‘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.