Come to the Town-house, and see a play: At three a’clock it shall begin.
See Collier, Annals 3. 377. Sir Humphrey Mildmay, in his Ms. Diary (quoted Annals 2. 70), speaks several times of going to the play-house after dinner.
3. 5. 39 his Damme. NED. gives a use of the phrase ‘the devil and his dam’ as early as Piers Plowman, 1393. The ‘devil’s dam’ was later applied opprobriously to a woman. It is used thus in Shakespeare, Com. Err. 4. 3. 51. The expression is common throughout the literature of the period.
3. 5. 43 But to be seene to rise, and goe away. Cf. Dekker, Guls Horne-booke, Non-dram. Wks. 2. 253: ‘Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammd you, or hath had a flirt at your mistris, ... you shall disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket ... if, in the middle of his play, ... you rise with a screwd and discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast them.’
3. 5. 45, 6 But say, that he be one,
Wi’ not be aw’d! but laugh at you. In the Prologue to Massinger’s Guardian we find:
—nor dares he profess that when The critics laugh, he’ll laugh at them agen. (Strange self-love in a writer!)
Gifford says of this passage: ‘This Prologue contains many sarcastick allusions to Old Ben, who produced, about this time, his Tale of a Tub, and his Magnetic Lady, pieces which failed of success, and which, with his usual arrogance, (strange self-love in a writer!) he attributed to a want of taste in the audience.’—Massinger’s (Wks., ed. 1805, 4. 121.)
The Guardian appeared in 1633, two years after the printing of The Devil is an Ass. It seems certain that the reference is to the present passage.
3. 5. 47 pay for his dinner himselfe. The custom of inviting the poet to dinner or supper seems to have been a common one. Dekker refers to it in the Guls Horne-booke, Non-dram. Wks. 2. 249. Cf. also the Epilogue to the present play.
3. 5. 47 Perhaps, He would doe that twice, rather then thanke you. ‘This ill-timed compliment to himself, Jonson might have spared, with some advantage to his judgment, at least, if not his modesty.’—G.