At extraordinary subtle ones now,
When we do send to keep us up in credit :
Not old Iniquities. Get you e'en back, sir,
To making of your rope of sand again ;
You are not for the manner, nor the times.
They have their vices there, most like to virtues :
You cannot know them apart by any difference:
They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat,
Sleep in the self-same beds, ride in those coaches,
Or very like, four horses in a coach,

As the best men and women.

Tissue gowns,

Garters and roses, fourscore pound a pair,

Embroider'd stockings, cut-work smocks and shirts, More certain marks of letchery now and pride, Than e'er they were of true nobility!

[Exit INIQ.

But, Pug, since you do burn with such desire
To do the commonwealth of hell some service,
I am content, assuming of a body,

You go to earth, and visit men a day.

But you must take a body ready made, Pug;
I can create you none: nor shall you form
Yourself an airy one, but become subject
To all impression of the flesh you take,

of sir Thomas Overbury and as she was soon after executed for her dealings in that affair, with a yellow starched ruff about her neck, the mode became for a time disreputable. WHAL.

Enough, and more than enough has been produced on this tritest of all subjects, yellow starch. On the strong waters mentioned in the quotation, Whalley has nothing; and I have very little to the purpose. Meath is familiar to every reader under the name of metheglin. Hum, I have always understood to be an infusion of spirits in ale or beer. It is mentioned by several of our old dramatists, and appears to have been considered as a kind of cordial. Thus Fletcher: "Lord, what should I ail! what a cold I have over my stomach; would I had some hum!" Wild Goose Chace. Obarni is probably a preparation of usquebaugh; but this is merely conjecture. The word is an ana λɛyouɛvov, (as far as my knowledge reaches,) and I have endeavoured in vain to ascertain the meaning

So far as human frailty. So, this morning,
There is a handsome cut-purse hang'd at Tyburn,
Whose spirit departed, you may enter his body:
For clothes, employ your credit with the hangman,
Or let our tribe of brokers furnish you.

And look how far your subtilty can work
Thorough those organs, with that body, spy
Amongst mankind, (you cannot there want vices,
And therefore the less need to carry them with you,)
But as you make your soon at night's relation,
And we shall find it merits from the state,

You shall have both trust from us, and employment.
Pug. Most gracious chief!

Sat. Only thus more I bind you,

To serve the first man that you meet; and him
I'll shew you now: observe him. Yon is he,

[Shews him FITZDOTTREL coming out of his house
at a distance.

You shall see first after your clothing. Follow him:
But once engaged, there you must stay and fix;
Not shift, until the midnight's cock do crow.
Pug. Any conditions to be gone.

Sat. Away then.

[Exeunt severally.

SCENE II. The Street before FITZDOTTREL'S House.

Enter FITZDOTTREL.

Fitzdottrel.

Y, they do now name Bretnor, as before

They talk'd of Gresham, and of doctor Fore

man,

Franklin, and Fiske, and Savory, he was in too;

8 Ay, they do now name Bretnor, as before

They talk'd of Gresham, and of doctor Foreman,

8

Franklin, and Fiske, and Savory, he was in too.] These were pretenders to soothsaying, in other words, receivers of stolen goods,

But there's not one of these that ever could
Yet shew a man the devil in true sort.
They have their crystals, I do know, and rings,
And virgin-parchment, and their dead men's sculls,
Their ravens' wings, their lights, and pentacles,
With characters; I have seen all these. But-
Would I might see the devil! I would give
A hundred of these pictures to see him
Once out of picture. May I prove a cuckold,
And that's the one main mortal thing I fear,
If I begin not now to think, the painters
Have only made him: 'slight, he would be seen
One time or other else; he would not let
An ancient gentleman, of [as] good a house
As most are now in England, the Fitzdottrels,
Run wild, and call upon him thus in vain,

As I have done this twelvemonth. If he be not
At all, why are there conjurers? if they be not,

pimps, and poisoners. They were all, with the exception of Bretnor, who came later into notice, connected with the infamous countess of Essex and Mrs. Turner, in the murder of sir Thomas Overbury. Of Foreman the reader will find some account in a note to the Silent Woman, A. iv. S. 1. Gresham succeeded him in the service of Mrs. Turner, and being, as Arthur Wilson says, "a rotten engine," was preserved, like his predecessor, from the gallows by an early death. Franklin was hanged at the same time with Mrs. Turner, "a swarthy, sallow, crook-backed fellow, (Wilson says,) as sordid in his death as pernicious in his life, and deserving not even so much as memory, p. 82. He was the purveyor of the poison. Fiske is often mentioned by Lilly; and appears to have been just such another ignorant and impudent impostor as himself and Dr. Foreman. "He was a licentiate in physick, exquisitely skilful in the art of directions upon nativities, and had a good genius in performing judgment thereupon -Oh learned esquire !" this pathetic apostrophe is to the dupe of these miscreants, the worthy Ashmole, "he died about the seventyeighth year of his age, poor." Lilly's History, p. 44. Fiske is introduced as a cheating rogue, in Fletcher's Rollo Duke of Normandy. if they be not, &c.] It is not a little amusing to find Fitzdottrel deep in the Dialectics of Chrysippus. This is the very syllogism by which that acute philosopher triumphantly proved the reality of augury. De Divinatione, Lib. 1. § 71.

9

Why are there laws against them? The best artists
Of Cambridge, Oxford, Middlesex and London,
Essex and Kent, I have had in pay to raise him,
These fifty weeks, and yet he appears not. 'Sdeath,
I shall suspect they can make circles only

Shortly, and know but his hard names. They do say,
He will meet a man, of himself, that has a mind to him.
If he would so, I have a mind and a half for him :
He should not be long absent. Prithee come,
I long for thee:-an I were with child by him,
And my wife too, I could not more.
Come yet,

Good Beelzebub. Were he a kind devil,
And had humanity in him, he would come, but
To save one's longing. I should use him well,
I swear, and with respect; would he would try me!
Not as the conjurers do, when they have raised him,
Get him in bonds, and send him post on errands
A thousand miles; it is preposterous, that;
And, I believe, is the true cause he comes not :
And he has reason. Who would be engaged,
That might live freely, as he may do? I swear,
They are wrong all. The burnt child dreads the fire.
They do not know to entertain the devil:

I would so welcome him, observe his diet,
Get him his chamber hung with arras, two of 'em,
In my own house, lend him my wife's wrought pillows;
And as I am an honest man, I think,

If he had a mind to her too, I should grant him,
To make our friendship perfect: so I would not
To every man. If he but hear me now,
And should come to me in a brave young shape,
And take me at my word ?—

Enter PUG handsomely shaped and apparelled.

Ha! who is this? Pug. Sir, your good pardon, that I thus presume Upon your privacy. I am born a gentleman,

A younger brother, but in some disgrace

Now with my friends; and want some little means To keep me upright, while things be reconciled.'1 Please you to let my service be of use to you, sir.

Fitz. Service! 'fore hell, my heart was at my mouth, 'Till I had view'd his shoes well for those roses Were big enough to hide a cloven foot. [Aside. No, friend, my number's full. I have one servant, Who is my all, indeed; and from the broom Unto the brush: for just so far I trust him. He is my wardrobe-man, my cater, cook, Butler, and steward: looks unto my horse; And helps to watch my wife. He has all the places That I can think on, from the garret downward, Even to the manger, and the curry-comb.

Pug. Sir, I shall put your worship to no charge, More than my meat, and that but very little; I'll serve you for your love.

Fitz. Ha! without wages?

I'd hearken o' that ear, were I at leisure.

But now I am busy. Prithee, friend, forbear me
An thou hadst been a devil, I should say

Somewhat more to thee: thou dost hinder now
My meditations.

Pug. Sir, I am a devil.

Fitz. How!

Pug. A true devil, sir.

Fitz. Nay, now you lie;

Under your favour, friend, for I'll not quarrel.3

1

2

while things be reconciled,] i. e. until.

- for those roses

Were big enough to hide a cloven foot.] I have already noticed the preposterous size of this fashionable article of dress; a passage, which was then overlooked, may serve to shew that the poet is guilty of no exaggeration in the description of it. "He hath in the shoe as much taffetie for the tyings, as would serve for an ancient:" i. e. an ensign. Nashe's Unfortunate Traveller, 1598.

3 Under your favour, friend, &c.] This was one of the qualifying expressions, by which, "according to the laws of the duello,"