Note 380 — [?STEELE.377

Sir William Whitlocke, Knt., Member for Oxon, Bencher of the Middle Temple. He is the learned knight mentioned in No. 43 (Percy). This is confirmed by the MS. annotator mentioned in a note to No. 4. Nichols explains that Whitlocke is called Will Shoestring, for his singularity in using shoe-strings, so long after the era of shoe-buckles, which commenced in the reign of Charles II., although ordinary people, and such as affected plainness in their garb, wore strings in their shoes after that time.