————————— "Lower messes,
Perchance, are to this business purblind."[75:A]
Dekkar, likewise, in his play called The Honest Whore, 1604, mentions in strong terms the degradation of sitting beneath the salt: "Plague him, set him beneath the salt; and let him not touch a bit, till every one has had his full cut."[75:B] Hall too, in the sixth satire of his second book, published in 1597, when depicting the humiliated state of the squire's chaplain, says, that he must not
"ever presume to sit above the salt:"
and Jonson, in his Cynthia's Revells, speaking of a coxcomb, says, "his fashion is, not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinkes below the salt." See act i. sc. 2.
This invidious regulation appears to have extended far into the seventeenth century; for Massinger in his City Madam, acted in 1632, thus notices it:
——————— "My proud lady
Admits him to her table, marry, ever
Beneath the salt, and there he sits the subject
Of her contempt and scorn:"[75:C]