Part 15 (1/2)

In 'The Poetaster,' which in 1601 was acted by the children of the Queen's Chapel, Jonson made an attack upon three poets. We hope to be able to prove that the one most bitterly abused, and who is bidden to swallow the 'pill,' is no other than Shakspere, whilst the two remaining ones are John Marston and Thomas Dekker. From the 'Apologetical Dialogue'

which Jonson wrote after 'The Poetaster' had already pa.s.sed over the stage, we see that this satire had excited the greatest indignation and sensation in the dramatic world. It was a new manner of falling out with a colleague before the public. The conceited presumption of the author, who in the play itself a.s.sumes the part of Horace, seriously proclaiming himself as the poet of poets, as the worthiest of the worthy, is not less enormous and repulsive than the way in which he proceeds against his rivals.

Quite innocently, Jonson asks in that dialogue (which was spoken on the stage after 'The Poetaster' had given rise to a general squabble), how it came about that such a hubbub was made of that play, seeing that it was free from insults, only containing 'some salt' but 'neither tooth, nor gall,' whilst his antagonists, after all, had been the cause of whatever remarks he himself had made:--

... But sure I am, three years They did provoke me with their petulant styles, On every stage. And I at last, unwilling, But weary, I confess, of so much trouble, Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em.

In some comedies of Shakspere, which appeared between the years 1598 and 1601, there are characters markedly stamped with Jonsonian peculiarities. We may be convinced that 'gentle Shakspere' had received many a provocation [19] before he took notice of the obscure dramatist who was younger by ten years than himself, and publicly gave him a strong lesson. 'All's Well that Ends Well' contains a figure, Parolles, whose peculiarities are too closely akin to those of Ben Jonson to be regarded as a mere fortuitous accident; especially when we find that Jonson, in 'The Poetaster,' again tries to ridicule this. .h.i.t by a characteristic expression. [20]

Parolles is a follower of Count Rousillon. His position is not further defined than that he follows Bertram; he is a cross between a gentleman and a servant. We hear the old Lord Lafeu reproaching him in act ii.

sc. 3:--

'Why dost thou garter up thy arms o' this fas.h.i.+on? dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other servants do so?'

Again he calls him--'a vagabond, no true traveller: you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the heraldry of your birth and virtue gives you commission.' [21]

Parolles boasts of being born under the sign of Mars, and up to every heroic deed; and it is certainly an allusion to Jonson's bravado of having in the Low Countries, in the face of both camps, killed an enemy and taken _opima spolia_ from him, that Shakspere lets this character make the attempt to retake, single-handed, from the enemy, a drum that had been lost in the battle. Of course, Parolles finally comes out a coward and a traitor. Parolles also mentions that he understands 'Low Dutch.'

In the character of Malvolio ('Twelfth Night; or What You Will,'

1600-1601), the quarrelsome Ben has long ago been suspected, who, puffed up with braggart pride, contemptuously looks down upon his colleagues, and impudently exerts himself to gain access to high social circles; thus a.s.suming, like Parolles, a position that does not properly belong to him. Even as Lord Lafeu takes Parolles a peg lower, so Sir Toby (act. ii. sc. 3) reminds the haughty Malvolio that he is nothing more than a steward. The religion of Malvolio also is several times discussed. Merry Maria relates that he is a 'Puritan or anything constantly but a time-pleaser.' Nor is the priest wanting who is to drive out the hyperbolical fiend from the captive Malvolio: an unmistakeable allusion to Ben Jonson's conversion in prison. The Fool who represents the Priest, puts a question referring to Pythagoras to Malvolio who is groaning 'in darkness' and yearning for freedom. He receives an evasive answer from the prisoner. In 'Volpone,' as we shall see, Jonson answers it very fully. [22]

Altogether, there are allusions in 'The Poetaster,' and in 'Volpone,'

to 'All's Well that Ends Well,' and to 'What You Will,' which we shall have to touch upon in speaking of those plays.

The scene of 'The Poetaster' is laid at the court of Augustus Caesar.

Jonson therein describes himself under the character of Horace. The whole drift of the play is, to take the many enemies of the latter to task for their calumnies and libels against him. Rome is the place of action, and the persons of the drama bear cla.s.sic names. There are, besides Augustus and Horace, Mecaenas (_sic_), Virgil, Propertius, Trebatius, Ovid, Demetrius Fannius, _Rufus Laberius Crispinus_, and so forth. The characters whom they are to represent are mostly authors of the dramatic world around Ben Jonson. They are depicted with traits so easily recognisable that--as Dekker says in his 'Satiromastix'--of five hundred people four hundred could 'all point with their fingers in one instant at one and the same man.'

More especially against two disciples of the Muse is Jonson's 'gally ink' directed. Let us give a few instances of the lampoons and calumnious squibs by which Horace pretends having been insulted on the part of envious colleagues who, he maintains, look askance at him because 'he keeps more worthy gallants' company' than they can get into. In act iv. sc. I, Demetrius tells Tucca:--

'Alas, Sir, Horace! he is a mere sponge; nothing but humours and observation; he goes up and down, sucking from every society, and when he comes home, squeezes himself dry again.'

Tucca adds:--'He will sooner lose his best friend than his least jest.'

Crispinus is found guilty of having composed a libel against Horace, of which the following may serve as a specimen:--

Ramp up my genius, be not retrograde; But boldly nominate a spade a spade.

What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery muse Live, as she were defunct, like punk in stews?

Alas! that were no modern consequence, To have cothurnal buskins frighted hence.

No, teach thy Incubus to poetize; And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries....

O poets all and some! for now we list Of strenuous vengeance to clutch the fist.

Such was the language the contemporaries of Shakspere used. Are we to wonder, then, if here and there we find in his works an offensive expression?

The two persons who are specially taken to task, and most harshly treated, are Demetrius Fannius, 'play-dresser and plagiarius,' and RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, '_poetaster and plagiarius_.' In 'Satiromastix,'

Demetrius clearly comes out as Dekker. Crispinus is the chief character of the play:--'the poetaster.' Against him the satire is mainly directed, and for his sake it seems to have been written, for the t.i.tle runs thus: 'The Poetaster, or His Arraignment.' From all the characteristic qualities of Crispinus we draw the conclusion that this figure represented SHAKSPERE.

From the above-mentioned pa.s.sage in 'The Return from Parna.s.sus' it would seem as if a '_pill_' had been administered in the play to several poets.

That is, however, not so. Then, as now, the plural form was a favourite one with writers afraid to attack openly. Horace administers a pill only to one poet--to Crispinus. And as Kemp says that Shakspere, thereupon, gave a '_purge_,' the conclusion is obvious that he who took revenge by administering the purge, must have been the one to whom the pill had been given. 'Volpone,' a play directed against the 'purge'--that is, 'Hamlet'--will convince us that the chief controversy lay between Jonson and Shakspere, and not between Jonson and Dekker.

The following points will, we think, make it still clearer that we are warranted in believing that the figure of Crispinus was intended by Jonson for Shakspere.