[318] Tricks upon blind persons naturally form a feature in the jest books. The eighty-third adventure of Tyl Owlglass is a practical joke on a blind man, and in Scoggin's Jests, 1626, there are one or two examples.
[319] A cheat or rogue. See Rowland's Knave of Clubbs, 1600 (Percy Soc. ed. p. 18). The word Shifter is employed by Rowlands in the Knave of Harts, 1613, and by others of our elder writers in the same sense. In the following passage, shift is used to signify a piece of knavery:—
"Ferd. Brother, you lie; you got her with a shift.
Frank. I was the first that lov'd her."
Heywood's Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1607 (Shakesp. Soc. ed. p. 87).
See also Taylor's Works, 1630, ii. 144. In his Sculler, 1612, the last mentioned writer introduces a sharper into one of his epigrams under the name of Mounsieur Shift, "cozen-german to Sir Cuthert Theft" (Works, iii. 25).
[320] Antiently, no doubt, Long Lane ran between hedges into Smithfield; but it appears that even in the early part of Elizabeth's reign building had commenced in this locality. Stow (Survey of London, edit. 1720, lib. iii. p. 122) says:—"Long Lane, so called from its length, coming out of Aldersgate Street against Barbican, and falleth into West Smithfield. A Place also of Note for the Sale of Apparel, Linnen, and Upholsters Goods, both Secondhand and New, but chiefly for old, for which it is of note." See also p. 284 of the same book, and Cunningham's Hand Book of London, edit. 1848, in voce, with the authorities and illustrations there given. Rowlands, in his Letting of Humors Blood in the Head Vein, 1611, Sign. C. 2 verso, celebrates this spot as one of the principal haunts of the pawnbrokers. In Wits Recreations, 1640 (edit. 1817, p. 109), there is the following epigram:—
"He which for 's wife a widow doth obtain,
Doth like to those that buy clothes in Long Lane,
One coat's not fit, another's too too old,
Their faults I know not, but th' are manifold."
Day, in the Parliament of Bees, 1641, 40, Sign. C, speaks very disrespectfully of the population of Long Lane in his time. See Maroccus Extaticus, 1595 (Percy Soc. ed. p. 16), Dekker's Knights' Conjuring, 1607, ed. Rimbault, p. 54. Webster's Works, by Hazlitt, i. 94. and Taylor's Works, 1630, Sign. Ggg4. The Swan Inn has disappeared, but whether it has merged in the Barley Mow, or the Old Red Cow, I do not know.
[321] Nearest.