3. 2. 35 Cornehill. Cornhill, between the Poultry and Leadenhall Street, an important portion of the greatest thoroughfare in the world, was, says Stow, ‘so called of a corn market time out of mind there holden.’ In later years it was provided with a pillory and stocks, a prison, called the Tun, for street offenders, a conduit of ‘sweet water’, and a standard. See Wh-C.
3. 2. 38 the posture booke. A book descriptive of military evolutions, etc. H. Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman, 1627 (p. 300, quoted by Wheatley, Ev. Mall in), gives a long list of ‘Postures of the Musquet’ and G. Markham’s Souldier’s Accidence gives another. Cf. Tale Tub, Wks. 6. 218:
—All the postures Of the train’d bands of the country.
3. 2. 41 Finsbury. In 1498, ‘certain grounds, consisting of gardens, orchards, &c. on the north side of Chiswell-street, and called Bunhill or Bunhill-fields, within the manor of Finsbury, were by the mayor and commonalty of London, converted into a large field, containing 11 acres, and 11 perches, now known by the name of the Artillery-ground, for their train-bands, archers, and other military citizens, to exercise in.’—Entick, Survey 1. 441.
In 1610 the place had become neglected, whereupon commissioners were appointed to reduce it ‘into such order and state for the archers as they were in the beginning of the reign of King Henry VIII.’ (Ibid. 2. 109). See also Stow, Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 159.
Dekker (Shomaker’s Holiday, Wks. 1. 29) speaks of being ‘turnd to a Turk, and set in Finsburie for boyes to shoot at’, and Nash (Pierce Pennilesse, Wks. 2. 128) and Jonson (Bart. Fair, Wks. 4. 507) make precisely similar references. Master Stephen in Every Man in (Wks. 1. 10) objects to keeping company with the ‘archers of Finsbury.’ Cf. also the elaborate satire in U. 62, (Wks. 8. 409).
3. 2. 45 to traine the youth
Of London, in the military truth. Cf. Underwoods 62:
Thou seed-plot of the war! that hast not spar’d Powder or paper to bring up the youth Of London, in the military truth.
Gifford believes these lines to be taken from a contemporary posture-book, but there is no evidence of quotation in the case of Underwoods.
3. 3. 22, 3 This comes of wearing
Scarlet, gold lace, and cut-works! etc. Webster has a passage very similar to this in the Devil’s Law Case, Wks. 2. 37 f.: