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EXPLANATORY NOTES

These notes include whatever has been considered of value in the notes of the preceding editions. Notes signed W are by Whalley, G by Gifford, C by Cunningham. For other abbreviated references and for editions of works cited, the Bibliography should be consulted. Explanations of words and phrases are usually found only in the Glossary, although exceptional cases are treated further in the notes. References to this play are to act, scene, and line of the text; other references to Jonson's works are to the Gifford-Cunningham edition of 1875-to play, volume, and page. The metrical investigation included in the notes is based upon the treatment of prosody in Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar.

THE MAGNETIC LADY

Iam lapides suus ardor agit ferrumq; tenetur,
Illecebris.-Claudian, Magnes. 56-57, with Et changed

to Iam.

The Persons that act. In accordance with his custom, Jonson gives to each of his characters a name which suggests the chief trait or humor.

Mrs. Placentia. See Glossary s. v. Mrs. The title Mrs. in the 17th and 18th centuries might be prefixed to the name of an unmarried lady or girl. 'Mrs. Elizabeth Carter,' 'Mrs. Hannah More.'

Sir Diaph Silkworm. Cf. The Staple of News (Wks. 5. 167) : O! though thou art a silkworm,

And deal'st in satins and velvets, and rich plushes,

Thou canst not spin all forms out of thyself.

Also, On Court-worm (Wks. 8. 152):

All men are worms: but this no man. In silk.

The term silkworm was defined by Steele in The Spectator, No. 454:

This Chace was now at an End, and the Fellow who drove her came to us, and discovered that he was ordered to come again in an Hour, for that she was a Silk-Worm. I was surprised with this Phrase, but found it was a Cant among the Hackney Fraternity for their best Customers, Women who ramble twice or thrice a Week from Shop to Shop, to turn over all the Goods in Town without buying any thing. The Silk-Worms are, it seems, indulged by the Tradesmen; for tho' they never buy, they are ever talking of new Silks, Laces and Ribbands, and serve the Owners in getting them Customers, as their common Dunners do in making them pay.

In 1609, to promote the manufacture of silk in England, King James had many hundred thousand young mulberry trees imported from France, and sent into the different counties; cf. Harl. Misc. 2. 218-23.

Sir Moath Interest, An Usurer, or Money-baud. A usurer was called a bawd, because he was an intermediary between money and those who wanted it. In The Staple of News (Wks. 5. 216), where money is personified as Pecunia, the figure was more appropriate :

Old Covetousness, the sordid Pennyboy, the
Money-bawd, who is a flesh-bawd too.

A usurer was merely a person who lent out money at interest, not, as with us, one who exacts more than the legal rate. The business of money-lending was then held in great disrepute, and much of the opprobrium heaped upon Sir Moth in the course of the play is due to his character of hard-hearted money-lender. Increase by gold and silver was considered unlawful, because against nature. Aristotle is credited with the honor of starting this conceit. Cf. The Merchant of Venice 1. 3. 136-7:

for when did friendship take

A breede of barraine mettall of his friend?

and the discussion of this passage in the Furness Variorum 7.48. Stubbes' diatribe against usury expresses the feeling of the time; see The Anatomy of Abuses (ed. Furnivall,

pp. 123-9). Here he characterizes the usurer as worse than a thief, a Jew, Judas, hell itself, crueler than death, and worse than the Devil. Bacon, in his essay Of Usury, treats the subject more rationally. The idea of abolishing usury is one of the idle opinions to be relegated to Utopia; but usury is 'a concession, on account of hardness of heart.' It is curious that this opposition-of idealists at least-to the taking of interest, finds literary expression as late as Tennyson's The Brook.

The Persons that act. Mr. Bias, A Vi-politique. A substitute or deputy politician, a sub-secretary to a politician. Vi is a contraction of vice; cf. vice-chairman, vice-president.

Ind. Induction. Shakespeare also used this word in the sense of introduction: 1. Henry IV 3. 1. 2: And our induction full of prosperous hope.'

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Ind. I. What doe you lack? The boy uses the language of the petty traders of the time, and the others continue the allusion.'-G.

Ind. 9. Poet'accios, Poetasters, Poetito's. For the meaning of these terms, see the Glossary. The Elizabethan drama was now on the decline: the giants, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Chapman, had left the stage; and their places were ill supplied by a host of lesser lights-Massinger, Rowley, Heywood, Ford, Field, Shirley, Brome, Davenant, Cartwright, Randolph, Mayne, and others.

Ind. 12. Sir, hee is not here. 'Jonson always attended the first presentation of his pieces, when it was in his power. He was now bed-ridden: his last appearance in the theatre seems to have been in 1625, when The Staple of News was brought forward.'-G.

Ind. 16. tye us two, to you. Place us two under obligations to you; see the Glossary, s. v. tye. Also cf. Shakespeare's Cymbeline 1. 6. 23: 'He is one of the Noblest note, to whose kindnesses I am most infinitely tied.'

Ind. 20. No man leaps into a busines of state, without fourding first the state of the busines. The figure is of a man wading slowly and carefully across a stream, and then leaping forward rapidly. NED. cites examples of the figurative use

of the term: e. g. Bp. Mountague, Acts & Mon. (1642) 299; 'The truth at last he foorded.' For the use of leap as here employed, cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Woman Hater 1. 22: Val. I pray you, sir, leap into the matter; what would you have me do for you?' Plays upon word's or jingles such as business of state . . . state of the business, were common in Jonson's time.

Ind. 24. The Venison side. which the h(e)art is situated.

An evident pun: the side on Sallies of this sort are partly attributable to the irregularity of spelling in Jonson's time. Ind. 28. your sinfull sixe-penny Mechanicks. In various places in Jonson's works he shows contempt for the laboring classes. Cf. The New Inn (Wks. 5. 327):

Lady F. Pox o' this errant tailor,
He angers me beyond all mark of patience!
These base mechanics never keep their word,
In anything they promise.

Pru. Tis their trade, madam,

To swear and break; they all grow rich by breaking
More than their words; their honesties, and credits,
Are still the first commodity they put off.

Jonson's attitude-toward the common people was largely shared by his fellow-dramatists. See the paper on The Shaksperian Mob by Frederick Tupper, Jr., Pub. of Mod. Lang. Assoc., Vol. 27, No. 4, Dec., 1912. It may be, too, that Jonson is casting a slur at the Globe Theatre, which was patronized largely by a poorer class than the Blackfriars; cf. The Poetaster (Wks. 2. 430):

Tuc. And what new matters have you now afoot, sirrah, ha? I would fain come with my cockatrice one day, and see a play, if I knew where there were a good bawdy one; but they say you have nothing but Humours, Revels, and Satires, that gird and f-t at the time, you slave.

Hist. No, I assure you, captain, not we. They are on the other side of Tyber: we have as much ribaldry in our plays as can be, as you would wish, captain: all the sinners in the suburbs come and applaud our action daily.

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