“The Alchemist”
Act i. sc. 2. Face’s speech:—
“Will take his oath o’ the Greek Xenophon,
If need be, in his pocket.”
Another reading is “Testament.”
Probably, the meaning is—that intending to give false evidence, he carried a Greek Xenophon to pass it off for a Greek Testament, and so avoid perjury—as the Irish do, by contriving to kiss their thumb-nails instead of the book.
Act ii. sc. 2. Mammon’s speech:—
“I will have all my beds blown up; not stuft:
Down is too hard.”
Thus the air-cushions, though perhaps only lately brought into use, were invented in idea in the seventeenth century!