=17 Muscouy glasse.= Cf. Marston, _Malcontent_, _Wks_. 1. 234: ‘She were an excellent lady, but that her face peeleth like Muscovy glass.’ Reed (_Old Plays_ 4. 38) quotes from Giles Fletcher‘s _Russe Commonwealth_, 1591, p. 10: ‘In the province of Corelia, and about the river Duyna towards the North-sea, there groweth a soft rock which they call Slude. This they cut into pieces, and so tear it into thin _flakes, which naturally it is apt for_, and so use it for glasse lanthorns and such like. It giveth both inwards and outwards a clearer light then glasse, and for this respect is better than either glasse or horne; for that it neither breaketh like glasse, nor yet will burne like the lanthorne.’ Dekker _(Non-dram. Wks._ 2. 135) speaks of a ‘Muscouie Lanthorne.’ See Gloss. =22 the Diuell of Edmunton.= _The Merry Devil of Edmunton_ was acted by the King’s Men at the Globe before Oct. 22, 1607. It has been conjecturally assigned to Shakespeare and to Drayton. Hazlitt describes it as ‘perhaps the first example of sentimental comedy we have’ (see _O. Pl._, 4th ed., 10. 203 f.). Fleay, who believes Drayton to be the author, thinks that the ‘Merry devil’ of _The Merchant of Venice_ 2. 3, alludes to this play (_Biog. Chron._ 1. 151 and 2. 213). There were six editions in the 17th century, all in quarto--1608, 1612, 1617, 1626, 1631, 1655. Middleton, _The Black Book_, _Wks._ 8. 36, alludes to it pleasantly in connection with _A Woman kill’d with Kindness_. Genest mentions it as being revived in 1682. Cf. also _Staple of News_, 1st Int. =26 If this Play doe not like=, etc. Jonson refers to Dekker’s play of 1612 (see Introduction, p. xxix). On the title-page of this play we find _If it be not good, The Diuel is in it_. At the head of Act. 1, however, the title reads _If this be not a good play_, etc. ACT I. =1. 1. 1 Hoh, hoh=, etc. ‘Whalley is right in saying that this is the conventional way for the devil to make his appearance in the old morality-plays. Gifford objects on the ground that ‘it is not the roar of terror; but the boisterous expression of sarcastic merriment at the absurd petition of Pug;’ an objection, the truth of which does not necessarily invalidate Whalley’s statement. Jonson of course adapts the old conventions to his own ends. See Introduction, p. xxiii. =1. 1. 9 Entring a Sow, to make her cast her farrow?= Cf. Dekker, etc., _Witch of Edmonton_ (_Wks._ 4. 423): ‘_Countr._ I’ll be sworn, _Mr. Carter_, she bewitched Gammer _Washbowls_ sow, to cast her Pigs a day before she would have farried.’ =1. 1. 11 Totnam.= ‘The first notice of Tottenham Court, as a place of public entertainment, contained in the books of the parish of St. Gile’s-in-the-Fields, occurs under the year 1645 (Wh-C.). Jonson, however, as early as 1614 speaks of ‘courting it to Totnam to eat cream’ (_Bart. Fair_, Act 1. Sc. 1, _Wks._ 4. 362). George Wither, in the _Britain’s Remembrancer_, 1628, refers to the same thing: