'If the Beadelles of Bridewell be
carefull
this Summer, it may
be hoped that Peticote lane may be lesse pestered with ill aires
than it was woont: and the houses there so cleere clensed, that
honest women may dwell there without any dread of the whip and
the carte.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
In _Every Man in_, _Wks._ 1. 25, a 'suburb humour' is spoken of.
=1. 1. 60 Petticoate-lane.= This is the present Middlesex
Street, Whitechapel. It was formerly called Hog Lane and was
beautified with 'fair hedge-rows,' but by Stow's time it had
been made 'a continual building throughout of garden houses and
small cottages' (_Survey_, ed. 1633, p. 120 b). Strype tells us
that the house of the Spanish Ambassador, supposedly the famous
Gondomar, was situated there (_Survey_ 2. 28). In his day the
inhabitants were French Protestant weavers, and later Jews of a
disreputable sort. That its reputation was somewhat unsavory as
early as Nash's time we learn from his _Prognostication_
(_Wks._ 2.
149):
'If the Beadelles of Bridewell be
carefull
this Summer, it may
be hoped that Peticote lane may be lesse pestered with ill aires
than it was woont: and the houses there so cleere clensed, that
honest women may dwell there without any dread of the whip and
the carte.
' Cf. also _Penniless Parliament, Old Book Collector's
Misc._ 2. 16: 'Many men shall be so venturously given, as they
shall go into Petticoat Lane, and yet come out again as honestly
as they went first in.'
=1. 1. 60 the Smock-allies.= Petticoat Lane led from the
high street, Whitechapel, to _Smock Alley_ or Gravel Lane.
See Hughson 2. 387.
=1. 1. 61 Shoreditch.= Shoreditch was formerly notorious for the
disreputable character of its women. 'To die in Shoreditch' seems
to have been a proverbial phrase, and is so used by Dryden in _The
Kind Keeper_, 4to, 1680.