= 'This we may suppose to have
been the
customary
wages of a domestic servant.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
Belonged to your Ancestors?= Jonson frequently omits the relative
pronoun. Cf. 1. 5. 21; 1. 6. 86, 87; 3. 3. 149; 5. 8. 86, 87.
=1. 3. 38 Foure pound a yeere.
= 'This we may suppose to have
been the
customary
wages of a domestic servant.
'--C. Cunningham
cites also the passage in the _Alchemist_, _Wks._ 4. 12;
'You were once ... the good, Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum,
that kept Your master's worship's house,' in which he takes the
expression 'three-pound' to be the equivalent of 'badly-paid'.
=1. 4. 1 I'll goe lift him.= Jonson is never tired of punning on
the names of his characters.
=1. 4. 5 halfe a piece.= 'It may be necessary to observe,
once for all, that the _piece_ (the double sovereign) went for
two and twenty shillings.
