No More Learning

xlvii.

Jonson's form _tabacco_ is the same as the Italian and Portuguese.
See Alden, _Bart. Fair_, p. 169.

=5. 8. 74, 5 yellow=, etc.
=That's Starch! the Diuell's Idoll of that colour. = For the
general subject of yellow starch see note 1. 1. 112, 3. Compare
also Stubbes, _Anat. of Abuses_, p.
52: 'The deuil, as he in
the fulness of his malice, first inuented these great ruffes,
so hath hee now found out also two great stayes to beare vp and
maintaine this his kingdome of great ruffes. . . . The one arch or
piller whereby his kingdome of great ruffes is vnderpropped, is
a certaine kinde of liquide matter which they call _starch_,
wherein the devil hath willed them to wash and diue his ruffes
wel. '

'Starch hound' and 'Tobacco spawling (spitting)' are the names
of two devils in Dekker's _If this be not a good Play_,
_Wks. _ 3. 270. Jonson speaks of 'that idol starch' again
in the _Alchemist_, _Wks. _ 4. 92.

=5. 8. 78 He is the Master of Players. = An evident allusion
to the Puritan attacks on the stage. This was the period of the
renewed literary contest.