=5. 8. 34 If his hornes be forth, the Diuells companion!= The jest is too obvious not to be a common one. Thus in _Eastward Ho_ Slitgut, who is impersonating the cuckold at Horn-fair, says: ‘Slight! I think the devil be abroad. in likeness of a storm, to rob me of my horns!’,--Marston’s _Wks._ 3. 72. Cf. also _Staple of News_, _Wks._ 5. 186: ‘And why would you so fain see the devil? would I say. Because he has horns, wife, and may be a cuckold as well as a devil.’ =5. 8. 35 How he foames!= For the stock indications of witchcraft see Introduction, p. xlix. =5. 8. 40 The Cockscomb, and the Couerlet.= Wittipol is evidently selecting an appropriate name for Fitzdottrel’s buffoonery after the manner of the puppet-shows. It is quite possible that some actual _motion_ of the day was styled ‘the Coxcomb and the Coverlet.’ =5. 8. 50 shee puts in a pinne.= Pricking with pins and needles was one of the devil’s regular ways of tormenting bewitched persons. They were often supposed to vomit these articles. So when Voltore feigns possession, Volpone cries out: ‘See! He vomits crooked pins’ (_The Fox_, _Wks._ 3. 312). =5. 8. 61 the Kings Constable.= ‘From the earliest times to our own days, there were two bodies of police in England, namely, the parish and high constables, and the watchmen in cities and boroughs. Nothing could exceed their inefficiency in the 17th century. Of the constables, Dalton (in the reign of James I.) observes that they “are often absent from their houses, being for the most part husbandmen.” The charge of Dogberry shows probably with no great caricature what sort of watchmen Shakespeare was familiar with. As late as 1796, Colquhoun observes that the watchmen “were aged and often superannuated men.” ’--Sir J. Stephen, _Hist. Crim. Law_ 1. 194 f. =5. 8. 71 The taking of Tabacco, with which the Diuell= =Is so delighted.= This was an old joke of the time. In Middleton’s _Black Book_, _Wks._ 8. 42 f. the devil makes his will, a part of which reads as follows: ‘But turning my legacy to you-ward, Barnaby Burning-glass, arch-tobacco-taker of England, in ordinaries, upon stages both common and private, and lastly, in the lodging of your drab and mistress; I am not a little proud, I can tell you, Barnaby, that you dance after my pipe so long, and for all counter-blasts and tobacco-Nashes (which some call railers), you are not blown away, nor your fiery thirst quenched with the small penny-ale of their contradictions, but still suck that dug of damnation with a long nipple, still burning that rare Phoenix of Phlegethon, tobacco, that from her ashes, burned and knocked out, may arise another pipeful.’