Volume I Part 137 (2/2)
With two left legs and Judas-coloured hair.
p. 414 _an act, 24 June._ Cromwell's parliament pa.s.sed Draconian Acts punis.h.i.+ng adultery, incest, fornication, with death; the two former on the first offence, the last on the second conviction.
_Mercurius Politicus_, No. 168. Thursday, 25 August-- Thursday, 1 September, 1653 (p. 2700), records the execution of an old man of eighty-nine who was found guilty at Monmouth a.s.size of adultery with a woman over sixty. It is well known that under the Commonwealth the outskirts of London were crowded with brothels, and the license of Restoration days pales before the moral evils and cankers existing under Cromwell. The officially recognized independent diurnals _Mercurius Democritus_, _Mercurius Fumigosus_, have been described as 'abominable'. In 1660, when the writers of these attempted to circulate literature which had been common in the preceeding decade, they were promptly 'clapt up in Newgate'.
p. 414 _Peters the first_, _Martin the Second._ Hugh Peters has been noticed before. Henry Martin was an extreme republican, and at one time even a Leveller. He was a commissioner of the High Court of Justice and a regicide. At the Restoration he was imprisoned for life and died at Chepstow Castle, 1681, aged seventy-eight. He was notorious for profligacy and shamelessness, and kept a very seraglio of mistresses.
p. 415 _Tantlings._ St. Antholin's (St. Anthling's), Budge Row, Watling Street, had long been a stronghold of puritanism. As early as 1599, morning prayer and lecture were inst.i.tuted, 'after the Geneva fas.h.i.+on'. The bells began at five in the morning. This church was largely attended by fanatics and extremists. There are frequent allusions to St. Antholin's and its matutinal chimes. The church was burned down in the Great Fire. Middleton and Dekker's _Roaring Girl_ (1611): 'Sha's a tongue will be heard further in a still morning than Saint Antling's bell.'
She will outpray A preacher at St. Antlin's.
--Mayne's _City Match_ (1639), iv, v.
Davenant's _News from Plymouth_ (fol. 1673, licensed 1635), i, I:--
Two disciples to St. Tantlin, That rise to long exercise before day.
p. 416 _Lilly._ William Lilly (1602-81). The famous astrologer and fortune-teller. In Tatham's _The Rump_ (1660), he is introduced on the stage, and there is a scene between him and Lady Lambert, Act iv.
p. 416 _sisseraro._ More usually sasarara. A corruption of _certiorari_, a writ in law to expedite justice. 'If it be lost or stole ... I could bring him to a cunning kinsman of mine that would fetcht again with a sesarara,' --_The Puritan_ (1607). 'Their souls fetched up to Heaven with a sasarara.' --_The Revenger's Tragedy_, iv, 2 (1607), _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (1766), ch. xxi: '”As for the matter of that,” returned the hostess, ”gentle or simple, out she shall pack with a sussarara”.'
+Act V: Scene iii+
p. 421 _Twelve Houses._ Each of the astrological divisions of the heavens denoting the station of a planet is termed a house.
+Act V: Scene v+
p. 423 _bear the bob._ To join in the chorus. Bob is the burden or refrain of a song.
p. 423 _Colt-staff._ Or col-staff (Latin _collum_). A staff by which two men carry a load, one end of the pole resting on a shoulder of each porter. cf. _Merry Wives of Windsor_, iii, 3, 'Where's the cowl-staff?'
p. 423 _Fortune my Foe._ This extremely popular old tune is in Queen Elizabeth's _Virginal Book_; in William Ballet's MS. Lute Book; in _Bellerophon_ (1622), and in numerous other old musical works. There are allusions to it in Shakespeare and many of the dramatists.
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