To say she came forth of a tavern was said like a paltry poet.1 Mirth. That's but one gossip's opinion, and my Gossip Tattle's too! but what says Expectation here? She sits sullen and silent. Expect. Troth, I expect their office, their great office, the Staple, what it will be! they have talked on't, but we see it not open yet.-Would Butter would come in, and spread itself a little to us! Mirth. Or the butter-box, Buz, the emissary. Tat. When it is churned and dished we shall hear of it. Expect. If it be fresh and sweet butter; but say it be sour and wheyish? Mirth. Then it is worth nothing, mere pot butter, fit to be spent in suppositories, or greasing coach-wheels, stale stinking butter, and such, I fear, it is by the being barrelled up so long. Expect. Or rank Irish butter. Cen. Have patience, gossip; say that, contrary to our expectation, it prove right, seasonable, salt butter? Mirth. Or to the time of year, in Lent, delicate almond butter! I have a sweet tooth yet, and I will hope the best, and sit down as quiet and calm as butter, look as smooth and soft as butter, be merry and melt like butter, laugh and be fat like butter so butter answer my expectation, and be not mad butter: 1 To say she came forth of a tavern was said like a paltry poet.] This is said, however, by the writers of her life. The blessed Pokahontas was in womb of tavern both at Deptford and Gravesend. 2 Would Butter would come in.] See p. 286. Enough has now been said on this subject. Buz, the emissary, was evidently a Dutchman. 3 "Something too much of this "--but the allusion is to the old proverb, Butter is mad twice a year, i.e., in July, when it is too soft, and in December, when it is too hard. to be none of his news, or any reasonable man's; but news made like the time's news (a weekly cheat to draw money), and could not be fitter reprehended than in raising this ridiculous office of the Staple, wherein the age may see her own folly, or hunger and thirst after published pamphlets of news, set out every Saturday, but made all at home, and no syllable of truth in them: than which there cannot be a greater disease in nature, or a fouler scorn put upon the times. And so apprehending it, you shall do the author and your own judgment a courtesy, This act, it appears, gave offence, and there- and perceive the trick of alluring money to the fore Jonson thought proper to prefix the follow-office, and there cozening the people. If you ing notice to it, before the play was given to the have the truth rest quiet, and consider that Ficta, voluptatis causâ, sint proxima veris.” It argues very little for the good sense of the audience to take offence at a piece of satire so just and well timed as this evidently was. Not one part in a thousand of the ridiculous stories fabricated, and propagated in the poet's time as authentic news, is come down to us; and yet more than enough remains to prove that the public credulity was imposed upon by the Fittons of the day, in the most gross and shameless manner. press: "TO THE READER. "In this following act the Office is opened, and shown to the Prodigal and his Princess Pecunia, wherein the allegory and purpose of the author hath hitherto been wholly mistaken, and so sinister an interpretation been made, as if the souls of most of the spectators had lived in the eyes and ears of these ridiculous gossips that tattle between the acts. But he prays you thus to mend it. To consider the news here vented The register, examiner, and the clerks? To make her visit. Pennyboy, the heir, Now is your time to make all court unto her, That she may first but know, then love the place, And shew it by her frequent visits here: And afterwards get her to sojourn with you. She will be weary of the prodigal quickly. Fit. And counsel of an oracle! I shall adore thee for this parcel of tidings, And entertain her and her creatures too, With all the migniardise and quaint Pick. We'll sustain their parts. No matter, let them ply the affairs without, Let us alone within, I like that well. On with the cloke, and you with the Staple gown, [Fit. puts on the office cloke, and Cym. the gown. And keep your state, stoop only to the Infanta; We'll have a flight at Mortgage, Statute, Band, And hard but we'll bring Wax to the retrieve :3 Each know his several province, and discharge it. [They take their seats. Fit. I do admire this nimble engine, Picklock. Cym. Coz, what did I say? Tho. "They write here one Cornelius- Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel P. jun. But how is't done? It is an automa, runs under water, Betwixt the costs of a ship, and sinks it straight. P. jun. Whence have you this news? Fit. From a right hand, I assure you, The eel boats here, that lie before Queenhythe, Came out of Holland. P. jun. A most brave device, To murder their flat bottoms. Fit. I do grant you: But what if Spinola have a new project Are shod with cork, and fourscore pieces of ordnance, Mounted upon corl: carriages, with bladders Instead of wheels, to run the passage over At a spring tide. P. jun. Is't true? Fit. As true as the rest. P. jun. He'll never leave his engines: I would hear now Some curious news. Cym. As what? P. jun. Magic or alchemy, Or flying in the air, I care not what. Nath. "They write from Libtzig (reverence to your ears) The art of drawing farts out of dead bodies Is by the brotherhood of the Rosie Cross Produced unto perfection, in so sweet And rich a tincture 1 " She wriggles Fit. As there is no princess But may perfume her chamber with the extraction. P. jun. There's for you, princess! P. jun. I mean the spirit. P. Can. Beware how she resents it. Is here found out by an ale-wife in Saint- At the sign of the Dancing Bears." P. jun. What, from her tap? He can make that discovery. [Noise without. P. jun. Let me have all this news made up and sealed. Reg. The people press upon us. Please you, sir, Withdraw with your fair princess: there's I 1 Cust.] A marginal note describes this Betwixt the costs of a ship.] i.e., the ribs; first customer as 'a dopper (dipper) or sheBaptist." from the Latin costa.-WHAL. And the whole time, according to Nao- Or some such head, of whose long coat metry." P. jun. What's that? Tho. The measuring of the temple; a cabal Found out but lately, and set out by Archie, 1 The prophet Baal, to be sent over to them, To calculate a time, and half a time, And the whole time,] This was intended to ridicule the fanatics of those days, who dealt much in expounding the prophecies contained in the Revelations, and applied them to themselves. We read that the woman fled from the face of the serpent into the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, Revel. xii. 14. By the prophet Baal, is meant any factious leader, like John Baal, a Kentish minister, and fomenter of the rebellion by Wat Tyler in Richard II.'s time.-WHAL. This Baal was, as Whalley says, a principal mover in the rebellion, and by his pretended prophecies kept up the seditious spirit of the people. He was an excommunicated priest, and called himself chaplain to the insurrectionary army. Gower, like Jonson, terms him a prophet: "Balle propheta docet quem spiritus ante malig nus Edocuitque, sua tunc fuit alta schola." Some of the lines in which the agents of the pseudo-prophet instigate one another to fury, are curious from the muster-roll of names. "Watte vocat cui Thome venit, neque Simme retardat, Batteque Gibbe simul Hykke venire jubent. Colle furit, quem Gibbe juvat nocumenta parantes Cum quibus ad damnum Wille coire vovet. Hudde ferit quos Fudde terit, dum Tibbe juvatur, Jakke domosque viros vellit et ense necat.” Vox Clam. After all, it was not necessary for the poet to have recourse to the times of Richard II. for a fanatic; his own age furnished them in abundance; Osborne says that many of the Puritans believed Prince Henry to be prefigured in the Apocalypse, and boldly prophesied that he should overthrow the beast; and that one Ball, a tailor (and not improbably the person whom Jonson had in view), was so far overrun with this lunacy, as to put out money on adventure, i.e., to receive it back, double or treble, when James himself should be elected Pope !"-Traditional Memoires of James 1. § 38. Ball (be he who he may) is again mentioned by Jonson in the Execration of Vulcan, together with Butter's rival, the indefatigable Captain: "Or Captain Pamphlet's horse and foot that salley Upon the Exchange, still out of Pope's Head alley; The weekly courants, with Paul's seal, and all The admired discourses of the prophet Ball." they have heard, And being black desire it.2 I Cust. Peace be with them! Reg. So there had need, for they are still by the ears One with another. 2 And being black desire it.] The old copy has a marginal note here-Archie mourned then. This was Archibald Armstrong, jester to James and Charles I. Why he was in black does not appear. The court was then in mourning, indeed, for the death of James :-but Archy might also be in disgrace, and condemned to sable for some act of impertinence. This licentious buffoon was something of a fool, more of a knave, and altogether a meddling and mischievous agent of the factious in Church and State. James contrived to keep him in some order by means of the whip, which was frequently exercised upon him to advantage; but the unfortunate Charles, with whom he was a favourite, gave a loose to his scurrility which he had more than one occasion to regret. The great objects of Archie's malignity were the bishops, and of them more particularly Laud, who has been blamed for of the State," says the author of the Discourse noticing his attacks. "As Laud was at the head on Irony, p. 71, "he should have despised the jests of a fool, and not have been hurried on to speak against him (in the Privy Council), but left it to others, who would have been glad, upon the least intimation, to pay their court, by sacriThis has been ficing a fool to his resentiment.” repeated a thousand times; but there is neither truth nor wisdom in the observation. Archie was of Scotland; this was quickly perceived by the a rancorous bigot to the discipline of the Church favourers of the Puritans about the court, and Even they hastened to avail themselves of his prejudices by secretly instigating him to scurrilous jests upon Laud, as the readiest means of bringing the hierarchy into contempt. Not to know this, argues a very imperfect acquaintance with the history of those disastrous times. Osborne, who neither loved Laud nor his cause, has the candour to acknowledge that Archie not only "carried on the contention against the prelates for divers years, but received such encouragement, that he often, in his own hearing, belched in his face such miscarriages as he was really guilty of, and might, but for this foulmouthed Scot, have been forgotten: adding such other reproaches of his own, as the dignity of the Archbishop's calling and greatness of his parts could not in reason or manners admit."-Advice to a Son, pt. ii. p. 12. That Osborne after this should reprove Laud for appealing to the Council, appears not very creditable to his judgment, especially, as he immediately adds, that "all the Fool did was but a symptom of the strong and inveterate distemper in the hearts of his Countrymen against the calling of bishops, out of whose ruins the major part of the Scottish But enough nobility had feathered their nests." of Archie. |