeed. In those days a man could not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice."-Ibid. Scowrers. but when God was spoken to, it was fit to turn from the people."-BP. SPARROW's Rationale, p. 36. AGE, which naturally and unavoidably is but one remove from death, and consequently should have nothing about it but what looks SNAIL-WATER was prepared by accomplished like a decent preparation for it, scarce ever housewives.-Ibid. EIGHT-the supper hour.-Ibid. THE tea table-"is ready for the women, and men that live like women. Your fine-bred men of England as they call 'em are all turned women."-Ibid. The Stock Jobbers. DEDICATING the Woman Captain to Lord Ogle, the Marquess of Newcastle's son, Shadwell says, one virtue of your lordship's I am too much pleased with not to mention, which is, that in this age, when learning is grown contemptible to those who ought most to advance it, and Greek and Latin sense is despised, and French and English nonsense applauded; when the ancient nobility and gentry of England, who not long since were famous for their learning, have now sent into the world a certain kind of spurious brood of illiterate and degenerous youth, your lordship dares love books, and labours to have learning." COLLEDGE, the Protestant Joiner, upon his trial said, "there is scarce a carpenter or a joiner in London but hath pistols when he rides, -scarce a poulterer in London but hath pistols." This in reply when it was urged against him, that he came to Oxford "in an equipage not suited to his profession (for you see he was by trade a carpenter or joiner), but armed on horseback with a case of pistols, things that do not become such men to travel with."-State Trials, vol. 8, p. 196. He had also a suit of armour made of silk to wear under a coat, "it was silk-armour only for the thrust of a sword," he said.-Ibid. p. 649. Its use for a sword I do not understand; a better defence it would be against a pistol, or a musket ball. See the anecdote of Major Read in NEALE's Travels. By a passage in PARKER'S Reproof to the Rehearsal Transposed, p. 499, it seems as if Charles's attempt to introduce a new costume had been represented by the malcontents as tyrannical and dangerous. appears of late days but in the high mode, the flaunting garb, and utmost gaudery of youth; with clothes as ridiculously and as much in the fashion, as the person that wears them is usually grown out of it. The eldest equal the youngest in the vanity of their dress; and no other reason can be given of it, but that they equal, if not surpass them in the vanity of their desires. So that those who by the majesty, and as I may so say, the prerogative of their age, should even frown youth into sobriety and better manners, are now striving all they can to imitate and strike in with them, and to be really vicious, that they may be thought to be young."-SOUTH, vol. 2, p. 50. EASTER a gala season.-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 89. It seems to have been a tavern exploit to swallow a frog in a glass of wine.-BENTIVOLIO and URANIA, book 5, p. 92. SOUTH complains that the clerical habit was neglected by such in orders as frequently travel the road clothed like farmers or graziers, to the unspeakable shame and scandal of their profession."—Ibid. vol. 4, p. 192. "A FRIDAY look and a Lenten face."-Ibid. vol. 4, p. 273. See the passage, whereby it appears that Friday was kept as a fast till supper time by certain of the sanctified. See also vol. 6, pp. 217-8. "IF we take a list of the most renowned philosophers in former ages, and the most eminent divines in the latter, we shall find that they were, for the most part, of mechanic, mean and plebeian parentage. Upon this score also there came to be so many free schools and endowed places for learning; because those are most apt to send their children to study, who being poor and low, are not able to maintain them in it." -SOUTH, Vol. 6, p. 321. THERE were smoking-places at Tunbridge Wells, that the ladies might not be offended with the smell of tobacco in the walks.—Tunbridgealia, by Mr. PETER CAUSTON, merchant. State Poems, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 204. "In many parish churches of late, the readTHE partridge it seems was sold in the maring-pew had one desk for the Bible looking to-ket there, and swans and peacocks, both which wards the people to the body of the church; birds he says were but in small esteem.—Ibid. another for the Prayer Book looking toward the p. 206. east, or upper end of the chancel. And very reasonable was this usage; for when the people A POEм upon the lamps in London, here called were spoken to, it was fit to look towards them; the new lights.—Ibid. p. 243. See pp. 244–5. "Ir is looked upon by some as a piece of gentility and height of spirit, to stab and wound, especially if they are assured that the injured person will not resist, and so secure them the reputation of generosity, without the danger of betraying their cowardice."-SOUTH, vol. 7, p. 8. SOUTH calls the theatres "those spiritual pest houses, where scarce any thing is to be heard or seen, but what tends to the corruption of good manners; and from whence not one of a thousand returns, but infected with the love of vice, or at least with the hatred of it very much abated from what it was before. And that I assure you is no inconsiderable point gained by the tempter; as those who have any experience of their own hearts sufficiently know. He who has no mind to trade with the devil, should be so wise as to keep away from his shop."-Vol. 7, p. 167. FASHION for Indian goods.-State Poems, vol. 4, pp. 425, 427. The law for burying in woollen past in consequence of the fashion, to satisfy the clothiers and wool-growers. HACKNEY Coaches restrained from hiring and driving on the Sabbath.-GIBSON's Codex, vol. 1, 240. Repealed in part, 1693, when one hundred and seventy-five were to be licensed for Sundays, so as the whole number of seven hundred might be employed successively. "FORMERLY (says WALLER) the neighbourhood desired him to serve; there was a dinner, and so an end: but now it is a kind of an empire. Some hundred years ago some boroughs sent not; they could get none to serve; but now it is in fashion and a fine thing, they are revived." "THE gentlemen in private meetings which A. W. frequented, played three, four, and five parts with viols, as treble, tenor, counter tenor, and bass, with an organ, virginal, or harpsicon joined with them; and they esteemed a violin to be an instrument only belonging to a common 1673. "THIS building (says SERJEANT MAYfiddler, and could not endure that it should come NARD) is the ruin of the gentry, and ruin of reamong them, for fear of making their meetings ligion, having so many thousand people without to be vain and fiddling. But before the restora-churches to go to. The enlarging of London tion of King Charles II. and especially after, viols makes it filled with lacqueys and pages."-Ibid. began to be out of fashion, and only violins used, p. 659. Vide p. 676 also. as treble violin, tenor, and bass violin; and the king according to the French mode, would have twenty-four violins playing before him while he was at meals, as being more airy and brisk than viols."-Life of Anthony Wood, p. 97. "A. WooD and his mother made a wedding visit to Dr. Ralph Bathurst who had married a kinswoman of theirs. They had before sent in sack, claret, cake, and sugar, to welcome the said married couple, when Bathurst brought home his wife from Oxford."-Ibid. p. 194. 1673. MR. GARROWAY. "It is worth the honour of the House to have these immense buildings suppressed. The country wants tenants; and here are four hundred soldiers that keep alehouses, and take them of the brewers; and now they are come to be Prætorian guards. That churches have not been proportionable to houses, has occasioned the growth of popery and atheism, and put true religion out of the land. The city of London would not admit rare artists, as painters and carvers, into freedom; and it is their own fault that they have driven trade out of London into this end of the town, and filled the great houses with shops." "PAID to the collectors of the pole money of the parish of St. John Baptist, wherein he lived 1 li. as a gentleman, and 1s. for his head, to--Ibid. p. 660. wards the carrying on the war between the English and the Dutch at sea." 1666.—Ibid. p. 201. 1673. In the debates upon the introduction of the Habeas Corpus Act, it was said that FIRST flying coach from Oxford to London in "several had been sent to Tangiers and the Isthirteen hours. 1669.-Ibid. p. 218. lands, since the king came in."-Ibid. p. 661. 1675. WALLER. "The relief of the poor ruins the nation. By the late Act they are hunted like foxes out of parishes, and whither must they go but where there are houses? (meaning to London.) We shall shortly have no lands to live upon, the charge of many parishes in the country is so great."-Ibid. p. 679. SAWYER. "The Act for settlement of the poor does indeed thrust all people out of the country to London. This bill (for restraint of buildings) remedies the matter. By this increase of building, in a while the people will come into such disorder as to destroy the buildings themselves." CHILD. "Sixty years' experience has made it evident, in fact, that rents have increased the more for building houses. London has more inhabitants than before the fire."-Ibid. 1675. LORD KEEPER FINCH. "Would you restrain the excess of those new buildings which begin to swarm with inhabitants unknown? Your petitions of this kind will be grateful to the king."-Ibid. p. 742-3. More upon this excess of building.-Ibid. p. 676. 1675. SIR JOHN HOLLAND. "The truth is, the prodigal and excessive way of living now was unknown to our forefathers, who kept hospitality. It is a leprosy that has almost overspread the nation."-Ibid. p. 747. 1676. "THE Country is almost depopulated for want of employment, and the people will follow employment. Want of people has forced the farmer to thresh himself. He cannot keep servants, corn is so cheap; and when it is got, there is nobody to eat it; and yet when we reap it, there is 1s. 6d. or 2s. a day for workmen, so few are there to be got."-COL. BIRCH. Parl. Hist. vol. 4, p. 835. "MR. PENNICOTT has shown me a most curious and delightful picture. It is Rose the royal gardener presenting the first pine apple raised in England to Charles II. They are in a garden, with a view of a good private house, such as there are several at Sunbury and about London. It is by far the best likeness of the king I ever saw; the countenance cheerful, good-humoured, and very sensible. He is in brown, lined with orange, and many black ribands, a large flapped hat, dark wig, not tied up, nor yet bushy, a point cravat, no waistcoat, and a tasselled handkerchief hanging from a low pocket. The whole is of the smaller landscape size, and extremely well coloured with perfect harmony. It was a legacy from Loudon, grandson of him who was partner unto Wise."-HOR. WALPOLE'S Letters, vol. 4, p. 206. "A FOOL filled a whole wallet and a pillowbear top full of flies—?”—Patrick's Parable of the Pilgrim, p. 264. "So late as in the year 1674, the clergy in convocation insisted on a right to tax themselves, and this right was recognized by the commons. At present the clergy have dropt that right, when I cannot pretend to say."-LORD CAMDEN. Parl. Hist. vol. 16, p. 169. 1666. "THE rents of England, it was found, had of late years decreased to the amount of £200,000 annually."-LELAND. Hist. of Ireland, vol. 3, p. 442. Carte's Ormond, vol. 2, p. 317, quoted. AFTER the fire of London, "30,000 beeves, the only riches which Ireland then afforded, were subscribed for relief of the sufferers. But this was industriously represented in England as a political contrivance to defeat the prohibition of Irish cattle."-LELAND, vol. 3, p. 446. Was there then an old groat worth 4 d. in comparison with the new? or with those that were cracked and perhaps clipt? BUNYAN speaks of "cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their SIR WM. COVENTRY. 1676–7. "We have purses, when their gold is in their trunks at great reason in these cases (disputes in parlia-home."-Grace abounding, Works, vol. 2, p. 31. ment) to give grains of allowance to one another. In ancient times but a few persons spoke in the House, and their speeches were ready penned. Their powder and shot was ready made up in cartridges, ready cut and dried, and a man had then time to think: but now we speak on a sudden, and therefore would have some grains of allowance given."-Ibid. p. 841. 1676-7. SIR GEORGE DOWRING believes that "for French linen there goes about £500,000 per annum, besides other linen."-Ibid. 836. SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, writing at the commencement of this reign, says, that when opu when dead, presented to their friends, by their Ar great men's funerals "they are sometimes, compleatly wrought images, as lively as by cunning men's hands they can be, that the remem brance of them may be renewed to their survivors, the remembrance of them and their deeds."BUNYAN. Prefatory Epist. to the Life and Death of Mr. Badman. Did this custom continue after Cromwell? Jent or great persons undertake public employ- A MAN at the gallows confessing the course ments, the very rabble have so much prudence of his life, said he "began the trade of a thief as to condemn these for madmen."-Essays, by stealing of pins and points."-MR. BADMAN, p. 96. p. 737. "RICH men will not account their treasure lies AT Gaius's house one is sent "to lay the cloth and the trenchers, and to set the salt and bread in order."-Ibid. p. 294. 1668. A coach on the way from Bucking JOHN BUNYAN. Ebal and Gerizim, p. 852. hamshire, being robbed by highwaymen, the "I AM most free that men should see A hole cut through mine ear, They'll hang a jewel there." NEITHER Cotton nor his friend Viator ate breakfast. "My diet," says Cotton, "is always one glass (of ale) so soon as I am dressed, and no more till dinner."-Comp. Angler, p. 287. VIATOR. "I will light a pipe, for that is commonly my breakfast too."-Ibid. p. 292. "THE tail of a black long-coated cur, such as they commonly make muffs of."-Ibid. p. 317. "AUJOURD'HUY les rois ne permettent pas, que les ambassadeurs les voyent souvent, ny familièrement. Il n'y a que celui de la Grande Bretagne, qui s'estant accoustumé pendant les années de ses voyages, à une grande liberté, se plaist à se communiquer, et a voir les ambassadeurs sans façon et sans contrainte."-WICQUEFORT, p. 23. There was a reason for this of which W. was not aware. Charles II. had business with ambassadors, which was not to be known by his nearest ministers. "THERE is at Auckland a goldsmith's receipt for £100, in part payment for the plate and workmanship of the covers of a Bible and Common Prayer Books-from Bishop Cosin, 1662." -SURTEES, vol. 1, p. 109. "COMMON as the circumstance now is, I believe Crewe (1674) was the first bishop of a noble family since the reformation: the second was Compton, Bishop of London."—Ibid. p. 115. "THE last wild wolf was killed in Scotland in 1682."-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 172. "Lé dessein de la Société Royale a esté admírable, mais par malheur on ne prit point de bonnes mesures pour un establissement solide; et le feu Roy, bien loin de la favoriser en qualité de protecteur, et comme il pouvoit, estant luy même versé dans les belles connoissances, tachoit plutôt de la tourner en ridicule. J'en sçay des nouvelles. Sauf ce qu'on doit à la memoire des Roys, Charles II. avoit l'esprit propre aux grandes choses, et l'inclination portée à la bagatelle."-LEIBNITZ. Miscellanea Leibnitiana, p. 28. "HER husband first cried her down at the Cross, and then turned her out of his doors."-Pilgrim's Progress, p. 2, (Works, vol. 2, p. 282.) |