Act IV. Sc. 1, I find: “_Fit._ Let’s _ieere_ a little. _Pen._ Ieere?

what’s that?”’

It is so spelt regularly throughout _The Staple of News_, but in _Ev. Man in_ 1. 2 (fol. 1616), we find: ‘Such petulant, geering gamsters that can spare No ... subject from their jest.’ The fact is that both words were sometimes spelt _geere_, as well as in a variety of other ways. The uniform spelling in _The Staple of News_, however, seems to indicate that this is the word _gear_, which fits the context, fully as well as, perhaps better than Gifford’s interpretation. A common meaning is ‘talk, discourse’, often in a depreciatory sense. See Gloss.

=1. 6. 125 Things, that are like, are soone familiar.= ‘Like will to like’ is a familiar proverb.

=1. 6. 127 the signe o’ the husband.= An allusion to the signs of the zodiac, some of which were supposed to have a malign and others a beneficent influence.

=1. 6. 131 You grow old, while I tell you this.= Hor. [_Carm._ I. II. 8 f.]:

Dum loquimur, fugerit invida Aetas, carpe diem.--G.

Whalley suggested:

Fugit Hora: hoc quod loquor, inde est. --Pers. _Sat._ 5.

=1. 6. 131, 2 And such As cannot vse the present, are not wise.= Cf. _Underwoods_ 36. 21:

To use the present, then, is not abuse.

=1. 6. 138 Nay, then, I taste a tricke in’t.= Cf. ‘I do taste this as a trick put on me.’ _Ev. Man in_, _Wks._ 1. 133. See Introduction, p. xlvii.

=1. 6. 142 cautelous.= For similar uses of the word cf. Massinger, _City Madam_, _Wks._, p. 321, and B. & Fl., _Elder Brother_, _Wks._ 10. 275. Gifford gives an example from Knolles, _Hist. of the Turks,_ p. 904.

=1. 6. 149 MAN. Sir, what doe you meane?

153 MAN. You must play faire, S^r.= ‘I am not certain about the latter of these two speeches, but it is perfectly unquestionable that the former _must_ have been spoken by the husband Fitzdottrel.’--C.

Cunningham may be right, but the change is unnecessary if we consider Manly’s reproof as occasioned by Fitzdottrel’s interruption.

=1. 6. 158, 9 No wit of man=

=Or roses can redeeme from being an Asse.= ‘Here is an allusion to the metamorphosis of Lucian into an _ass_; who being brought into the theatre to shew tricks, recovered his human shape by eating some _roses_ which he found there. See the conclusion of the treatise, _Lucius, sive Asinus_.’--W.

See Lehman’s edition, Leipzig, 1826, 6. 215. As Gifford says, the allusion was doubtless more familiar in Jonson’s day than in our own. The story is retold in Harsnet’s _Declaration_ (p. 102), and Lucian’s work seems to have played a rather important part in the discussion of witchcraft.

=1. 6. 161 To scape his lading.= Cf. note 1. 4. 72.

=1. 6. 180 To other ensignes.= ‘I. e., to horns, the Insignia of a cuckold.’--G.

=1. 6. 187 For the meere names sake.= ‘I. e. the name of the play.’--W.

=1. 6. 195 the sad contract.= See variants. W. and G. are doubtless correct.

=1. 6. 214 a guilt caroch.= ‘There was some distinction apparently between _caroch_ and _coach_. I find in Lord Bacon’s will, in which he disposed of so much imaginary wealth, the following bequest: “I give also to my wife my four coach geldings, and my best caroache, and her own coach mares and caroache.”’--C.

Minsheu says that a carroch is a great coach. Cf. also Taylor’s _Wks._, 1630:

No coaches, or carroaches she doth crave.

_Rom Alley_, _O. Pl._, 2d ed., 5. 475:

No, nor your jumblings, In horslitters, in coaches or caroches.

_Greene’s Tu Quoque_, _O. Pl._, 2d ed., 7. 28:

May’st draw him to the keeping of a coach For country, and carroch for London.

Cf. also Dekker, _Non-dram. Wks._ 1. 111. Finally the matter is settled by Howes (p. 867), who gives the date of the introduction of coaches as 1564, and adds: ‘Lastly, euen at this time, 1605, began the ordinary use of Caroaches.’ In _Cyn. Rev._, _Wks._ 2. 281, Gifford changes _carroch_ to _coach_.

=1. 6. 216 Hide-parke.= Jonson speaks of coaching in Hyde Park in the _Prologue to the Staple of News_, _Wks._ 5. 157, and in _The World in the Moon_, _Wks._ 7. 343. Pepys has many references to it in his _Diary_. ‘May 7, 1662. And so, after the play was done, she and The Turner and Mrs. Lucin and I to the Parke; and there found them out, and spoke to them; and observed many fine ladies, and staid till all were gone almost.’

‘April 22, 1664. In their coach to Hide Parke, where great plenty of gallants, and pleasant it was, only for the dust.’

Ashton in his _Hyde Park_ (p. 59) quotes from a ballad in the British Museum (c 1670-5) entitled, _News from Hide Park_, In which the following lines occur:

Of all parts of _England_, Hide-park hath the name, For Coaches and Horses, and Persons of fame.

=1. 6. 216, 7 Black-Fryers, Visit the Painters.= A church, precinct, and sanctuary with four gates, lying between Ludgate Hill and the Thames and extending westward from Castle Baynard (St. Andrew’s Hill) to the Fleet river. It was so called from the settlement there of the Black or Dominican Friars in 1276. Sir A. Vandyck lived here 1632-1641. ‘Before Vandyck, however, Blackfriars was the recognized abode of painters. Cornelius Jansen (d. 1665) lived in the Blackfriars for several years. Isaac Oliver, the miniature painter, was a still earlier resident.’ Painters on glass, or glass stainers, and collectors were also settled here.--Wh-C.

=1. 6. 219 a middling Gossip.= ‘A go-between, an _internuntia_, as the Latin writers would have called her.’--W.

=1. 6. 224 the cloake is mine.= The reading in the folio belonging to Dr. J. M. Berdan of Yale is: ‘the cloake is mine owne.’ This accounts for the variant readings.

=1. 6. 230 motion.= Spoken derogatively, a ‘performance.’ Lit., a puppet-show. The motion was a descendent of the morality, and exceedingly popular in England at this time. See Dr. Winter, _Staple of News_, p. 161; Strutt, _Sports and Pastimes_, p. 166 f.; Knight, _London_ 1. 42. Jonson makes frequent mention of the motion. _Bartholomew Fair_ 5. 5 is largely devoted to the description of one, and _Tale Tub_ 5. 5 presents a series of them.

=1. 7. 4 more cheats?= See note on _Cheaters_, 5. 6. 64, and Gloss.

=1. 7. 16 The state hath tane such note of ’hem.= See note 1. 2. 22.

=1. 7. 25 Your Almanack-Men.= An excellent account of the Almanac-makers of the 17th century is given by H. R. Plomer in _N. & Q._,6th Ser. 12. 243, from which the following is abridged:

‘Almanac-making had become an extensive and profitable trade in this country at the beginning of the 17th century, and with the exception of some fifteen or twenty years at the time of the Rebellion continued to flourish until its close. There were three distinct classes of almanacs published during the seventeenth century--the common almanacs, which preceded and followed the period of the Rebellion, and the political and satirical almanacs that were the direct outcome of that event.

‘The common almanacs came out year after year in unbroken uniformity. They were generally of octavo size and consisted of two parts, an almanac and a prognostication. Good and evil days were recorded, and they contained rules as to bathing, purging, etc., descriptions of the four seasons and rules to know the weather, and during the latter half of the century an astrological prediction and “scheme” of the ensuing year.

‘In the preceding century the makers of almanacs were “Physitians and Preests”, but they now adopted many other titles, such as “Student in Astrology”, “Philomath”, “Well Willer to the Mathematics.” The majority of them were doubtless astrologers, but not a few were quack doctors, who only published their almanacs as advertisements.’ (Almanac, a character in _The Staple of News_, is described as a ‘doctor in physic.’)

Among the more famous almanac-makers the names of William Lilly, John Partridge and Bretnor may be mentioned. For the last see note 2. 1. 1, and B. & Fl., _Rollo, Duke of Normandy_, where Fiske and Bretnor appear again. Cf. also _Alchemist_, _Wks._ 4. 41; _Every Man out_, _Wks._ 2. 39-40; _Mag. La._, _Wks._ 6. 74, 5. In Sir Thomas Overbury’s _Character_ of _The Almanac-Maker_ (Morley, p. 56) we read: ‘The verses of his book have a worse pace than ever had Rochester hackney; for his prose, ’tis dappled with ink-horn terms, and may serve for an almanac; but for his judging at the uncertainty of weather, any old shepherd shall make a dunce of him.’