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4
Plays
That it was the mark of a city woman is clear from Mayne's The Citye
Match, 1639, v. ix:
And yet to see, now you have not your Wire,
Nor Cittie Ruffe on, Mistress Sue, how these
Clothes doe beguile. Jn truth I took you for
A Gentle-woman.
In The Connoisseur, vol. vi, 1903, pp. 164-73, Mrs. F. N. Jackson, in
an article on ruffs, gives two illustrations of a ruff with wire supports.
24. white-Fnars. Volp. iv. ii. 51.
Prologue II
This prologue was an afterthought, as the marginal note explains It
was written to refute the charge of personal satire in the play. We have
discussed this in the textual introduction, vol. v, pp. 143-7.
2. profit, and delight. The Horatian maxim- see E.M.O. md. 202 n.
4. taxe the crimes. Poet. in. v. 134 n.
7. On forfeit of your selues, as if you had squandered your reason.
8. the maker, the poet, Disc 2347.
10. Another Horatian maxim: 'Ficta voluptatis causa smt proxima
vens' (Ars Poetica, 338). Jonson chose the line as the motto for The
Devil is an Ass, a play on which he was accused. So S. of N. prol. at
Court, 11-14; and Disc., the passage cited on line 8.
11-14. Jonson discusses this point fully in the second chorus to The
Magnetic Lady, 1-47. Massmger and Wither, both of whom clashed
with the authorities for their treatment of personalities, put in the same
plea. Massmger in The Roman Actor, i. in (1629, C), describes the trial
of the actor Paris accused by Caesar's spy Aretmus.
Aret. In thee, as being the chief of thy profession,
I doe accuse the quahtie of treason,
As libellers against the state and Ccesar.
Par. Meere accusations are not proofes my Lord,
In what are we delinquents ?
Aret. You are they
*That search into the secrets of the time,
And vnder fam'd names on the Stage present
Actions not to be toucht at; and traduce
Persons of rancke, and quahtie of both Sexes,
And with Satincall, and bitter lests
Make euen the Senators ridiculous
To the Plebeans.
Pay. If I free not my selfe,
(And in my selfe the rest of my profession)
From these false imputations, and proue
That they make that a hbell which the Poet
Writ for a Comedie, so acted too,
It is but lustice that we vndergoe
The heauiest censure.