“Oh, may thy virtue guard thee through the roads
Of Drury’s mazy courts and dark abodes!
The harlots’ guileful path, who nightly stand
Where Catherine Street descends into the Strand.
With empty bandbox she delights to range,
And feigns a distant errand from the ‘Change.
Nay, she will oft the Quaker’s hood profane,
And trudge demure the rounds of Drury Lane.”
Tom Brown describes, con amore, the wickedness of that part of the town. Catherine Street at present is not quite so bad as formerly, but the hundred of Drury Lane cannot by any means be called the most virtuous part of London.
[185] Art of Living in London. Printed for William Griffin, at the Garrickshead, in Catherine Street, in the Strand, 1768.
[186] Pennant’s Account of London, 1813, p. 618.
[187] Little London Directory for 1677, the oldest list of London merchants.
[188] “Buy these books, which Richard Fax the printer has printed with the wedge, with the greatest care. This little book was printed at London, in St Paul’s Churchyard, at the Maidenhead, in the year 1509, on the 12th of December.” The printing with the wedge was the first attempt of the art, whence the books produced in this manner are sometimes called incunables.
[189] Pleasant Conceits of old Hobson the Londoner, 1607. Hobson’s answer proves the truth of Misson’s remark, that there were no inscriptions on the London signs to tell what they represented, otherwise the maid could not have been passed off as a widow.
[190] Guillim’s Display of Heraldry, folio, p. 197.
[191] The Vicar of Bray, the hero of Butler’s comic poem, appears to have been a certain Simon Aleyn, ob. 1583; he was by turns, and as the times suited, Roman Catholic and Protestant, in the times of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth.
[192] The original edition of the Spectator contained bona fide advertisements like any other newspaper.