Note 1718 — BOOK IV THE PLAY-HOUSES (continued 5)

Cotgrave, French-English Dict. (1611), s.v. Falot, ‘a cresset light (such as they use in play-houses) made of ropes wreathed, pitched and put into small and open cages of iron’; cf. Lawrence, ii. 13, who thinks the cressets were part of the lighting of private houses. But would they not smoke and smell badly, if used indoors? There is no particular reason for translating the lucernae of Christ Church hall in 1566, with Schelling and Lawrence, as ‘cressets’.