=1. 1. 72 the Strand.= This famous street was formerly the road between the cities of Westminster and London. That many lawyers lived in this vicinity we learn from Middleton (_Father Hubburd’s Tales_, _Wks._ 8. 77). =1. 1. 73 Westminster-hall.= It was once the hall of the King’s palace at Westminster, originally built by William Rufus. The present hall was formed 1397-99. Here the early parliaments were held. ‘This great hall hath been the usual place of pleadings, and ministration of justice.’--Stow, ed. Thoms, p. 174. =1. 1. 75 so Veluet to Leather.= Velvet seems to have been much worn by lawyers. Cf. Overbury, _Characters_, p. 72: ‘He loves his friend as a counsellor at law loves the velvet breeches he was first made barrister in.’ =1. 1. 85 In his long coat, shaking his wooden dagger.= See Introduction, pp. xxxviii f. =1. 1. 93 Cokeley.= Whalley says that he was the master of a puppet show, and this has been accepted by all authorities (Gifford, ed.; Nares, _Gloss_.; Alden, ed. of _Bart. Fair_). He seems, however, to have been rather an improviser like Vennor, or a mountebank with a gift of riming. He is mentioned several times by Jonson: _Bart. Fair_, _Wks._ 4. 422, 3: ‘He has not been sent for, and sought out for nothing, at your great city-suppers, to put down Coriat and Cokely.’ _Epigr._129; _To Mime_, _Wks._ 8. 229: Or, mounted on a stool, thy face doth hit On some new gesture, that’s imputed wit? --Thou dost out-zany Cokely, Pod; nay Gue: And thine own Coryat too. =1. 1. 94 Vennor.= Gifford first took Vennor to be a juggler, but corrected his statement in the _Masque of Augurs_, _Wks._ 7. 414. He says: ‘Fenner, whom I supposed to be a juggler, was a rude kind of _improvisatore_. He was altogether ignorant; but possessed a wonderful facility in pouring out doggrel verse. He says of himself, Yet, without boasting, let me boldly say I’ll rhyme with any man that breathes this day Upon a subject, in _extempore_, etc. He seems to have made a wretched livelihood by frequenting city feasts, &c., where, at the end of the entertainment, he was called in to mount a stool and amuse the company by stringing together a number of vile rhymes upon any given subject. To this the quotation alludes. Fenner is noticed by the duchess of Newcastle: “For the numbers every schoolboy can make them on his fingers, and for the _rime_, Fenner would put down Ben Jonson, and yet neither boy nor Fenner so good poets.” This, too, is the person meant in the Cambridge answer to Corbet’s satire: A ballad late was made, But God knows who the penner; Some say the rhyming sculler, And others say ’twas Fenner. p. 24.