No More Learning

340]--a title which must be
allowed to be twice as good as that of the English original. The
phrase 'the Devil is an ass' appears to have been proverbial.
See Fletcher's _The Chances_, Act 5. Sc. 2:

Dost thou think
The devil such an ass as people make him? '
--Ward, _Eng. Drama_ 2. 372.

A still more important passage occurs in Dekker's _If this be not a
good Play_, a partial source of Jonson's drama:

_Scu. _ Sweete-breads I hold my life, that diuels an asse.
--Dekker, _Wks. _ 3. 328.

Jonson uses it again in _The Staple of News_, _Wks. _ 5.
188:

The conjurer cozened him with a candle's end; he was an ass.

Dekker (_Non-dram. Wks. _ 2. 275) tells us the jest of a citizen
who was told that the 'Lawyers get the Diuell and all: What an
Asse, replied the Citizen is the diuell? If I were as he I would
get some of them. '

=HIS MAIESTIES SERVANTS. = Otherwise known as the
_King's Company_, and popularly spoken of as the _King's Men_. For
an account of this company see Winter, ed. _Staple of News_, p. 121;
and Fleay, _Biog. Chron. _ 1. 356-7; 2. 403-4.

=Ficta voluptatis=, etc.