title="[xxvii]"/> Puck or Robin Goodfellow. Similarly Thomas Heywood makes Kobald, Hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow, and Pug practically identical.[23] Butler, in the Hudibras,[24] gives him the combination-title of good ‘Pug-Robin’. Jonson’s character of Pug was certainly influenced in some degree both by the popular and the literary conception of this ‘lubber fiend’.

The theme of a stupid or outwitted devil occurred also both in ballad literature[25] and in popular legend. Roskoff[26] places the change in attitude toward the devil from a feeling of fear to one of superiority at about the end of the eleventh century. The idea of a baffled devil may have been partially due to the legends of the saints, where the devil is constantly defeated, though he is seldom made to appear stupid or ridiculous. The notion of a ‘stupid devil’ is not very common in English, but occasionally appears. In the Virgilius legend the fiend is cheated of his reward by stupidly putting himself into the physical power of the wizard. In the Friar Bacon legend the necromancer delivers an Oxford gentleman by a trick of sophistry.[27] In the story upon which the drama of The Merry Devil of Edmonton was founded, the devil is not only cleverly outwitted, but appears weak and docile in his indulgence of the wizard’s plea for a temporary respite. It may be said in passing, in spite of Herford’s assertion to the contrary, that the supernatural machinery in this play has considerably less connection with the plot than in The Devil is an Ass. Both show a survival of a past interest, of which the dramatist himself realizes the obsolete character.

4. Friar Rush and Dekker

It was the familiar legend of Friar Rush which furnished the groundwork of Jonson’s play. The story seems to be of Danish origin, and first makes its appearance in England in the form of a prose history during the latter half of the sixteenth century. It is entered in the Stationer’s Register 1567-8, and mentioned by Reginald Scot in 1584.[28] As early as 1566, however, the figure of Friar Rush on a ‘painted cloth’ was a familiar one, and is so mentioned in Gammer Gurton’s Needle.[29] The first extant edition dates from 1620, and has been reprinted by W. J. Thoms.[30] The character had already become partially identified with that of Robin Goodfellow,[31] and this identification, as we have seen, Jonson was inclined to accept.

In spite of many variations of detail the kernel of the Rush story is precisely that of Jonson’s play, the visit of a devil to earth with the purpose of corrupting men. Both Rush and Pug assume human bodies, the former being ‘put in rayment like an earthly creature’, while the latter is made subject ‘to all impressions of the flesh’.

Rush, unlike his counterpart, is not otherwise bound to definite conditions, but he too becomes a servant. The adventure is not of his own seeking; he is chosen by agreement of the council, and no mention is made of the emissary’s willingness or unwillingness to perform his part. Later, however, we read that he stood at the gate of the religious house ‘all alone and with a heavie countenance’. In the beginning, therefore, he has little of Pug’s thirst for adventure, but his object is at bottom the same, ‘to goe and dwell among these religious men for to maintaine them the longer in their ungracious living’. Like Pug, whose request for a Vice is denied him, he goes unaccompanied, and presents himself at the priory in the guise of a young man seeking service: ‘Sir, I am a poore young man, and am out of service, and faine would have a maister’.[32]

Most of the remaining incidents of the Rush story could not be used in Jonson’s play. Two incidents may be mentioned. Rush furthers the amours of his master, as Pug attempts to do those of his mistress. In the later history of Rush the motive of demoniacal possession is worked into the plot. In a very important respect, however, the legend differs from the play. Up to the time of discovery Rush is popular and successful. He is nowhere made ridiculous, and his mission of corruption is in large measure fulfilled. The two stories come together in their conclusion. The discovery that a real devil has been among them is the means of the friars’ conversion and future right living. A precisely similar effect takes place in the case of Fitzdottrel.

The legend of Friar Rush had already twice been used in the drama before it was adopted by Jonson. The play by Day and Haughton to which Henslowe refers[33] is not extant; Dekker’s drama, If this be not a good Play, the Diuell is in it, appeared in 1612. Jonson in roundabout fashion acknowledged his indebtedness to this play by the closing line of his prologue.

  If this Play doe not like, the Diuell is in’t.

Dekker’s play adds few new elements to the story. The first scene is in the infernal regions; not, however, the Christian hell, as in the prose history, but the classical Hades. This change seems to have been adopted from Machiavelli. Three devils are sent to earth with the object of corrupting men and replenishing hell. They return, on the whole, successful, though the corrupted king of Naples is finally redeemed.

In certain respects, however, the play stands closer to Jonson’s drama than the history. In the first place, the doctrine that hell’s vices are both old-fashioned and outdone by men, upon which Satan lays so much stress in his instructions to Pug in the first scene, receives a like emphasis in Dekker: