J. C. R.
"Mother Damnable" (Vol. v., p. 151.).
—The real name of this shrew does not appear to have reached posterity, but she gave rise to the sign of Mother Red-cap on the Hampstead Road, A.D. 1676, and was probably the person represented on that sign; to her portrait, which may be found in a book published by "Arnett, Westminster, 1819," entitled Portraits and Lives of Remarkable and Eccentric Characters, are annexed the following lines:
"You've often seen (from Oxford tipling house)
Th' effigies of Shipton fac'd Mother Louse,
Whose pretty pranks (tho' some they might excel)
With this old trot's ne'er gallop'd parallel—
'Tis Mother Damnable! that monstrous thing,
Unmatch'd by Macbeth's wayward women's ring,
For cursing, scolding, fuming, flinging fire