[247] Aubrey, Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 3.
[248] Postman, June 1703.
[249] Intelligencer, May 30, 1681.
[250] Bagford Bills. Bib. Harl. 5964.
[251] Hence we have 7 ages, 7 churches, 7 champions, 7 penitential psalms, 7 sleepers of Ephesus, 7 years’ apprenticeship, 7 cardinal virtues and deadly sins, 7 make a gallows-ful, boots of 7 leagues, 7 liberal arts, and innumerable other instances.
[252] Collier’s Annals, vol. iii. p. 271, and Halliwell’s Introduction to Tarlton’s Jests, p. 16.
[253] Spectator, No. 509.
[254] “He went about almost naked in the rage of hunger,” says Dr Johnson, “and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffeehouse asked him for a shilling; and Otway going away bought a roll and was choked with the first mouthful.”
[255] Lewis’s Islington, p. 160.
[256] The History of the Plague, by Defoe.