Part 16 (2/2)

3: In _The Poetaster_, of which we shall speak farther on.

4: According to certain indications in _Satiromastix_, he had an 'ambling' walk, or dancing kind of step. (See _note_ 28.)

5: Collier's _Memoirs of Alleyn_, pp. 50 and 51.

6: _Conversations with Drummond_.

7: _Satiromastix_, 1602.

8: Collier's _Drama_, i. 334.

9: _Poetaster_.

10: Compare his Dedication in _Volpone_, of which we shall have more to say.

11: _Drummond's Conversations_.

12: Of all styles, Jonson liked best to be named 'Honest;' and he 'hath ane hundred letters so naming him.'--_Conversations with Drummond_.

13: _Life of Dryden_, p. 265.

14: By Aubrey called 'Jack Young.'

15: As if the whole world had made it a point to conspire against Jonson, Gifford laboriously exerts himself to defend him against the numberless attacks of all the previous commentators, critics, and biographers. The endeavour of Gifford to whitewash him seems to me as fruitless a beginning as that of the little innocent represented in a picture as trying to change, with sponge and soap, the African colour of her nurse's face.

16: Jonson's _Eulogy of Shakspere_ was composed seven years after the death of the latter. Having most probably been requested by Heminge and Condell not to withhold his tribute from the departed, to whom both his contemporaries as well as posterity had done homage, Jonson may readily have seized the occasion to do amends for the wrong he had inflicted upon the great poet during his lifetime. A later opinion of Jonson in regard to Shakspere (_Timber; or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter_, 1630-37) is of a more moderate tone, and on some points in contradiction to the words of praise contained in the published poem.

17: _Poetaster_, Apol. Dialogue.

18: This Prologue is not contained in the first edition (1598), but only in the second (1616). It may, therefore, have been written in the meantime. It is supposed that it was so in 1606. (See _Shakspere's Century of Praise_, 1879, pp. 118, 119.)

19: Only a few of the earliest productions of Jonson have come down to us. Some of them are: _Every Man in His Humour_ (1598); _Every Man out of His Humour_ (1599); and _Cynthia's Revels_ (1600), all of them full of personal allusions. Many of these are meant against Shakspere. We cannot, however, enter more fully upon that, as we have to confine ourselves to the chief controversy out of which _Hamlet_ arose. Neither on Jonson's nor on Shakspere's part did the controversy cease after the appearance of _Hamlet_. It was still carried on through several dramas, which, however, we leave untouched, as not belonging to our theme.

20: See _note_ 25.

21: In _Satiromastix_ this reproach is made to Ben Jonson:--'Horace did not screw and wriggle himselfe into great Mens famyliarity, impudentlie as thou doost.'

22: Gifford, in his nervous anxiety to parry every reproach against his much-admired, and, in his eyes, blameless Jonson whose quarrelsomeness had from so many parts been properly charged, and particularly desirous of s.h.i.+elding him against the accusation of having taken up an att.i.tude hostile to Shakspere, declares, in contradiction to the opinion of all previous commentators, that _Crispinus_ is to represent John Marston. Since then, Gifford's a.s.sertion has been taken for granted, without deeper inquiry. The authority of this fond editor of Jonson has, however, proved an untrustworthy one in many things, especially in matters relating to Shakspere. Thanks to the exertions of more recent inquirers, not a a few things are now seen in a better perspective than Gifford was able to offer. We admit the difficulty of reconstructing facts from productions like _The Poetaster_, which had been dictated by the overwrought feelings of the moment. But in a satire which bred so much 'tumult,' which 'could so deeply offend,' and 'stir so many hornets'

(four hundred persons out of five hundred being able to point with their fingers, in one instant, at one and the same man), the characters must have been very broadly drawn for general recognition. By such broad traits we must still be guided in our judgment to-day. All the characteristic qualities of Crispinus, which we shall explain farther on, prove that Gifford's idea about Crispinus being John Marston is not tenable.

This latter poet was very well versed in Greek and Latin, and had a complete cla.s.sic education. The admonition of Horace to perfect himself in both languages, is therefore not applicable to him.

Furthermore, Marston, at the time The Poetaster was composed (this may have been towards the end of the year 1600, or the beginning of 1601), had scarcely yet written anything for the stage. Only his _Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres_ (1598), and his _Scourge of Villanie_ (1599) had been published. His first tragedy came out in print in 1602; it may just have been in course of becoming known on the stage. We have no means of ascertaining whether it had already been acted when _The Poetaster_ appeared.

This much is however certain, that when this latter satire obtained publicity, Marston's relations to the drama and the stage must yet have been of the most insignificant kind; for Philip Henslowe, in his Diary (pp. 156, 157), expressly speaks of him, even in 1599, as a 'new' poet to whom he had lent, through an intermediary, the sum of forty s.h.i.+llings 'in earneste of a Boocke,' the t.i.tle of which is not mentioned. Is it, then, conceivable that such a dramatist who in 1601 certainly was yet very insignificant, should have been made the subject, in 1601, in Jonson's _Poetaster_, of the following very characteristic remark--a.s.suming Crispinus to have been intended for Marston?

Tucca says, in regard to the former, to a poor player (act iii. sc. i):--'If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel any more, after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel-heads to an old cracked trumpet.'

Does this not quite fit Shakspere's popularity and dramatic success?

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