See Collier,
_Annals_
3.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
=3. 5. 33 the very Academies. = See note 2. 8. 20.
=3. 5. 35 play-time. = Collier says that the usual hour of dining in
the city was twelve o'clock, though the passage in _Case is Altered_,
_Wks. _ 6. 331, seems to indicate an earlier hour:
Eat when your stomach serves, saith the physician,
Not at eleven and six.
The performance of plays began at three o'clock.
Cf. _Histriomastix_, 1610:
Come to the Town-house, and see a play:
At three a'clock it shall begin.
See Collier, _Annals_ 3. 377. Sir Humphrey Mildmay, in his Ms.
Diary (quoted _Annals_ 2. 70), speaks several times of going to
the play-house after dinner.
=3. 5. 39 his Damme. = _NED. _ gives a use of the phrase 'the
devil and his dam' as early as Piers Plowman, 1393. The 'devil's
dam' was later applied opprobriously to a woman. It is used thus
in Shakespeare, _Com. Err. _ 4. 3. 51.
