For a spirited eulogy of wealth, dramatic of course, see The Fox (Wks. 3. 167):

Thou art virtue, fame,

Honour and all things else. Who can get thee,

He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise

Mos. And what you will, sir. Riches are in fortune

A greater good than wisdom is in nature.

'To

2. 6. 80. It makes a trade to take the wall of vertue. take the wall of, the right or privilege of passing next the wall when encountering another person or persons on the street: a right valued in old-fashioned streets with narrow sidewalks, or no footpath, as giving a safer or more cleanly passage.' -C.D. See Massinger, The Maid of Honour (Wks. 3. 10): I remember you,

When you came first to the court, and talk'd of nothing
But your rents and your entradas, ever chiming

The golden bells in your pockets; you believed
The taking of the wall as a tribute due to

Your gaudy clothes.

2. 6. 88. For metre, see note on I. 2. 47.

Whether he have | any | compass | ión,

2. 6. 100. His wit hee cannot so dispose, by Legacie. Cf. Scitum Hispanicum: Explorata (Wks. 9. 141): 'It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter hæredes non dividi.' 2. 6. 109. For metre, see note on 1. 2. 9.

That here are met. | Is't a | ny thing | to you brother,

2. 6. 122-8. A man ... time. Ward discusses the class of state decipherers' in the Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. 5, chap. 14: 'As in the days of the early Roman empire, a class of informers rose into being, called, in Elizabethan parlance, "moralizers" or "state decipherers," whose business it was to discover and denounce passages, situations and even single words which seemed to betray a dangerous meaning. The spirit of Jacobean government did not fail to carry further a system congenial to its mode of working. Such, in this age, were a few of the troubles of authors-troubles in which dramatists had more than their share.'

2. 6. 132. Cutting of throats, with a whispering, or a penknife. Gifford gives the reference to Juvenal:

sævior illo

Pompeius tenui jugulos aperire susurro.
-Sat. 4. 109–10.

2. 6. 144. Pragmatick Flies. busy in other people's affairs.

Parasites who are officiously
For the use of fly to denote

a parasite, Nares cites Massinger, Virg. Mart. 2. 2:

Courtiers have flies

That buzz all news unto them.

Also, the name of the parasite in The Fox, Mosca, is the Italian word for fly. In a note to 2. 6. 73 of his edition of The New Inn, Tennant observes that the application of the characteristics of a fly to inquisitive, prying persons is to be found in Plautus (Merc. 2. 3. 26): 'muscast meus pater, nil potest clam illum haberi, nec sacrum nec tam profanum quicquam est, quin ibi ilico adsit.'

See also The Magnetic Lady 5.7. 1:

'Tis such a Fly, this Gossip, with her buz,
Shee blowes on every thing, in every place!

2.6. 158. covey. The term covey was first applied to a brood or hatch of partridges, and then figurative and by transference to a family, party of, or set of persons.—A passage in The Staple of News (Wks. 5. 289) shows the connection between these meanings:

Fit. He is a flame.
Shun. A furnace.
Alm. A consumption,

Kills where he goes.

(Cym. Fit. Mad. Alm. and Shun. run off.)

Lick. See! the whole covey is scatter'd ;

Ware, 'ware the hawks! I love to see them fly.

2.7.9. and not acquaint. See note on 2. 1. 13. 2. Ch. 4. or what eminent Lawyer, by the ridiculous Mr. Practise? who hath rather his name invented for laughter, then any ofence, or injury it can stick on the reverend Professors of the Law.

This passage seems to be something of an evasion by Jonson, to avoid the unpleasant consequences of what he is doing. He is, indeed, satirizing a type, not individuals; but his purpose is evidently a moral one, and not merely to produce laughter. The corrupt and grasping lawyer was one of his favorite subjects of satire: see Voltore, in The Fox; Sir Paul Eitherside, in The Devil is an Ass; and Picklock, in The Staple of News. For this practice Jonson was attacked in Satiromastix, p. 244:

Tuc. Ile tell thee why, because th' ast entred Actions of assault and battery, against a companie of honurable and worshipfull Fathers of the law: you wrangling rascell, law is one of the pillers ath land.

For passages where Jonson made sweeping and general charges against lawyers, see The Poetatser (Wks. 2. 382); The Fox (Wks. 3. 181); and The Magnetic Lady 2. 5. 55-9. Jonson's defense was that he was satirizing the corrupt, not. the worthy, members of the profession: see Every Man Out (Wks. 2. 85-6); The Poetaster (Wks. 2. 514); and Underwoods (Wks. 8. 382-3).

2. Ch. 8. Iniquity itselfe would not have urg'd it. Iniquity was one name of the Vice, or established buffoon in the morality plays. The term came later to be applied to any particular vice or sin personified. For further information and quotations, see Nares.

2. Ch. 9. It is picking the Lock of the Scene. Cf. Bartholomew Fair, Induction (Wks. 4. 351): In consideration of which, it is finally agreed, by the aforesaid hearers and spectators, That they neither in themselves conceal, nor suffer by them to be concealed, any state-decypherer, or politic picklock of the scene, so solemnly ridiculous, as to search out, who was meant by the gingerbread-woman, who by the hobby-horse man, who by the costard-monger, nay, who by their wares.'

2. Ch. 10. A Play, though it apparell, and present vices in generall, flies from all particularities in persons. This is one of Jonson's oft reiterated principles. Cf. The Poetaster (Wks. 2. 514):

My books have still been taught
To spare the persons, and to speak the vices;

L

Idem. (510): . . . sharp, yet modest rhimes,

That spare men's persons, and but tax their crimes; Bartholomew Fair, Induction; Epigrams (Wks. 8. 160): Guilty, be wise; and though thou know'st the crimes Be thine, I tax, yet do not own my rhymes: 'Twere madness in thee, to betray thy fame, And person to the world, ere I thy name.

This is one of the tenets of classical criticism : Cf. Horace, Sat. 2. I. 83:

Esto, si quis mala; sed bona si quis

Iudice condiderit laudatus Caesare? Si quis
Opprobriis dignum latraverit, integer ipse?

Martial 10. 33. 10:

Hunc servare modum nostri novere libelli;
Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis.

Such is Jonson's theory of the general nature of dramatic character-portrayal, but he did not himself always conform to it. He fell into personal invective in Cynthia's Revels and The Poetaster, and probably in some parts of many other of his plays. He, however, defended himself from the charge, and recognized it as a fault. For a discussion of this point, see Woodbridge's Studies in Jonson's Comedy, pp. 33-4.

2. Ch. 13. Davus. A name given to a servant in Terence's Andria and Phormio. A conventional name for a slave in Latin comedies.'-C.D.

2. Ch. 13. Pseudolus. A servant and the principal character in Plautus' play, Pseudolus.

2. Ch. 14. Pyrgopolinices. The braggart captain in Plautus' Miles Gloriosus.

2. Ch. 14. Thraso. A soldier in Terence's Eunuchus. 2. Ch. 14. Euclio. The miser in Plautus' Aulularia. 2. Ch. 14. Menedemus. An old man in Terence's Heautontimorumenos.

2. Ch. 16. Titius, or Seius. For the following note I am indebted to Professor C. P. Sherman of the Yale Law School: 'Titius and Seius are stock expressions in Roman law, corresponding to the John Doe and Richard Roe of English law.

They have no technical significance, being simply imaginary persons used to illustrate a legal rule or doctrine.'

2. Ch. 23. But if you will utter your owne ill meaning on that person, under the Authors words, you make a Libell of his Comoedy.

Dam. O, hee told us that in a Prologue, long since. The Silent Woman (Wks. 3. 332) :

If any yet will, with particular sleight
Of application, wrest what he doth write;
And that he meant, or him, or her, will say:
They make a libel, which he made a play.

2. Ch. 30. It is the solemne vice of interpretation.

2. Ch. 39. It is an unjust way of hearing, and beholding Playes, this, and most unbecomming a Gentleman to appeare malignantly witty in anothers Worke. Cf. The Staple of News (Wks. 5. 217):

Cen. Ay, therein they abuse an honourable princess, it is thought.

Mirth. By whom is it thought?

.. Take heed

it lie not in the vice of your interpretation.

The Poetaster (Wks. 2. 485):

'Tis not the wholesome sharp morality,
Or modest anger of a satiric spirit,

That hurts or wounds the body of the state;
But the sinister application

Of the malicious, ignorant, and base

Interpreter; who will distort, and strain

The general scope and purpose of an author

To his particular and private spleen.

Cas. We know it, our dear Virgil, and esteem it

A most dishonest practice in that man,

Will seem too witty in another's work.

2. Ch. 33. the Glasse of custome . . . is so held up to me, by the Poet, as I can therein view the daily examples of mens lives, and images of Truth, in their manners. For a similar theory of the function of the drama, see Hamlet 3. 2. 27: ' for