1. 1. 54 how nimble he is! ‘A perfect idea of his activity may be formed from the incessant skipping of the modern Harlequin.’—G.
1. 1. 56 the top of Pauls-steeple. As Gifford points out, Iniquity is boasting of an impossible feat. St. Paul’s steeple had been destroyed by fire in 1561, and was not yet restored. Several attempts were made and money collected. ‘James I. countenanced a sermon at Paul’s Cross in favor of so pious an undertaking, but nothing was done till 1633 when reparations commenced with some activity, and Inigo Jones designed, at the expense of Charles I., a classic portico to a Gothic church.’—Wh-C.
Lupton, London Carbonadoed, 1632, writes: ‘The head of St. Paul’s hath twice been troubled with a burning fever, and so the city, to keep it from a third danger, lets it stand without a head.’ Gifford says that ‘the Puritans took a malignant pleasure in this mutilated state of the cathedral.’ Jonson refers to the disaster in his Execration upon Vulcan, U. 61, Wks. 8. 408. See also Dekker, Paules Steeples complaint, Non-dram. Wks. 4. 2.
1. 1. 56 Standard in Cheepe. This was a water-stand or conduit in the midst of the street of West Cheaping, where executions were formerly held. It was in a ruinous condition in 1442, when it was repaired by a patent from Henry VI. Stow (Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 100) gives a list of famous executions at this place, and says that ‘in the year 1399, Henry IV. caused the blanch charters made by Richard II. to be burnt there.’
1. 1. 58 a needle of Spaine. Gifford, referring to Randolph’s Amyntos and Ford’s Sun’s Darling, points out that ‘the best needles, as well as other sharp instruments, were, in that age, and indeed long before and after it, imported from Spain.’ The tailor’s needle was in cant language commonly termed a Spanish pike.
References to the Spanish needle are frequent. It is mentioned by Jonson in Chloridia, Wks. 8. 99; by Dekker, Wks. 4. 308; and by Greene, Wks. 11. 241. Howes (p. 1038) says: ‘The making of Spanish Needles, was first taught in England by Elias Crowse, a Germane, about the eight yeare of Queene Elizabeth, and in Queen Maries time, there was a Negro made fine Spanish Needles in Cheape-side, but would neuer teach his Art to any.’
1. 1. 59 the Suburbs. The suburbs were the outlying districts without the walls of the city. Cf. Stow, Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 156 f. They were for the most part the resort of disorderly persons. Cf. B. & Fl., Humorous Lieut. 1. 1.; Massinger, Emperor of the East 1. 2.; Shak., Jul. Caes. 2. 1; and Nares, Gloss. Wheatley (ed. Ev. Man in, p. 1) quotes Chettle’s Kind Harts Dreame, 1592: ‘The suburbs of the citie are in many places no other but dark dennes for adulterers, thieves, murderers, and every mischief worker; daily experience before the magistrates confirms this for truth.’ Cf. also Glapthorne, Wit in a Constable, Wks., ed. 1874, 1. 219:
——make safe retreat Into the Suburbs, there you may finde cast wenches.
In Every Man in, Wks. 1. 25, a ‘suburb humour’ is spoken of.
1. 1. 60 Petticoate-lane. This is the present Middlesex Street, Whitechapel. It was formerly called Hog Lane and was beautified with ‘fair hedge-rows,’ but by Stow’s time it had been made ‘a continual building throughout of garden houses and small cottages’ (Survey, ed. 1633, p. 120 b). Strype tells us that the house of the Spanish Ambassador, supposedly the famous Gondomar, was situated there (Survey 2. 28). In his day the inhabitants were French Protestant weavers, and later Jews of a disreputable sort. That its reputation was somewhat unsavory as early as Nash’s time we learn from his Prognostication (Wks. 2. 149):