2. 1. 30 do you doubt his eares? Ingine’s speech is capable of a double interpretation. Pug has already spoken of the ‘liberal ears’ of his asinine master.
2. 1. 41 a string of’s purse. Purses, of course, used to be hung at the girdle. A thief was called a cut-purse. See the amusing scene in Bart. Fair, Wks. 5. 406.
2. 1. 53, 4 at the Pan, Not, at the skirts. ‘Pan is not easily distinguished from skirt. Both words seem to refer to the outer parts, or extremities. Possibly Meercraft means—on a broader scale, on a more extended front.’—G.
‘The pan is evidently the deepest part of the swamp, which continues to hold water when the skirts dry up, like the hole in the middle of the tray under a joint when roasting, which collects all the dripping. Meercraft proposed to grapple with the main difficulty at once.’—C.
I had already arrived at the same conclusion before reading Cunningham’s note. The NED. gives: ‘Pan. A hollow or depression in the ground, esp. one in which water stands.
1594 Plat, Jewell-ho 1. 32 Of all Channels, Pondes, Pooles, Riuers, and Ditches, and of all other pannes and bottomes whatsoeuer.’
Pan, however, is also an obsolete form of pane, a cloth or skirt. The use is evidently a quibble. The word pan suggested to Jonson the word skirt, which he accordingly employed not unaptly.
2. 1. 63 his black bag of papers, there, in Buckram. The buckram bag was the usual sign of the pettifogger. Cf. Marston, Malcontent, Wks. 1. 235:
Pass. Ay, as a pettifogger by his buckram bag.
Dekker, If this be not a good Play, Wks. 3. 274: ‘We must all turn pettifoggers and in stead of gilt rapiers, hang buckram bags at our girdles.’ Nash refers to the same thing in Pierce Pennilesse, Wks. 2. 17.