=
'There be twentie severall waies to make your butter come, which
for
brevitie
I omit; as to bind your cherne with a rope, to
thrust thereinto a red hot spit, &c.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
_ 4. 362). George Wither,
in the _Britain's Remembrancer_, 1628, refers to the same thing:
And Hogsdone, Islington, and Tothnam-court,
For cakes and cream had then no small resort.
Tottenham Fields were until a comparatively recent date a favorite
place of entertainment.
=1. 1. 13 a tonning of Ale=, etc. Cf. _Sad Shep._, _Wks._ 6. 276:
The house wives tun not work, nor the milk churn.
=1. 1. 15 Spight o' the housewiues cord, or her hot spit.
=
'There be twentie severall waies to make your butter come, which
for
brevitie
I omit; as to bind your cherne with a rope, to
thrust thereinto a red hot spit, &c.
'--Scot, _Discovery_, p. 229.
=1. 1. 16, 17 Or some good Ribibe ... witch.= This seems
to be an allusion, as Fleay suggests, to Heywood's _Wise-Woman
of Hogsdon_. The witch of that play declares her dwelling to
be in 'Kentstreet' (Heywood's _Wks._ 5. 294). A ribibe meant
originally a musical instrument, and was synonymous with rebec.
By analogy, perhaps, it was applied to a shrill-voiced old
woman. This is Gifford's explanation.
