"To be a quality of air or water, And in itself holds these two properties, Moisture and fluxure.... Now thus far It may by metaphor apply itself Unto the general disposition: As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his power." The social peculiarities of the day are frequently alluded to by Jonson. In "Every Man out of his own Humour," we have complete directions for the conduct of a gentleman of the time. Smoking, then lately introduced, is especially mentioned as one of the necessities of foppery. Cob, a water-bearer says, "Ods me, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them they say will never 'scape it: he cast up a bushel of soot yesterday." In Cynthia's Revels a courtier is thus described-- "He walks most commonly with a clove or toothpick in his mouth: he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are pointed: his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him, sweats to imitate him in everything to a hair, except his beard, which is not yet extant." But the stamp of the age is especially prominent in the constant recurrence of verbal conceits. Jonson was fond of coining words, and of using such as are long and little known. He evidently found this a successful kind of humour, and may have partly imitated Plautus-- Lady Politick Would-be, to Volpone, supposed sick-- Seed pearl were good now, boiled with syrup of apples, Tincture of gold, and coral, citron pills, Your elicampane root, myrobalanes-- _Volpone (tired with her talk)_ Ah me! I have ta'en a grasshopper by the wing. In "The Alchemist" Subtle says to Face, Sirrah my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him Like a philosopher: answer in the language, Name the vexations and the martyrizations Of metals in the work. Face. Sir, putrefaction, Solution, ablution, sublimation, Cohabation, calcination, ceration and Fixation. From "Every Man out of his Humour." _Macilente._ Pork! heart! what dost thou with such a greasy dish? I think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so like a glue-pot.