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.

Carlo. True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it too, they would not like rugged laths, rub out so many doublets as they do; but thou knowest not a good dish thou.  No marvel though, that saucy stubborn generation, the Jews, were forbidden it, for what would they have done, well pampered with fat pork, that durst murmur at their Maker out of garlick and onions?  ’Slight! fed with it—­the strummel-patched, goggle-eyed, grumbledones would have gigantomachized.—­

The following extracts will give a slight idea of Ben Jonson’s varied talent.  At the conclusion of a play directed against plagiarists and libellers, he sums up—­