The Cresset.
Concerning the cressets or lights of the watch, this may be observed by way of explanation.
The cresset light was formed of a wreathed rope smeared with pitch, and placed in a cage of iron, like a trivet suspended on pivots, in a kind of fork; or it was a light from combustibles, in a hollow pan. It was rendered portable by being placed on a pole, and so carried from place to place. Mr. Douce, in his “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” gives the following four [representations] from old prints and drawings of
CRESSETS.
Lamps in the Old Streets,
AND ALSO CARRIED BY THE
Marching Watch of London.
Mr. Douce imagines the word cresset to have been derived from the French word croiset, a cruet or earthen pot.
When the cresset light was stationary it served as a beacon, or answered the purpose of a fixed lamp, and in this way our ancestors illuminated or lighted up their streets. There is a volume of sermons, by Samuel Ward, printed 1617-24, with a wood-cut frontispiece, representing two of these fixed cressets or street-lamps, with verses between them, in relation to his name and character, as a faithful watchman. In the first lines old Ward is addressed thus:—
“Watch Ward, and keepe thy Garments tight,
For I come thiefe-like at Midnight.”
Whereto Ward answers the injunction, to watch, in the lines following:—