No More Learning

of _Bart. Fair_).
He seems, however, to have been rather an improviser like
Vennor, or a mountebank with a gift of riming. He is mentioned
several times by Jonson: _Bart. Fair_, _Wks. _ 4. 422, 3: 'He has
not been sent for, and sought out for nothing, at your great
city-suppers, to put down Coriat and Cokely. ' _Epigr. _129; _To
Mime_, _Wks. _ 8. 229:

Or, mounted on a stool, thy face doth hit
On some new gesture, that's imputed wit?
--Thou dost out-zany Cokely, Pod; nay Gue:
And thine own Coryat too.

=1. 1. 94 Vennor. = Gifford first took Vennor to be a juggler, but
corrected his statement in the _Masque of Augurs_, _Wks. _ 7. 414.
He says: 'Fenner, whom I supposed to be a juggler, was a rude kind
of _improvisatore_. He was altogether ignorant; but possessed a
wonderful facility in pouring out doggrel verse. He says of himself,

Yet, without boasting, let me boldly say
I'll rhyme with any man that breathes this day
Upon a subject, in _extempore_, etc.

He seems to have made a wretched livelihood by frequenting city
feasts, &c. , where, at the end of the entertainment, he was called in
to mount a stool and amuse the company by stringing together a
number of vile rhymes upon any given subject. To this the quotation
alludes. Fenner is noticed by the duchess of Newcastle: "For
the numbers every schoolboy can make them on his fingers, and for
the _rime_, Fenner would put down Ben Jonson, and yet neither boy
nor Fenner so good poets. " This, too, is the person meant in the
Cambridge answer to Corbet's satire:

A ballad late was made,
But God knows who the penner;
Some say the rhyming sculler,
And others say 'twas Fenner. p. 24.

Fenner was so famed for his faculty of rhyming, that James, who,
like Bartholomew Cokes, would willingly let no raree-show escape
him, sent for him to court. Upon which Fenner added to his other
titles that of his "Majesty's Riming Poet. " This gave offense to
Taylor, the Water poet, and helped to produce that miserable
squabble printed among his works, and from which I have principally
derived the substance of this note. '--G.

'In Richard Brome's _Covent Garden Weeded_ (circ. 1638), we
have: "Sure 'tis Fenner or his ghost. He was a riming souldier. "
(p. 42. )'--C.

The controversy referred to may be found in the Spenser Society's
reprint of the 1630 folio of Taylor's _Works_, 1869, pp. 304-325.
Here may be gathered a few more facts regarding the life of
Fenner (or Fennor as it should be spelled), among them that he
was apprenticed when a boy to a blind harper. In the quarrel, it
must be confessed, Fennor does not appear markedly inferior to his
derider either in powers of versification or in common decency. The
quarrel between the poets took place in October, 1614, and Fennor's
admittance to court seems to be referred to in the present passage.

=1. 1. 95 a Sheriffes dinner. = This was an occasion of considerable
extravagance. Entick (_Survey_ 1. 499) tells us that in 1543 a
sumptuary law was passed 'to prevent luxurious eating or feasting
in a time of scarcity; whereby it was ordained, that the lord-mayor
should not have more than seven dishes at dinner or supper,' and 'an
alderman and sheriff no more than six. '

=1. 1. 96 Skip with a rime o' the Table, from New-nothing. = What is
meant by _New-nothing_ I do not know. From the construction it would
seem to indicate the place from which the fool was accustomed to take
his leap, but it is possible that the word should be connected with
_rime_, and may perhaps be the translation of a Greek or Latin title
for some book of _facetiae_ published about this time. Such wits as
Fennor and Taylor doubtless produced many pamphlets, the titles of
which have not been recorded. In 1622 Taylor brought out a collection
of verse called 'Sir Gregory Non-sense His Newes from no place,' and
it may have been this very book in manuscript that suggested Jonson's
title. In the play of _King Darius_, 1106, one of the actors says:
'I had rather then my new nothing, I were gon. '

=1. 1. 97 his Almaine-leape into a custard. = 'In the earlier days,
when the city kept a fool it was customary for him at public
entertainments, to leap into a large bowl of custard set on
purpose. '--W. Whalley refers also to _All's well that Ends Well_
2. 5: 'You have made a shift to run into it, boots and all, like
him that leapt into the custard. '

Gifford quotes Glapthorne, _Wit in a Const. _:

The custard, with the four and twenty nooks
At my lord Mayor's feast.

He continues: 'Indeed, no common supply was required; for, besides
what the Corporation (great devourers of custard) consumed on the
spot, it appears that it was thought no breach of city manners to
send, or take some of it home with them for the use of their ladies. '
In the excellent old play quoted above, Clara twits her uncle with
this practise:

Now shall you, sir, as 'tis a frequent custom,
'Cause you're a worthy alderman of a ward,
Feed me with custard, and perpetual white broth
Sent from the lord Mayor's feast. '

Cunningham says: 'Poets of a comparatively recent date continue to
associate mayors and custards. ' He Quotes Prior _(Alma_, Cant. 1) and
a letter from Bishop Warburton to Hurd (Apr. 1766): 'I told him (the
Lord Mayor) in what I thought he was defective--that I was greatly
disappointed to see no custard at table. He said that they had been
so ridiculed for their custard that none had ventured to make its
appearance for some years. ' Jonson mentions the 'quaking custards'
again in _The Fox_, _Wks. _ 3. 164. , and in _The Staple of News_,
_Wks. _ 5. 196, 7.

An Almain-leap was a dancing leap. 'Allemands were danced here a few
years back' (Nares). Cunningham quotes from Dyce: 'Rabelais tells us
that Gargantua "wrestled, ran, jumped, not at three steps and a leap,
. . . nor yet at the Almane's, for, said Gymnast, these jumps are for the
wars altogether unprofitable and of no use. " _Rabelais_, Book 1, C. 23. '

Bishop Barlow, _Answer to a Catholike Englishman_, p. 231, Lond.
1607, says: 'Now heere the Censurer makes an Almaine leape, skipping
3 whole pages together' (quoted in _N. & Q. _ 1st Ser. 10. 157).


=1. 1. 97 their hoods. = The French hood was still worn by
citizens' wives. Thus in the _London Prodigal_, ed. 1709:

No _Frank_, I'll have thee go like a _Citizen_
In a Garded Gown, and a _French_ Hood.

When Simon Eyre is appointed sheriff, his wife immediately inquires
for a 'Fardingale-maker' and a 'French-hood maker' (Dekker, _Wks. _
1. 39). Strutt says that French hoods were out of fashion by the middle
of the 17th century (_Antiq. _ 3. 93). See the frequent references to
this article of apparel in _Bart. Fair_. It is interesting to notice
that the hoods are worn at dinner.

=1. 1. 106, 7. = The readings of 'Whalley and Gifford are distinctly
inferior to the original.

=1. 1. 112, 3 Car-men Are got into the yellow starch. = Starch was
introduced in the age of Elizabeth to meet the needs of the huge
Spanish ruff which had come into favor some years before (see
_Soc. Eng. _, p. 386). It was frequently colored. In Middleton and
Rowley's _World Tossed at Tennis_ five different colored starches are
personified. Stubbes says that it was 'of all collours and hues. '
Yellow starch must have come into fashion not long before this play
was acted, for in the _Owle's Allmanacke_, published in 1618, it is
said: 'Since yellow bandes and saffroned chaperoones came vp, is not
above two yeeres past. ' This, however, is not to be taken literally,
for the execution of Mrs. Turner took place Nov. 14, 1615. Of her
we read in Howell's Letters 1. 2: 'Mistress _Turner_, the first
inventress of _yellow Starch_, was executed in a Cobweb Lawn Ruff
of that colour at _Tyburn_; and with her I believe that _yellow
Starch_, which so much disfigured our Nation, and rendered them so
ridiculous and fantastic, will receive its Funeral. ' Sir S. D'Ewes
_(Autobiog. _ 1. 69) says that from that day it did, indeed, grow
'generally to be detested and disused. ' _The Vision of Sir Thomas
Overbury_, 1616 (quoted in Amos, _Great Oyer_, p. 50) speaks of

----that fantastic, ugly fall and ruff
Daub'd o'er with that base starch of yellow stuff

as already out of fashion. Its popularity must have returned,
however, since Barnaby Riche in the _Irish Hubbub_,1622, p.
40, laments that 'yellow starcht bands' were more popular than
ever, and he prophesies that the fashion 'shortly will be as
conversant amongst taylors, tapsters, and tinkers, as now they
have brought tobacco. '

D'Ewes also in describing the procession of King James from Whitehall
to Westminster, Jan. 30, 1620, says that the king saw one window
'full of gentlewomen or ladies, all in yellow bandes,' whereupon he
called out 'A pox take yee,' and they all withdrew in shame. In _The
Parson's Wedding_, printed 1664, _O. Pl. _ 11. 498, it is spoken of as
out of fashion. Yellow starch is mentioned again in 5. 8. 74. 5, and
a ballad of 'goose-green starch and the devil' is mentioned in _Bart.
Fair_, _Wks. _ 4. 393. Similarly, Nash speaks in _Pierce Pennilesse_,
_Wks. _ 2. 44. of a 'Ballet of Blue starch and poaking stick. '
See also Dodsley's note on _Albumazar_, _O. Pl. _ 7. 132.

=1. 1. 113, 4 Chimney-sweepers To their tabacco. = See the quotation
from Riche in the last note and note 5. 8. 71.

=1. 1. 114, 5 Hum, Meath, and Obarni. = Hum is defined B. E. _Dict.
Cant. Crew, Hum_ or _Humming Liquor_, Double Ale, Stout, Pharoah.
It is mentioned in Fletcher's _Wild Goose Chase_ 2. 3 and Heywood's
_Drunkard_. p. 48. Meath or mead is still made in England. It was
a favorite drink in the Middle Ages, and consisted of a mixture
of honey and water with the addition of a ferment. Harrison,
_Description of England_, ed. Furnivall, 1. 161, thus describes it:
'There is a kind of swish swash made also in Essex, and diuerse other
places, with honicombs and water, which the [homelie] countrie wiues,
putting some pepper and a little other spice among, call mead, verie
good in mine opinion for such as loue to be loose bodied [at large,
or a little eased of the cough,] otherwise it differeth so much from
the true metheglin, as chalke from cheese. '

Obarni was long a crux for the editors and dictionaries. Gifford
(_Wks. _ 7. 226) supplied a part of the quotation from _Pimlyco or
Runne Red-Cap_, 1609, completed by James Platt, Jun. (_N. & Q. _
9th Ser. 3. 306). in which 'Mead Obarne and Mead Cherunk' are
mentioned as drinks

----that whet the spites
Of Russes and cold Muscovites.

Mr. Platt first instanced the existing Russian word _obarni_ or
_obvarnyi_ (see Gloss. ), meaning 'boiling, scalding,' and C. C. B.
(_N. & Q. _ 9. 3.
413) supplied a quotation from the account of the
voyage of Sir Jerome Bowes in 1583 (Harris's _Travels_ 1. 535), in
which 'Sodden Mead' appears among the items of diet supplied by the
Emperor to the English Ambassador. The identification was completed
with a quotation given by the _Stanford Dict. _: '1598 Hakluyt _Voy. _
1. 461 One veather of sodden mead called _Obarni_. '

=1. 1. 119 your rope of sand. = This occupation is mentioned
again in 5. 2. 6.

=1. 1. 126 Tissue gownes. = Howes, p. 869. tells us that John Tuce,
'dweling neere Shorditch Church', first attained perfection in the
manufacture of cloth of tissue.

=1. 1. 127 Garters and roses. = Howes, p. 1039, says that 'at this
day (1631) men of meane rancke weare Garters, and shooe Roses, of
more than fiue pound price. ' Massinger, in the _City Madam_, _Wks. _,
p. 334, speaks of 'roses worth a family. ' Cf. also John Taylor's
_Works_, 1630 (quoted in _Hist. Brit. Cost_. ):

Weare a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold
And spangled garters worth a copyhold.

=1. 1. 128 Embroydred stockings. = 'Then haue they nether-stocks to
these gay hosen, not of cloth (though neuer so fine) for that is
thought to base, but of _Iarnsey_ worsted, silk, thred, and such
like, or els at the least of the finest yarn _that_ can be, and so
curiouslye knit with open seam down the leg, with quirks and clocks
about the ancles, and sometime (haply) interlaced with gold or siluer
threds, as is wonderful to behold. '--Stubbes, _Anat. _, Part 1, p. 57.
The selling of stockings was a separate trade at this time, and great
attention was paid to this article of clothing. Silk stockings are
frequently mentioned by the dramatists. Cf. Stephen Gosson, _Pleasant
Quippes_:

These worsted stockes of bravest die, and silken garters
fring'd with gold;
These corked shooes to beare them hie makes them to trip
it on the molde;
They mince it with a pace so strange,
Like untam'd heifers when they range.

=1. 1. 128 cut-worke smocks, and shirts. = Cf. B. & Fl. ,
_Four Plays in One_:

----She show'd me gownes, head tires,
Embroider'd waistcoats, smocks seamed with cutworks.

=1. 1. 135 But you must take a body ready made. = King James in his
_Daemonologie_ (_Wks. _, ed. 1616, p. 120) explains that the devil,
though but of air, can 'make himself palpable, either by assuming any
dead bodie, and vsing the ministerie thereof, or else by deluding as
well their sence of feeling as seeing. '

=1. 1. 143 our tribe of Brokers. = Cf. _Ev. Man in_, _Wks. _ 1. 82:

'_Wel. _ Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?
_Brai. _ Of a Hounsditch man, sir, one of the devil's
near kinsmen, a broker. '

The pawnbrokers were cordially hated in Jonson's time. Their
quarter was Houndsditch. Stow says: 'there are crept in among
them [the inhabitants of Houndsditch] a base kinde of vermine,
wel-deserving to bee ranked and numbred with them, whom our old
Prophet and Countryman, _Gyldas_, called _AEtatis atramentum_,
the black discredit of the Age, and of place where they are suffered
to live. . . . These men, or rather monsters in the shape of men,
professe to live by lending, and yet will lend nothing but upon
pawnes;' etc.

Nash speaks of them in a similar strain: 'Fruits shall be greatly eaten
with Catterpillers; as Brokers, Farmers and Flatterers, which feeding
on the sweate of other mens browes, shall greatlye hinder the beautye
of the spring. '--_Prognostication_, _Wks. _2. 145. 'They shall crie out
against brokers, as Jeremy did against false prophets. ' _Ibid. _ 2. 162.

=1. 1. 148 as you make your soone at nights relation. = Cf.
Dekker, _Satiromastix_, _Wks. _ 1. 187: 'Shee'l be a late
sturrer soone at night sir,' and _ibid. _ 223:

By this faire Bride remember soone at night.

=1. 2. 1 ff. I, they doe, now=, etc. 'Compare this
exquisite piece of sense, satire, and sound philosophy in 1616
with Sir M. Hale's speech from the bench in a trial of a witch
many years afterwards. '--Coleridge, _Notes_, p. 280.

=1. 2. 1 Bretnor. = An almanac maker (fl. 1607-1618). A list
of his works, compiled from the catalogue of the British Museum,
is given in the _DNB_. He is mentioned twice by Middleton:

This farmer will not cast his seed i' the ground
Before he look in Bretnor.
--_Inner-Temple Masque_, _Wks. _ 7. 211.

'_Chough. _ I'll not be married to-day, Trimtram: hast e'er an almanac
about thee? this is the nineteenth of August, look what day of the
month 'tis.

_Trim. _ 'Tis tenty-nine indeed, sir. [_Looks in almanac. _
_Chough. _ What's the word? What says Bretnor?
_Trim. _ The word is, sir, _There's a hole in her coat_. '
--Middleton, _A Fair Quarrel_, _Wks. _ 4. 263.

Fleay identifies him with Norbret, one of the astrologers in
Beaumont and Fletcher's _Rollo, Duke of Normandy_.

=1. 2. 2 Gresham. = A pretended astrologer, contemporary with Forman,
and said to be one of the associates of the infamous Countess of
Essex and Mrs. Turner in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Arthur
Wilson mentions him in _The Life of James I. _, p. 70:

'Mrs. _Turner_, the Mistris of the _Work_, had lost both her
supporters. _Forman_, her first prop, drop't away suddenly by death;
and _Gresham_ another rotten _Engin_ (that succeded him) did not hold
long: She must now bear up all her self. '

He is mentioned twice in Spark's _Narrative History of King James_,
Somer's _Tracts_ 2. 275: 'Dr. Forman being dead, Mrs. Turner wanted
one to assist her; whereupon, at the countesses coming to London, one
Gresham was nominated to be entertained in this businesse, and, in
processe of time, was wholly interested in it; this man was had in
suspition to have had a hand in the Gunpowder plot, he wrote so near
it in his almanack; but, without all question, he was a very skilful
man in the mathematicks, and, in his latter time, in witchcraft, as
was suspected, and therefore the fitter to bee imployed in those
practises, which, as they were devilish, so the devil had a hand
in them. '

_Ibid. _ 287: 'Now Gresham growing into years, having spent much time
in many foule practises to accomplish those things at this time,
gathers all his babies together, _viz. _ pictures in lead, in wax, in
plates of gold, of naked men and women with crosses, crucifixes, and
other implements, wrapping them all up together in a scarfe, crossed
every letter in the sacred word Trinity, crossed these things very
holily delivered into the hands of one Weston to bee hid in the earth
that no man might find them, and so in Thames-street having finished
his evill times he died, leaving behind him a man and a maid, one
hanged for a witch, and the other for a thief very shortly after. '

In the 'Heads of Charges against Robert, Earl of Somerset',
drawn up by Lord Bacon, we read: 'That the countess laboured
Forman and Gresham to inforce the Queen by witchcraft to favour
the countess' (Howell's _State Trials_ 2. 966). To this King
James replied in an 'Apostyle,' _Nothing to Somerset_. This
exhausts the references to Gresham that I have been able to
find. See note on Savory, 1. 2. 3.

=1. 2. 2. Fore-man. = Simon Foreman, or Forman (1552-1611)
was the most famous of the group of quacks here mentioned. He
studied at Oxford, 1573-1578, and in 1579 began his career as
a necromancer. He claimed the power to discover lost treasure,
and was especially successful in his dealings with women. A
detailed account of his life is given in the _DNB_. and a short
but interesting sketch in _Social England_ 4. 87. The chief
sources are Wm. Lilly's _History_ and a diary from 1564 to 1602,
with an account of Forman's early life, published by Mr. J. O.
Halliwell-Phillipps for the Camden Soc. , 1843.

He is mentioned again by Jonson in _Silent Woman_, _Wks. _ 3.
413: '_Daup. _ I would say, thou hadst the best philtre in the
world, and couldst do more than Madam Medea, or Doctor Foreman. '
In _Sir Thomas Overbury's Vision_ (Harl. Ms. , vol. 7, quoted in
D'Ewes' _Autobiog. _, p. 89) he is spoken of as 'that fiend in
human shape. '

=1. 2. 3 Francklin. = Francklin was an apothecary, and
procured the poison for Mrs. Turner (see Amos, _Great Oyer_. p.
97). He was one of the three persons executed with Mrs. Turner.
Arthur Wilson, in his _Life of James I. _ (p. 70), describes him
as 'a swarthy, sallow, crooked-backt fellow, who was to be the
_Fountain_ whence these bitter waters came. ' See also Somer's
_Tracts_ 2. 287. The poem already quoted furnishes a description
of Francklin:

A man he was of stature meanly tall.
His body's lineaments were shaped, and all
His limbs compacted well, and strongly knit.
Nature's kind hand no error made in it.
His beard was ruddy hue, and from his head
A wanton lock itself did down dispread
Upon his back; to which while he did live
Th' ambiguous name of _Elf-lock_ he did give.
--Quoted in Amos. p. 50.

=1. 2. 3 Fiske. = 'In this year 1633, I became acquainted with
Nicholas Fiske, licentiate in physick, who was borne in Suffolk, near
Framingham [Framlingham] Castle, of very good parentage. . . .