Part 57 (1/2)

Horace is allowed by Augustus to make _Crispinus_ swallow a certain pill; the light vomit discharges a great quant.i.ty of hard matter, to clear

His brain and stomach of their tumorous heats.

These consist of certain affectations in style, and adulteration of words, which offended the Horatian taste: ”the basin” is called quickly for and _Crispinus_ gets rid easily of some, but others were of more difficult pa.s.sage:--

'Magnificate!' that came up somewhat hard!

_Crispinus._ 'O barmy froth----'

_Augustus._ What's that?

_Crispinus._ 'Inflate!--Turgidous!--and Ventositous'--

_Horace._ 'Barmy froth, inflate, turgidous, and ventosity are come up.'

_Tibullus._ O terrible windy words!

_Gallus._ A sign of a windy brain.

But all was not yet over: ”Prorumpt” made a terrible rumbling, as if his spirit was to have gone with it; and there were others which required all the kind a.s.sistance of the Horatian ”light vomit.” This satirical scene closes with some literary admonitions from the grave Virgil, who details to _Crispinus_ the wholesome diet to be observed after his surfeits, which have filled

His blood and brain thus full of crudities.

Virgil's counsels to the vicious neologist, who debases the purity of English diction by affecting new words or phrases, may too frequently be applied.

You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms To stuff out a peculiar dialect; But let your matter run before your words.

And if at any time you chance to meet Some Gallo-Belgick phrase, you shall not straight Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment, But let it pa.s.s; and do not think yourself Much d.a.m.nified, if you do leave it out When not the sense could well receive it.

Virgil adds something which breathes all the haughty spirit of Ben: he commands _Crispinus_:

------------Henceforth, learn To bear yourself more humbly, nor to swell Or breathe your insolent and idle spite On him whose laughter can your worst affright:

and dismisses him

To some dark place, removed from company; He will talk idly else after his physic.

”The Satiromastix” may be considered as a parody on ”The Poetaster.”

Jonson, with cla.s.sical taste, had raised his scene in the court of Augustus: Decker, with great unhappiness, places it in that of William Rufus. The interest of the piece arises from the dexterity with which Decker has accommodated those very characters which Jonson has satirised in his ”Poetaster.” This gratified those who came every day to the theatre, delighted to take this mimetic revenge on the arch bard.

In Decker's prefatory address ”To the World,” he observes, ”Horace haled his Poetasters to the bar;[392] the Poetasters untrussed Horace: Horace made himself believe that his Burgonian wit[393] might desperately challenge all comers, and that none durst take up the foils against him.” But Decker is the Earl Rivers! He had been blamed for the personal attacks on Jonson; for ”whipping his fortunes and condition of life; where the more n.o.ble reprehension had been of his mind's deformity:” but for this he retorts on Ben. Some censured Decker for barrenness of invention, in bringing on those characters in his own play whom Jonson had stigmatised; but ”it was not improper,”

he says, ”to set the same dog upon Horace, whom Horace had set to worry others.” Decker warmly concludes with defying the Jonsonians.

”Let that mad dog Detraction bite till his teeth be worn to the stumps; Envy, feed thy snakes so fat with poison till they burst; World, let all thy adders shoot out their Hydra-headed forked stings!

I thank thee, thou true Venusian Horace, for these good words thou givest me. _Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo._”

The whole address is spirited. Decker was a very popular writer, whose numerous tracts exhibit to posterity a more detailed narrative of the manners of the town in the Elizabethan age than is elsewhere to be found.

In Decker's Satiromastix, Horace junior is first exhibited in his study, rehearsing to himself an ode: suddenly the Pindaric rapture is interrupted by the want of a rhyme; this is satirically applied to an unlucky line of Ben's own. One of his ”sons,” Asinius Bubo, who is blindly wors.h.i.+pping his great idol, or ”his Ningle,” as he calls him, amid his admiration of Horace, perpetually breaks out into digressive accounts of what sort of a man his friends take him to be. For one, Horace in wrath prepares an epigram: and for _Crispinus_ and _Fannius_, brother bards, who threaten ”they'll bring your life and death on the stage, as a bricklayer in a play,” he says, ”I can bring a prepared troop of gallants, who, for my sake, shall distaste every unsalted line in their fly-blown comedies.” ”Ay,” replies Asinius, ”and all men of my rank!” _Crispinus_, Horace calls ”a light voluptuous reveller,” and _Fannius_ ”the slightest cobweb-lawn piece of a poet.” Both enter, and Horace receives them with all friends.h.i.+p.

The scene is here conducted not without skill. Horace complains that

----------------When I dip my pen In distill'd roses, and do strive to drain Out of mine ink all gall-- Mine enemies, with sharp and searching eyes, Look through and through me.