Give you him all you play for; never set He is of the only best complexion, For he will have it. Face. You are mistaken, doctor. Why, he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly; none of your great familiars. Dap. Yes, captain, I would have it for all games. Sub. I told you so. Face. [Taking Dap. aside.] 'Slight, that is a new business! I understood you, a tame bird, to fly Twice in a term, or so, on Friday nights, When you had left the office, for a nag Of forty or fifty shillings. Dap. Ay, 'tis true, sir; But I do think now I shall leave the law,' And therefore Face. Why, this changes quite the case. Do you think that I dare move him? Dap. If you please, sir; All's one to him, I see. Face. What! for that money? I cannot with my conscience; nor should you Make the request, methinks. Dap. No, sir, mean To add consideration. I'll try. [Goes to Subtle.] Say that it were for all games, doctor? Sub. I say then, not a mouth shall eat for him At any ordinary, but on the score, Sub. He'll draw you all the treasure of the realm, As cannot be resisted. 'Slight, he'll put Six of your gallants to a cloke,3 indeed. Face. A strange success, that some man shall be born to! Sub. He hears you, man Dap. Sir, I'll not be ingrateful. Face. Faith, I have confidence in his good nature: You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful. Sub. Why, as you please; my venture follows yours. Face. Troth, do it, doctor; think him trusty, and make him. He may make us both happy in an hour;4 Win some five thousand pound, and send us two on't. Dap. Believe it, and I will, sir. You have heard all? [Takes him aside. with this title: "M. Joannis Isaaci Hollandi Opera mineralia et vegetatilia, sive de lapide philosophico quæ reperiri potuerunt, omnia." He'll put 3 Six of your gallants to a cloke,] i.e., strip them to the cloke; the last thing which " a gallant" parted with, as it served to conceal the loss of the rest. Cartwright, a devoted follower of Jonson, has imitated, or rather caricatured, much of this dialogue in the Ordinary. You'd swear, were in him;] The poet alludes to the two famous chemists, Isaac and John Isaac Hollandus, who flourished about this time, and wrote several treatises on Alchemy." WHAL The works of the latter were published in 1617, He may make us both happy in an hour;] Go, be close and happy." Besides, the queen of Fairy does not rise Face. Not, if she danced, to-night. Face. Your aunt of Fairy? Sub. Not since she kist him in the cradle, captain; I can resolve you that. Face. Well, see her grace, Whate'er it cost you, for a thing that I know. It will be somewhat hard to compass; but However, see her. You are made, believe it, If you can see her. Her grace is a lone hateful of them, Sir Henry Herbert, in his examination of The Wits of Davenant, had marked, it appears, a number of harmless inter 1 You were born with a cawl on your head.] This prognostication of good fortune is alluded to by many of our old writers. Thus in Elvira: "Were we not born with cawls upon our heads,jections, which might have subjected the poet to Think'st thou, Chichon, to come off thrice a-row, Thus safely from such dangerous adventures?" This superstition, which is of very ancient date, is even now prevalent in many weak minds. 2 I' fac's no oath.] An allusion perhaps to the petty salvos by which the Puritans contrived to evade the charge of swearing: unless it be rather aimed at the strictness with which the Masters of the Revels affected to revise the language of the stage. That some revision was but too necessary is abundantly clear; but these tasteless and officious tyrants acted with little discrimination, and were always more ready to prove their authority than their judgment. The most interfered, and Sir Henry has thus recorded his some punishment: but the good-natured Charles pleased to take faith, death, slight, &c. for spleen and disappointment: "The kinge is asseverations, and no oathes-to which I doe humbly submit as my master's judgment; but under favour do conceive them to be oathes, and enter them here to declare my submission and opinion." 3 And they cry buz, &c.] From a singular passage in Selden relating to the punishment of witchcraft, it would seem that buz was a kind of cabalistical word, used by the impostors of those days in their invocations. "If one should profess, that by turning his hat thrice and crying buz! he could take away a man's life (though in truth he could do no such thing), yet this were a just law made by the state, that whosoever should turn his hat thrice and cry buz! with an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to death."-Vol. iii. p. 2077. Mr. Scott has misapprehended this passage (if it be this to which he alludes). He says (Dryden's Works, vol. xv. p. 297) that "it was the absurd and cruel doctrine of one of the English lawyers, that if a man firmly believes that by whirling his hat round his head and crying bo he could occasion the death of an enemy, he becomes by performing that ceremony guilty of murder." Here all the characteristics of the original are lost: not to observe that Selden speaks of a law to be passed in consequence of a practice which might have very serious effects, and which must then be a direct and wilful violation of this supposed law. I do, If I do see them-] Subtle is facetious, and plays upon the word angel, which he takes for a coin, and poor Abel for an attendant spirit. 5 He has his maple block, his silver tongs, should be observed that the houses of druggists Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper.] It (tobacconists) were not merely furnished with tobacco, but with conveniences for smoking it. Every well frequented shop was an academy of this "noble art," where professors regularly attended to initiate the country aspirant. Abel's shop is very graphically described, and seems to be one of the most fashionable kind. The ས།།༤༡ས།་་ maple block was for shredding the tobacco leaf, the silver tongs for holding the coal, and the fire of juniper for the customers to light their pipes. Juniper is not lightly mentioned: "when once kindled," Fuller says, "it is hardly quenched:" and Upton observes, from Cardan, that "a coal of juniper, if covered with its own ashes, will retain its fire a whole year." 1 Mr. Bowle, the author of some very stupid notes on Milton, (see the late editions of that poet), has chosen to "vent his folly" on Jonson also, and to accuse him in his Reflections on Originality, of " plagiarism, tediousness, and obscurity.' "A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith." A quaint distinction-and no goldsmith! It means possibly that he had not the chrysosperme (the philosopher's stone). It is, however, by no means obvious that this is the real meaning, and therefore it must remain hardly intelligible, &c. p. 66. This egregious critic did not know that goldsmiths, in Jonson's age, were not only bankers, but brokers and money: lenders. Abel was a good, "honest fellow," and no usurer. This is the simple meaning of the passage, produced with such parade to convict Jonson of "obscurity." His "plagiarism" (for we may as well dismiss the critic at once) is proved by his taking a trite line from Martialmarked by the poet himself, be it observed, as a quotation; and happily detected, after a lapse of two centuries, by this sagacious gentleman. The "tediousness" is thus brought home to him. Abel says (infra, p. 17 6): " Does never fail: and your long ear doth promise. I knew 't, by certain spots, too, in his teeth, And on the nail of his mercurial finger.4 Sub. The thumb, in chiromancy, we give Venus; The forefinger to Jove; the midst to Saturn; The ring to Sol; the least to Mercury, Who was the lord, sir, of his horoscope, His house of life being Libra; which foreshewed He should be a merchant, and should trade with balance. Face. Why, this is strange! Is it not, honest Nab? Sub. There is a ship now coming from That shall yield him such a commodity south? Drug. Yes, sir. 2 This summer He will be of the clothing of his company, And next spring called to the scarlet ;] i.e., he will this year be brought upon the livery of the Grocers' Company, and the next be drank to as sheriff. two words have the same origin (which is not 3 I am amused at that !] i.e., amazed. The that given by Dr. Johnson) and were once per"I am amused, or I am in a quandary, gentleThus in Mons. d'Olive: fectly synonymous. men; for, in good faith, I remember not very well whether of them was my word," act ii. sc. 1. See vol. iii. p. 131. I knew't, by certain spots too, in his teeth, And on the nail of his mercurial finger.] Our poet's authority is Cardan: "Sunt etiam in nobis vestigia quædam futurorum eventuum in unguibus, atque etiam in dentibus-sed pro manus natura, et digitorum in quibus fiunt, et colorum, et mutatione eorum.”—WHAL. Sub. And a direction for his shelves. Art thou well pleased, Nab? Drug. "Thank, sir, both your worships. Face. Away. [Exit Drugger. Why, now, you smoaky persecutor of nature! Now do you see, that something's to be done, Beside your beech-coal, and your corsive waters, Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites? You must have stuff, brought home to you, to work on: And yet you think, I am at no expense In searching out these veins, then following them, attempt at, &c. Subtle See vol. i. p. 269 a. alludes to this speech, p. 35. 3 Yes, I have a portague, &c.] A gold coin worth about three pounds twelve shillings. It was very common in this country not many years since, and principally on those parts of the coast most addicted to smuggling. See p. 16. And cross out my ill days, &c.] In our old almanacks, as may be collected from the dramatic poets, the days supposed to be favourable or unfavourable to buying and selling, were usually distinguished by particular marks. See vol. i. p. 77 a. Mr. Steevens had one of them in his possession, dated 1562, and another, but of a more recent period, is mentioned by Aubrey, with similar advantages. There is some well meant ridicule of this practice in a curious old pamphlet called The Owles' Almanack, in which every day of the month has its appropriate fortune annexed to it. |