Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/490

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. NOV. 21,

Dieted in 1641 at the Cockpit in Drury Lane occurs the following snatch :

To Pimblicoe we'll goe, Where merry we shall be,

With every man a can in 's hand, And a wench upon his knee,

And a begging, &c.

At an earlier date it was described as " s noted Cake-house formerly, but now con- verted into a Bowling-green of good report at Hogsden near London " (' A New Diction- ary of the Terms, Ancient and Modern, of the Canting Crew, London, n.d.).

The references to Pimlico in the dramatists are very numerous. Massinger in ' The City Madam,' first acted in 1632, writes :

Or exchange wenches,

Coming from eating pudding pies on a Sunday At Pimlico, or Islington.

In ' The City Match,' by Jasper Mayne, which was first acted in 1639, Plotwell says :

We have brought you

A gentleman of valour, who has been

To Moorh'elds often : marry, it has been

To 'squire his sisters and demolish custards

At Pimlico.

At an earlier date Greene in his ' Tu Quoque,' 1614, makes Sir Lionel say : "I have sent my daughter this morning as far as Pimlico, to fetch a draught of Derby ale, that it may fetch a colour in her cheeks."

Ben Jonson has several references to Pimlico. In ' A Speach according to Horace,' which was included in ' Underwoods,' p. 214, he wrote :

What a strong Fort old Pimblicoe had beene !

How it held out ! how (last) 'twas taken in !

In ' The Devil is an Ass,' first acted in 1616, Mere-craft says (III. iii.) :

I ? 11 ha' thee Captaine Guilt-head, and march up, And take in Pimlico, and kill the bush. At every taverne.

Wittipol also calls out (IV. iv.) :

Coach it to Pimlico ; daunce the Saraband. In ' Bartholomew Fair,' first acted at the Hope Theatre on the Bankside on 31 Oct., 1614, Littlewit says (I. ii.) : " Troth I am a little taken with my Wins dressing

here ! Shee would not ha' worne this habit. I

challenge all Cheapside, to shew such another. Morefiekls, Pimlico path, or the Exchange on a sommcr evening, with a Lace to boot as this has."

Besides a reference to " another Pimlico ! " in Act V. sc. i. of 'The Alchemist,' which was originally published in 1612, there is an important passage in the following scene :

Love-wit. Gallants, men, and women, And of all sorts, tag-rag, beene scene to flock here In threaves, these ten weekes, as to a second

Hogs-den, In dayes ot Pimlico, and Eye-bright.

So far as I am aware, none of the editors of Jonson has given an explanation of Eye- bright.

In 1609 an earlier date than that of any quotation I have given on 15 April, " a book called ' Pimlico or Runne Red Cappe tis a mad world at Hogsden ' " was entered by the publisher John Busby in the Stationers' Register ; and on 24 April the same publisher entered " a ballad called ' Haue with you to- Pimlico.' ' Mr. A. H. Bullen, who edited a facsimile reproduction of the " book " in 1891 with his usual taste and ability, had never met with a copy of the ballad ; but the " drollery " is well worth attentive study as a picture of the times in which Ben Jonson lived. The following lines occur in it :

Eye-bright, (so fam'd of late for Beere) Although thy name be numbred heere, Thine ancient Honors now runne low ; Thou art struck blind by Pimlyeo.

The poem, if such it can be called, forms an excellent commentary on the passages from Jonson that I have quoted and it may be observed that, in addition to Eyebright, it names among rival places of entertainment Tripoly (which was also represented at Dublin), Newfoundland, and the Terceras Islands. This affords some corroboration of the theory that Pimlico received its name from the West Indian island.

With regard to Eyebright, I venture to suggest that it was a popular corruption of Eyebury. Pimlico was situated within the manors of Neyte and Eyebury or Ebury, and it seems probable that before the Hoxton Pimlico became renowned, there was a place of entertainment somewhere in the neighbourhood of the present Victoria Station which in time was " cut out " by the rival establishment in the East End. It is possible that in order to cope with this rivalry, the western pleasure-gar- dens adopted the name of their competitor, with the result that in a short time it em- braced the whole of the district. That it nay have survived as a place of entertain- ment until the eighteenth century may be inferred from Isaac Reed's reference to it :

a place near Chelsea is still called Pimlico, and was resorted to within these few years, on the same account as the former at Hogs- don " (Dodsley's ' Old Plays,' ed. Collier, vii. 51).

One word in conclusion with regard to the proverbial saying which seems to derive its origin from the ancient beer-garden, but apparently bears contrary meanings. At 3 S. iv. 327 a correspondent inquired about a Devonshire proverb, " to keep it in Pimlico,"