“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:—
...“And for a leap
Of the vaulting horse, to _play_ the vaulting _house_.”
Instead of reading with Whalley “ply” for “play,” I would suggest “horse”
for “house.” The meaning would then be obvious and pertinent. The punlet,
or pun-maggot, or pun intentional, “horse and house,” is below Jonson. The
_jeu-de-mots_ just below—
...“Read a lecture
Upon _Aquinas_ at St. Thomas à _Water_ings”—
had a learned smack in it to season its insipidity.
_Ib._ sc. 6. Lovel’s speech:—
“Then shower’d his bounties on me, like the Hours,
That open-handed sit upon the clouds,
And press the liberality of heaven
Down to the laps of thankful men!”
Like many other similar passages in Jonson, this is εῖδος χαλεπὸν ἰδεῖν—a
sight which it is difficult to make one’s self see,—a picture my fancy
cannot copy detached from the words.
Act ii. sc. 5. Though it was hard upon old Ben, yet Felton, it must be
confessed, was in the right in considering the Fly, Tipto, Bat Burst, &c.,
of this play mere dotages. Such a scene as this was enough to damn a new
play; and Nick Stuff is worse still,—most abominable stuff indeed!