or red-lettice, subs. phr. (old).—An ale-house sign. Hence RED-LATTICE PHRASES = pothouse talk: also GREEN LATTICE; RED-GRATE = tavern or brothel, or both combined.—B. E. and GROSE.
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 2. Your cat-a-mountain looks, your RED-LATTICE phrases, and your bold-beating oaths. Ibid. (1598), 2 Henry IV., ii. 1. He called me even now, my lord, through a RED LATTICE.
1598. JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, iii. 3. I dwell, sir, at the sign of the Water Tankard, hard by the GREEN LATTICE: I have paid Scot and lot there any time this eighteen years.
1602. MARSTON, Antonio and Mellida, v. No, I am not sir Jeffery Balurdo: I am not as well known by my wit, as an alehouse by a RED LATTICE.
1607. G. WILKINS, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, iii. [DODSLEY, Old Plays (REED), v. 40]. Ilford. Be mild in a tavern? ’tis treason to the RED LATTICE, enemy to their sign post, and slave to humour.
1622. MASSINGER, The Virgin Martyr, iii. 3. Spun. I see then a tavern and a bawdy-house have faces much alike; the one hath RED GRATES next the door, the other hath peeping-holes within-doors.
