We need not wonder, therefore, that the comedists took their fun out of the new custom, especially in relation to their length and pronunciation in full. In Cowley’s “Cutter of Colman Street,” Cutter turns Puritan, and thus addresses the colonel’s widow, Tabitha:
“Sister Barebottle, I must not be called Cutter any more: that is a name of Cavalier’s darkness; the Devil was a Cutter from the beginning: my name is now Abednego: I had a vision which whispered to me through a key-hole, ‘Go, call thyself Abednego.’”
In his epilogue to this same comedy, Cutter is supposed to address the audience as a “congregation of the elect,” the playhouse is a conventicle, and he is a “pious cushion-thumper.” Gazing about the theatre, he says—through his nose, no doubt—
“But yet I wonder much not to espy a
Brother in all this court called Zephaniah.”
This is a better rhyme even than Butler’s
“Their dispensations had been stifled
But for our Adoniram Byfield.”
In Brome’s “Covent Garden Weeded,” the arrival at the vintner’s door is thus described:
“Rooksbill. Sure you mistake him, sir.
Vintner. You are welcome, gentlemen: Will, Harry, Zachary!
Gabriel. Zachary is a good name.