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 employ ment. 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. SCENE II. [Exeunt severally. The Street before Fitzdottrel's House. Enter FITZDOTTREL. Fitz. Ay, they do now name Bretnor, as before They talk'd of Gresham, and of doctor Foreman, Franklin, and Fiske, and Savory, he was in too;' Ay, they do now name Bretnor, as before They talk'd of Gresham, and of doctor Foreman, Franklin, and Fiske, and Savory, he was in too;] These were pretenders to soothsaying, in other words, receivers of stolen. goods, pimps, and poisoners. They were all, with the exception VOL. V. C But there's not one of these that ever could Their ravens' wings, their lights, and pentacles, 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, vol. iii. p. 428. 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 seventy-eighth 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 ot 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: Get him in bonds, and send him post on errands 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; 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. 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 'Till I had view'd his shoes well: for those roses 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; (vol. iii. P 368;) 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. c. an ensign. Nashe's Unfortunate Traveller, 1598. 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. Somewhat more to thee: thou dost hinder now. Pug. Sir, I am a devil. Pug. A true devil, sir. Under your favour, friend, for I'll not quarrel. Fitz. What's your name? Pug. My name is Devil, sir. Fitz. Say'st thou true? Pug. Indeed, sir. Fitz. 'Slid, there's some omen in this! What countryman? Pug. Of Derbyshire, sir, about the Peak. Belong'd to your ancestors? Pug. Yes, Devil's arse, sir. Fitz. I'll entertain him for the name sake. Ha! And turn away my t'other man, and save 5 Under your favour, friend, &c.] This was one of the qualifying expressions, by which, "according to the laws of the duello," the lie might be given, without subjecting the speaker to the absolute necessity of receiving a challenge. To this Fitzdottrel alludes in the next hemistich-for I'll not quarrel, The remainder of the speech refers to the vulgar opinion. respecting the devil, which is also noticed by Shakspeare, "I look down towards his feet;-but that's a fable." Othello. |