Bill

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Bill has posted 2,777 annotations/comments since 9 March 2013.

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Second Reading

About Sir William Davenant

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Apropos of Davenant being a son of Shakespeare, note the following, in which the words "god" and "God's" are italicized. Being in the way of a wink and a nod, I think. Or perhaps, "nudge. nudge."

If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern in Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit; and her husband, Mr. John Davenant, (afterwards mayor of that city) a grave melancholy man; who, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their son young Will Davenant (afterwards Sir William) was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day an old townsman observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered, to see his god-father Shakspeare. There's a good boy, said the other, but have a care that you don't take God's name in vain. This story Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table, upon occasion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare's monument then newly erected in Westminster Abbey.
---The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare: Prolegomena. 1790.

About Bucklersbury

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It is remarkable, that when the Plague reigned in London, Bucklers-Bury, which stood in the very Heart of the City, was free from that Distemper: The Reason given for it is, that it was chiefly inhabited by Druggists and Apothecaries, the Scent of whose Drugs kept away the Infection; which, according to my Notion, were so unnatural to the pestilential Insects, that they were kill'd or driven away by the strong Smell of some sort of Drugs.
---New Improvements of Planting and Gardening. R. Bradley, 1739.

Falstaff. Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and that, like a-many of these lisping haw-thorn buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklers-bury ...
---Shakespeare. Merry Wives of Windsor.

About Thursday 26 July 1660

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Shot:—a common contribution, or clubbing, to pay a tavern bill.
---English etymology. G.W. Lemon, 1783.

About Pall Mall

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PELL-MELL [pele-mele, F. of peles, Locks of Wooll, and meles, mingled together] confusedly, without Order.
PELL-MELL [pellere malleo, to drive with a mallet] the place for exercising this Game in St. James's Park, and also a Street near it. See PALLE MAILLE.
PALLE MAILLE, a Game where a round Bowl is with a Mallet struck through a high Arch of Iron standing at either End of an Alley. See PELL-MELL.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1759.

About Pall Mall

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Pall Mall, a spacious street extending from the foot of St. James's Street to the foot of the Haymarket, and so called from a game of that name, somewhat similar to croquet, introduced into England in the reign of Charles I., perhaps earlier. King James I., in his Basilicon Doron, recommends it as a game that Prince Henry should use. The name (Italian palamaglio, French paille motile), is given to avenues and walks in other countries, as at Utrecht in Holland. The Malls at Blois, Tours, and Lyons are mentioned by Evelyn in his Memoirs, under the year 1644.

A paille-mall is a wooden hammer set to the end of a long staffe to strike a boule with, at which game noblemen and gentlemen in France doe play much.—The French Garden for English Ladies, 8vo, 1621.

---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Lisson Green

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Lisson Grove, Marylebone Road to Grove Road, St. John's Wood, borrowed its name from the manor of Lisson Green. "Lissham Green," says Dodsley, 1761, "a pleasant village near Paddington." The pleasant village, and even the memory of it, has long passed away, and Lisson Grove is a part of the great metropolis. The manor of Lisson Green, then the property of Captain Lloyd, was sold in lots in 1792.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Thursday 26 July 1660

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"After we had drunk hard.."

I'm getting the impression that a lot of people are walking around London with a buzz on!

About The Gatehouse (Westminster)

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Gate House, a prison near the west end of Westminster Abbey, by the way leading into Dean's Yard, Tothill Street, and the Almonry.

[SPOILER ALERT] In June 1690 Samuel Pepys was committed to the Gate House on a charge of being in communication with the exiled James II.; but in consideration of his ill-health, he was admitted to bail, and does not appear to have been troubled again.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Book of Common Prayer

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A commission, however, was issued, on the twenty-fifth of March [1661], to twelve bishops and nine episcopal divines, on the one side; and, on the other to twelve Presbyterian divines and nine assistants. They were empowered to review the book of Common-prayer, to compare it with the liturgies used in the primitive and purest times, to consider the directions, the rules, the forms of prayer; to weigh all objections, to make all necessary amendments and alterations, and to restore and continue, by these means, the peace and unanimity of the churches under his Majesty's government and protection. The conference was held at the lodgings of the Bishop of London, in the Savoy. Argument soon degenerated into altercation. All temper was lost. Distrust prevailed. At the end of two months they separated, having added personal resentments to polemical differences.
---The History Of Great Britain. J. Macpherson, 1776.

About St James's Park

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James's (St.) Park, a park of 58 1/2 acres (shaped not unlike a boy's kite), originally appertaining to the Palace of St James's. It was first formed and walled in by Henry VIII., replanted and beautified by Charles II.
...
Charles II threw the several ponds (Rosamond's Pond excepted) into one artificial canal, built a decoy for ducks, a small ring fence for deer, planted trees in even ranks, and introduced broad gravel walks in place of narrow and winding footpaths. Well might Dr King exclaim:

"The fate of things lies always in the dark;
What Cavalier would know St James's Park?
For Locket stands where gardens once did spring
And wild ducks quack where grasshoppers did sing."
...
Waller describes in pretty if somewhat languid and diffuse verse his vision of the charms of completed St James's, -- the groves with lovers walking in their amorous shade; the gallants dancing by the river's side, where they bathe in summer and in winter slide; the crystal lake in which a shoal of silver fishes glide, while laden anglers make the fishes and the men their prize.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Sunday 22 July 1660

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Mr. Temple drowned himself: the manner thus. He took a pair of oars at the temple stairs and bid the men row to Greenwich; when he going under the bridge, as the men were ordering their oars, he leaped into the Thames.
---The State letters of Henry earl of Clarendon. 1765.

Husband and Wife are as a pair of Oars, to row their Children and Servants to their desired Haven ...
---The grounds and occasions of the comtempt of the clergy and religion. J. Eachard, 1685.

About Fetter Lane

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Fetter Lane, extending from Fleet Street to Holborn.

Then is Fewter Lane, which stretcheth south into Fleet Street, by the east end of St. Dunstan's church, and is so called of fewters (or idle people) lying there, as in a way leading to gardens; but the same is now of latter years on both sides built through with many fair houses.—Stow, p. 145.

The etymology receives support from a document of the 37th Edward III. (1363), headed "De Pecuniis consuetis colligendis pro emendatione Faytour Lane et Chanceller Lane," faitour or faytour being the more common way of spelling the word which Stow spells fewter. In 28 Henry VI. (1450) mention is made of "1 Cotag' et 38 gardin' inter Shoe Lane et Fraiter Lane;" these were, no doubt, some of the gardens Stow refers to.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About New Exchange

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New Exchange, a kind of bazaar on the south side of the Strand, was so called in contradistinction to the Royal Exchange; by James I. it was named Britain's Burse. It was built on the site of the stables of Durham House, directly facing what is now Bedford Street, its frontage extending from George Court to Durham Street —or from 52 to 64, according to the present numbering, Messrs. Coutts's bank occupying nearly the centre of the site.
...
At the Restoration, when London was as large again as it had been in the early part of the reign of James I., Covent Garden became the fashionable quarter of the town—the merchants' wives and daughters aped the manners of the West End ladies—and the New Exchange in the Strand supplanted the Old Exchange in the City. So popular was it at this time that there is scarce a dramatist of the Charles II. era who is without a reference to the New Exchange—one indeed, Thomas Duffet by name, was originally a milliner here before he took to the stage for subsistence. It ceased, however, to be much frequented soon after the death of Queen Anne, and in 1737 it was taken down. A memory of its existence was preserved in Exchange Court immediately opposite.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About The Strand

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At the digging a Foundation for the present Church (St. Mary-le-Strand), the Virgin Earth was discovered at the Depth of Nineteen Feet; whereby 'tis manifest that the Ground in this Neighbourhood originally was not much higher than the River Thames; therefore this Village was truly denominated the Strand, from its Situation on the Bank of the River.—Maitland's History of London, p. 739.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Link boy

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And this, was in truth the case with Shakespeare. They say, too, that in the beginning he was a first-rate link-boy; and the tradition is affecting, though we fear it is not quite certain; but if a man had served as a link-boy, depend on it he would have a notion of what it was to have something going on. If a boy had been used to show the way through Fleet Street by night, and with a flaring torch, he would know what it was to live in the world. Anyhow you feel about Shakespeare that he could have been a link-boy.
The Prospective Review, volume 9, 1853

About Link boy

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I Appeal to the plainest Understanding, whether he that follows a Linkboy does not Travel with as much Grandeur and Magnificence, as Moses and the Children of Israel...
---Bibliotheca biblica. S. Parker, 1722.

About Link boy

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Moon-Curser, a Link Boy
---An Universal Etymological Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1759.

About Fenchurch Street

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Fenchurch Street, City, runs from Gracechurch Street to Aldgate. It is first mentioned in the City Books as Fancherche, 1276.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Leads

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LEADS a flat roof covered with lead to walk on.
---A new complete English dictionary. J. Marchant, 1760.