'Quarl', How now, Numps! almost tired i' your protectorship?

overparted, overparted?

An odd sort of prophetic ality in this Numps and old Noll!

Ib. sc. 6. Knockhum's speech:--

He eats with his eyes, as well as his teeth.

A good motto for the Parson in Hogarth's Election Dinner,--who shows how easily he might be reconciled to the Church of Rome, for he worships what he eats.

Act v. sc. 5.

'Pup. Di'. It is not prophane.

'Lan'. It is not prophane, he says.

'Boy'. It is prophane.

'Pup'. It is not prophane.

'Boy'. It is prophane.

'Pup'. It is not prophane.

'Lan'. Well said, confute him with Not, still.

An imitation of the quarrel between Bacchus and the Frogs in Aristophanes:--

[Greek (transliterated):

Choros. alla maen kekraxomestha g', hoposon hae pharugx an aem_on chandanae, di' aemeras, brekekekex, koax, koax.

Dionusos. touto gar ou nikaesete.

Choros. oude maen haemas su pant_os.

Dionusos. oude maen humeis ge dae m' oudepote.]

THE DEVIL IS AN a.s.s.

Act I. sc. 1.

'Pug'. Why any: Fraud, Or Covetousness, or lady Vanity, Or old Iniquity, _I'll call him hither_.

The words in italics [between undescores] should probably be given to the master-devil, Satan. (Whalley's note.)

That is, against all probability, and with a (for Jonson) impossible violation of character. The words plainly belong to Pug, and mark at once his simpleness and his impatience.

Ib. sc. 4. Fitz-dottrel's soliloquy:-

Compare this exquisite piece of sense, satire, and sound philosophy in 1616 with Sir M. Hale's speech from the bench in a trial of a witch many years afterwards. [1]

Act ii. sc. 1. Meercraft's speech:--

Sir, money's a wh.o.r.e, a bawd, a drudge.--

I doubt not that 'money' was the first word of the line, and has dropped out:--

Money! Sir, money's a, &c.

[Footnote 1: In 1664, at Bury St. Edmonds on the trial of Rose Cullender and Amy Duny. Ed.]

THE STAPLE OF NEWS.

Act IV. sc. 3. Pecunia's speech:--

No, he would ha' done, That lay not in his power: he had the use Of your bodies, Band and Wax, and sometimes Statute's.

Read (1815),

--he had the use of Your bodies, &c.

Now, however, I doubt the legitimacy of my transposition of the 'of'

from the beginning of this latter line to the end of the one preceding;--for though it facilitates the metre and reading of the latter line, and is frequent in Ma.s.singer, this disjunction of the preposition from its case seems to have been disallowed by Jonson.