‘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.