Shakspere's _Julius Caesar_ which had appeared in the same year
(1601). Not only does Horace say to Trebatius that 'great Caesar's
wars cannot be fought with words,' but he also corrects Shakspere,
who makes Antony (act iii. sc. 2) speak of Caesar's gardens on this
side of the Tiber, by putting into the mouth of Horace (act iii.
sc. i) the words:--' On the far side of all Tyber yonder.' In this
scene, where the two Pyrgi are examined, there are some more
allusions to _Julius Caesar_. Even the boy, whose instrument Brutus
takes away when he is asleep, is not wanting. In _The Poetaster_
it is a drum, instead of a lyre (the drum in _All's Well that Ends
Well_). And are the following words of the same scene no satire
upon act i. sc. 3 of _Julius Caesar_, where Casca and Cicero meet
amidst thunder and lightning?
2 _Pyrgi_. Where art thou, boy? where is Calipolis?
Fight earthquakes in the entrails of the earth,
And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades;
Some foul contagion of the infected heavens
Blast all the trees, and in their cursed tops
The dismal night-raven and tragic owl
Breed and become forerunners of my fall!
Casca dwells especially on the 'bird of night.'
26: The y, in Pygmalion, seems to us not without cause to be changed
by Marston into an i.
27: The number of metaphors used by Shakspere in 'Venus and Adonis,'
which Marston travesties, is strikingly large.
28: A few instances may here be given of the coarseness with which
Dekker pays back Jonson for his personal allusions. In _The Poetaster_,
Crispinus is told that his 'satin-sleeve begins to fret at the rug
that is underneath it.' In _Satiromastix_, Tucca cries out against
Horace (Jonson):--'Thou never yet fel'st into the hands of sattin.'
And again:--'Thou borrowedst a gowne of Roscius the stager, and
sentest it home lousie.' Crispinus, in _The Poetaster_, is derided
on account of his short legs. In _Satiromastix_, Horace is laughed at
for his 'ambling' walk; wherefore he had so badly played mad
Jeronimo's part. Jonson is reproached with all his sins: that he
had killed a player; that he had not thought it necessary to keep
his word to those whom he held to be _heretics_ and _infidels_, and
so forth. His face, which, as above mentioned, had scorbutic
marks, is stated to be 'like a rotten russet apple when it is
bruiz'd'; or, like the cover of a warming-pan, 'full of oylet-holes.'
He is called an 'uglie Pope Bonifacius;' also a 'bricklayer;' and
he is asked why, instead of building chimneys and laying down
bricks, he makes 'nothing but railes'--'filthy rotten railes'--upon
which alone his Muse leans. ('Railes' has a double meaning here:
rails for fencing in a house; and gibes.) He is told that his feet
stamp as if he had mortar under them--an allusion to his metrics,
as well as to his ambling walk.
29: Shakspere was already then the proprietor of a house--New
Place, in Stratford. In this scene Horace also asks
Crispinus:--'You have much of the mother in you, sir? Your father
is dead?' John Shakspere, the father, died in the year when
_The Poetaster_ was first performed--in September, 1601.
30: _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 2. _Sir Toby_:--'Let there
be gall in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen.'
31: Here Crispinus threatens Horace with the 'purge' (a word
that may be used as a noun or a verb), which, in _The Return from
Parnassus_, is mentioned as having been administered by Shakspere
to Jonson. It is highly probable that the reconciliation between
Crispinus and Horace, which is described in the beginning of
_Satiromastix_, had taken place between Shakspere and Ben Jonson,
and that, during this period of peace, the performance of _Sejanus_
occurred, in which Shakspere actively co-operated. After that,
traces of hostility only are to be discovered between the two
poets.
Even when Horace, in the 'Satiromastix,' has again broken the peace,
the gentle Crispinus says to him:--
Were thy warpt soule put in a new molde,
I'd weare thee as a jewell set in golde.
32: The _Satiromastix_ was performed in 1602, probably in the
beginning of the year, as the Epilogue speaks of cold weather, and
Dekker scarcely would have waited a year with his answer to _The
Poetaster_. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. Another decennium had to
pass (Shakspere had long since withdrawn to his Stratford) before
the taste of Whitehall had been so much lowered that Jonson could
become a favourite of the courtly element.
33: In such type it is printed in the original.
34: In _Satiromastix_, Captain Tucca once bawls out against Horace,
'My name's Hamlet Revenge!' as if it had become known already then
in the dramatic world that Shakspere was preparing his reply to
_The Poetaster_. In the latter play (act iii. sc. I) which was
probably added after _The Poetaster_ had already been acted, and
Jonson had heard that Dekker was writing his _Satiromastix_),
Jonson makes a player from the other side of the Tiber say:--'We
have hired him to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play, with
all his gallants, as Tibullus, Mecaenas, Cornelius Gallus, and the
rest....O, it will get us a huge deal of money, Captain, and we have
need on't; for this winter has made us all poorer than so many starved
snakes. Nobody comes at us, not a gentleman, nor a--'
In the same scene Tucca utters curses, before that player, against
the theatres on the other side of the Tiber. The actor he addresses
belongs to one of them. Tucca mentions two theatres by name--'your
Globes, and your Triumphs.' He says to the actor:--'Commend me
to seven shares and a half.' Shakespere and his colleagues had
certain fixed shares in the 'Globe;' and the words of the actor, as
regards the poor winter they had, confirm that which Shakspere gives
to understand in _Hamlet_, that 'there was, for a while, no money
bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the
question.'
VI.
'VOLPONE,' by Ben Jonson.
'EASTWARD HOE,' by Chapman, Ben Jonson, and Marston.
'THE MALCONTENT,' by John Marston.
Ben Jonson's 'Volpone' was first acted in 1605; and on February 11, 1607,
it appeared in print. [1] It is preceded by a Dedication, in which the
author dedicates 'both it and himself' to 'the most noble and most
equal sisters, the two famous Universities,' in grateful acknowledgment
'for their love and acceptance shown to this Poem in the presentation.'
In this Dedication the most passionate language is used against all
contemporary poets--especially against those who now, he says, practise
'in dramatic, as they term it: stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry,
profanation,' and 'all licence of offence to God and man.' Their
petulancy, he continues, 'hath not only rapt me to present indignation,
but made me studious heretofore;' for by them 'the filth of the time
is uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of
solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked metaphors,
with brothelry able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy to
turn the blood of a Christian to water.'
Jonson expresses his purpose of standing off from them (the stage-poets)
'by all his actions.' Solemnly he utters this vow:--'I shall raise the
despised head of poetry again, and, stripping her out of those rotten
and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore
her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy
to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our
world.' This object of his--he adds--'may most appear in this my latest
work ('Volpone'), which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged,
and, to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction
and amendment, to reduce, not only the ancient forms, but manners of the
scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine,
which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of
living.'
All contemporary dramatists are most pitilessly condemned by Ben Jonson,
and the cause of his present indignation is clearly stated: '_A name
so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their
insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age_;' moreover, '_my_
(Jonson's) _fame, and the reputation of divers honest and learned,
are the question_--that is to say, have been injured.
As in 'Volpone,' wherein Jonson, as he states, 'laboured for their
(the contemporary poets') instruction and amendment,' we shall find
most numerous allusions to Shakspere and 'Hamlet,' we feel justified
in asserting that Jonson's whole fury is, in his 'present indignation,'
roused against this particular author and against this special drama.
Therein, as we have shown, a name of authority, antiquity, and all
great mark--Montaigne--has been tampered with, and, through this
satire, divers honest and learned (John Florio and his coadjutors
in the translation--all friends of Jonson) have been injured, as well
as the latter's own fame. In 'Hamlet,' Shakspere brought his own
ideal of friendship in the figure of Horatio on the stage, in contrast
to the Horace of 'The Poetaster.' Jonson was not the man to be edified
by the beautiful examples and the nobler words of his gentle adversary,
Shakspere, or to alter his sentiments in accordance with them. He rather
welcomed every opportunity for a quarrel. That was the element in which
he lived; for thus he got the materials and the spicy condiments for his
dramas. Now in 'Hamlet' there were motives enough for lighting up a fire
of hatred against Shakspere, and to entertain the public therewith.
Jonson, always ready for battle, willingly takes up the pen in their
defence. In doing so, the favour of a nobleman and of some high-born
ladies could be earned, at whose wish and request Montaigne had been
Englished. Besides, every occasion was relished for opposing Shakspere,
who had attacked Montaigne whose religious creed was the same as that
of Jonson.
The British Museum possesses a copy of 'Volpone,' on which Jonson has,
with his own hand, written the words:--'_To his loving father and
loving freind, Mr. John Florio, the ayde of his Muses: Ben Jonson seals
this testemony of freindship and love_.' Not the gift of this little
book, however, but its contents--namely, the attack which Jonson made,
both for the sake of his friend and for himself, against the great
antagonist (Shakspere)--must be held to be the token or '_testemony
of freindship and love_.'
In the very beginning of the Dedication, Jonson says that every author
ought to be heedful of his fame:--'Never, most equal sisters, had any
man a wit so presently excellent as that it could raise itself, but
there must come both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers to it.
If this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily prove
it, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these accidents;
and, having acquired them, to preserve that part of reputation most
tenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is also defended.' He then
asserts that this is an age in which poetry, and the professors of it,
are so ill-spoken of on all sides because, in their petulancy, they
have yet to learn that one cannot be a good poet without first being
a good man.
In the following passage, curiously enough, a certain person is extolled
as the model of a good man, against whom the stage dramatists, who
themselves, according to Jonson, are not good men ('nothing remaining
with them of the dignity of the poet'), have, as he thinks, grievously
sinned:--'_He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good
disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in
their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover
them to their first strength;_ [2] _that comes forth the interpreter and
arbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human,_ [3]
_a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business
of mankind:_ [4] _this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ance
to exercise their railing rhetoric upon._'
In this description we again see Montaigne, against whom 'railing
rhetoric' has been used.
Ben Jonson proudly points to himself as having never done such mischief:
'For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm
that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness.'
Though--he says--he cannot wholly escape 'from some the imputation of
sharpness,' he does not feel guilty of having offered insult to anyone,
'except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon.' But--'I would ask of
these supercilious politics, _what nation, society, or general order_
of state I have provoked? ... What public person?_ Whether I have not,
in all these, preserved their dignity, as mine own person, safe? ...
Where have I been particular? where personal?'
Who does not see in the following words a reproach launched against
Shakspere, that he has taken his materials from other writers? Who
does not feel that the warning addressed to 'wise and noble persons'
has reference to the highly placed protectors of the great rival whose
favour Ben Jonson, in spite of his Latin and Greek, was not able to
obtain? He says:--
'Application' (that is, plagiarism) 'is now grown a trade with many;
and there are that profess to have a key for the decyphering of
everything: but let wise and noble persons take heed how they be too
credulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be
over-familiar with their fames, who cunningly, and often, utter
their own virulent malice under other men's simplest meanings.'
Jonson then approves of those 'severe and wise patriots' who, in order
to provide against 'the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a State,'
rather desire to see plays full of 'fools and devils,' and 'those
antique relics of barbarism' (he means 'Masques,' which he wrote
with great virtuosoship) acted on the stage, than 'behold the wounds
of private men, of princes and nations.'
And now we come to the passage, partly already quoted, which more than
anything else shows that the '_purge_' which 'our fellow Shakspere
gave him'--'Hamlet'--must have greatly damaged, in the eyes of
the public, both the reputation of Jonson and of his friends. He
confesses it in these remarkable words:--
'_I cannot but be serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame,
and the reputation of divers honest and learned are the question; when
a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through
their insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men
subject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont
to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs_.' [5]
Is there a character, we may ask, not only in Shakspere's dramas, but
in any play of that period, to which the description given by Jonson
could apply?--of course, Hamlet always excepted, who is but a mask
for Montaigne. And who else but Montaigne is designated by the
expressions: 'a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great
mark;' 'the care of kings and happiest monarchs?'
That the 'railing rhetoric' in which such a character was derided, could
not be contained in a satirical poem, but had reference to a drama, is
proved, as already explained, by the fact of Jonson's wrath being
directed against the stage-poets. He says expressly, that henceforth,
by all his actions, he will 'stand off from them.' To the most learned
authorities, the two Universities, he announces that, by his own regular
art, he intends giving these wayward disciples of Dramatic Poesy proper
instruction and amendment. Had his object not been to strike the most
popular of the stage-poets--Shakspere--he would have been bound to make
an exception for that name of which everyone must have thought first
when stage-poets were subjected to reproof. We repeat: Jonson only
intended measuring himself against him who was the greatest of his time.
This was fully in accordance with his disputatious inclination. [6]
The person once '_wont to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs_'
[7] must have been a foreigner, for we do not know of any favourite
'_full of authority and antiquity_' who enjoyed such high privilege
from English kings. However, if a dramatist had been bold enough to
put such a favourite on the stage, he would have met with the most
severe punishment long before Jonson had pointed out his reprehensible
audacity. By the '_happiest monarchs_,' Henry III. and Henry IV.
of France are meant. The latter, at that time, yet stood in the zenith
of his good fortune. Again, the expression: '_of every vernaculous
orator_,' points to the circumstance of the mockery being directed
against a foreigner; and the same may be said of Jonson's question,
addressed to supercilious politicians, as to what nation, society, or
general order of State he had provoked? Clearly, another nation, a
society of different modes of thought than the English one, and foreign
institutions, are here indicated.
We now come to some hints contained in 'Volpone,' which partly consist
of an endeavour to expose Shakspere on account of plagiarisms committed
against other writers, partly of references to irreligious tendencies,
against which Jonson warns, and which he strives to ridicule.
Under the existing strict laws which forbade religious questions being
discussed on the stage, the latter references had to be made in parable
manner, but still not too covertly, so that they might be understood by
a certain audience--namely, the members of the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge. [8]
Already, in the Prologue of his 'Volpone,' Jonson says of himself that--
In all his poems still hath been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure.
He also despises certain deceptive tricks of composition:--
Nor hales he in a gull old ends reciting,
To stop gaps in his loose writing;
With such a deal of monstrous and forced action,
As might make Bethlem a faction:
Nor made he his play for jests stolen from each table,
But makes jests to fit his fable....
The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
In the observance of the technical rules of the classic drama--this
much Jonson could certainly prove to the world--he was superior to
Shakspere. The severe words: 'monstrous and forced action,' can only
refer to a drama written not long before; for, in 'Volpone,' Jonson
wishes to give to the stage-poets of his time his own ideal of a
drama. 'Bethlem' (Bedlam) indicates madness round which all kinds of
lunatics might gather as factionaries or adherents of the kind of
drama which Jonson wishes to stigmatise.
Do we go too far in thinking that 'Hamlet' is the play which is made
the target of allusions in this very Prologue?
However, we proceed at once to the Interlude which follows after the
first scene of the first act of 'Volpone.' In it, Shakspere himself
is practically put on the stage, by being asked:
how of late thou hast suffered translation,
And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation.
This Interlude is in no connection with the course of
the dramatic action.
Mosca, a parasite, brings in, for the entertainment of his master
(Volpone), three merry Jack Andrews. One of them, Androgyno, must be
held to be SHAKSPERE.
Here we have to note that Francis Meres, a scholar of great repute,
and M.A. of both Universities, wrote in 1598 a book, entitled 'Palladis
Tamia,' which in English he calls 'Wit's Treasury.' It contains, so far
as the sixteenth century is concerned, the most valuable statements
as regards Shakspere: nay, the only trustworthy ones dating from that
century. In that work, Meres classifies and criticises the poets of his
time and country by comparing each of them with some Greek or Roman
poet, kindred to the corresponding English one in the line of production
chosen and in quality. Ben Jonson is only mentioned once, at a very modest
place; his name stands last, after Chapman and Dekker.
Meres confers upon Shakspere most enthusiastic but just praise:--
'As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras: so the
sweete, wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued
Shakespeare; witness his 'Venus and Adonis;' his 'Lucrece;' his sugred
'Sonnets' among his private friends.... As Plautus and Seneca are
accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy amongst the Latines: so
Shakspere among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for
the stage.'
He then mentions twelve of his plays, [9] and thus concludes his
eulogy:--
'As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue,
if they would speak Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak with
Shakespeare's fine filed phrases if they would speake English.'
The envious Jonson who pledges himself, in the Dedication to the two
Universities, to give back to Poesy its former majesty, may have
considered it necessary, before all, to deride, before a learned
audience, the enthusiastic praise conferred by Francis Meres upon
Shakspere, as well as Shakspere himself on account of the free
religious tendencies he had expressed in 'Hamlet' This is done, as
we said, in the Interlude prepared by Mosca for the entertainment
of his master. Volpone boasts of the clever manner with which he
gains riches:--
I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with ploughshares, fat no beasts
To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,
Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder:
... expose no ships
To threatenings of the furrow-faced sea;
I turn no monies in the public bank,
Nor usure private.
Mosca, in order to flatter his master, continues the speech of the latter
in the same strain:--
... No, sir, nor devour
Soft prodigals. You shall have some will swallow
A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch
Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it; [10]
Tear forth the fathers of poor families
Out of their beds, and coffin them alive
In some kind clasping prison, where their bones
May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten:
But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses;
You lothe the widow's or the orphan's tears
Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries
Ring in the roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.
We have here an allusion to Hamlet, [11] where he asks the Ghost why
the sepulchre has opened its 'ponderous and marble jaws' to cast him
up again; also to the Queen and whilom widow; and, furthermore, to
the orphans, Ophelia and Laertes, and to the tears shed by the latter
at his sister's death. The cry of vengeance refers to the similar
utterances of the Ghost, of Hamlet, and of Laertes, who all seek revenge.
Mosca, with a view of preparing for his master a pleasure more suitable
to his taste than that which a play like 'Hamlet,' we suppose, could
afford him, brings in the three gamesters:--Nano, a dwarf; Castrone,
a eunuch; and Androgyne, a hermaphrodite. [12] The latter is meant to
represent Shakspere; for he is introduced by Nano as a soul coming from
Apollo, which migrated through Euphorbus and Pythagoras (Meres uses
these two names in his eulogy of the soul of Shakspere). [13]
After having recounted several other stages in the migration of Androgyne's
soul (we shall mention them further on), the latter has to give an
answer why he has 'shifted his coat in these days of reformation,'
and why his 'dogmatical silence' has left him. He replies that an
obstreperous 'Sir Lawyer' had induced him to do so. From this it may
be concluded that Bacon had some influence on Shakspere's 'Hamlet.'
Are not, in poetical manner, the same principles advocated in 'Hamlet,'
which Bacon promoted in science? [14]
After the Hermaphrodite has admitted that he has become 'a good dull
mule,' [15] he avows that he is now a very strange beast, an ass, an
actor,a hermaphrodite, and a fool; and that he more especially relishes
this latter condition of his, for in all other forms, as Jonson makes
him confess, he has 'proved most distressed.' [16]
Let us now quote from this Interlude some highly-spiced satirical passages.
Nano, the dwarf, coming in with Androgyno and Castrone, asks for room for
the new gamesters or players, and says to the public:--