The scene of the first Act of Otway’s The Soldier’s Fortune (1681) is laid in the Mall, and gives a vivid picture of the motley and not over respectable company that was wont to foregather there.

p. 189 the Ring.  The Ring, Hyde Park, a favourite ride and promenade was made in the reign of Charles I. It was very fashionable, and is frequently alluded to in poem and play. cf.  Etheredge, The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter:  ’Sir Fopling.  All the world will be in the Park to-night; Ladies, ’twere pity to keep so much beauty longer within doors, and rob the Ring of all those charms that should adorn it.’—­Act iii sc.  II. cf. also Lord Dorset’s Verses on Dorinda (1680):—­

    Wilt thou still sparkle in the Box,
      Still ogle in the Ring?

p. 193 Starter.  This slang word usually means a milksop, but here it is equivalent to ‘a butterfly’, ’a weathercock’—­a man of changeable disposition.  A rare use.

p. 193 Finsbury Hero, Finsbury Fields, which Pepys thought ’very pleasant’, had been kept open for the citizens to practise archery.  An ordinance of 1478 is extant which orders all obstacles to be removed and Finsbury to be ‘made a plain field for archers to shoot in’.  As late as 1737 there were standing twenty-four ‘rovers’ or stone pillars for shooting at distances.

p. 196 Mr. Barnardine.  This allusion must almost certainly be to a recent revival of Measure for Measure, which particular play had been amongst those set aside by the regulation of 12 December, 1660, as the special property of Davenant’s theatre.  After the amalgamation of the two companies in November, 1682, a large number of the older plays were revived or continued to be played (with a new cast and Betterton in the roles which had been Hart’s) during the subsequent decade.  Downes mentions Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, and several by Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Brome.  On the other hand, it is possible this reference may merely be to The Law Against Lovers (1661, folio, 1673), in which Sir William Davenant has mixed Benedick and Beatrice with Angelo, Claudio, Isabella and the rest.  It is a curious conglomeration, and the result is very pitiful and disastrous.  Bernardine and the prison scenes are retained. Measure for Measure was again profanely altered by Gildon in 1700, mutilated and helped out by ‘entertainments of music’.

p. 197 Snicker Snee.  See note Vol.  I, p. 449, Snick-a-Snee, The Dutch Lover, iii, III (p, 278).

p. 198 Spittal Sermon.  The celebrated Spital Sermons were originally preached at a pulpit cross in the churchyard (now Spital Square) of the Priory and Hospital of St. Mary Spital, founded 1197.  The cross, broken at the Reformation, was rebuilt during Charles I’s reign, but destroyed during the Great Rebellion.  The sermons, however, have been continued to the present time and are still preached every Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, at Christ Church, Newgate Street.