ACT I.
1. 1. 1 Hoh, hoh, etc. ‘Whalley is right in saying that this is the conventional way for the devil to make his appearance in the old morality-plays. Gifford objects on the ground that ‘it is not the roar of terror; but the boisterous expression of sarcastic merriment at the absurd petition of Pug;’ an objection, the truth of which does not necessarily invalidate Whalley’s statement. Jonson of course adapts the old conventions to his own ends. See Introduction, [p. xxiii].
1. 1. 9 Entring a Sow, to make her cast her farrow? Cf. Dekker, etc., Witch of Edmonton (Wks. 4. 423): ‘Countr. I’ll be sworn, Mr. Carter, she bewitched Gammer Washbowls sow, to cast her Pigs a day before she would have farried.’
1. 1. 11 Totnam. ‘The first notice of Tottenham Court, as a place of public entertainment, contained in the books of the parish of St. Gile’s-in-the-Fields, occurs under the year 1645 (Wh-C.). Jonson, however, as early as 1614 speaks of ‘courting it to Totnam to eat cream’ (Bart. Fair, Act 1. Sc. 1, Wks. 4. 362). George Wither, in the Britain’s Remembrancer, 1628, refers to the same thing:
And Hogsdone, Islington, and Tothnam-court, For cakes and cream had then no small resort.
Tottenham Fields were until a comparatively recent date a favorite place of entertainment.
1. 1. 13 a tonning of Ale, etc. Cf. Sad Shep., Wks. 6. 276:
The house wives tun not work, nor the milk churn.
1. 1. 15 Spight o’ the housewiues cord, or her hot spit. ‘There be twentie severall waies to make your butter come, which for brevitie I omit; as to bind your cherne with a rope, to thrust thereinto a red hot spit, &c.’—Scot, Discovery, p. 229.
1. 1. 16, 17 Or some good Ribibe ... witch. This seems to be an allusion, as Fleay suggests, to Heywood’s Wise-Woman of Hogsdon. The witch of that play declares her dwelling to be in ‘Kentstreet’ (Heywood’s Wks. 5. 294). A ribibe meant originally a musical instrument, and was synonymous with rebec. By analogy, perhaps, it was applied to a shrill-voiced old woman. This is Gifford’s explanation. The word occurs again in Skelton’s Elynour Rummyng, l. 492, and in Chaucer, The Freres Tale, l. 1377: ‘a widwe, an old ribybe.’ Skeat offers the following explanation: ‘I suspect that this old joke, for such it clearly is, arose in a very different way [from that suggested by Gifford], viz. from a pun upon rebekke, a fiddle, and Rebekke, a married woman, from the mention of Rebecca in the marriage-service. Chaucer himself notices the latter in E. 1704.’
1. 1. 16 Kentish Towne. Kentish Town, Cantelows, or Cantelupe town is the most ancient district in the parish of Pancras. It was originally a small village, and as late as the eighteenth century a lonely and somewhat dangerous spot. In later years it became noted for its Assembly Rooms. In 1809 Hughson (London 6. 369) called it ‘the most romantic hamlet in the parish of Pancras.’ It is now a part of the metropolis. See Samuel Palmer’s St. Pancras, London, 1870.
1. 1. 17 Hogsden. Stow (Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 158) describes Hogsden as a ‘large street with houses on both sides.’ It was a prebend belonging to St. Paul’s. In Hogsden fields Jonson killed Gabriel Spenser in a duel in 1598. These fields were a great resort for the citizens on a holiday. The eating of cream there is frequently mentioned. See the quotation from Wither under note 1. 1. 11, and Alchemist, Wks. 4. 155 and 175:
——Ay, he would have built The city new; and made a ditch about it Of silver, should have run with cream from Hogsden.
Stephen in Every Man in dwelt here, and so was forced to associate with ‘the archers of Finsbury, or the citizens that come a-ducking to Islington ponds.’ Hogsden or Hoxton, as it is now called, is to-day a populous district of the metropolis.
1. 1. 18 shee will not let you play round Robbin. The expression is obscure, and the dictionaries afford little help. Round-robin is a common enough phrase, but none of the meanings recorded is applicable in this connection. Some child’s game, played in a circle, seems to be referred to, or the expression may be a cant term for ‘play the deuce.’ Robin is a name of many associations, and its connection with Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, and ‘Robert’s Men’ (‘The third old rank of the Canting crew.’—Grose.) makes such an interpretation more or less probable.
M. N. G. in N. & Q. 9th Ser. 10. 394 says that ‘when a man does a thing in a circuitous, involved manner he is sometimes said “to go all round Robin Hood’s barn to do it.”’ ‘Round Robin Hood’s barn’ may possibly have been the name of a game which has been shortened to ‘round Robin.’
1. 1. 21 By a Middlesex Iury. ‘A reproof no less severe than merited. It appears from the records of those times, that many unfortunate creatures were condemned and executed on charges of the rediculous nature here enumerated. In many instances, the judge was well convinced of the innocence of the accused, and laboured to save them; but such were the gross and barbarous prejudices of the juries, that they would seldom listen to his recommendations; and he was deterred from shewing mercy, in the last place by the brutal ferociousness of the people, whose teeth were set on edge with’t, and who clamoured tumultuously for the murder of the accused.’—G.
1. 1. 32 Lancashire. This, as Gifford says, ‘was the very hot-bed of witches.’ Fifteen were brought to trial on Aug. 19, 1612, twelve of whom were convicted and burnt on the day after their trial ‘at the common place of execution near to Lancaster.’ The term ‘Lancashire Witches’ is now applied to the beautiful women for which the country is famed. The details of the Lancaster trial are contained in Potts’ Discoverie (Lond. 1613), and a satisfactory account is given by Wright in his Sorcery and Magic.
1. 1. 33 or some parts of Northumberland. The first witch-trial in Northumberland, so far as I have been able to ascertain, occurred in 1628. This was the trial of the Witch of Leeplish.
1. 1. 37 a Vice. See Introduction, [pp. xxxiv f].
1. 1. 38 To practice there-with any play-fellow. See variants. The editors by dropping the hyphen have completely changed the sense of the passage. Pug wants a vice in order that he may corrupt his play-fellows there-with.
1. 1. 41 ff. Why, any Fraud;
Or Couetousnesse; or Lady Vanity;
Or old Iniquity. Fraud is a character in Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London, printed 1584, and The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, c 1588, printed 1590. Covetousness appears in Robin Conscience, c 1530, and is applied to one of the characters in The Staple of News, Wks. 5. 216. Vanity is one of the characters in Lusty Juventus (see note [1. 1. 50]) and in Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, printed 1602 (O. Pl. 4th ed., 8. 328). She seems to have been a favorite with the later dramatists, and is frequently mentioned (I Henry IV. 2. 4; Lear 2. 2; Jew of Malta 2. 3, Marlowe’s Wks. 2. 45). Jonson speaks of her again in The Fox, Wks. 3. 218. For Iniquity see Introduction, p. xxxviii.
The change in punctuation (see variants), as well as that two lines below, was first suggested by Upton in a note appended to his Critical Observations on Shakespeare. Whalley silently adopted the reading in both cases.
1. 1. 43 I’ll call him hither. See variants. Coleridge, Notes, p. 280, says: ‘That is, against all probability, and with a (for Jonson) impossible violation of character. The words plainly belong to Pug, and mark at once his simpleness and his impatience.’ Cunningham says that he arrived independently at the same conclusion, and points out that it is plain from Iniquity’s opening speech that he understood the words to be Pug’s.
1. 1. 49 thy dagger. See note [1. 1. 85].
1. 1. 50 lusty Iuuentus. The morality-play of Lusty Juventus was written by R. Wever about 1550. It ‘breathes the spirit of the dogmatic reformation of the Protector Somerset,’ but ‘in spite of its abundant theology it is neither ill written, nor ill constructed’ (Ward, Eng. Drama 1. 125). It seems to have been very popular, and the expression ‘a lusty Juventus’ became proverbial. It is used as early as 1582 by Stanyhurst, Aeneis 2 (Arber). 64 and as late as Heywood’s Wise Woman of Hogsdon (c 1638), where a gallant is apostrophised as Lusty Juventus (Act 4). (See Nares and NED.) Portions of the play had been revived not many years before this within the tragedy of Thomas More (1590, acc. to Fleay 1596) under the title of The Mariage of Witt and Wisedome. ‘By dogs precyous woundes’ is one of the oaths used by Lusty Juventus in the old play, and may be the ‘Gogs-nownes’ referred to here (O. Pl., 4th ed., 2. 84). ‘Gogs nowns’ is used several times in Like will to Like (O. Pl., 4th ed., 3. 327, 331, etc.).
1. 1. 51 In a cloake to thy heele. See note [1. 1. 85].
1. 1. 51 a hat like a pent-house. ‘When they haue walkt thorow the streetes, weare their hats ore their eye-browes, like pollitick penthouses, which commonly make the shop of a Mercer, or a Linnen Draper, as dark as a roome in Bedlam.’ Dekker, West-ward Hoe, Wks. 2. 286.
With your hat penthouse-like o’er the slope of your eyes. —Love’s Labour’s Lost 3. 1. 17.
Halliwell says (L. L. L., ed. Furness, p. 85): ‘An open shed or shop, forming a protection against the weather. The house in which Shakespeare was born had a penthouse along a portion of it.’ In Hollyband’s Dictionarie, 1593, it is spelled ‘pentice,’ which shows that the rime to ‘Juventus’ is probably not a distorted one.
1. 1. 52 thy doublet all belly. ‘Certaine I am there was neuer any kinde of apparell euer inuented that could more disproportion the body of man then these Dublets with great bellies, ... stuffed with foure, fiue or six pound of Bombast at the least.’—Stubbes, Anat., Part 1, p. 55.
1. 1. 54 how nimble he is! ‘A perfect idea of his activity may be formed from the incessant skipping of the modern Harlequin.’—G.
1. 1. 56 the top of Pauls-steeple. As Gifford points out, Iniquity is boasting of an impossible feat. St. Paul’s steeple had been destroyed by fire in 1561, and was not yet restored. Several attempts were made and money collected. ‘James I. countenanced a sermon at Paul’s Cross in favor of so pious an undertaking, but nothing was done till 1633 when reparations commenced with some activity, and Inigo Jones designed, at the expense of Charles I., a classic portico to a Gothic church.’—Wh-C.
Lupton, London Carbonadoed, 1632, writes: ‘The head of St. Paul’s hath twice been troubled with a burning fever, and so the city, to keep it from a third danger, lets it stand without a head.’ Gifford says that ‘the Puritans took a malignant pleasure in this mutilated state of the cathedral.’ Jonson refers to the disaster in his Execration upon Vulcan, U. 61, Wks. 8. 408. See also Dekker, Paules Steeples complaint, Non-dram. Wks. 4. 2.
1. 1. 56 Standard in Cheepe. This was a water-stand or conduit in the midst of the street of West Cheaping, where executions were formerly held. It was in a ruinous condition in 1442, when it was repaired by a patent from Henry VI. Stow (Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 100) gives a list of famous executions at this place, and says that ‘in the year 1399, Henry IV. caused the blanch charters made by Richard II. to be burnt there.’
1. 1. 58 a needle of Spaine. Gifford, referring to Randolph’s Amyntos and Ford’s Sun’s Darling, points out that ‘the best needles, as well as other sharp instruments, were, in that age, and indeed long before and after it, imported from Spain.’ The tailor’s needle was in cant language commonly termed a Spanish pike.
References to the Spanish needle are frequent. It is mentioned by Jonson in Chloridia, Wks. 8. 99; by Dekker, Wks. 4. 308; and by Greene, Wks. 11. 241. Howes (p. 1038) says: ‘The making of Spanish Needles, was first taught in England by Elias Crowse, a Germane, about the eight yeare of Queene Elizabeth, and in Queen Maries time, there was a Negro made fine Spanish Needles in Cheape-side, but would neuer teach his Art to any.’
1. 1. 59 the Suburbs. The suburbs were the outlying districts without the walls of the city. Cf. Stow, Survey, ed. Thoms, p. 156 f. They were for the most part the resort of disorderly persons. Cf. B. & Fl., Humorous Lieut. 1. 1.; Massinger, Emperor of the East 1. 2.; Shak., Jul. Caes. 2. 1; and Nares, Gloss. Wheatley (ed. Ev. Man in, p. 1) quotes Chettle’s Kind Harts Dreame, 1592: ‘The suburbs of the citie are in many places no other but dark dennes for adulterers, thieves, murderers, and every mischief worker; daily experience before the magistrates confirms this for truth.’ Cf. also Glapthorne, Wit in a Constable, Wks., ed. 1874, 1. 219:
——make safe retreat Into the Suburbs, there you may finde cast wenches.
In Every Man in, Wks. 1. 25, a ‘suburb humour’ is spoken of.
1. 1. 60 Petticoate-lane. This is the present Middlesex Street, Whitechapel. It was formerly called Hog Lane and was beautified with ‘fair hedge-rows,’ but by Stow’s time it had been made ‘a continual building throughout of garden houses and small cottages’ (Survey, ed. 1633, p. 120 b). Strype tells us that the house of the Spanish Ambassador, supposedly the famous Gondomar, was situated there (Survey 2. 28). In his day the inhabitants were French Protestant weavers, and later Jews of a disreputable sort. That its reputation was somewhat unsavory as early as Nash’s time we learn from his Prognostication (Wks. 2. 149):
‘If the Beadelles of Bridewell be carefull this Summer, it may be hoped that Peticote lane may be lesse pestered with ill aires than it was woont: and the houses there so cleere clensed, that honest women may dwell there without any dread of the whip and the carte.’ Cf. also Penniless Parliament, Old Book Collector’s Misc. 2. 16: ‘Many men shall be so venturously given, as they shall go into Petticoat Lane, and yet come out again as honestly as they went first in.’
1. 1. 60 the Smock-allies. Petticoat Lane led from the high street, Whitechapel, to Smock Alley or Gravel Lane. See Hughson 2. 387.
1. 1. 61 Shoreditch. Shoreditch was formerly notorious for the disreputable character of its women. ‘To die in Shoreditch’ seems to have been a proverbial phrase, and is so used by Dryden in The Kind Keeper, 4to, 1680. Cf. Nash, Pierce Pennilesse, Wks. 2. 94: ‘Call a Leete at Byshopsgate, & examine how euery second house in Shorditch is mayntayned; make a priuie search in Southwarke, and tell mee how many Shee-Inmates you fin de: nay, goe where you will in the Suburbes, and bring me two Virgins that haue vowd Chastity and Ile builde a Nunnery.’ Also ibid., p. 95; Gabriel Harvey, Prose Wks., ed. Grosart. 2. 169; and Dekker, Wks. 3. 352.
1. 1. 61 Whitechappell. ‘Till within memory the district north of the High Street was one of the very worst localities in London; a region of narrow and filthy streets, yards and alleys, many of them wholly occupied by thieves’ dens, the receptacles of stolen property, gin-spinning dog-holes, low brothels, and putrescent lodging-houses,—a district unwholesome to approach and unsafe for a decent person to traverse even in the day-time.’—Wh-C.
1. 1. 61, 2 and so to Saint Kathernes. To drinke with the Dutch there, and take forth their patternes.
Saint Kathernes was the name of a hospital and precinct without London. The hospital was said to have been founded by Queen Matilda, wife of King Stephen. In The Alchemist (Wks. 4. 161), Jonson speaks of its having been used ‘to keep the better sort of mad-folks.’ It was also employed as a reformatory for fallen women, and it is here that Winifred in Eastward Ho (ed. Schelling, p. 84) finds an appropriate landing-place.
From this hospital there was ‘a continual street, or filthy strait passage, with alleys of small tenements, or cottages, built, inhabited by sailors’ victuallers, along by the river of Thames, almost to Radcliff, a good mile from the Tower.’—Stow, ed. Thoms, p. 157.
The precinct was noted for its brew-houses and low drinking places. In The Staple of News Jonson speaks of ‘an ale-wife in Saint Katherine’s, At the Sign of the Dancing Bears’ (Wks. 5. 226). The same tavern is referred to in the Masque of Augurs as well as ‘the brew-houses in St. Katherine’s.’ The sights of the place are enumerated in the same masque.
The present passage seems to indicate that the precinct was largely inhabited by Dutch. In the Masque of Augurs Vangoose speaks a sort of Dutch jargon, and we know that a Flemish cemetery was located here (see Wh-C). Cf. also Sir Thomas Overbury’s Character of A drunken Dutchman resident in England, ed. Morley, p. 72: ‘Let him come over never so lean, and plant him but one month near the brew-houses of St. Catherine’s and he will be puffed up to your hand like a bloat herring.’ Dutch weavers had been imported into England as early as the reign of Edward III. (see Howes, p. 870 a), and in the year 1563 great numbers of Netherlanders with their wives and children fled into England owing to the civil dissension in Flanders (Howes, p. 868 a). They bore a reputation for hard drinking (cf. Like will to Like, O. Pl. 3. 325; Dekker, Non-dram. Wks. 3. 12; Nash, Wks. 2. 81, etc.).
The phrase ‘to take forth their patternes’ is somewhat obscure, and seems to have been forced by the necessity for a rhyme. Halliwell says that ‘take forth’ is equivalent to ‘learn,’ and the phrase seems therefore to mean ‘take their measure,’ ‘size them up,’ with a view to following their example. It is possible, of course, that actual patterns of the Dutch weavers or tailors are referred to.
1. 1. 63 Custome-house key. This was in Tower Street on the Thames side. Stow (ed. Thoms, pp. 51. 2) says that the custom-house was built in the sixth year of Richard II. Jonson mentions the place again in Every Man in, Wks. 1. 69.
1. 1. 66 the Dagger, and the Wool-sacke. These were two ordinaries or public houses of low repute, especially famous for their pies. There were two taverns called the ‘Dagger,’ one in Holborn and one in Cheapside. It is probably to the former of these that Jonson refers. It is mentioned again in the Alchemist (Wks. 4. 24 and 165) and in Dekker’s Satiromastix (Wks. 1. 200). Hotten says that the sign of a dagger was common, and arose from its being a charge in the city arms.
The Woolsack was without Aldgate. It was originally a wool-maker’s sign. Machyn mentions the tavern in 1555; and it is alluded to in Dekker, Shoemaker’s Holiday, Wks. 1. 61. See Wh-C. and Hotten’s History of Signboards, pp. 325 and 362.
1. 1. 69 Belins-gate. Stow (ed. Thoms, p. 78) describes Belins-gate as ‘a large water-gate, port or harborough.’ He mentions the tradition that the name was derived from that of Belin, King of the Britons, but discredits it. Billingsgate is on the Thames, a little below London Bridge, and is still the great fish-market of London.
1. 1. 70 shoot the Bridge. The waterway under the old London Bridge was obstructed by the narrowness of the arches, by cornmills built in some of the openings, and by the great waterworks at its southern end. ‘Of the arches left open some were too narrow for the passage of boats of any kind. The widest was only 36 feet, and the resistance caused to so large a body of water on the rise and fall of the tide by this contraction of its channel produced a fall or rapid under the bridge, so that it was necessary to “ship oars” to shoot the bridge, as it was called,—an undertaking, to amateur watermen especially, not unattended with danger. “With the flood-tide it was impossible, and with the ebb-tide dangerous to pass through or shoot the arches of the bridge.” In the latter case prudent passengers landed above the bridge, generally at the Old Swan Stairs, and walked to some wharf, generally Billingsgate, below it.’—Wh-C.
1. 1. 70 the Cranes i’ the Vintry. These were ‘three strong cranes of timber placed on the Vintry wharf by the Thames to crane up wine there (Stow, ed. Thoms, p. 00). They were situated in Three Cranes’ lane, and near by was the famous tavern mentioned as one of the author’s favorite resorts (Bart. Fair 1. 1, Wks. 4. 356). Jonson speaks of it again in The Silent Woman, Wks. 3. 376, and in the Masque of Augurs. Pepys visited the place on January 23, 1662, and describes the best room as ‘a narrow dogg-hole’ in which he and his friends were crammed so close ‘that it made me loath my company and victuals, and a sorry dinner it was too.’ Cf. also Dekker, (Non-dram. Wks. 8. 77).
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.
Fenner was so famed for his faculty of rhyming, that James, who, like Bartholomew Cokes, would willingly let no raree-show escape him, sent for him to court. Upon which Fenner added to his other titles that of his “Majesty’s Riming Poet.” This gave offense to Taylor, the Water poet, and helped to produce that miserable squabble printed among his works, and from which I have principally derived the substance of this note.’—G.
‘In Richard Brome’s Covent Garden Weeded (circ. 1638), we have: “Sure ’tis Fenner or his ghost. He was a riming souldier.” (p. 42.)’—C.
The controversy referred to may be found in the Spenser Society’s reprint of the 1630 folio of Taylor’s Works, 1869, pp. 304-325. Here may be gathered a few more facts regarding the life of Fenner (or Fennor as it should be spelled), among them that he was apprenticed when a boy to a blind harper. In the quarrel, it must be confessed, Fennor does not appear markedly inferior to his derider either in powers of versification or in common decency. The quarrel between the poets took place in October, 1614, and Fennor’s admittance to court seems to be referred to in the present passage.
1. 1. 95 a Sheriffes dinner. This was an occasion of considerable extravagance. Entick (Survey 1. 499) tells us that in 1543 a sumptuary law was passed ‘to prevent luxurious eating or feasting in a time of scarcity; whereby it was ordained, that the lord-mayor should not have more than seven dishes at dinner or supper,’ and ‘an alderman and sheriff no more than six.’
1. 1. 96 Skip with a rime o’ the Table, from New-nothing. What is meant by New-nothing I do not know. From the construction it would seem to indicate the place from which the fool was accustomed to take his leap, but it is possible that the word should be connected with rime, and may perhaps be the translation of a Greek or Latin title for some book of facetiae published about this time. Such wits as Fennor and Taylor doubtless produced many pamphlets, the titles of which have not been recorded. In 1622 Taylor brought out a collection of verse called ‘Sir Gregory Non-sense His Newes from no place,’ and it may have been this very book in manuscript that suggested Jonson’s title. In the play of King Darius, 1106, one of the actors says: ‘I had rather then my new nothing, I were gon.’
1. 1. 97 his Almaine-leape into a custard. ‘In the earlier days, when the city kept a fool it was customary for him at public entertainments, to leap into a large bowl of custard set on purpose.’—W. Whalley refers also to All’s well that Ends Well 2. 5: ‘You have made a shift to run into it, boots and all, like him that leapt into the custard.’
Gifford quotes Glapthorne, Wit in a Const.:
The custard, with the four and twenty nooks At my lord Mayor’s feast.
He continues: ‘Indeed, no common supply was required; for, besides what the Corporation (great devourers of custard) consumed on the spot, it appears that it was thought no breach of city manners to send, or take some of it home with them for the use of their ladies.’ In the excellent old play quoted above, Clara twits her uncle with this practise:
Now shall you, sir, as ’tis a frequent custom, ‘Cause you’re a worthy alderman of a ward, Feed me with custard, and perpetual white broth Sent from the lord Mayor’s feast.’
Cunningham says: ‘Poets of a comparatively recent date continue to associate mayors and custards.’ He Quotes Prior (Alma, Cant. 1) and a letter from Bishop Warburton to Hurd (Apr. 1766): ‘I told him (the Lord Mayor) in what I thought he was defective—that I was greatly disappointed to see no custard at table. He said that they had been so ridiculed for their custard that none had ventured to make its appearance for some years.’ Jonson mentions the ‘quaking custards’ again in The Fox, Wks. 3. 164., and in The Staple of News, Wks. 5. 196, 7.
An Almain-leap was a dancing leap. ‘Allemands were danced here a few years back’ (Nares). Cunningham quotes from Dyce: ‘Rabelais tells us that Gargantua “wrestled, ran, jumped, not at three steps and a leap, ... nor yet at the Almane’s, for, said Gymnast, these jumps are for the wars altogether unprofitable and of no use.” Rabelais, Book 1, C. 23.’
Bishop Barlow, Answer to a Catholike Englishman, p. 231, Lond. 1607, says: ‘Now heere the Censurer makes an Almaine leape, skipping 3 whole pages together’ (quoted in N. & Q. 1st Ser. 10. 157).
1. 1. 97 their hoods. The French hood was still worn by citizens’ wives. Thus in the London Prodigal, ed. 1709:
No Frank, I’ll have thee go like a Citizen In a Garded Gown, and a French Hood.
When Simon Eyre is appointed sheriff, his wife immediately inquires for a ‘Fardingale-maker’ and a ‘French-hood maker’ (Dekker, Wks. 1. 39). Strutt says that French hoods were out of fashion by the middle of the 17th century (Antiq. 3. 93). See the frequent references to this article of apparel in Bart. Fair. It is interesting to notice that the hoods are worn at dinner.
1. 1. 106, 7. The readings of ‘Whalley and Gifford are distinctly inferior to the original.
1. 1. 112, 3 Car-men Are got into the yellow starch. Starch was introduced in the age of Elizabeth to meet the needs of the huge Spanish ruff which had come into favor some years before (see Soc. Eng., p. 386). It was frequently colored. In Middleton and Rowley’s World Tossed at Tennis five different colored starches are personified. Stubbes says that it was ‘of all collours and hues.’ Yellow starch must have come into fashion not long before this play was acted, for in the Owle’s Allmanacke, published in 1618, it is said: ‘Since yellow bandes and saffroned chaperoones came vp, is not above two yeeres past.’ This, however, is not to be taken literally, for the execution of Mrs. Turner took place Nov. 14, 1615. Of her we read in Howell’s Letters 1. 2: ‘Mistress Turner, the first inventress of yellow Starch, was executed in a Cobweb Lawn Ruff of that colour at Tyburn; and with her I believe that yellow Starch, which so much disfigured our Nation, and rendered them so ridiculous and fantastic, will receive its Funeral.’ Sir S. D’Ewes (Autobiog. 1. 69) says that from that day it did, indeed, grow ‘generally to be detested and disused.’ The Vision of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1616 (quoted in Amos, Great Oyer, p. 50) speaks of
——that fantastic, ugly fall and ruff Daub’d o’er with that base starch of yellow stuff
as already out of fashion. Its popularity must have returned, however, since Barnaby Riche in the Irish Hubbub,1622, p. 40, laments that ‘yellow starcht bands’ were more popular than ever, and he prophesies that the fashion ‘shortly will be as conversant amongst taylors, tapsters, and tinkers, as now they have brought tobacco.’
D’Ewes also in describing the procession of King James from Whitehall to Westminster, Jan. 30, 1620, says that the king saw one window ‘full of gentlewomen or ladies, all in yellow bandes,’ whereupon he called out ‘A pox take yee,’ and they all withdrew in shame. In The Parson’s Wedding, printed 1664, O. Pl. 11. 498, it is spoken of as out of fashion. Yellow starch is mentioned again in 5. 8. 74. 5, and a ballad of ‘goose-green starch and the devil’ is mentioned in Bart. Fair, Wks. 4. 393. Similarly, Nash speaks in Pierce Pennilesse, Wks. 2. 44. of a ‘Ballet of Blue starch and poaking stick.’ See also Dodsley’s note on Albumazar, O. Pl. 7. 132.
1. 1. 113, 4 Chimney-sweepers To their tabacco. See the quotation from Riche in the last note and note 5. 8. 71.
1. 1. 114, 5 Hum, Meath, and Obarni. Hum is defined B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Hum or Humming Liquor, Double Ale, Stout, Pharoah. It is mentioned in Fletcher’s Wild Goose Chase 2. 3 and Heywood’s Drunkard. p. 48. Meath or mead is still made in England. It was a favorite drink in the Middle Ages, and consisted of a mixture of honey and water with the addition of a ferment. Harrison, Description of England, ed. Furnivall, 1. 161, thus describes it: ‘There is a kind of swish swash made also in Essex, and diuerse other places, with honicombs and water, which the [homelie] countrie wiues, putting some pepper and a little other spice among, call mead, verie good in mine opinion for such as loue to be loose bodied [at large, or a little eased of the cough,] otherwise it differeth so much from the true metheglin, as chalke from cheese.’
Obarni was long a crux for the editors and dictionaries. Gifford (Wks. 7. 226) supplied a part of the quotation from Pimlyco or Runne Red-Cap, 1609, completed by James Platt, Jun. (N. & Q. 9th Ser. 3. 306). in which ‘Mead Obarne and Mead Cherunk’ are mentioned as drinks
——that whet the spites Of Russes and cold Muscovites.
Mr. Platt first instanced the existing Russian word obarni or obvarnyi (see Gloss.), meaning ‘boiling, scalding,’ and C. C. B. (N. & Q. 9. 3. 413) supplied a quotation from the account of the voyage of Sir Jerome Bowes in 1583 (Harris’s Travels 1. 535), in which ‘Sodden Mead’ appears among the items of diet supplied by the Emperor to the English Ambassador. The identification was completed with a quotation given by the Stanford Dict.: ‘1598 Hakluyt Voy. 1. 461 One veather of sodden mead called Obarni.’
1. 1. 119 your rope of sand. This occupation is mentioned again in 5. 2. 6.
1. 1. 126 Tissue gownes. Howes, p. 869. tells us that John Tuce, ‘dweling neere Shorditch Church’, first attained perfection in the manufacture of cloth of tissue.
1. 1. 127 Garters and roses. Howes, p. 1039, says that ‘at this day (1631) men of meane rancke weare Garters, and shooe Roses, of more than fiue pound price.’ Massinger, in the City Madam, Wks., p. 334, speaks of ‘roses worth a family.’ Cf. also John Taylor’s Works, 1630 (quoted in Hist. Brit. Cost.):
Weare a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold And spangled garters worth a copyhold.
1. 1. 128 Embroydred stockings. ‘Then haue they nether-stocks to these gay hosen, not of cloth (though neuer so fine) for that is thought to base, but of Iarnsey worsted, silk, thred, and such like, or els at the least of the finest yarn that can be, and so curiouslye knit with open seam down the leg, with quirks and clocks about the ancles, and sometime (haply) interlaced with gold or siluer threds, as is wonderful to behold.’—Stubbes, Anat., Part 1, p. 57. The selling of stockings was a separate trade at this time, and great attention was paid to this article of clothing. Silk stockings are frequently mentioned by the dramatists. Cf. Stephen Gosson, Pleasant Quippes:
These worsted stockes of bravest die, and silken garters fring’d with gold; These corked shooes to beare them hie makes them to trip it on the molde; They mince it with a pace so strange, Like untam’d heifers when they range.
1. 1. 128 cut-worke smocks, and shirts. Cf. B. & Fl., Four Plays in One:
——She show’d me gownes, head tires, Embroider’d waistcoats, smocks seamed with cutworks.
1. 1. 135 But you must take a body ready made. King James in his Dæmonologie (Wks., ed. 1616, p. 120) explains that the devil, though but of air, can ‘make himself palpable, either by assuming any dead bodie, and vsing the ministerie thereof, or else by deluding as well their sence of feeling as seeing.’
1. 1. 143 our tribe of Brokers. Cf. Ev. Man in, Wks. 1. 82:
‘Wel. Where got’st thou this coat, I marle? Brai. Of a Hounsditch man, sir, one of the devil’s near kinsmen, a broker.’
The pawnbrokers were cordially hated in Jonson’s time. Their quarter was Houndsditch. Stow says: ‘there are crept in among them [the inhabitants of Houndsditch] a base kinde of vermine, wel-deserving to bee ranked and numbred with them, whom our old Prophet and Countryman, Gyldas, called Ætatis atramentum, the black discredit of the Age, and of place where they are suffered to live.... These men, or rather monsters in the shape of men, professe to live by lending, and yet will lend nothing but upon pawnes;’ etc.
Nash speaks of them in a similar strain: ‘Fruits shall be greatly eaten with Catterpillers; as Brokers, Farmers and Flatterers, which feeding on the sweate of other mens browes, shall greatlye hinder the beautye of the spring.’—Prognostication, Wks.2. 145. ‘They shall crie out against brokers, as Jeremy did against false prophets.’ Ibid. 2. 162.
1. 1. 148 as you make your soone at nights relation. Cf. Dekker, Satiromastix, Wks. 1. 187: ‘Shee’l be a late sturrer soone at night sir,’ and ibid. 223:
By this faire Bride remember soone at night.
1. 2. 1 ff. I, they doe, now, etc. ‘Compare this exquisite piece of sense, satire, and sound philosophy in 1616 with Sir M. Hale’s speech from the bench in a trial of a witch many years afterwards.’—Coleridge, Notes, p. 280.
1. 2. 1 Bretnor. An almanac maker (fl. 1607-1618). A list of his works, compiled from the catalogue of the British Museum, is given in the DNB. He is mentioned twice by Middleton:
This farmer will not cast his seed i’ the ground Before he look in Bretnor. —Inner-Temple Masque, Wks. 7. 211.
‘Chough. I’ll not be married to-day, Trimtram: hast e’er an almanac about thee? this is the nineteenth of August, look what day of the month ’tis.
Trim. ’Tis tenty-nine indeed, sir. [Looks in almanac. Chough. What’s the word? What says Bretnor? Trim. The word is, sir, There’s a hole in her coat.’ —Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, Wks. 4. 263.
Fleay identifies him with Norbret, one of the astrologers in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Rollo, Duke of Normandy.
1. 2. 2 Gresham. A pretended astrologer, contemporary with Forman, and said to be one of the associates of the infamous Countess of Essex and Mrs. Turner in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Arthur Wilson mentions him in The Life of James I., p. 70:
‘Mrs. Turner, the Mistris of the Work, had lost both her supporters. Forman, her first prop, drop’t away suddenly by death; and Gresham another rotten Engin (that succeded him) did not hold long: She must now bear up all her self.’
He is mentioned twice in Spark’s Narrative History of King James, Somer’s Tracts 2. 275: ‘Dr. Forman being dead, Mrs. Turner wanted one to assist her; whereupon, at the countesses coming to London, one Gresham was nominated to be entertained in this businesse, and, in processe of time, was wholly interested in it; this man was had in suspition to have had a hand in the Gunpowder plot, he wrote so near it in his almanack; but, without all question, he was a very skilful man in the mathematicks, and, in his latter time, in witchcraft, as was suspected, and therefore the fitter to bee imployed in those practises, which, as they were devilish, so the devil had a hand in them.’
Ibid. 287: ‘Now Gresham growing into years, having spent much time in many foule practises to accomplish those things at this time, gathers all his babies together, viz. pictures in lead, in wax, in plates of gold, of naked men and women with crosses, crucifixes, and other implements, wrapping them all up together in a scarfe, crossed every letter in the sacred word Trinity, crossed these things very holily delivered into the hands of one Weston to bee hid in the earth that no man might find them, and so in Thames-street having finished his evill times he died, leaving behind him a man and a maid, one hanged for a witch, and the other for a thief very shortly after.’
In the ‘Heads of Charges against Robert, Earl of Somerset’, drawn up by Lord Bacon, we read: ‘That the countess laboured Forman and Gresham to inforce the Queen by witchcraft to favour the countess’ (Howell’s State Trials 2. 966). To this King James replied in an ‘Apostyle,’ Nothing to Somerset. This exhausts the references to Gresham that I have been able to find. See note on Savory, [1. 2. 3.]
1. 2. 2. Fore-man. Simon Foreman, or Forman (1552-1611) was the most famous of the group of quacks here mentioned. He studied at Oxford, 1573-1578, and in 1579 began his career as a necromancer. He claimed the power to discover lost treasure, and was especially successful in his dealings with women. A detailed account of his life is given in the DNB. and a short but interesting sketch in Social England 4. 87. The chief sources are Wm. Lilly’s History and a diary from 1564 to 1602, with an account of Forman’s early life, published by Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps for the Camden Soc., 1843.
He is mentioned again by Jonson in Silent Woman, Wks. 3. 413: ‘Daup. I would say, thou hadst the best philtre in the world, and couldst do more than Madam Medea, or Doctor Foreman.’ In Sir Thomas Overbury’s Vision (Harl. Ms., vol. 7, quoted in D’Ewes’ Autobiog., p. 89) he is spoken of as ‘that fiend in human shape.’
1. 2. 3 Francklin. Francklin was an apothecary, and procured the poison for Mrs. Turner (see Amos, Great Oyer. p. 97). He was one of the three persons executed with Mrs. Turner. Arthur Wilson, in his Life of James I. (p. 70), describes him as ‘a swarthy, sallow, crooked-backt fellow, who was to be the Fountain whence these bitter waters came.’ See also Somer’s Tracts 2. 287. The poem already quoted furnishes a description of Francklin:
A man he was of stature meanly tall. His body’s lineaments were shaped, and all His limbs compacted well, and strongly knit. Nature’s kind hand no error made in it. His beard was ruddy hue, and from his head A wanton lock itself did down dispread Upon his back; to which while he did live Th’ ambiguous name of Elf-lock he did give. —Quoted in Amos. p. 50.
1. 2. 3 Fiske. ‘In this year 1633, I became acquainted with Nicholas Fiske, licentiate in physick, who was borne in Suffolk, near Framingham [Framlingham] Castle, of very good parentage.... He was a person very studious, laborious, and of good apprehension.... He was exquisitely skilful in the art of directions upon nativities, and had a good genius in performing judgment thereupon.... He died about the seventy-eighth year of his age, poor.’—Lilly, Hist., p. 42 f.
Fiske appears as La Fiske in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, and is also mentioned by Butler, Hudibr., Part 2, Cant. 3. 403:
And nigh an ancient obelisk Was rais’d by him, found out by Fisk.
1. 2. 3 Sauory. ‘And therefore, she fearing that her lord would seek some public or private revenge against her, by the advice of the before-mentioned Mrs. Turner, consulted and practised with Doctor Forman and Doctor Savory, two conjurers, about the poisoning of him.’—D’Ewes, Autobiog. 1. 88. 9.
He was employed after the sudden death of Dr. Forman. Wright (Sorcery and Magic, p. 228) says that the name is written Lavoire in some manuscripts. ‘Mrs. Turner also confessed, that Dr. Savories was used in succession, after Forman, and practised many sorceries upon the Earle of Essex his person.’—Spark, Narrative History, Somer’s Tracts 2. 333.
In the Calendar of State Papers the name of ‘Savery’ appears four times. Under date of Oct. 16, 1615, we find Dr. Savery examined on a charge of ‘spreading Popish Books.’ ‘Savery pretends to be a doctor, but is probably a conjurer.’ And again under the same date he is interrogated as to his relations with Mrs. Turner and Forman. Under Oct. 24 he replies to Coke. ‘Oct. ?’ we find Dr. Savery questioned as to his ‘predictions of troubles and alterations in Court.’ This is the last mention of him.
Just what connection Gresham and Savory had with the Overbury plot is a difficult matter to determine. Both are spoken of as following Forman immediately, and of neither is any successor mentioned except the actual poisoner, Franklin. It seems probable that Gresham was the first to be employed after Forman, and that his own speedy death led to the selection of Savory. How the latter managed to escape a more serious implication in the trial it is difficult to conceive.
1. 2. 6-9 christalls, ... characters. As in other fields, Jonson is well versed in magic lore. Lumps of crystal were one of the regular means of raising a demon. Bk. 15, Ch. 16 of Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, is entitled: ‘To make a spirit appear in a christall’, and Ch. 12 shows ‘How to enclose a spirit in a christall stone.’
Lilly (History, p. 78) speaks of the efficacy of ‘a constellated ring’ in sickness, and they were doubtless considered effective in more sinister dealings. Jonson has already spoken of the devil being carried in a thumb-ring ([see note P. 6]).
Charms were usually written on parchment. In Barrett’s Magus, Bk. 2, Pt. 3. 109, we read that the pentacle should be drawn ‘upon parchment made of a kid-skin, or virgin, or pure clean white paper.’
That parts of the human body belonged to the sorcerer’s paraphernalia is shown by the Statute 1 Jac. I. c. xii, which contains a clause forbidding conjurors to ‘take up any dead man woman or child out of his her or their grave ... or the skin bone or any other parte of any dead person, to be imployed or used in any manner of Witchcrafte Sorcerie Charme or Inchantment.’
The wing of the raven, as a bird of ill omen, may be an invention of Jonson’s own. The lighting of candles within the magic circle is mentioned below (note 1. 2. 26).
Most powerful of all was the pentacle, of which Scot’s Discovery (Ap. II, p. 533, 4) furnishes an elaborate description. This figure was used by the Pythagorean school as their seal, and is equivalent to the pentagram or five-pointed star (see CD.).
Dekker (Wks. 2. 200) connects it with the Periapt as a ‘potent charm,’ and Marlowe speaks of it in Hero and Leander, Wks. 3. 45:
A rich disparent pentacle she wears, Drawn full of circles and strange characters.
It will be remembered that the inscription of a pentagram on the threshold prevents the escape of Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust. The editors explain its potency as due to the fact that it is resolvable into three triangles, and is thus a triple sign of the Trinity.
Cunningham says that the pentacle ‘when delineated upon the body of a man was supposed to point out the five wounds of the Saviour.’ W. J. Thoms (Anecdotes, Camden Soc., 1839, p. 97) speaks of its presence in the western window of the southern aisle of Westminster Abbey, an indication that the monks were versed in occult science.
1. 2. 21 If they be not. Gifford refers to Chrysippus, De Divinatione, Lib. 1. § 71: ‘This is the very syllogism by which that acute philosopher triumphantly proved the reality of augury.’
1. 2. 22 Why, are there lawes against ’hem? It was found necessary in 1541 to pass an act (33 Hen. VIII. c. 8) by which—‘it shall be felony to practise, or cause to be practised conjuration, witchcrafte, enchantment, or sorcery, to get money: or to consume any person in his body, members or goods; or to provoke any person to unlawful love; or for the despight of Christ, or lucre of money, to pull down any cross; or to declare where goods stolen be.’ Another law was passed 1 Edward VI. c. 12 (1547). 5 Elizabeth. c. 16 (1562) gives the ‘several penalties of conjuration, or invocation of wicked spirits, and witchcraft, enchantment, charm or sorcery.’ Under Jas. I, anno secundo (vulgo primo), c. 12, still another law was passed, whereby the second offense was declared a felony. The former act of Elizabeth was repealed. This act of James was not repealed until 9 George II. c. 5.
Social England, p. 270, quotes from Ms. Lansdowne, 2. Art. 26, a deposition from William Wicherley, conjurer, in which he places the number of conjurers in England in 1549 above five hundred. A good idea of the character of the more disreputable type of conjurer can be got from Beaumont and Fletcher’s Fair Maid of the Inn. See especially Act 5, Sc. 2.
1. 2. 26 circles. The magic circle is one of the things most frequently mentioned among the arts of the conjurer. Scot (Discovery, p. 476) has a long satirical passage on the subject, in which he enjoins the conjurer to draw a double circle with his own blood, to divide the circle into seven parts and to set at each division a ‘candle lighted in a brazen candlestick.’
1. 2. 27 his hard names. A long list of the ‘diverse names of the divell’ is given in The Discovery, p. 436, and another in the Second Appendix, p. 522.
1. 2. 31, 2 I long for thee. An’ I were with child by him, ... I could not more. The expression is common enough. Cf. Eastward Hoe: ‘Ger. As I am a lady, I think I am with child already, I long for a coach so.’ Dekker, Shomakers Holiday, Wks. 1. 17: ‘I am with child till I behold this huffecap.’ The humors of the longing wife are a constant subject of ridicule. See Bart. Fair, Act 1, and Butler’s Hudibras, ed. 1819, 3. 78 and note.
1. 2. 39 A thousand miles. ‘Neither are they so much limited as Tradition would have them; for they are not at all shut up in any separated place: but can remove millions of miles in the twinkling of an eye.’—Scot, Discovery, Ap. II, p. 493.
1. 2. 43 The burn’t child dreads the fire. Jonson is fond of proverbial expressions. Cf. 1. 6. 125; 1. 6. 145; 5. 8. 142, 3, etc.
1. 3. 5 while things be reconcil’d. In Elizabethan English both while and whiles often meant ‘up to the time when’, as well as ‘during the time when’ (d. a similar use of ‘dum’ in Latin and of ἕ ος in Greek).—Abbot, §137.
For its frequent use in this sense in Shakespeare see Schmidt and note on Macbeth 3. 1. 51, Furness’s edition. Cf. also Nash, Prognostication, Wks. 2. 150: ‘They shall ly in their beds while noon.’
1. 3. 8, 9 those roses Were bigge inough to hide a clouen foote. Dyce (Remarks, p. 289) quotes Webster, White Devil, 1612:
—why, ’tis the devil; I know him by a great rose he wears on’s shoe, To hide his cloven foot.
Cunningham adds a passage from Chapman, Wks. 3. 145:
Fro. Yet you cannot change the old fashion (they say) And hide your cloven feet. Oph. No! I can wear roses that shall spread quite Over them.
Gifford quotes Nash, Unfortunate Traveller, Wks. 5. 146: ‘Hee hath in eyther shoo as much taffaty for his tyings, as would serue for an ancient.’ Cf. also Dekker, Roaring Girle, Wks. 3. 200: ‘Haue not many handsome legges in silke stockins villanous splay feet for all their great roses?’
1. 3. 13 My Cater. Whalley changes to ‘m’acter’ on the authority of the Sad Shep. (vol. 4. 236):
—Go bear ’em in to Much Th’ acater.
The form ‘cater’, however, is common enough. Indeed, if we are to judge from the examples in Nares and NED., it is much the more frequent, although the present passage is cited in both authorities under the longer form.
1. 3. 21 I’le hearken. W. and G. change to ‘I’d.’ The change is unnecessary if we consider the conditional clause as an after-thought on the part of Fitzdottrel. For a similar construction see 3. 6. 34-6.
1. 3. 27 Vnder your fauour, friend, for, I’ll not quarrell. ‘This was one of the qualifying expressions, by which, “according to the laws of the duello”, the lie might be given, without subjecting the speaker to the absolute necessity of receiving a challenge.’—G.
Leigh uses a similar expression. Cf. note 2. 1. 144. It occurs several times in Ev. Man in:
‘Step. Yet, by his leave, he is a rascal, under his favour, do you see. E. Know. Ay, by his leave, he is, and under favour: a pretty piece of civility!’ —Wks. 1. 68.
‘Down. ’Sdeath! you will not draw then? Bob. Hold, hold! under thy favour forbear!’ —Wks. 1. 117.
‘Clem. Now, sir, what have you to say to me? Bob. By your worship’s favour——.’ —Wks. 1. 140.
I have not been able to confirm Gifford’s assertion.
1. 3. 30 that’s a popular error. Gifford refers to Othello 5. 2. 286:
Oth. I look down towards his feet,—but that’s a fable.— If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.
Cf. also The Virgin Martyr, Dekker’s Wks. 4. 57:
—Ile tell you what now of the Divel; He’s no such horrid creature, cloven footed, Black, saucer-ey’d, his nostrils breathing fire, As these lying Christians make him.
1. 3. 34 Of Derby-shire, Sr. about the Peake. Jonson seems to have been well acquainted with the wonders of the Peak of Derbyshire. Two of his masques, The Gipsies Metamorphosed, acted first at Burleigh on the Hill, and later at Belvoir, Nottinghamshire, and Love’s Welcome at Welbeck, acted in 1633 at Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, the seat of William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, are full of allusions to them. The Devil’s Arse seems to be the cavern now known to travellers as the Peak or Devil’s Cavern. It is described by Baedeker as upwards of 2,000 feet in extent. One of its features is a subterranean river known as the Styx. The origin of the cavern’s name is given in a coarse song in the Gypsies Met. (Wks. 7. 357), beginning:
Cocklorrel would needs have the Devil his guest, And bade him into the Peak to dinner.
In Love’s Welcome Jonson speaks again of ‘Satan’s sumptuous Arse’, Wks. 8. 122.
1. 3. 34, 5. That Hole.
Belonged to your Ancestors?Jonson frequently omits the relative pronoun. Cf. 1. 5. 21; 1. 6. 86, 87; 3. 3. 149; 5. 8. 86, 87.
1. 3. 38 Foure pound a yeere. ‘This we may suppose to have been the customary wages of a domestic servant.’—C. Cunningham cites also the passage in the Alchemist, Wks. 4. 12; ‘You were once ... the good, Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept Your master’s worship’s house,’ in which he takes the expression ‘three-pound’ to be the equivalent of ‘badly-paid’.
1. 4. 1 I’ll goe lift him. Jonson is never tired of punning on the names of his characters.
1. 4. 5 halfe a piece. ‘It may be necessary to observe, once for all, that the piece (the double sovereign) went for two and twenty shillings.’—G. Compare 3. 3. 83, where a hundred pieces is evidently somewhat above a hundred pounds. By a proclamation, Nov. 23, 1611, the piece of gold called the Unitie, formerly current at twenty shillings was raised to the value of twenty two shillings (S. M. Leake, Eng. Money 2. 276). Taylor, the water-poet, tells us that Jonson gave him ‘a piece of gold of two and twenty shillings to drink his health in England’ (Conversations, quoted in Schelling’s Timber, p. 105). In the Busie Body Mrs. Centlivre uses piece as synonymous with guinea (2d ed., pp. 7 and 14).
1. 4. 31 Iust what it list. Jonson makes frequent use of the subjunctive. Cf. 1. 3. 9; 1. 6. 6; 5. 6. 10; etc.
1. 4. 43 Ô here’s the bill, Sr. Collier says that the use of play-bills was common prior to the year 1563 (Strype, Life of Grindall, ed. 1821, p. 122). They are mentioned in Histriomastix, 1610; A Warning for Fair Women, 1599, etc. See Collier, Annals 3. 382 f.
1. 4. 50 a rotten Crane. Whalley restores the right reading, correctly explained as a pun on Ingine’s name.
1. 4. 60 Good time! Apparently a translation of the Fr. A la bonne heure, ‘very good’, ‘well done!’ etc.
1. 4. 65 The good mans gravity. Cf. Homer, Il., Γ 105:
ἄξετε δὲ Πριάμοιο Βίην.
Shak., Tempest 5. 1: ‘First, noble friend, let me embrace thine age.’ Catiline 3. 2.: ‘Trouble this good shame (good and modest lady) no farther.’
1. 4. 70 into the shirt. Cf. Dekker, Non-dram. Wks. 2. 244: ‘Dice your selfe into your shirt.’
1. 4. 71 Keepe warme your wisdome? Cf. Cyn. Rev., Wks. 2. 241: ‘Madam, your whole self cannot but be perfectly wise; for your hands have wit enough to keep themselves warm.’ Gifford’s note on this passage is: ‘This proverbial phrase is found in most (sic) of our ancient dramas. Thus in The Wise Woman of Hogsden: “You are the wise woman, are you? You have wit to keep yourself warm enough, I warrant you”’. Cf. also Lusty Juventus, p. 74: ‘Cover your head; For indeed you have need to keep in your wit.’
1. 4. 72 You lade me. ‘This is equivalent to the modern phrase, you do not spare me. You lay what imputations you please upon me.’—G.
The phrase occurs again in 1. 6. 161, where Wittipol calls Fitzdottrel an ass, and says that he cannot ‘scape his lading’. ‘You lade me’, then, seems to mean ‘You make an ass of me’. The same use of the word occurs in Dekker, Olde Fortunatus, Wks. 1. 125: ‘I should serue this bearing asse rarely now, if I should load him’. And again in the works of Taylor, the Water Poet, p. 311: ‘My Lines shall load an Asse, or whippe an Ape.’ Cf. also Bart. Fair, Wks. 4. 421: ‘Yes, faith, I have my lading, you see, or shall have anon; you may know whose beast I am by my burden.’
1. 4. 83, 4 But, not beyond,
A minute, or a second, looke for. The omission of the comma after beyond by all the later editors destroys the sense. Fitzdottrel does not mean that Wittipol cannot have ‘beyond a minute’, but that he cannot have a minute beyond the quarter of an hour allowed him.
1. 4. 96 Migniard. ‘Cotgrave has in his dictionary, “Mignard—migniard, prettie, quaint, neat, feat, wanton, dainty, delicate.” In the Staple of News [Wks. 5. 221] Jonson tries to introduce the substantive migniardise, but happily without success.’—G.
1. 4. 101 Prince Quintilian. The reputation of this famous rhetorician (c 35-c 97 A. D.) is based on his great work entitled De Instiutione Oratoria Libri XII. The first English edition seems to have been made in 1641, but many Continental editions had preceded it. The title Prince seems to be gratuitous on Jonson’s part. He is mentioned again in Timber (ed. Schelling, 57. 29 and 81. 4).
1. 5. 2 Cf. New Inn, Wks. 5. 323:
‘Host. What say you, sir? where are you, are you within? (Strikes Lovel on the breast.)’
1. 5. 8, 9. Old Africk, and the new America,
With all their fruite of Monsters. Cf. Donne, Sat., Wks. 2. 190 (ed. 1896):
Stranger ... Than Afric’s monsters, Guiana’s rarities.
Brome, Queen’s Exchange, Wks. 3. 483: ‘What monsters are bred in Affrica?’ Glapthorne, Hollander, Wks., 1874, 1. 81: ‘If Africke did produce no other monsters,’ etc. The people of London at this time had a great thirst for monsters. See Alden, Bart. Fair, p. 185, and Morley, Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair.
1. 5. 17 for hidden treasure. ‘And when he is appeared, bind him with the bond of the dead above written: then saie as followeth. I charge thee N. by the father, to shew me true visions in this christall stone, if there be anie treasure hidden in such a place N. & wherein it now lieth, and how manie foot from this peece of earth, east, west, north, or south.’—Scot, Discovery, p. 355.
Most of the conjurers pretended to be able to recover stolen treasure. The laws against conjurers (see note [1. 2. 6]) contained clauses forbidding the practice.
1. 5. 21 his men of Art. A euphemism for conjurer. Cf. B. & Fl., Fair Maid of the Inn 2. 2:
‘Host. Thy master, that lodges here in my Osteria, is a rare man of art; they say he’s a witch. Clown. A witch? Nay, he’s one step of the ladder to preferment higher; he’s a conjurer.’
1. 6. 10 wedlocke. Wife; a common latinism of the period.
1. 6. 14 it not concernes thee? A not infrequent word-order in Jonson. Cf. 4. 2. 22.
1. 6. 18 a Niaise. Gifford says that the side note ‘could scarcely come from Jonson; for it explains nothing. A niaise (or rather an eyas, of which it is a corruption) is unquestionably a young hawk, but the niaise of the poet is the French term for, “a simple, witless, inexperienced gull”, &c. The word is very common in our old writers.’
The last statement is characteristic of Gifford. It would have been well in this case if he had given some proof of his assertion. The derivation an eyas > a nyas is probably incorrect. The Centary Dictionary gives ‘Niaise, nyas (and corruptly eyas, by misdivision of a nias).’ The best explanation I can give of the side note is this. The glossator takes the meaning ‘simpleton’ for granted. But Fitzdottrel has just said ‘Laught at, sweet bird?’ In explanation the side note is added. This, perhaps, does not help matters much and, indeed, I am inclined to believe with Gifford that the side notes are by another hand than Jonson’s. See Introduction, pp. [xiii], [xvii].
1. 6. 29, 30. When I ha’ seene
All London in’t, and London has seene mee.Gifford compares Pope:
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.
1. 6. 31 Black-fryers Play-house. This famous theatre was founded by James Burbage in 1596-7. The Burbages leased it to Henry Evans for the performances of the Children of the Chapel, and the King’s Servants acted there after the departure of the children. In 1619 the Lord Mayor and the Council of London ordered its discontinuance, but the players were able to keep it open on the plea that it was a private house. In 1642 ‘public stage plays’ were suppressed, and on Aug. 5, 1655, Blackfriars Theatre was pulled down and tenements were built in its place. See Wh-C.
Nares, referring to Shirley’s Six New Playes, 1653, says that ‘the Theatre of Black-Friars was, in Charles I.’s time at least considered, as being of a higher order and more respectability than any of those on the Bank-side.’
1. 6. 33 Rise vp between the Acts. See note [3. 5. 43].
1. 6. 33, 4 let fall my cloake,
Publish a handsome man, and a rich suite. The gallants of this age were inordinately fond of displaying their dress, or ‘publishing their suits.’ The play-house and ‘Paul’s Walk,’ the nave of St. Paul’s Cathedral, were favorite places for accomplishing this. The fourth chapter of Dekker’s Guls Horne-booke is entitled ‘How a Gallant should behaue himselfe in Powles walkes.’ He bids the gallant make his way directly into the middle aisle, ‘where, in view of all, you may publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger) suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the least) and so by that meanes your costly lining is betrayd,’ etc. A little later on (Non-dram. Wks. 2. 238) Dekker speaks of ‘Powles, a Tennis-court, or a Playhouse’ as a suitable place to ‘publish your clothes.’ Cf. also Non-dram. Wks. 4. 51.
Sir Thomas Overbury gives the following description of ‘a Phantastique:’ ‘He withers his clothes on a stage as a salesman is forced to do his suits in Birchin Lane; and when the play is done, if you mark his rising, ’tis with a kind of walking epilogue between the two candles, to know if his suit may pass for current.’ Morley, p. 73.
Stephen Gosson (School of Abuse, p. 29) says that ‘overlashing in apparel is so common a fault, that the verye hyerlings of some of our plaiers, which stand at reversion of vis by the weeke, jet under gentlemens noses in sutes of silke.’
1. 6. 37, 8 For, they doe come
To see vs, Loue, as wee doe to see them. Cf. Induction to The Staple of News, Wks. 5. 151: ‘Yes, on the stage; we are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.’ Silent Woman, Wks. 3. 409: ‘and come abroad where the matter is frequent, to court, ... to plays, ... thither they come to shew their new tires too, to see, and to be seen.’ Massinger, City Madam, Wks., p. 323:
Sir. Maur. Is there aught else To be demanded? Anne. ... a fresh habit, Of a fashion never seen before, to draw, The gallants’ eyes, that sit upon the stage, upon me.
Gosson has much to say on the subject of women frequenting the theatre. There, he says (p. 25). ‘everye man and his queane are first acquainted;’ and he earnestly recommends all women to stay away from these ‘places of suspition’ (pp. 48 f.).
1. 6. 40 Yes, wusse. Wusse is a corruption of wis, OE. gewis, certainly. Jonson uses the forms I wuss (Wks. 1. 102), I wusse (Wks. 6. 146), and Iwisse (Wks. 2. 379. the fol. reading; Gifford changing to I wiss), in addition to the present form. In some cases the word is evidently looked upon as a verb.
1. 6. 58 sweet Pinnace. Cf. 2. 2. 111 f. A woman is often compared to a ship. Nares cites B. & Fl., Woman’s Pr. 2. 6:
This pinck, this painted foist, this cockle-boat.
Cf. also Stap. of News, Wks. 5. 210:
She is not rigg’d, sir; setting forth some lady Will cost as much as furnishing a fleet.— Here she is come at last, and like a galley Gilt in the prow.
Jonson plays on the names of Pinnacia in the New Inn, Wks. 5. 384:
‘Host. Pillage the Pinnace.... Lord B. Blow off her upper deck. Lord L. Tear all her tackle.’
Pinnace, when thus applied to a woman, was almost always used with a conscious retention of the metaphor. Dekker is especially fond of the word. Match me in London, Wks. 4. 172:
—There’s a Pinnace (Was mann’d out first by th’ City), is come to th’ Court, New rigg’d.
Also Dekker, Wks. 4. 162; 3. 67, 77, 78.
When the word became stereotyped into an equivalent for procuress or prostitute, the metaphor was often dropped. Thus in Bart. Fair, Wks. 4. 386: ‘She hath been before me, punk, pinnace and bawd, any time these two and twenty years.’ Gifford says on this passage: ‘The usual gradation in infamy. A pinnace was a light vessel built for speed, generally employed as a tender. Hence our old dramatists constantly used the word for a person employed in love messages, a go-between in the worst sense, and only differing from a bawd in not being stationary.’ A glance at the examples given above will show, however, that the term was much more elastic than this explanation would indicate.
The dictionaries give no suggestion of the origin of the metaphor. I suspect that it may be merely a borrowing from classical usage. Cf. Menaechmi 2. 3. 442:
Ducit lembum dierectum nauis praedatoria.
In Miles Gloriosus 4. 1. 986, we have precisely the same application as in the English dramatists: ‘Haec celox (a swift sailing vessel) illiust, quae hinc agreditur, internuntia.’
1. 6. 62 th’ are right. Whalley’s interpretation is, of course, correct. See variants.
1. 6. 73 Not beyond that rush. Rushes took the place of carpets in the days of Elizabeth. Shakespeare makes frequent reference to the custom (see Schmidt). The following passage from Dr. Bulleyne has often been quoted: ‘Rushes that grow upon dry groundes be good to strew in halles, chambers and galleries, to walk upon, defending apparel, as traynes of gownes and kertles from dust.’ Cf. also Cyn. Rev. 2. 5; Every Man out 3. 3.
1. 6. 83 As wise as a Court Parliament. Jonson refers here, I suppose, to the famous Courts or Parliaments of Love, which were supposed to have existed during the Middle Ages (cf. Skeat, Chaucer’s Works 7. lxxx).
Cunningham calls attention to the fact that Massinger’s Parliament of Love was not produced until 1624. Jonson depicts a sort of mock Parliament of Love in the New Inn, Act 4.
1. 6. 88 And at all caracts. ‘I. e., to the nicest point, to the minutest circumstance.’—G. See Gloss. and cf. Every Man in, Wks. 1. 70.
1. 6. 89, 90 as scarce hath soule, In stead of salt. Whalley refers to Bart. Fair, Wks. 4. 446, 7: ‘Talk of him to have a soul! ’heart, if he have any more than a thing given him instead of salt, only to keep him from stinking. I’ll be hang’d afore my time.’ Gifford quotes the passage from B. & Fl., Spanish Curate:
—this soul I speake of, Or rather salt, to keep this heap of flesh From being a walking stench.
W. furnishes a Latin parallel: ‘Sus vero quid habet praeter escam? cui quidem, ne putresceret, animam ipsam pro sale datam dicit esse Chrysippus.’—Cic. De Natura Deor, lib. 2.
It is to these passages that Carlyle refers in his Past and Present: ‘A certain degree of soul, as Ben Jonson reminds us, is indispensable to keep the very body from destruction of the frightfulest sort; to ‘save us,’ says he, ’the expense of salt.’ Bk. 2, Ch. 2.
‘In our and old Jonson’s dialect, man has lost the soul out of him; and now, after the due period,—begins to find the want of it.... Man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt.’ (Simpson in N. & Q., 9th Ser. 4. 347, 423.)
To the same Latin source Professor Cook (Mod. Lang. Notes, Feb., 1905) attributes the passage in Rabbi Ben Ezra 43-45:
What is he but a brute Whose flesh has soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
and Samuel Johnson’s ‘famous sentence recorded by Boswell under June 19, 1784: “Talking of the comedy of The Rehearsal, he said: ‘It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.’”’
1. 6. 97 the walks of Lincolnes Inne. One of the famous Inns of Court (note 3.1.8). It formerly pertained to the Bishops of Chichester (Stow, Survey, ed. 1633, p. 488a). The gardens ‘were famous until the erection of the hall, by which they were curtailed and seriously injured’ (Wh-C.). The Tatler (May 10, 1709, no. 13) speaks of Lincoln’s Inn Walks.
1. 6. 99 I did looke for this geere. See variants. Cunningham says: ‘In the original it is geere, and so it ought still to stand. Gear was a word with a most extended signification. Nares defines it, “matter, subject, or business in general!” When Jonson uses the word jeer he spells it quite differently. The Staple of News was first printed at the same time as the present play, and in the beginning of Act IV. Sc. 1, I find: “Fit. Let’s ieere a little. Pen. Ieere? what’s that?”’
It is so spelt regularly throughout The Staple of News, but in Ev. Man in 1. 2 (fol. 1616), we find: ‘Such petulant, geering gamsters that can spare No ... subject from their jest.’ The fact is that both words were sometimes spelt geere, as well as in a variety of other ways. The uniform spelling in The Staple of News, however, seems to indicate that this is the word gear, which fits the context, fully as well as, perhaps better than Gifford’s interpretation. A common meaning is ‘talk, discourse’, often in a depreciatory sense. See Gloss.
1. 6. 125 Things, that are like, are soone familiar. ‘Like will to like’ is a familiar proverb.
1. 6. 127 the signe o’ the husband. An allusion to the signs of the zodiac, some of which were supposed to have a malign and others a beneficent influence.
1. 6. 131 You grow old, while I tell you this.
Hor. [Carm. I. II. 8 f.]: Dum loquimur, fugerit invida Aetas, carpe diem.—G.
Whalley suggested:
Fugit Hora: hoc quod loquor, inde est. —Pers. Sat. 5.
1. 6. 131, 2 And such
As cannot vse the present, are not wise.Cf. Underwoods 36. 21:
To use the present, then, is not abuse.
1. 6. 138 Nay, then, I taste a tricke in’t. Cf. ‘I do taste this as a trick put on me.’ Ev. Man in, Wks. 1. 133. See Introduction, [p. xlvii].
1. 6. 142 cautelous. For similar uses of the word cf. Massinger, City Madam, Wks., p. 321, and B. & Fl., Elder Brother, Wks. 10. 275. Gifford gives an example from Knolles, Hist. of the Turks, p. 904.
1. 6. 149 MAN. Sir, what doe you meane?
153 MAN. You must play faire, Sr. ‘I am not certain about the latter of these two speeches, but it is perfectly unquestionable that the former must have been spoken by the husband Fitzdottrel.’—C.
Cunningham may be right, but the change is unnecessary if we consider Manly’s reproof as occasioned by Fitzdottrel’s interruption.
1. 6. 158, 9 No wit of man
Or roses can redeeme from being an Asse. ‘Here is an allusion to the metamorphosis of Lucian into an ass; who being brought into the theatre to shew tricks, recovered his human shape by eating some roses which he found there. See the conclusion of the treatise, Lucius, sive Asinus.’—W.
See Lehman’s edition, Leipzig, 1826, 6. 215. As Gifford says, the allusion was doubtless more familiar in Jonson’s day than in our own. The story is retold in Harsnet’s Declaration (p. 102), and Lucian’s work seems to have played a rather important part in the discussion of witchcraft.
1. 6. 161 To scape his lading. Cf. note 1. 4. 72.
1. 6. 180 To other ensignes. ‘I. e., to horns, the Insignia of a cuckold.’—G.
1. 6. 187 For the meere names sake. ‘I. e. the name of the play.’—W.
1. 6. 195 the sad contract. See variants. W. and G. are doubtless correct.
1. 6. 214 a guilt caroch. ‘There was some distinction apparently between caroch and coach. I find in Lord Bacon’s will, in which he disposed of so much imaginary wealth, the following bequest: “I give also to my wife my four coach geldings, and my best caroache, and her own coach mares and caroache.”’—C.
Minsheu says that a carroch is a great coach. Cf. also Taylor’s Wks., 1630:
No coaches, or carroaches she doth crave.
Rom Alley, O. Pl., 2d ed., 5. 475:
No, nor your jumblings, In horslitters, in coaches or caroches.
Greene’s Tu Quoque, O. Pl., 2d ed., 7. 28:
May’st draw him to the keeping of a coach For country, and carroch for London.
Cf. also Dekker, Non-dram. Wks. 1. 111. Finally the matter is settled by Howes (p. 867), who gives the date of the introduction of coaches as 1564, and adds: ‘Lastly, euen at this time, 1605, began the ordinary use of Caroaches.’ In Cyn. Rev., Wks. 2. 281, Gifford changes carroch to coach.
1. 6. 216 Hide-parke. Jonson speaks of coaching in Hyde Park in the Prologue to the Staple of News, Wks. 5. 157, and in The World in the Moon, Wks. 7. 343. Pepys has many references to it in his Diary. ‘May 7, 1662. And so, after the play was done, she and The Turner and Mrs. Lucin and I to the Parke; and there found them out, and spoke to them; and observed many fine ladies, and staid till all were gone almost.’
‘April 22, 1664. In their coach to Hide Parke, where great plenty of gallants, and pleasant it was, only for the dust.’
Ashton in his Hyde Park (p. 59) quotes from a ballad in the British Museum (c 1670-5) entitled, News from Hide Park, In which the following lines occur:
Of all parts of England, Hide-park hath the name, For Coaches and Horses, and Persons of fame.
1. 6. 216, 7 Black-Fryers, Visit the Painters. A church, precinct, and sanctuary with four gates, lying between Ludgate Hill and the Thames and extending westward from Castle Baynard (St. Andrew’s Hill) to the Fleet river. It was so called from the settlement there of the Black or Dominican Friars in 1276. Sir A. Vandyck lived here 1632-1641. ‘Before Vandyck, however, Blackfriars was the recognized abode of painters. Cornelius Jansen (d. 1665) lived in the Blackfriars for several years. Isaac Oliver, the miniature painter, was a still earlier resident.’ Painters on glass, or glass stainers, and collectors were also settled here.—Wh-C.
1. 6. 219 a middling Gossip. ‘A go-between, an internuntia, as the Latin writers would have called her.’—W.
1. 6. 224 the cloake is mine. The reading in the folio belonging to Dr. J. M. Berdan of Yale is: ‘the cloake is mine owne.’ This accounts for the variant readings.
1. 6. 230 motion. Spoken derogatively, a ‘performance.’ Lit., a puppet-show. The motion was a descendent of the morality, and exceedingly popular in England at this time. See Dr. Winter, Staple of News, p. 161; Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, p. 166 f.; Knight, London 1. 42. Jonson makes frequent mention of the motion. Bartholomew Fair 5. 5 is largely devoted to the description of one, and Tale Tub 5. 5 presents a series of them.
1. 7. 4 more cheats? See note on Cheaters, [5. 6. 64], and Gloss.
1. 7. 16 The state hath tane such note of ’hem. See note [1. 2. 22].
1. 7. 25 Your Almanack-Men. An excellent account of the Almanac-makers of the 17th century is given by H. R. Plomer in N. & Q.,6th Ser. 12. 243, from which the following is abridged:
‘Almanac-making had become an extensive and profitable trade in this country at the beginning of the 17th century, and with the exception of some fifteen or twenty years at the time of the Rebellion continued to flourish until its close. There were three distinct classes of almanacs published during the seventeenth century—the common almanacs, which preceded and followed the period of the Rebellion, and the political and satirical almanacs that were the direct outcome of that event.
‘The common almanacs came out year after year in unbroken uniformity. They were generally of octavo size and consisted of two parts, an almanac and a prognostication. Good and evil days were recorded, and they contained rules as to bathing, purging, etc., descriptions of the four seasons and rules to know the weather, and during the latter half of the century an astrological prediction and “scheme” of the ensuing year.
‘In the preceding century the makers of almanacs were “Physitians and Preests”, but they now adopted many other titles, such as “Student in Astrology”, “Philomath”, “Well Willer to the Mathematics.” The majority of them were doubtless astrologers, but not a few were quack doctors, who only published their almanacs as advertisements.’ (Almanac, a character in The Staple of News, is described as a ‘doctor in physic.’)
Among the more famous almanac-makers the names of William Lilly, John Partridge and Bretnor may be mentioned. For the last see note 2. 1. 1, and B. & Fl., Rollo, Duke of Normandy, where Fiske and Bretnor appear again. Cf. also Alchemist, Wks. 4. 41; Every Man out, Wks. 2. 39-40; Mag. La., Wks. 6. 74, 5. In Sir Thomas Overbury’s Character of The Almanac-Maker (Morley, p. 56) we read: ‘The verses of his book have a worse pace than ever had Rochester hackney; for his prose, ’tis dappled with ink-horn terms, and may serve for an almanac; but for his judging at the uncertainty of weather, any old shepherd shall make a dunce of him.’