favourite has grown fast. He has become _the_ Vice. Compared with him
the rest of the Vices appear foolish fellows whom it is his delight to
plague and lead astray. So supreme is he in wickedness that he has even
been given the Devil himself as his godfather, uncle, playmate. It is
his duty to keep alive the natural wickedness in man, to set snares and
evil mischances before the feet of simpler folk, to teach youth to be
idle and young men to be quarrelsome, to lure rogues to their ruin; but,
above all, to import wit into prosy dialogues, merriment into dull
situations. Such is 'the Vice'. Hear him speak for himself:

What is he calls upon me, and would seem to lack a Vice?
Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice
Here, there, and everywhere, as the cat is with the mice:
True _Vetus Iniquitas_. Lack'st thou cards, friend, or dice?
I will teach thee to cheat, child, to cog, lie, and swagger,
And ever and anon to be drawing forth thy dagger.

(Ben Jonson's _The Devil is an Ass_.)

Then what a universal favourite, too, is the Devil, our old friend from
the Miracles! 'My husband, Timothy Tattle, God rest his poor soul!' says
good Gossip Tattle, 'was wont to say, there was no play without a fool
and a devil in 't; he was for the devil still, God bless him! The devil
for his money, would he say, I would fain see the devil.' And Gossip
Mirth adds a description of the Devil as she knew him: 'As fine a
gentleman of his inches as ever I saw trusted to the stage, or any where
else; and loved the commonwealth as well as ever a patriot of them all;
he would carry away the Vice on his back, quick to hell, in every play
where he came, and reform abuses' (Ben Jonson's _The Staple of News_).
But our present purpose is with Nichol Newfangle and his arch-prompter.