"_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.
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.
"Sir, money's a whore, a bawd, a drudge."
I doubt not that "money" was the first word of the line, and has dropped out:--
"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."
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 Massinger, this disjunction of the preposition from its case seems to have been disallowed by Jonson. Perhaps the better reading is--
the two syllables being slurred into one, or rather snatched, 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.
"_P. jun._ I love all men of virtue, _frommy_ Princess."
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.
"A heavy purse, and then two turtles, _makes_."
"Makes," frequent in old books, and even now used in some counties for mates, or pairs.
..."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--