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.

dice?

Lack'st thou cards, friend, or

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 Lusty Juventus,
In a cloak to thy heel, and a hat like a pent-house.
Thy breeches of three fingers, and thy doublet all belly,
With a wench that shall feed thee with cockstones
and jelly.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Woolsack. 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; 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.

Spanish pike. Arise Evans was a tailor. 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.

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
He may perchance, in tail of a sheriff's dinner,
Skip with a rhyme on the table, from New-nothing,
And take his Almain-leap into a custard,"
Shall make my lady mayoress and her sisters
Laugh all their hoods over their shoulders. But
This is not that will do, they are other things
That are received now upon earth, for Vices;

5 Cokely and Vennor.] Cokely is elsewhere mentioned by Jonson as master of a puppet-show; he seems also to have been 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 turn'd aside from the plain dealing of his father.

6 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. ii. S. 5.

Our old dramatists abound with pleasant allusions to the enormous size of these "quaking custards," which were served up at the

Stranger and newer and changed every hour.
They ride them like their horses, off their legs,
And here they come to hell, whole legions of them,
Every week tired. We still strive to breed,
And rear up new ones; but they do not stand;
When they come there, they turn them on our hands.
And it is fear'd they have a stud o' their own
Will put down ours: both our breed and trade
Will suddenly decay, if we prevent not.
Unless it be a vice of quality,

Or fashion now, they take none from us.

Carmen

Are got into the yellow starch, and chimney-sweepers

To their tobacco, and strong waters, Hum,

Meath and Obarni.' We must therefore aim

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 :

7

"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."

Carmen

Are got into the yellow starch, and chimney sweepers
To their tobacco, and strong waters, Hum,

Meath and Obarni.] The ridiculous fashion, affected both by the great and small vulgar, of having their ruffs and linen stiffened with a kind of yellow starch was an object of satire to the wits of Jonson's age. It was first brought into vogue by Mrs. Turner, one of the persons employed by the countess of Essex in the poisoning