And you will see, there will come more upon't, Than you'll imagine, precious chief.

Sat. What Vice?

What kind wouldst thou have it of?
Pug. Why any: Fraud,

Or Covetousness, or lady Vanity,
Or old Iniquity.

Sat. I'll call him hither.

Enter INIQUITY.

Iniq. What is he calls upon me, and would seem to lack a Vice?

Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice;

Here, there, and every where, as the cat is with the mice:

True Vetus Iniquitas. Lack'st thou cards, friend, or dice?

I will teach thee [to] cheat, child, to cog, lie and swagger,

And ever and anon to be drawing forth thy dagger:

To swear by Gogs-nowns, like a LustyJuventus,* In a cloak to thy heel, and a hat like a penthouse.

Thy breeches of three fingers, and thy doublet all belly,

With a wench that shall feed thee with cockstones and jelly.

2

like a Lusty Juventus.] This is an allusion to the chief personage in the Morality of that name, written so early as the reign of Edward VI. by one Wever. The language which Iniquity gives to Juventus, is taken from his licentious conversation, after he had been perverted by Hypocrisie, the Vice of the piece. It has a serious cast, and was professedly written to favour the Reformation.

Pug. Is it not excellent, chief? how nimble he is !3

Iniq. Child of hell, this is nothing! I will fetch thee a leap

From the top of Paul's steeple to the standard in Cheap:

And lead thee a dance thro' the streets, without fail,

Like a needle of Spain, with a thread at my tail.

3- How nimble he is! A perfect idea of his activity may be formed, as I have already observed, from the incessant skipping of the modern Harlequin. In saying, however, that he would take a leap from the top of Paul's steeple, Iniquity boasts of a feat which he could not perform, inasmuch, as St. Paul's had no steeple. It was burnt, together with the tower, and a great part of the roof of the church, in 1561, and though the latter was speedily repaired, all attempts to rebuild the former came to nought. "Concerning the steeple (Stow says) divers models were devised and made, but little was done, through whose default God knoweth." 1598. In 1632, Lupton writes, The head of St. Paul's hath been twice troubled with a burning fever, and so the city, to keep it from a third danger, lets it stand without a head." London Carbonadoed. In this state it was found by the great fire. The Puritans took a malignant、 pleasure in this mutilated state of the cathedral, for which they are frequently reprimanded by the dramatic poets, who appear to have been the most clear-sighted politicians of those troublous times. One example may suffice:

Mic. I am church-warden, and we are this year

To build our steeple up; now, to save charges,
I'll get a high-crown'd hat with five low-bells
To make a peal shall serve as well as Bow.
Col. "Tis wisely cast,

And like a careful steward of the church,
Of which the steeple is no part, at least,
No necessary.

Bird. Verily, 'tis true.

They are but wicked synagogues where those instruments
Of superstition and idolatry ring

Warning to sin, and chime all in to the devil."

Muses Looking Glass.

4 Like a needle of Spain.] Randolph, in his Amyntas, tells us

We will survey the suburbs, and make forth our sallies

Down Petticoat-lane and up the Smock-alleys, To Shoreditch, Whitechapel, and so to St. Kathern's,

To drink with the Dutch there, and take forth their patterns:

From thence, we will put in at Custom-house key there,

And see how the factors and prentices play there False with their masters, and geld many a full

pack,

To spend it in pies, at the Dagger and the Wool

sack.

Pug. Brave, brave, Iniquity! will not this do, chief?

Iniq. Nay, boy, I will bring thee to the bawds and the roysters,

At Billinsgate, feasting with claret-wine and oysters;

66

that "the spits of the fairies are made of Spanish needles ;” but, indeed, the expression is too common for notice. In the Sun's Darling, by Ford, Folly says of one of the characters, He is a French gentleman that trails a Spanish pike, a taylor." Upon which the editor observes, "I cannot discover the force of this allusion, except it be to the thinness of the taylor's legs!" The editor is not fortunate in his guesses. The allusion is to the taylor's needle, which, in cant language, was commonly termed a Spanish pike. In the satirical catalogue of books by sir John Birkenhead is, "The Sting of Conscience, a tract written with the sharp end of Arise Evans's Spanish pike. Arise Evans was a taylor. Mr. Weber had not discovered that the best needles, as well as other sharp instruments, were, in that age, and indeed long before and after it, imported from Spain: if he had ever looked into Jonson, whom he is so forward to revile, he might have seen the "force of the allusion," and, probably, discovered, in addition to it, that the name of this great poet might be cited for better purposes than the gratification of wanton malice, or the sport of incorrigible folly.

From thence shoot the Bridge, child, to the Cranes in the Vintry,

And see there the gimblets, how they make their entry!

Or if thou hadst rather to the Strand down to fall, 'Gainst the lawyers come dabbled from Westminster hall,

And mark how they cling, with their clients together,

Like ivy to oak, so velvet to leather:
Ha, boy, I wou'd shew thee-

Pug. Rare, rare!

Sat. Peace, dotard,

And thou, more ignorant thing, that so admir'st; Art thou the spirit thou seem'st? so poor, to choose,

This for a Vice, to advance the cause of hell,
Now, as vice stands this present year? Remember
What number it is, six hundred and sixteen.
Had it but been five hundred, though some sixty.
Above; that's fifty years agone, and six,
When every great man had his Vice stand by him,
In his long coat, shaking his wooden dagger,
I could consent, that then this your grave choice
Might have done that, with his lord chief, the
which

Most of his chamber can do now. But, Pug,
As the times are, who is it will receive you?
What company will you go to, or whom mix with?
Where canst thou carry him, except to taverns,
To mount upon a joint-stool, with a Jew's trump,
To put down Cokely, and that must be to citizens?
He ne'er will be admitted there, where Vennor
comes."

5 Cokely and Vennor.] Cokely is elsewhere mentioned by Jonson as master of a puppet-show; he seems also to have been

He may perchance, in tail of a sheriff's dinner, Skip with a rhyme on the table, from Newnothing,

And take his Almain-leap into a custard,

famous for tricks of legerdemain. Of Vennor, his superior in the art, I can give the reader no information. In Taylor's Cast over the Water, he mentions

"Poor old Vennor, that plain dealing man,

Who acted" England's Joy" at the Old Swan."

If the Vennor of the text be, as I suppose, the son of this person, he seems to have turned aside from the plain dealing of his father.

• And take his Almain-leap into a custard.] In the earlier days, when the City kept a fool, it was customary for him, at public entertainments, to leap into a large bowl of custard set on purpose: there is an allusion to this piece of mirth in Shakspeare. WHAL.

Whalley alludes to All's well that end's well. "You have made a shift to run into it, boots and all, like him that leapt into the custard." A. 2. S. 5.

Our old dramatists abound with pleasant allusions to the enormous size of these "quaking custards," which were served up at the city feasts, and with which such gross fooleries were played. Thus Glapthorne:

"I'll write the city annals

In metre, which shall far surpass Sir Guy

Of Warwick's history; or John Stow's, upon
The custard, with the four and twenty nooks
At my lord mayor's feast." Wit in a Const.

Indeed, no common supply was required; for, besides what the Corporation (great devourers of custard) consumed on the spot, it appears that it was thought no breach of city manners to send, or take some of it home with them for the use of their ladies. In the excellent old play quoted above, Clara twits her uncle with this practice:

"Nor shall you, sir, as 'tis a frequent custom,
Cause you're a worthy alderman of a ward,
Feed me with custard, and perpetual white broth
Sent from the lord mayor's feast, and kept ten days,
Till a new dinner from the common hall
Supply the large defect."