Dekker in Chapter 6 of _The Guls Horne-booke_ gives the gallant full instructions as to the behavior proper to the play-house. The youth is advised to wait until ‘the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes’, and then ‘to creepe from behind the Arras,’ and plant himself ‘on the very Rushes where the Commedy is to daunce, yea, and vnder the state of Cambises himselfe.’ Sir John Davies makes a similar allusion _(Epigrams_, ed. Grosart, 2. 10). Jonson makes frequent reference to the subject. Cf. _Induction_ to _The Staple of News_, _Every Man out_, _Wks._ 2. 31; _Prologue_ to _Cynthia’s Revels_, _Wks._ 2. 210, etc. =5 a subtill thing.= I. e., thin, airy, spiritual, and so not occupying space. =6 worne in a thumbe-ring.= ‘Nothing was more common, as we learn from Lilly, than to carry about familiar spirits, shut up in rings, watches, sword-hilts, and other articles of dress.’--G. I have been unable to verify Gifford’s statement from Lilly, but the following passage from Harsnet’s _Declaration_ (p. 13) confirms it: ‘For compassing of this treasure, there was a consociation betweene 3 or 4 priests, _deuill-coniurers_, and 4 _discouerers_, or _seers_, reputed to carry about with them, their familiars in rings, and glasses, by whose suggestion they came to notice of those golden hoards.’ Gifford says that thumb-rings of Jonson’s day were set with jewels of an extraordinary size, and that they appear to have been ‘more affected by magistrates and grave citizens than necromancers.’ Cf. _I Henry IV_ 2. 4: ‘I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring.’ Also _Witts Recreat._, _Epig._ 623: He wears a hoop-ring on his thumb; he has Of gravidad a dose, full in the face. Glapthorne, _Wit in a Constable_, 1639, 4. 1: ‘An alderman--I may say to you, he has no more wit than the rest of the bench, and that lies in his thumb-ring.’ =8 In compasse of a cheese-trencher.= The figure seems forced to us, but it should be remembered that trenchers were a very important article of table equipment in Jonson’s day. They were often embellished with ‘posies,’ and it is possible that Jonson was thinking of the brevity of such inscriptions. Cf. Dekker, _North-Ward Hoe_ 3. 1 (_Wks._ 3. 38): ‘Ile have you make 12. poesies for a dozen of cheese trenchers.’ Also _Honest Whore_, Part I, Sc. 13; and Middleton, _Old Law_ 2. 1 (_Wks._ 2. 149); _No Wit, no Help like a Woman’s_ 2. 1 (_Wks._ 4. 322). =15 Like the young adders.= It is said that young adders, when frightened, run into their mother’s mouth for protection. =16 Would wee could stand due North.= I. e., be as infallible as the compass.