Stow says: 'there are crept in among
them [the inhabitants of Houndsditch] a base kinde of vermine,
wel-deserving to bee ranked and numbred with them, whom our old
Prophet and Countryman, _Gyldas_, called _AEtatis atramentum_,
the black
discredit
of the Age, and of place where they are suffered
to live.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
1616, p. 120) explains that the devil,
though but of air, can 'make himself palpable, either by assuming any
dead bodie, and vsing the ministerie thereof, or else by deluding as
well their sence of feeling as seeing.'
=1. 1. 143 our tribe of Brokers.= Cf. _Ev. Man in_, _Wks._ 1. 82:
'_Wel._ Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?
_Brai._ Of a Hounsditch man, sir, one of the devil's
near kinsmen, a broker.'
The pawnbrokers were cordially hated in Jonson's time. Their
quarter was Houndsditch.
Stow says: 'there are crept in among
them [the inhabitants of Houndsditch] a base kinde of vermine,
wel-deserving to bee ranked and numbred with them, whom our old
Prophet and Countryman, _Gyldas_, called _AEtatis atramentum_,
the black
discredit
of the Age, and of place where they are suffered
to live.
... These men, or rather monsters in the shape of men,
professe to live by lending, and yet will lend nothing but upon
pawnes;' etc.
Nash speaks of them in a similar strain: 'Fruits shall be greatly eaten
with Catterpillers; as Brokers, Farmers and Flatterers, which feeding
on the sweate of other mens browes, shall greatlye hinder the beautye
of the spring.'--_Prognostication_, _Wks._2. 145. 'They shall crie out
against brokers, as Jeremy did against false prophets.' _Ibid._ 2. 162.
=1. 1. 148 as you make your soone at nights relation.
