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1.5.36. For the rule governing the metre, see note on 1.2.32.

She was too learn | 'd to | live long | with us!

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I. 5. 38. had all her Masoreth. The term Masoreth, or Masorah, designates the system of critical notes on the external form of the Biblical text. This system of notes represents the literary labors of which the beginning falls probably in pre-Maccabean times and the end reaches to they ear 1425.' For further information, see the Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 8.

I. 5. 39. Knew Burton, and his Bull; and scribe Prin-Gent! Praesto-be-gon: and all the Pharisees.

Henry Burton (1578-1648) was a Puritan divine. He graduated M.A. at Cambridge in 1602. He early became involved in theological controversy, and in 1627 published The Baiting of the Pope's Bull. His attack upon the bishops continued, and in 1636 he was condemned to be deprived of his benefice, degraded from the ministry and his degrees, to be fined, have his ears cut off, and suffer perpetual imprisonment. After the rise of the Puritans to power his sentence was reversed, and he returned to public life.

William Prynne (1600-69) was a Puritan pamphleteer. He graduated B.A. at Oxford in 1621, studied at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1628. In his theological writings he first attacked Arminianism. About 1624 he commenced a book against stage-plays, which was published in 1632 under the title, Histriomastix. As one passage reflecting on the character of female actors was construed as an aspersion on the queen, Prynne was imprisoned, fined, deprived of his degrees, and condemned to lose his ears in the pillory. He continued to write against the bishops during his imprisonment, and in 1636 was once more fined, and sentenced to imprisonment for life, and to lose the rest of his ears. After the assembling of the Long Parliament, his sentences were declared illegal, and he was restored to public life. For further information about Burton and Prynne, see Traill's Social England 4. 165-6, and DNB. An account of the

trial of Burton and Prynne is found in Harl. Misc. 4. 12. Whalley suggests that the term, Praesto-be-gon, may refer to Dr. Preston. John Preston, D.D. (1587-1628), was a Puritan divine. He is said to have influenced Prynne, and confirmed him in his militant Puritanism. A reflection on Prynne seems to be intended by the introduction of the word gent. I am not much acquainted with the title-pages of his multifarious works; but some exception appears to have been taken at his designation of his quality, since the same circumstance is ridiculed by Cowley:

Written by William Prynne, Esquire, the

Yeare of our Lord, sixteen hundred, thirty three.-G. Below are extracts from title-pages to several of Prynne's works:

A Fresh Discovery of some Prodigious New WandringBlasing-Stars, & Firebrands, Stiling themselves NewLights.... Published for the Common good by William Prynne of Lincolns Inne, Esquire.

A Breviate of the Life of William Laud.... By William
Prynne of Lincolnes Inne, Esquire.

The Church of Englands Old Antithesis to New Armini-
By William Prynne Gent Hospitii Lincol-

asme.

niensis.

1. 5. 40. For rules governing metre, see notes on I. 1. 81 and I. 3. 41.

Praesto-be-gon: | and all the Pharisees. | Deare Gossip.

I. 5. 45. But when she is impertinent, growes earnest. Impertinent here means 'out of place, in the society of superiors.' A similar use of the term is found in 3. 5. 42:

For (to tell you truth) this Knight,

Is an impertinent in Court, (wee thinke him :)
And troubles my Lords Lodgings, and his Table
With frequent, and unnecessary visits.

1. 5. 49. after her long grace. This is probably a thrust at the Puritans, whose habit of saying long graces Jonson had satirized before. Polish, as I have pointed out (Introduction,

p. xvii) has decided affinities with the Puritans. See Bartholomew Fair (Wks. 4. 363):

Dost thou ever think to bring thine ears or stomach to the patience of a dry grace, as long as thy table-cloth; and droned out by the son here . . . till all the meat on thy board has forgot it was that day in the kitchen?

1. 5. 60. Sometimes an unemphatic monosyllable is allowed to stand in an emphatic place, and to receive an accent (Abbott, § 457).

For all his murth | ers, is | in as | good case

1. 6. 2. the Artick! And th' Antartick!

Jonson applies these terms to the courtier and the lawyer, because they are the favorites of Lady Loadstone among the suitors for the hand of her niece; thinking of her as a magnet, he conceives them figuratively as the north and south magnetic poles.

1. 6. 4. A Courtier extraordinary. For a similar portrayal, see the character of A Courtier in Morley's Character Writing of the Seventeenth Century, p. 31: A courtier, to all men's thinking, is a man, and to most men the finest ; all things else are defined by the understanding, but this by the senses; but his surest mark is, that he is to be found only about princes. He smells, and putteth away much of his judgment about the situation of his clothes.' See also Morley (p. 179), the character of An Idle Gallant: An idle gallant is one that was born and shaped for his cloaths; and, if Adam had not fallen, had lived to no purpose. . . . His first care is his dress, the next his body, and in the uniting of these two lies his soul and its faculties.' Satire of the fashionable gallant is found throughout Jonson's comedies. Of the courtier, particularly, he has drawn satiric portraits in Fastidious Brisk in Every Man Out, and Hedon in Cynthia's Revels. For Jonson's characterizations in Cynthia's Revels, see Wks. 2. 238-49; 242-4; and the Palinode 357-59.

1. 6. 14. Or man of Law: (for that's the true writing). Ballman suggests that Jonson calls Practice a man of law

instead of a lawyer because this is the designation that Chaucer used.

1. 6. 17. an invasion, Another eighty eight. The attack of the Spaniards, and the defeat of the Armada, occurred in 1588. 1. 5. 20. Then Syracusa's Sack, on Archimede. An account of the death of Archimedes is found in Livy, Bk. 25, cap. 31. Cicero mentions it briefly in De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum 5. 50: Quem enim ardorem studii censetis fuisse in Archimede, qui dum in pulvere quædam describet attentius, ne patriam quidem captam esse senserit?

1. 6. 22. Guard. Guard. See the Glossary, and cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Woman-Hater 1. 50:

We shall be call'd to be examiners,

Wear politic gowns garded with copper-lace,

1.6.31. to their inches. According to their capacity. The expression is unintelligible from the context, but the meaning is made clear by reference to a passage in Bartholomew Fair (Wks. 4. 362—3): 'I'll be sworn, sone of them that thou art, or hast been a suitor to, are so old, as no chaste or married pleasure can ever become them; the honest instrument of procreation has forty years since left to belong to them; thou must visit them as thou would a tomb, with a torch or three handfuls of link, flaming hot, and so thou mayst hap to make them feel thee and after come to inherit according to thy inches.' Whalley traces this expression to Juvenal, Sat. 1. 1. 41: 'Partes quisque suas, ad mensuram inguinis hæres.'

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1.6. 35. by Logorythmes. A logarithm is one of a particular class of arithmetical functions, invented by John Napier of Merchiston (died 1617), and tabulated for use as a means of abridging calculation.' Ned.

I. 6. 39.

no paralaxe at all,

In his pecuniary observations!

Paralaxe, a form of Parallax, is a term borrowed from astronomy; NED. defines it as apparent displacement, or difference in the apparent position of an object, caused by actual change (or difference) of position of the point of

observation.' The term is used in a general sense as 'change' or 'alteration.'

1.7.8. For the rule governing the metre, see note on 1.2.32. him, in | affaires

And be prescribed by

1.7.26. you may weare him. Cf. Hamlet 3. 2. 66–9:

Give me that man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

I. 7.27. or hang him in your eare! Stubbes notes the custom of wearing jewels in the ear (Anat. of Abuses, p. 70): 'Another sorte of dissolute minions & wanton Sempronians (for I can term them no better) are so far bewitched, as they are not ashamed to make holes in their eares, wherat they hang rings, and other Iewels of gold and precious stones.

. . But because this is not so much frequented amongest Women as Men, I will say noe more thereof, untill further occasion be offred.' The custom of men's wearing rings and jewels in the ears is frequently alluded to in the dramatists; see Every Man Out (Wks. 2. 20):

. . and hang my richest words

As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears:

and Every Man In (Wks. 1. 127): 'I'll pawn this jewel in my ear.'-Whalley. For other instances, see Whalley's notes to these passages.

1.7.30. cut from the Quar of Macchiavel. In Edward Meyer's Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama (Litterarhistorische Forschungen 1. 147), he gives the following brief discussion of Bias: In his Magnetic Lady Jonson again sneered at, and undertook to ridicule the Machiavellian counsellor so long the demon of the stage. In the Dramatis Personae Bias is called "a vi-politic, or sub-secretary." Compass says of him:

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'A vi-politic

Or a sub-aiding instrument of state."

and Sir Moth introduces him to Lady Loadstone thus:

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