land of Judaea. In former times it was cultivated in two gardens only, both of which belonged to the kings of that country, &c.' Hist. Nat. 12, ch. 54.

The balsam tree produced the famous ‘balm of Gilead' of Scripture. 2. I. 61. Snuffers. According to Halliwell, these were small open dishes for holding snuff, sometimes made of silver. They were also called snuff-dishes. The latter term was likewise applied to small receptacles for placing snuffers in.'

'These, with the articles enumerated above, seem rather awkwardly placed in a jeweller's shop: but trades were fewer, and less accurately defined, in Jonson's days; hence these collections of heterogeneous wares were to be found in every street.' (G.)

2. 1. 63. I take it highly in snuffe. A pun for 'I object strongly.' Cf. 1 Henry IV. 1. 3. 41.

2. I. 68-70. Disbast: humbled, degraded; but with punning reference to base in its old sense of short skirt or petticoat.

The hood and farthingale were emblems of gentility. Cf. Patient Grissil 4. 3:

'Rice. No, sweet madam, you are my lady. A man is a man, though he have but a hose on his head, and you are my lady, though you want a hood.' In Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday (3. 4), after Simon Eyre has been made sheriff of London, his humbly-born wife begins to plan for a gentlewoman's wardrobe: 'Art thou acquainted with never a farthingale-maker, nor a French hood-maker? I must enlarge my bum, ha, ha! How shall I look in a hood, I wonder?' Cf. Stubbes, Anat. of Abuses 62.

Planché regards the farthingale as the progenitrix of the hoopskirt of recent times. 'It is alluded to as a sort of cage worn under the petticoat, to which we see at that period [c. 1550] it gave the shape of a bell, increasing in amplitude and rotundity with the trunk hose of the opposite sex, which reached, in the reign of Elizabeth, the most preposterous dimensions. Towards the close of her reign the vardingale gave to the wearer the appearance of "standing in a drum," as Sir Roger de Coverley in "The Spectator" describes the portrait of his "great, great grandmother." This was called the "wheel farthingale," in which Queen Elizabeth is attired in her bestknown portraits, and this fashion lasted during the whole of the reign of her successor, James I., whose consort, Anne of Denmark, is painted in a precisely similar "unnatural disguisement," the ornamental plaits surrounding the waist resembling the spokes of a wheel' (Cyc. of Costume, 1876, 1. 186 ff.).

Nares cites this passage in Poetaster, and defines: 'Bum-Rolls. Stuffed cushions, used by women of middling rank, to make their petticoats swell out, in lieu of the farthingales, which were more expensive.' Evidently these corresponded to the modern 'bustle.'

'Stays. A boddice of whalebone or other strong material, worn by ladies to confine the waist and body,—a custom fertile in disease and death,-begun by the Normans. In the time of Elizabeth gentlemen also wore them,—a disgraceful custom, still retained' (Fairholt, Costume in England 606).

2. 1. 72. Mummia. Cf. Volpone 4. 2: 'Sell him for mummia; he's half dust already.' See also Johnson's Dictionary, s.v. mummy. 2. 1. 73. Most best. In his English Grammar (ch. 4) Jonson writes: Sir Thomas More: "Forasmuch as she saw the cardinal more readier to depart than the remnant; for not only the high dignity of the civil magistrate, but the most basest handicrafts are holy, when they are directed to the honor of God." And this is a certain kind of English atticism, or eloquent phrase of speech, imitating the manner of the most ancientest and finest Grecians, who, for more emphasis and vehemencies' sake, used so to speak.'

2. 1. 88. Yes. . . better. Jonson puts the cant of the city, as well as the affectations of the court, into the mouth of Crispinus. 2. 1. 95. Your legges. The bodily features and the peculiar habits of Crispinus-Marston are ridiculed throughout the play. And strangely enough Dekker, Marston's friend, called his 'Achates' and his Journeyman' in Poetaster, alludes to these personal attacks in his Gull's Hornbook (Works, ed. Grosart, 2. 253):

'Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammd you, or hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giuing him the bastinado in a Tauerne, if, in the middle of his play. you rise with a screwd and discontented face from your stoole to be gone

In the light of the above, cf. Jonson's epigram On Poet-Ape; his reference to Crispinus' 'ash-colour'd feather' in Poetaster 3. 3. 2; to his beard and hair, 2. 2. 83 ff. and 3. 1. 29; to his gentlemanly legs, 2. 1. 95-7. The 'tossing him in a blancket' is an allusion to the treatment given Horace-Jonson in the last part of Satiromastix.

In connection with the 'little legges,' note Timon, the University play, 1. 3:

'Paedio. Your anckles be too little.

Gelasimus. The more gentlemanlike; I shall not be a fatt greasy plebeian.'

2. 1. 98 ff. My armes. Jonson revelled in elaborate punning such as this description of the coat of arms of Crispinus. Cf. Sogliardo's arms, Every Man Out 3. 1; also Staple of News 4. 1:

'Pie. She bears, an't please you, argent, three leeks vert,

In canton or, tasselled of the first.'

A fantastic interpretation of Crispinus' arms is given by Fleay (Chr. 1. 368): ‘In ii. 1, Crispinus has little legs as a gentleman born, and his arms with the bloody toe or Mars-toen (for Mars means red), illustrate the way in which Jonson uses this heraldic method of designating his characters.' See also Fleay, Shakesp. Manual, 1876, 312.

Grosart (Marston's Poems, Introd. v note) conveys some information: "The "arms" assigned to Crispinus is a mere "canting coat," and not very creditable fooling, with reference to the farcical name, and not corresponding with the Marstons' arms. These are properly blazoned thus: Sable, a fesse dancetée ermine between three fleursde-lis argent. Crest: A demi greyhound sable gorged with a collar dancetée ermine. Dr. Nicholson writes me: "I cannot help thinking that the 'fesse dancetée' and the 'three fleurs-de-lis' in Marston's arms gave rise to Jonson's conceit and parody a bloody toe between three thorns'-a parodical distinction that in those days would point out the original of Crispinus to the hearers." I doubt.' Cf. Nicholson's article in Notes and Queries, 4th Ser. VII. p. 469.

Dr. Nicholson's conjecture that the Marston arms did really suggest to Jonson his 'canting coat' for Crispinus, is, considering Jonson's love of accuracy in details and his fondness for pun and allegory, quite reasonable-far more so than Fleay's guess. But it is likely that the possession of a basis in fact was sufficient for Jonson, and that he was careless whether more than a few wits in the audience even so much as imagined the possibility of an explanation. It may be noted incidentally that Jonson himself bore arms, which he thus described to Drummond (Conversations, p. 35): 'His armes were three spindles or rhombi; his own word about them, Percunctabor or Perscrutabor.'

2. 1. 100-101. My name is Crispinvs, or Cri-spinas indeed.

To see

A fellow that has neither art nor brain,
Sit like an Aristarchus, or stark ass, &c.

Such are Jonsonian puns.

Every Man Out, Prol. Asper loq.

2. I. 101-3. In chiefe-borne on the upper part of the escutcheon. Pungent is to be taken literally: piercing. It is an imitation of such common heraldic words as 'rampant' and 'couchant.'

2. I. 108. Trades-man. Cf. Every Man In 2. 1, where the merchant Kitely says:

Mock me all over

From my flat cap unto my shining shoes.

The 'flat-cap' of the tradesman, and the 'velvet cap' of the tradesman's wife, found in quarto, Jonson expunged from the first folio

edition, probably regarding them as non-essentials that were like red rags to the bellowing groundlings. See our Variants.

2. I. 109. Sweet feature. Feature seems to mean the whole body or person. Cf. Marston's Pygmalion, stanza 2:

For hauing wrought in purest Iuorie

So faire an Image of a Womans feature.

Also What You Will, Prol. 13-14:

To those that know the pangs of bringing forth
A perfect feature.

In the second passage, feature appears to be equivalent to Lat. factura. For a full discussion of feature, see A.Y.L. ed. Furness, 3. 3. 5, esp. Walker's note, with citation of Poetaster.

2. I. 113. God's my passion! Probably formed by a confusion of oaths such as 'God save me' becoming 'God's me'; or 'God save my life' becoming 'God's my life,' with others like 'God's grace,' or 'God's passion.'

2. I. 120. For the implications of meddle, see Halliwell, Arch. and Prov. Dict.

(N.)

2. 1. 135. Wife. 'She makes some sudden sign of anger.' 2. I. 159. A not wholly accurate account of coaches occurs in Stow (Survey 70): ‘Of old time, Coaches were not known in this Iland, but Chariots or Whirlicotes, then so called, and they onely used for Princes or great Estates, such as had their footmen about them.. But now of late yeeres, the use of Coaches, brought out of Germany, is taken up, and made so common, as their is neither distinction of time, nor difference of persons observed: for the world runnes on wheeles with many, whose Parents were glad to goe on foot.'

2. 2. I. The first speaker is Gallus, the lover of Cytheris. Albius and Chloe are the city gulls who offer rendezvous and entertainment to the dissipated courtiers and must therefore be flattered and caressed.

2. 2. 15-16. Wise.

soueraigntie. 'Women choose husbands who have wealth and who will submit to the mastery of their wives.' Chaucer uses the word sovereignty four times, and always with reference to the power that the mistress or the wife possesses or desires over lover or husband:

Wommen desyren to have sovereyntee
As wel over hir housbond as hir love,
And for to been in maistrie him above.

Wife of Bath's Tale 1038-40.

Boweth your nekke under that blisful yok

Of soveraynetee, noght of servyse,
Which that men clepeth spousaille or wedlock.
Clerk's Tale 113-5.

2. 2. 24-5. You and all my friends, are very welcome, Plavtia. Cf. 2. 2. 40-41: 'OVID and TIBVLLVS, you may bee bold to welcome your Mistresses here.' Cytheris and Gallus are doing the honors, quite as if they were themselves host and hostess.

2. 2. 44 ff. It should be noticed that Jonson's characterization of the Roman poets he introduces is historically not inaccurate. Cf. Tyrrell (Latin Poetry, 1895, pp. 118-9): 'With Propertius love is still ardent passion, but the characteristic reverence and seriousness, the gravitas of the Roman character, has deepened into gloom; in Tibullus love is tender affection mixed with melancholy, and there is still strong sympathy with the grandeur of the Roman character and state; in Ovid love is mere pleasure, intrigue, gallantry, and all the gravitas has completely disappeared.'

The Romans seem to have been very real to Ben. 'He heth consumed a whole night in lying looking to his great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, Romans and Carthaginians, feight in his imagination' (Conversations, p. 22). Too much good cheer at the Devil or the Mermaid, we suspect.

2. 2. 58. Worthy Roman! Gifford remarks that Propertius deserves but little sympathy, and cites Eleg. 4. 7.

2. 2. 83-4. Your haire. Cf. To the proportion of your beard,' 3. I. 29, and note.

"This is personal. It appears that Rufus Laberius Crispinus had red hair, which was not to Chloe's taste: Decker adverts to the bringing of a red beard on the stage, in the Gull's Hornbook.' (G.)

'His hair was red, but, besides the sting of this, there seems to be some other allusion; possibly to the long locks of other gallants.' (N.)

But from certain passages in Marston's own plays, in which he ridicules red beards, it seems fair to infer that he either had not hair and beard of that color himself, or was brave enough to join in the ridicule of his own supposed misfortune. Cf. 1 Antonio and Mellida 3. 2: 'Feliche. Troth, I have a good head of hair, a cheek not as yet wan'd, a leg, 'faith, in the full. I ha' not a red beard, take not tobacco much.'

Again in the Malcontent (1604) 5. 3 Marston ridicules 'Marshal Make-room' thus: 'But, in good verity, la, he is as proper a gentleman in reversion as-and, indeed, as fine a man as may be, having a red beard and a pair of warpt legs.'

Cf. What You Will 4. 1. 31: 'His beard is directly brick-colour.' 2. 2. 91. Accost. Nicholson notes: 'Fr., accoster, draw near to; then in English a fashionable cant word.' Cf. Cotgrave, ed. 1632: 'Accoster. . . . To approach, or draw neere unto; also, to wax acquainted, or grow familiar, with'; &c. 'Aborder: To approach, accoast, abboard; . . come, or draw neere unto,' &c.