And finally he compares him with the city fool:
Hee may perchance, in taile of a Sheriffes dinner,
Skip with a rime o' the table, from _New-nothing_,
And take his _Almaine_-leape into a custard.
Hee may perchance, in taile of a Sheriffes dinner,
Skip with a rime o' the table, from _New-nothing_,
And take his _Almaine_-leape into a custard.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
He begins by saying that the Vice,
whom he identifies with the house fool, is fifty years out of date.
Only trivial and absurd parts are left for Iniquity to play, the
mountebank tricks of the city and the tavern fools. Douce (pp. 499
f. ) mentions nine kinds of fools, among which the following appear:
1. The general domestic fool. 4. The city or corporation fool. 5.
Tavern fools. Satan compares Iniquity with each of these in turn. The
day has gone by, he says:
When euery great man had his _Vice_ stand by him,
In his long coat, shaking his wooden dagger.
Then he intimates that Iniquity may be able to play the
tavern fool:
Where canst thou carry him? except to Tauernes?
To mount vp ona joynt-stoole, with a _Iewes_-trumpe,
To put downe _Cokeley_, and that must be to Citizens?
And finally he compares him with the city fool:
Hee may perchance, in taile of a Sheriffes dinner,
Skip with a rime o' the table, from _New-nothing_,
And take his _Almaine_-leape into a custard.
Thus not only does Jonson identify the Vice with the fool, but with the
fool in his senility. The characteristic functions of the jester in the
Shakespearian drama, with his abundant store of improvised jests, witty
retorts, and irresistible impudence, have no part in this character. He
is merely the mountebank who climbs upon a tavern stool, skips over the
table, and leaps into corporation custards.
Iniquity, then, plays no real part in the drama. His introduction is
merely for the purpose of satire. In _The Staple of News_ the subject
is renewed, and treated with greater directness:
'_Tat. _ I would fain see the fool, gossip; the fool is the
finest man in the company, they say, and has all the wit:
he is the very justice o' peace o' the play, and can commit
whom he will and what he will, error, absurdity, as the toy
takes him, and no man say black is his eye, but laugh at him'.
In _Epigram 115, On the Town's Honest Man_, Jonson
again identifies the Vice with the mountebank, almost in
the same way as he does in _The Devil is an Ass_:
. . . this is one
Suffers no name but a description
Being no vicious person but the Vice
About the town; . . .
At every meal, where it doth dine or sup,
The cloth's no sooner gone, but it gets up,
And shifting of its faces, doth play more
Parts than the Italian could do with his door.
Acts old Iniquity and in the fit
Of miming gets the opinion of a wit.
whom he identifies with the house fool, is fifty years out of date.
Only trivial and absurd parts are left for Iniquity to play, the
mountebank tricks of the city and the tavern fools. Douce (pp. 499
f. ) mentions nine kinds of fools, among which the following appear:
1. The general domestic fool. 4. The city or corporation fool. 5.
Tavern fools. Satan compares Iniquity with each of these in turn. The
day has gone by, he says:
When euery great man had his _Vice_ stand by him,
In his long coat, shaking his wooden dagger.
Then he intimates that Iniquity may be able to play the
tavern fool:
Where canst thou carry him? except to Tauernes?
To mount vp ona joynt-stoole, with a _Iewes_-trumpe,
To put downe _Cokeley_, and that must be to Citizens?
And finally he compares him with the city fool:
Hee may perchance, in taile of a Sheriffes dinner,
Skip with a rime o' the table, from _New-nothing_,
And take his _Almaine_-leape into a custard.
Thus not only does Jonson identify the Vice with the fool, but with the
fool in his senility. The characteristic functions of the jester in the
Shakespearian drama, with his abundant store of improvised jests, witty
retorts, and irresistible impudence, have no part in this character. He
is merely the mountebank who climbs upon a tavern stool, skips over the
table, and leaps into corporation custards.
Iniquity, then, plays no real part in the drama. His introduction is
merely for the purpose of satire. In _The Staple of News_ the subject
is renewed, and treated with greater directness:
'_Tat. _ I would fain see the fool, gossip; the fool is the
finest man in the company, they say, and has all the wit:
he is the very justice o' peace o' the play, and can commit
whom he will and what he will, error, absurdity, as the toy
takes him, and no man say black is his eye, but laugh at him'.
In _Epigram 115, On the Town's Honest Man_, Jonson
again identifies the Vice with the mountebank, almost in
the same way as he does in _The Devil is an Ass_:
. . . this is one
Suffers no name but a description
Being no vicious person but the Vice
About the town; . . .
At every meal, where it doth dine or sup,
The cloth's no sooner gone, but it gets up,
And shifting of its faces, doth play more
Parts than the Italian could do with his door.
Acts old Iniquity and in the fit
Of miming gets the opinion of a wit.
