THE NEW INN.
Act I. sc. 1. Host's speech:—
A heavy purse, and then two turtles, makes.—
'Makes', frequent in old books, and even now used in some counties for mates, or pairs.
Ib. sc. 3. Host's speech:—
—And for a leap
O' the vaulting horse, to play the vaulting house.—
Instead of reading with Whalley 'ply' for 'play,' I would suggest 'horse' for 'house.' The meaning would then be obvious and pertinent. The punlet, or pun-maggot, or pun intentional, 'horse and house,' is below Jonson. The 'jeu-de-mots' just below—
Read a lecture
Upon Aquinas at St. Thomas à Waterings—
had a learned smack in it to season its insipidity.
Ib. sc. 6. Lovel's speech:—
Then shower'd his bounties on me, like the Hours,
That open-handed sit upon the clouds,
And press the liberality of heaven
Down to the laps of thankful men!
Like many other similar passages in Jonson, this is {Greek (transliterated): eidos chalepon idein}—a sight which it is difficult to make one's self see,—a picture my fancy cannot copy detached from the words.
Act ii. sc. 5. Though it was hard upon old Ben, yet Felton, it must be confessed, was in the right in considering the Fly, Tipto, Bat Burst, &c. of this play mere dotages. Such a scene as this was enough to damn a new play; and Nick Stuff is worse still,—most abominable stuff indeed!
Act in. sc. 2. Lovel's speech:—
So knowledge first begets benevolence,
Benevolence breeds friendship, friendship love.—
Jonson has elsewhere proceeded thus far; but the part most difficult and delicate, yet, perhaps, not the least capable of being both morally and poetically treated, is the union itself, and what, even in this life, it can be.