And Corisca in Massinger’s “Bondsman,” (Act i., sc. 3):—
“And if need be I have a couch and banqueting-house in my orchard, where many a man of honour has not scorned to spend an afternoon.”
He also alludes to it in the “City Madam.” A remnant of this custom is still to be traced in a few country towns, (Sunderland for instance,) where the middle classes have little gardens, in the outskirts of the town, with bowers and wooden summer-houses for tea-drinkings. In Holland they still flourish; the family usually take tea in them, whilst paterfamilias placidly smokes his pipe and listens to the croaking of the frogs and the lowing of the cows in the flat meadows beyond.
The Well and Bucket is a sign in Shoreditch, not badly chosen, as it intimates an inexhaustible supply; it is of very old standing in London, for it is mentioned in the “Paston Letters” in the year 1472.[545]
“I pray God send you all your desires and me my mewed goss-hawk in haste, or, rather than fail, a scar-hawk; there is a grocer dwelling right over against the Well with Two Buckets, a little from St Helen’s Church, hath ever hawks to sell.”
The anxiety about the bird, expressed in this letter, is most amusing:—“I ask no more good of you for all the services that I shall do you, while the world standeth, but a goss-hawk,” is the commencement of the letter, which concludes:—
“Now, think on me, good lord, for if I have not an hawk I shall wax fat for default of labour, and dead for default of company by my troth.”
In old times the ale-house windows were generally open, so that the company within might enjoy the fresh air, and see all that was going on in the street; but, as the scenes within were not always fit to be seen by the “profanum vulgus” that passed by, a trellis was put up in the open window. This trellis, or lattice, was generally painted red, to the intent, it has been jocularly suggested, that it might harmonise with the rich hue of the customers’ noses; which effect, at all events, was obtained by the choice of this colour. Thus Pistol says:—
“He called me even now by word through a red lattice, and I could see no part of his face from the window.”
The same idea is expressed in the “Last Will and Testament of Lawrence Lucifer,” 1604:—