their fines & incommes, & setting them so straitely vpon the tenter hookes, as no man can lyve on them,' &c.

65. eye o' the land. London is called by this epithet in Dekker's Kings Entertainment through the City of London, Dram. Works 1: I am the places Genius thence now springs

A Vine, whose yongest Braunch shall produce Kings:
This little world of men; this precious Stone
That sets out Europe; this (the glasse alone,)
Where the neate Sunne each morne himself attires,
And gildes it with his repercussive fires,
This lewell of the Land; Englands right Eye;
Altar of Loue; and sphere of Maiestie.

Of Edinburgh Jonson says,
other eye'. Cf. Justin 5. 8:

"The heart of Scotland, Britain's Athenae, Graeciae oculus'; Cicero,

de Nat. Deor. 3. 38; and Milton, P. R. 4. 240.

69. in that commoditie. A cant word according to Dekker, Bellman of London, Pr. Wks. 5. 152.

77. wind-fucker. The word thus printed in the early folios was changed to 'wind-sucker' in H, and subsequent editions kept it. Halliwell has the word 'fuck-wind'-' a species of hawk', but gives no references to prove its use; N. E. D. and Century do not recognize the word. 'Wind-sucker', on the other hand, seems common. C. gives an interesting use of the term by Chapman in his preface to the Iliad (ed. Hooper, vol. 1, p. lxxii), where he characterizes a detractor, perhaps Jonson himself: 'There is a certain envious wind-sucker that hovers up and down, laboriously engrossing all the air with his luxurious ambition, and buzzing into every ear my detraction.' Cf. note 4. 4. 192.

78. rooke. The names of various stupid birds have been used at different periods for "fool" or "dupe": gull (properly a "young bird" of any kind), pigeon, daw, dodo, dotterel, and rook.'-W. and their Ways, p. 363. Poet. 1. 1, p. 378: OVID Sen. 'Shall I have my son a stager now?... a gull, a rook, a shop-clog, to make suppers and be laugh'd at?'

MN. Fellow makes legs. To make a leg is to make a bow (in allusion to the throwing back of one leg in performing the act), a common expression, often used jocularly, All's Well 2. 2. 10: 'He that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand, and say

nothing, has neither leg, hands, life, nor cap.' Overbury, Characters, A Country Gentleman: By this time he hath learned to kiss his hand, and make a leg both together.' Selden, Table Talk, under Thanksgiving, p. 109: 'We are just like a child; give him a Plum, he makes his Leg; give him a second Plum, he makes another Leg: At last when his Belly is full, he forgets what he ought to do; then his Nurse, or some body else that stands by him, puts him in mind of his Duty, Where's your Leg?'

1. then. Conj. adv. 'then' used for 'than', cf. Abbott, § 70; and On the word than, in Philol. Soc. Transactions (1859, p. 151), by Danby P. Fry.

12. with their daggers, or with bricke-bats. It was difficult to preserve order in London streets; rioting, monstrous noises, thieving, even murder was not uncommon. Peace was sometimes restored by the cry of 'clubs', and sometimes not. The best idea of the condition of London streets is found in Dekker's Bellman of London, and Lanthorne and Candle-light; Drake, Sh. and his Times, p. 425, quotes from Lodge, Illustrations 2. 206.

Of Morose's annoyers, it would be the 'gentlemen' who would carry the daggers, for every gentleman wore rapier and dagger. The brickbats would be the missiles of the lower sort of roarer. Coriol. 1. 1. 168, Menenius advises the mob thus:

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:
Rome and her rats are at the point of battle.

20. Your Italian, and Spaniard. Jonson is fond of using this colloquial your, especially when the speaker is in a self-satisfied or patronizing mood. Bobadil vaingloriously describes how, Every Man In 4. 5, p. 115: 'I would teach these nineteen the special rules, as your punto, your reverso, your stoccata, your imbroccato, your passada, your montanto.' So Lepidus, drunk, Ant. and Cleop. 2. 7. 29: Your serpent of Egypt is bred, now, of your mud by the operation of your sun: so in your crocodile.' Hamlet 4. 3. 24: 'Your worm is your only emperor for diet; ... your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service.' Cf. Coriol. 1. 1. 132, the talk of Menenius with the mob.

Morose is at the height of his self-complacency here, taking his audience into his confidence as could hardly be expected of one to whom silence was so precious, but exemplifying that quality of

dramatic irony which Jonson is so successful in making use of, allowing enthusiasm simply to make it ridiculous.

ACT II. SCENE II.

3. fishes! Pythagorians. The Pythagoreans, followers of Pythagoras of the sixth century A. D., kept their theories, beliefs, and observances a profound secret. Jonson's News from the New World, vol. 7. 342 (2 Her. loq.): 'They are Pythagoreans, all dumb as fishes, for they have no controversies to exercise themselves in.' Poet. 4. I, p. 449:

GALL. O, that Horace had staid still, here.

TIB. So would not I: for both these would have turned Pythagoreans, then.

GALL. What, mute?

TIB. I, as fishes i' faith.

4. Harpocrates... with his club. Harpocrates (Horus) was the Egyptian god of the sun, the son of Osiris. He was said to have been born with his finger on his mouth, indicative of secrecy and mystery.-Smith's Classical Dict. Gifford suggests that Jonson confounded the cornucopia, which the god is usually pictured as carrying, with the club, which is an indispensable attribute of Aesculapius, but it is more probable, as Dr. A. S. Cook points out, that Jonson identifies Harpocrates with Herakles. Cf. Lafaye, Histoire du Culte des Divinités d'Alexandrie (Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, fascicule 33), p. 260: [Resembles Eros, Dionysus, Apollo, &c.] Identifié avec Hercule, il s'appuie quelquefois sur la massue. Il semble qu'on se soit ingénié à grouper autour de lui tous les attributs qui convenaient dans les traditions artistiques de la Grèce aux figures des dieux enfants.' Cf. p. 283, no. 67. Eratosthenes, quoted by Georgius Syncellus, p. 109 B, ed. Goar, identifies Harpocrates with Herakles. Cf. Sej. 5. 7, p. 129, and Bar. Fair 5. 3, p. 505.

9. an impudence. Jonson treats abstract nouns as concrete by prefixing an article or other modifier as here; another feare', 4. 5. 205; 'a miserie', 5. 3. 60; or by pluralizing, as their 'wits', 'braveries', 'valours', 4. 6. 5, 6; those servitudes', 5. 3. 112; 'ladies honors', 'your fames', 5. 4. 243, 248.

14. taste the one halfe of my dagger. The meaning is like

that attached to the common expression to eat a sword. Cf. Much

Ado 4. 1. 279:

BENEDICT. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEAT. Do not swear and eat it.

BENED. I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

2 Hen. VI 4. 10. 30: CADE. 'I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin.'

17. they say, you are to marry. The relation to the following scene of Juvenal's Sixth Satire has been made clear in the Introd. Similar in subject and details of treatment is Dekker's popular satire against women, The Batchelars Banquet (1604), a much lengthier and more detailed satire; it is a prose treatise exemplified with copious contemporary illustrations, but making use of Juvenal also.

22. London-bridge, at a low fall. The old bridge built by Peter Colechurch 1176-1209 was still standing in Jonson's day, indeed, was not rebuilt until the nineteenth century. It was covered with shops on both sides, making of the long structure a continuous street. St. Thomas's chapel was on the centre pier on the east side. There was a draw-bridge eleven spans from the Southwark side, and here were exhibited the heads of people executed for treason. Stow describes it in the Survey 1. 53 ff. Walimsley, Bridges over the Thames: The resistance caused to the free ebb and flow of a large body of water by the contraction of its channel produces a fall or rapid under the bridge.' The Thames was noted for this dangerous condition of the water as it swirled through the narrow old arches. It was called 'shooting the bridge' to pass the rapids in a boat.

24. Bow. St. Mary le Bow, Stow 3. 20, describes as being built in the reign of William Conqueror, being the first in this City built on arches of stone, was therefore called St. Mary de Arqubus or le Bow in West Cheaping; ... This church... for divers accidents happening there, hath been made more famous than any other parish church of the whole city or suburbs.' Bow church is on the south side of Cheapside, in Cordwainer's Ward; it was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, but the outline of the original' delicate steeple', 'is preserved on a silver seal bearing the date of 1580, which was discovered after the fire. It was square, with a pinnacle at each of the four angles, from which spring flying

buttresses, supporting a fifth pinnacle in the centre.'-Wh.-C. This old church, with its bells and its dragon, is alluded to innumerable times in literature, e. g. Otway, The Soldier's Fortune (1681): 'Oh Lord! here are doings, here are vagaries! I'll run mad. I'll climb Bow Steeple presently, bestride the dragon, and preach cuckoldom to the whole city.' Nor was suicide from London steeples, such as True-wit suggests, unheard of. By Cooper, Ath. Cant., vol. 2. 164, Bacon is reported to have said to Queen Elizabeth: 'If I do break my neck, I shall do it in a manner as Mr. Dodington did it, which walked on the battlements of the church many days, and took a view and survey where he should fall.' This brother-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham committed suicide Apr. 11, 1600, from the steeple of St. Sepulchre's.

25. Pauls. The St. Paul's cathedral of Jonson's time, built in 1087 by Bishop Maurice and remodeled in the thirteenth century, was so badly burned in 1561 that the tower and roof were lost. The steeple was never replaced. In 1598 Stow writes: 'Concerning the steeple divers models were devised and made, but little was done, through whose default God knoweth.' In 1632 Lupton, London Carbonadoed, says: '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.' The entire church was lost in the fire of 1666. Cf. Underwoods, 61, Execration upon Vulcan, vol. 8. 408:

Pox on your flameship, Vulcan! if it be

To all as fatal as't hath been to me,

And to Paul's Steeple; . . . and though a divine
Loss, remains yet as unrepaired as mine.

For an interesting account of St. Paul's and the unique use to which the church was put at this time, cf. Dekker, The Dead Tearme; for its history, Three Cathedrals dedicated to St. Paul in London, William Longman, L. 1873.

34-5. masques, plaies, puritane preachings, mad-folkes. The first was a form of histrionic spectacle much in vogue during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It originated in the practice of introducing, on festival days, men wearing masks to represent mythical or allegorical characters. From a mere acted pageant it