Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 30

"_Pup._ _Di._ It is not profane.

_Lan._ It is not profane, he says.

_Boy._ It is profane.

_Pup._ It is not profane.

_Boy._ It is profane.

_Pup._ It is not profane.

_Lan._ Well said, confute him with Not, still."

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

???? ?? ?e??a??es?? ?', ?p?s?? ? f????? ?? ???

?a?d??? d?' ???a?, ?e?e?e???, ????, ????.

?????s??.

t??t? ??? ?? ????sete.

??d? ?? ??? s? t??t??.

?????s??.

??d? ?? ?e?? ?e d? ' ??d?p?te."

"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 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.

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.

"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. Perhaps the better reading is-

"O' your bodies," &c.-

the two syllables being slurred into one, or rather s.n.a.t.c.hed, or sucked, up into the emphasised "your." In all points of view, therefore, Ben's judgment is just; for in this way, the line cannot be read, as metre, without that strong and quick emphasis on "your" which the sense requires;-and had not the sense required an emphasis on "your," the _tmesis_ of the sign of its cases "of," "to," &c., would destroy almost all boundary between the dramatic verse and prose in comedy:-a lesson not to be rash in conjectural amendments.-1818.

_Ib._ sc. 4.-

"_P. jun._ I love all men of virtue, _frommy_ Princess."

"Frommy," _fromme_-pious, dutiful, &c.

Act v. sc. 4. Penny-boy, sen., and Porter.

I dare not, will not, think that honest Ben had _Lear_ in his mind in this mock mad scene.

"The New Inn."

Act i. sc. 1. Host's speech:-

"A heavy purse, and then two turtles, _makes_."

"Makes," frequent in old books, and even now used in some counties for mates, or pairs.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Host's speech:-