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.