The source of Wittipol’s description of the ‘Cioppino’, and the mishap attendant upon its use, was probably taken from a contemporary book of travels. A passage in Coryat’s Crudities furnishes the necessary information and a similar anecdote, and was doubtless used by Jonson (see note [4. 4. 69]). Coryat was patronized by the poet. Similarly, another passage in the Crudities seems to have suggested the project of the forks (see note [5. 4. 17]).
A curious resemblance is further to be noted between several passages in The Devil is an Ass and Underwoods 62. The first draft of this poem may have been written not long before the present play (see Fleay, Chron. 1. 329-30) and so have been still fresh in the poet’s mind. The passage DA. 3. 2. 44-6 shows unmistakably that the play was the borrower, and not the poem. Gifford suggests that both passages were quoted from a contemporary posture-book, but the passage in the epigram gives no indication of being a quotation.
The chief parallels are as follows: U. 62. 10-14 and DA. 3. 3. 165-6; U. 62. 21-2 and DA. 3. 3. 169-72; U. 62. 25-6 and DA. 3. 2. 44-6; U. 62. 45-8 and DA. 2. 8. 19-22. These passages are all quoted in the notes. In addition, there are a few striking words and phrases that occur in both productions, but the important likenesses are all noted above. In no other poem except Charis, The Gipsies, and Underwoods 36,[65] where the borrowings are unmistakably intentional, is there any thing like the same reworking of material as in this instance.
III. Specific Objects of Satire
The Devil is an Ass has been called of all Jonson’s plays since Cynthia’s Revels the most obsolete in the subjects of its satire.[66] The criticism is true, and it is only with some knowledge of the abuses which Jonson assails that we can appreciate the keenness and precision of his thrusts. The play is a colossal exposé of social abuses. It attacks the aping of foreign fashions, the vices of society, and above all the cheats and impositions of the unscrupulous swindler. But we miss its point if we fail to see that Jonson’s arraignment of the society which permitted itself to be gulled is no less severe than that of the swindler who practised upon its credulity. Three institutions especially demand an explanation both for their own sake and for their bearing upon the plot. These are the duello, the monopoly, and the pretended demoniacal possession.
1. The Duello
The origin of private dueling is a matter of some obscurity. It was formerly supposed to be merely a development of the judicial duel or combat, but this is uncertain. Dueling flourished on the Continent, and was especially prevalent in France during the reign of Henry III. Jonson speaks of the frequency of the practice in France in The Magnetic Lady.
No private duel seems to have occurred in England before the sixteenth century, and the custom was comparatively rare until the reign of James I. Its introduction was largely due to the substitution of the rapier for the broadsword. Not long after this change in weapons fencing-schools began to be established and were soon very popular. Donald Lupton, in his London and the Countrey carbonadoed, 1632, says they were usually set up by ‘some low-country soldier, who to keep himself honest from further inconveniences, as also to maintain himself, thought upon this course and practises it’.[67]
The etiquette of the duel was a matter of especial concern. The two chief authorities seem to have been Jerome Carranza, the author of a book entitled Filosofia de las Armas,[68] and Vincentio Saviolo, whose Practise was translated into English in 1595. It contained two parts, the first ‘intreating of the vse of the rapier and dagger’, the second ‘of honor and honorable quarrels’. The rules laid down in these books were mercilessly ridiculed by the dramatists; and the duello was a frequent subject of satire.[69]
By 1616 dueling must have become very common. Frequent references to the subject are found about this time in the Calendar of State Papers. Under date of December 9, 1613, we read that all persons who go abroad to fight duels are to be censured in the Star Chamber. On February 17, 1614, ‘a proclamation, with a book annexed’, was issued against duels, and on February 13, 1617, the King made a Star Chamber speech against dueling, ‘on which he before published a sharp edict’.