Curiosa: Update on Isabella Petty

A few days ago, I ran across an interesting, partially illegible inscription in one of the seventeenth-century books currently piled on the IN shelf of my cart. Being curious, I referred it to my supervisor, who helpfully puzzled out one of the words to give us:

Isabella Petty Next door
to ye [fothers? fathers?] Tauern
16       89

We're now of the opinion that this is an autograph with an address. Street numbers are not a geographical convention in seventeenth-century England -- everyone navigates by landmarks. A bookseller wishing to advertise his shop will inform the reader that it is located

neere the great North dore of Paules, at the signe of the guilded Key

or

at the South Entrance of the Royall Exchange

or

at the Swan in Duck-lane

(which sounds like the beginning of a fairy-tale). Think of that, the next time you're cursing Mapquest for sending you off the on-ramp. :-)