THE POETASTER

OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT

By Ben Jonson



INTRODUCTION

THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.

Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,

"All that I am in arts, all that I know:"

and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken 'opima spolia' from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.

In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's 'Epigrams', "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life.

How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593 Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in 'Henslowe's Diary', a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed L4 of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres—well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title—accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602.

Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an imprudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.

On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the 'dramatis personae', that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters.

"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.

"Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.

As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which

"Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way."

But continuing, Jonson is careful to add:

"But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous."

Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade "the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled."

With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire—as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy—there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."*

[footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of 'Poetaster' and 'Satiromastrix' by J. H. Penniman in 'Belles Lettres Series' shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, 'The War of the Theatres', 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in 'Notes and Queries', and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.

Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester?

We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.

"Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect.

The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang."

It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "An immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither."

Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company.

The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter.

In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court.

With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity.

But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its 'dramatis personae', from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no moral catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them.

"The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years.

"Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist":

"Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own."

Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humou r" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry."

In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said—though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality—leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it.

In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd 'Epigrams', in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten 'Masques' and 'Entertainments'. In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's 'History of the World'. We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson.

From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him L20 every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow. ... But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own.

The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us." to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age.

But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns from the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious 'Leges Convivales' in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid,

"We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among the newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben."

Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods, including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting 'English Grammar' "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and 'Timber, or discoveries' "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The 'Discoveries', as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passage of Jonson's 'Discoveries' are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages—which Jonson never intended for publication—plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the 'Discoveries', is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction.

When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey:

"O rare Ben Jonson."

FELIX E. SCHELLING.

THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.

The following is a complete list of his published works:—

DRAMAS. —

Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.

To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.

POEMS. —

Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works.

PROSE. —

Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640.

Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.

WORKS. —

Fol., 1616, vol. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 vols., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 vols., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 vols., 1871; in 9 vols., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.

SELECTIONS. —

J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906.

LIFE. —

See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.

*****



THE POETASTER: OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT

TO THE VIRTUOUS, AND MY WORTHY FRIEND MR. RICHARD MARTIN

SIR,—A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it. To make mine own mark appear, and shew by which of these seals I am known, I send you this piece of what may live of mine; for whose innocence, as for the author's, you were once a noble and timely undertaker, to the greatest justice of this kingdom. Enjoy now the delight of your goodness, which is, to see that prosper you preserved, and posterity to owe the reading of that, without offence, to your name, which so much ignorance and malice of the times then conspired to have supprest.

Your true lover, BEN JONSON.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE AUGUSTUS CAESAR. HERMOGENES TIGELLIUS. MACAENUES. DEMETRIUS FANNIUS. MARC. OVID. ALBIUS. COR. GALLUS. MINOS. SEX. PROPERTIUS. HISTRIO. FUS. ARISTIUS. AESOP. PUB. OVID. PYRGI. VIRGIL. Lictors, Equitis, etc. Horace. TREBATIUS. JULIA. ASINIUS LUPUS. CYTHERIS. PANTILIUS TUCCA. PLAUTIA. LUSCUS. CHLOE. RUF. LAB. CRISPINUS. Maids.



SCENE,-Rome

After the second sounding. ENVY arises in the midst of the stage.

Light, I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, Wishing the golden splendor pitchy darkness. What's here? THE ARRAIGNMENT! ay; this, this is it, That our sunk eyes have waked for all this while: Here will be subject for my snakes and me. Cling to my neck and wrists, my loving worms, And cast you round in soft and amorous folds, Till I do bid uncurl; then, break your knots, Shoot out yourselves at length, as your forced stings Would hide themselves within his maliced sides, To whom I shall apply you. Stay! the shine Of this assembly here offends my sight; I'll darken that first, and outface their grace. Wonder not, if I stare: these fifteen weeks, So long as since the plot was but an embrion, Have I, with burning lights mixt vigilant thoughts, In expectation of this hated play, To which at last I am arrived as Prologue. Nor would I you should look for other looks, Gesture, or compliment from me, than what The infected bulk of Envy can afford: For I am risse here with a covetous hope, To blast your pleasures and destroy your sports, With wrestings, comments, applications, Spy-like suggestions, privy whisperings, And thousand such promoting sleights as these. Mark how I will begin: The scene is, ha! Rome? Rome? and Rome? Crack, eye-strings, and your balls Drop into earth; let me be ever blind. I am prevented; all my hopes are crost, Check'd, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn: What should I do? Rome! Rome! O my vext soul, How might I force this to the present state? Are there no players here? no poet apes, That come with basilisk' s eyes, whose forked tongues Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall? Either of these would help me; they could wrest, Pervert, and poison all they hear or see, With senseless glosses, and allusions. Now, if you be good devils, fly me not. You know what dear and ample faculties I have endowed you with: I'll lend you more. Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat, And while the squeez'd juice flows in your black jaws, Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth Upon his lines, and shew your rusty teeth At every word, or accent: or else choose Out of my longest vipers, to stick down In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth At your rank mouths; that he may see you arm'd With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear. His work and him; to forge, and then declaim, Traduce, corrupt, apply, inform, suggest; O, these are gifts wherein your souls are blest. What? Do you hide yourselves? will none appear? None answer? what, doth this calm troop affright you? Nay, then I do despair; down, sink again: This travail is all lost with my dead hopes. If in such bosoms spite have left to dwell, Envy is not on earth, nor scarce in hell. [Descends slowly.



The third sounding.

[As she disappears, enter PROLOGUE hastily, in armour.

Stay, monster, ere thou sink-thus on thy head Set we our bolder foot; with which we tread Thy malice into earth: so Spite should die, Despised and scorn'd by noble industry. If any muse why I salute the stage, An armed Prologue; know, 'tis a dangerous age: Wherein who writes, had need present his scenes Forty-fold proof against the conjuring means Of base detractors, and illiterate apes, That fill up rooms in fair and formal shapes. 'Gainst these, have we put on this forced defence: Whereof the allegory and hid sense Is, that a well erected confidence Can fright their pride, and laugh their folly hence. Here now, put case our author should, once more, Swear that his play were good; he doth implore, You would not argue him of arrogance: Howe'er that common spawn of ignorance, Our fry of writers, may beslime his fame, And give his action that adulterate name. Such full-blown vanity he more doth loth, Than base dejection; there's a mean 'twixt both, Which with a constant firmness he pursues, As one that knows the strength of his own Muse. And this he hopes all free souls will allow: Others that take it with a rugged brow, Their moods he rather pities than envies: His mind it is above their injuries.



ACT I

SCENE 1—Scene draws, and discovers OVID in his study.

Ovid. Then, when this body falls in funeral fire, My name shall live, and my best part aspire. It shall go so.

[Enter Luscus, with a gown and cap.

LUSC. Young master, master Ovid, do you hear? Gods a'me! away with your songs and sonnets and on with your gown and cap quickly: here, here, your father will be a man of this room presently. Come, nay, nay, nay, nay, be brief. These verses too, a poison on 'em! I cannot abide them, they make me ready to cast, by the banks of Helicon! Nay, look, what a rascally untoward thing this poetry is; I could tear them now.

Ovid. Give me; how near is my father?

Lusc. Heart a'man: get a law book in your hand, I will not answer you else. [Ovid puts on his cap and gown ]. Why so! now there's some formality in you. By Jove, and three or four of the gods more, I am right of mine old master's humour for that; this villainous poetry will undo you, by the welkin.

Ovid. What, hast thou buskins on, Luscus, that thou swearest so tragically and high?

Lusc. No, but I have boots on, sir, and so has your father too by this time; for he call'd for them ere I came from the lodging.

Ovid. Why, was he no readier?

Lusc. O no; and there was the mad skeldering captain, with the velvet arms, ready to lay hold on him as he comes down: he that presses every man he meets, with an oath to lend him money, and cries, Thou must do't, old boy, as thou art a man, a man of worship.

Ovid. Who, Pantilius Tucca?

Lus. Ay, he; and I met little master Lupus, the tribune, going thither too.

Ovid. Nay, an he be under their arrest, I may with safety enough read over my elegy before he come.

Lus. Gods a'me! what will you do? why, young master, you are not Castalian mad, lunatic, frantic, desperate, ha!

Ovid. What ailest thou, Luscus?

Lus. God be with you, sir; I'll leave you to your poetical fancies, and furies. I'll not be guilty, I. [Exit.

Ovid. Be not, good ignorance. I'm glad th'art gone; For thus alone, our ear shall better judge The hasty errors of our morning muse.

Envy, why twit'st thou me my time's spent ill, And call'st my verse, fruits of an idle quill? Or that, unlike the line from whence I sprung, War's dusty honours I pursue not young? Or that I study not the tedious laws, And prostitute my voice in every cause? Thy scope is mortal; mine eternal fame, Which through the world shall ever chaunt my name. Homer will live whilst Tenedos stands, and Ide, Or, to the sea, fleet Simois doth slide: And so shall Hesiod too, while vines do bear, Or crooked sickles crop the ripen'd ear. Callimachus, though in invention low, Shall still be sung, since he in art doth flow. No loss shall come to Sophocles' proud vein; With sun and moon, Aratus shall remain. While slaves be false, fathers hard, and bawds be whorish Whilst harlots flatter, shall Menander flourish. Ennius, though rude, and Accius's high-rear'd strain, A fresh applause in every age shall gain, Of Varro's name, what ear shall not be told, Of Jason's Argo and the fleece of gold? Then shall Lucretius' lofty numbers die, When earth and seas in fire and flame shall fry. Tityrus, Tillage, AEnee shall be read, Whilst Rome of all the conquered world is head! Till Cupid's fires be out, and his bow broken, Thy verses, neat Tibullus, shall be spoken. Our Gallus shall be known from east to west; So shall Lycoris, whom he now loves best. The suffering plough-share or the flint may wear; But heavenly Poesy no death can fear. Kings shall give place to it, and kingly shows, The banks o'er which gold-bearing Tagus flows. Kneel hinds to trash: me let bright Phoebus swell With cups full flowing from the Muses' well. Frost-fearing myrtle shall impale my head, And of sad lovers I be often read. Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite! For after death all men receive their right. Then, when this body falls in funeral fire, My name shall live, and my best part aspire.

Enter OVID senior, followed by Luscus, Tucca, and Lupus.

Ovid se. Your name shall live, indeed, sir! you say true: but how infamously, how scorn'd and contemn'd in the eyes and ears of the best and gravest Romans, that you think not on; you never so much as dream of that. Are these the fruits of all my travail and expenses? Is this the scope and aim of thy studies? Are these the hopeful courses, wherewith I have so long flattered my expectation from thee? Verses! Poetry! Ovid, whom I thought to see the pleader, become Ovid the play-maker!

Ovid ju. No, sir.

Ovid se. Yes, sir; I hear of a tragedy of yours coming forth for the common players there, call'd Medea. By my household gods, if I come to the acting of it, I'll add one tragic part more than is yet expected to it: believe me, when I promise it. What! shall I have my son a stager now? an enghle for players? a gull, a rook, a shot-clog, to make suppers, and be laugh'd at? Publius, I will set thee on the funeral pile first.

Ovid ju. Sir, I beseech you to have patience.

Lus. Nay, this 'tis to have your ears damn'd up to good counsel. I did augur all this to him beforehand, without poring into an ox's paunch for the matter, and yet he would not be scrupulous.

Tuc. How now, goodman slave! what, rowly-powly? all rivals, rascal? Why, my master of worship, dost hear? are these thy best projects? is this thy designs and thy discipline, to suffer knaves to be competitors with commanders and gentlemen? Are we parallels, rascal, are we parallels?

Ovid se. Sirrah, go get my horses ready. You'll still be prating.

Tuc. Do, you perpetual stinkard, do, go; talk to tapsters and ostlers, you slave; they are in your element, go; here be the emperor's captains, you raggamuffin rascal, and not your comrades. [Exit Luscus. Lup. Indeed. Marcus Ovid, these players are an idle generation, and do much harm in a state, corrupt young gentry very much, I know it; I have not been a tribune thus long and observed nothing: besides, they will rob us, us, that are magistrates, of our respect, bring us upon their stages, and make us ridiculous to the plebeians; they will play you or me, the wisest men they can come by still, only to bring us in contempt with the vulgar, and make us cheap.

Tur. Thou art in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed; the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy-house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they are in the statute, the rascals; they are blazon'd there; there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees; they need no other heralds, I wiss.

Ovid se. Methinks, if nothing else, yet this alone, the very reading of the public edicts, should fright thee from commerce with them, and give thee distaste enough of their actions. But this betrays what a student you are, this argues your proficiency in the law!

Ovid ju. They wrong me, sir, and do abuse you more, That blow your ears with these untrue reports. I am not known unto the open stage, Nor do I traffic in their theatres: Indeed, I do acknowledge, at request Of some near friends, and honourable Romans, I have begun a poem of that nature.

Ovid se. You have, sir, a poem! and where is it? That's the law you study.

Ovid ju. Cornelius Gallus borrowed it to read.

Ovid se. Cornelius Gallus! there's another gallant too hath drunk of the same poison, and Tibullus and Propertius. But these are gentlemen of means and revenues now. Thou art a younger brother, and hast nothing but they bare exhibition; which I protest shall be bare indeed, if thou forsake not these unprofitable by-courses, and that timely too. Name me a profest poet, that his poetry did ever afford him so much as a competency. Ay, your god of poets there, whom all of you admire and reverence so much, Homer, he whose worm-eaten statue must not be spewed against, but with hallow'd lips and groveling adoration, what was he? what was he?

Tuc. Marry, I'll tell thee, old swaggerer; he was a poor blind, rhyming rascal, that lived obscurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and scarce ever made a good meal in his sleep, the whoreson hungry beggar.

Ovid se. He says well:—nay, I know this nettles you now; but answer me, is it not true? You'll tell me his name shall live; and that now being dead his works have eternised him, and made him divine: but could this divinity feed him while he lived? could his name feast him?

Tuc. Or purchase him a senator's revenue, could it?

Ovid se. Ay, or give him place in the commonwealth? worship, or attendants? make him be carried in his litter?

Tuc. Thou speakest sentences, old Bias.

Lup. All this the law will do, young sir, if you'll follow it.

Ovid se. If he be mine, he shall follow and observe what I will apt him to, or I profess here openly and utterly to disclaim him.

Ovid ju. Sir, let me crave you will forego these moods; I will be any thing, or study any thing; I'll prove the unfashion'd body of the law Pure elegance, and make her rugged'st strains Run smoothly as Propertius' elegies

Ovid se. Propertius' elegies? good!

Lup. Nay, you take him too quickly, Marcus

Ovid se. Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of poetry; he is bewitch'd with it.

Lup. Come, do not misprise him. Ovid se. Misprise! ay, marry, I would have him use some such words now; they have some touch, some taste of the law. He should make himself a style out of these, and let his Propertius' elegies go by.

Lup. Indeed, young Publius, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law; we have no other planet reigns, and in that sphere you may sit and sing with angels. Why, the law makes a man happy, without respecting any other merit; a simple scholar, or none at all, may be a lawyer.

Tuc. He tells thee true, my noble neophyte; my little gram maticaster, he does: it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know not what supposed Suficiencies; if thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough.

Lup. Three books will furnish you. Tuc. And the less art the better: besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience, to do right or wrong at thy pleasure, my pretty Alcibiades.

Lup. Ay, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to observe him, and stand bare.

Tuc. True, and he to carry himself proud and stately, and have the law on his side for't, old boy.

Ovid se. Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. Publius, if thou wilt hold my favour, abandon these idle, fruitless studies, that so bewitched thee. Send Janus home his back face again, and look only forward to the law: intend that. I will I allow thee what shall suit thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy society with the best; and under these conditions I leave thee. My blessings light upon thee, if thou respect them; if not, mine eyes may drop for thee, but thine own heart will ache for itself; and so farewell! What, are my horses come?

Lus. Yes, sir, they are at the gate Without.

Ovid se. That's well.—Asinius Lupus, a word. Captain, I shall take my leave of you?

Tuc. No, my little old boy, dispatch with Cothurnus there: I'll attend thee, I—

Lus. To borrow some ten drachms: I know his project. [Aside. Ovid se. Sir, you shall make me beholding to you. Now, captain Tucca, what say you?

Tuc. Why, what should say, or what can I say, my flower O' the order? Should I say thou art rich, or that thou art honourable, or wise, or valiant, or learned, or liberal? why, thou art all these, and thou knowest it, my noble Lucullus, thou knowest it. Come, be not ashamed of thy virtues, old stump: honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times. Thou art the man of war's Mecaenas, old boy. Why shouldst not thou be graced then by them, as well as he is by his poets? [Enter PYRGUS and whispers TUCCA. How now, my carrier, what news?

Lus. The boy has stayed within for his cue this half-hour. [Aside. Tuc. Come, do not whisper to me, but speak it out: what; it is no treason against the state I hope, is it?

Lus. Yes, against the state of my master's purse. [Aside, and exit. Pyr. [aloud.] Sir, Agrippa desires you to forbear him till the next week; his mules are not yet come up.

Tuc. His mules! now the bots, the spavin, and the glanders, and some dozen diseases more, light on him and his mules! What, have they the yellows, his mules, that they come no faster? or are they foundered, ha? his mules have the staggers belike, have they?

Pyr. O no, sir;—then your tongue might be suspected for one of his mules. [Aside. Tuc He owes me almost a talent, and he thinks to bear it away with his mules, does he? Sirrah, you nut cracker. Go your ways to him again, and tell him I must have money, I: I cannot eat stones and turfs, say. What, will he clem me and my followers? ask him an he will clem me; do, go. He would have me fry my jerkin, would he? Away, setter, away. Yet, stay, my little tumbler, this old boy shall supply now. I will not trouble him, I cannot be importunate, I; I cannot be impudent.

Pyr. Alas, sir, no; you are the most maidenly blushing creature upon the earth. [Aside Tuc. Dost thou hear, my little six and fifty, or thereabouts? thou art not to learn the humours and tricks of that old bald cheater, Time; thou hast not this chain for nothing. Men of worth have their chimeras, as well as other creatures; and they do see monsters sometimes, they do, they do, brave boy.

Pyr. Better cheap than he shall see you, I warrant him. [Aside. Tuc. Thou must let me have six-six drachma, I mean, old boy: thou shalt do it; I tell thee, old boy, thou shalt, and in private too,—dost thou see?—Go, walk off: [to the Boy]-There, there. Six is the sum. Thy son's a gallant spark and must not be put out of a sudden. Come hither, Callimachus; thy father tells me thou art too poetical, boy: thou must not be so; thou must leave them, young novice, thou must; they are a sort of poor starved rascals, that are ever wrap'd up in foul linen; and can boast of nothing but a lean visage, peering out of a seam-rent suit, the very emblems of beggary. No, dost hear, turn lawyer, thou shalt be my solicitor.—- 'Tis right, old boy, is't?

Ovid Sr. You were best tell it, captain.

Tuc. No; fare thou well, mine honest horseman; and thou, old beaver. [To Lupus]-Pray thee, Roman, when thou comest to town, see me at my lodging, visit me sometimes? thou shalt be welcome. old boy. Do not balk me, good swaggerer. Jove keep thy chain from pawning; go thy ways, if thou lack money I'll lend thee some; I'll leave thee to thy horse now. Adieu...

Ovid Sr. Farewell, good captain.

Tuc. Boy, you can have but half a share now, boy [Exit, followed by Pyrgus. Ovid Sr. 'Tis a strange boldness that accompanies this fellow. Come.

Ovid ju. I'll give attendance on you to your horse, sir, please you.

Ovid se. No; keep your chamber, and fall to your studies; do so: The gods of Rome bless thee! [Exit with Lupus.

Ovid ju. And give me stomach to digest this law: That should have follow'd sure, had I been he. O, sacred Poesy, thou spirit of arts, The soul of science, and the queen of souls; What profane violence, almost sacrilege, Hath here been offered thy divinities! That thine own guiltless poverty should arm Prodigious ignorance to wound thee thus! For thence is all their force of argument, Drawn forth against thee; or, from the abuse Of thy great powers in adulterate brains: When, would men learn but to distinguish spirits And set true difference 'twixt those jaded wits That run a broken pace for common hire, And the high raptures of a happy muse, Borne on the wings of her immortal thought, That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel, And beats at heaven gates with her bright hoofs; They would not then, with such distorted faces, And desperate censures, stab at Poesy. They would admire bright knowledge, and their minds Should ne'er descend on so unworthy objects As gold, or titles; they would dread far more To be thought ignorant, than be known poor. The time was once, when wit drown'd wealth; but now, Your only barbarism is t'have wit, and want. No matter now in virtue who excels, He that hath coin, hath all perfection else.

Tib. [within.] Ovid!

Ovid. Who's there? Come in. Enter Tibullus. Tib. Good morrow, lawyer.

Ovid. Good morrow, dear Tibullus; welcome: sit down.

Tib. Not I. What, so hard at it? Let's see, what's here? Numa in decimo nono. I Nay, I will see it

Ovid. Prithee away

Tib. If thrice in field a man vanquish his foe, 'Tis after in his choice to serve or no. How, now, Ovid! Law cases in verse?

Ovid. In truth, I know not; they run from my pen unwittingly if they be verse. What's the news abroad?

Tib. Off with this. gown; I come to have thee walk.

Ovid. No, good Tibullus, I'm not now in case. Pray let me alone.

Tib. How! Not in case? Slight, thou'rt in too much case, by all this law.

Ovid. Troth, if I live, I will new dress the law In sprightly Poesy's habiliments.

Tib. The hell thou wilt! What! turn law into verse Thy father has school'd thee, I see. Here, read that same; There's subject for you; and, if I mistake not, A supersedeas to your melancholy.

Ovid. How! subscribed Julia! O my life, my heaven!

Tib. Is the mood changed?

Ovid. Music of wit! note for th' harmonious spheres! Celestial accents, how you ravish me!

Tib. What is it, Ovid?

Ovid. That I must meet my Julia, the princess Julia.

Tib. Where?

Ovid. Why, at—- Heart, I've forgot; my passion so transports me.

Tib. I'll save your pains: it is at Albius' house, The jeweller's, where the fair Lycoris lies.

Ovid. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus' love?

Tib. Ay, he'll be there too, and my Plautia.

Ovid. And why not your Delia?

Tib. Yes, and your Corinna.

Ovid. True; but, my sweet Tibullus, keep that secret I would not, for all Rome, it should be thought I veil bright Julia underneath that name: Julia, the gem and jewel of my soul, That takes her honours from the golden sky, As beauty doth all lustre from her eye. The air respires the pure Elysian sweets In which she breathes, and from her looks descend The glories of the summer. Heaven she is, Praised in herself above all praise; and he Which hears her speak, would swear the tuneful orbs Turn'd in his zenith only.

Tib. Publius, thou'lt lose thyself.

Ovid. O, in no labyrinth can I safelier err, Than when I lose myself in praising her. Hence, law, and welcome Muses, though not rich, Yet are you pleasing: let's be reconciled, And new made one. Henceforth, I promise faith And all my serious hours to spend with you; With you, whose music striketh on my heart, And with bewitching tones steals forth my spirit, In Julia's name; fair Julia: Julia's love Shall be a law, and that sweet law I'll study, The law and art of sacred Julia's love: All other objects will but abjects prove.

Tib. Come, we shall have thee as passionate as Propertius, anon.

Ovid. O, how does my Sextus?

Tib. Faith, full of sorrow for his Cynthia's death.

Ovid. What, still?

Tib. Still, and still more, his griefs do grow upon him As do his hours. Never did I know An understanding spirit so take to heart The common work of Fate.

Ovid. O, my Tibullus, Let us not blame him; for against such chances The heartiest strife of virtue is not proof. We may read constancy and fortitude. To other souls; but had ourselves been struck With the like planet, had our loves, like his, Been ravish'd from us by injurious death, And in the height and heat of our best days, It would have crack'd our sinews, shrunk our veins, And made our very heart-strings jar, like his. Come, let's go take him forth, and prove if mirth Or company will but abate his passion.

Tib. Content, and I implore the gods it may. [Exeunt.



ACT II

SCENE I. A Room in ALBIUS'S House. Enter ALBIUS and CRISPINUS.

Alb. Master Crispinus, you are welcome: pray use a stool, sir. Your cousin Cytheris will come down presently. We are so busy for the receiving of these courtiers here, that I can scarce be a minute with myself, for thinking of them: Pray you sit, sir; pray you sit, sir.

Crisp. I am very well, sir. Never trust me, but your are most delicately seated here, full of sweet delight and blandishment! an excellent air, an excellent air!

Alb. Ay, sir, 'tis a pretty air. These courtiers run in my mind still; I must look out. For Jupiter's sake, sit, sir; or please you walk into the garden? There's a garden on the back-side.

Crisp. I am most strenuously well, I thank you, sir.

Alb. Much good do you, sir. [Enter CHLOE, with two Maids. Chloe. Come, bring those perfumes forward a little, and strew some roses and violets here: Fie! here be rooms savour the most pitifully rank that ever I felt. I cry the gods mercy, [sees Albius] my husband's in the wind of us!

Alb. Why, this is good, excellent, excellent! well said, my sweet Chloe; trim up your house most obsequiously.

Chloe. For Vulcan's sake, breathe somewhere else; in troth you overcome our perfumes exceedingly; you are too predominant.

Alb. Hear but my opinion, sweet wife.

Chloe. A pin for your pinion! In sincerity, if you be thus fulsome to me in every thing, I'll be divorced. Gods my body! you know what you were before I married you; I was a gentlewoman born, I; I lost all my friends to be a citizen's wife, because I heard, indeed, they kept their wives as fine as ladies; and that we might rule our husbands like ladies, and do what we listed; do you think I would have married you else?

Alb. I acknowledge, sweet wife:—She speaks the best of any woman in Italy, and moves as mightily; which makes me, I had rather she should make bumps on my head, as big as my two fingers, than I would offend her—But, sweet wife—

Chloe. Yet again! Is it not grace enough for you, that I call you husband, and you call me wife; but you must still be poking me, against my will, to things?

Alb. But you know, wife. here are the greatest ladies, and gallantest gentlemen of Rome, to be entertained in our house now; and I would fain advise thee to entertain them in the best sort, i'faith, wife.

Chloe. In sincerity, did you ever hear a man talk so idly? You would seem to be master! you would have your spoke in my cart! you would advise me to entertain ladies and gentlemen! Because you can marshal your pack-needles, horse-combs, hobby-horses, and wall-candlesticks in your warehouse better than I, therefore you can tell how to entertain ladies and gentlefolks better than I?

Alb. O, my sweet wife, upbraid me not with that; gain savours sweetly from any thing; he that respects to get, must relish all commodities alike, and admit no difference between oade and frankincense, or the most precious balsamum and a tar-barrel.

Chloe. Marry, foh! you sell snuffers too, if you be remember'd; but I pray you let me buy them out of your hand; for, I tell you true, I take it highly in snuff, to learn how to entertain gentlefolks of you, at these years, i'faith. Alas, man, there was not a gentleman came to your house in your t'other wife's time, I hope! nor a lady, nor music, nor masques! Nor you nor your house were so much as spoken of, before I disbased myself, from my hood and my farthingal, to these bum-rowls and your whale-bone bodice.

Alb. Look here, my sweet wife; I am mum, my dear mummia, my balsamum, my spermaceti, and my very city of—-She has the most best, true, feminine wit in Rome!

Cris. I have heard so, sir; and do most vehemently desire to participate the knowledge of her fair features.

Alb. Ah, peace; you shall hear more anon: be not seen yet, I pray you; not yet: observe. [Exit. Chloe. 'Sbody! give husbands the head a little more, and they'll be nothing but head shortly: What's he there?

1 Maid. I know not, forsooth.

2 Maid. Who would you speak with, sir?

Cris. I would speak with my cousin Cytheris.

2 Maid. He is one, forsooth, would speak with his cousin Cytheris.

Chloe. Is she your cousin, sir?

Cris. [coming forward.] Yes, in truth, forsooth, for fault of a better.

Chloe. She is a gentlewoman.

Cris. Or else she should not be my cousin, I assure you.

Chloe. Are you a gentleman born?

Cris. That I am, lady; you shall see mine arms, if it please you.

Chloe. No, your legs do sufficiently shew you are a gentleman born, sir; for a man borne upon little legs, is always a gentleman born.

Cris. Yet, I pray you, vouchsafe the sight of my arms, mistress; for I bear them about me, to have them seen: My name is Crispinus or Crispinas indeed; which is well expressed in my arms; a face crying in chief; and beneath it a bloody toe, between three thorns pungent.

Chloe. Then you are welcome, sir: now you are a gentleman born, I can find in my heart to welcome you; for I am a gentlewoman born too, and will bear my head high enough, though 'twere my fortune to marry a tradesman.

Cris. No doubt of that, sweet feature; your carriage shews it in any man's eye, that is carried upon you with judgment. [Re-enter ALBIUS. Alb. Dear wife, be not angry.

Chloe. Gods my passion!

Alb. Hear me but one thing; let not your maids set cushions in the parlour windows, nor in the dining-chamber windows; nor upon stools, in either of them, in any case; for 'tis tavern-like: but lay them one upon another, in some out-room or corner of the dining-chamber.

Chloe. Go, go; meddle with your bed-chamber only; or rather, with your bed in your chamber only; or rather with your wife in your bed only; or on my faith I'll not be pleased with you only.

Alb. Look here, my dear wife, entertain that gentleman kindly, I prithee—mum. [Exit. Chloe. Go, I need your instructions indeed! anger me no more, I advise you. Citi-sin, quotha! she's a wise gentlewoman, i'faith, will marry herself to the sin of the city.

Alb. [re-entering.] But this time, and no more, by heav'n, wife: hang no pictures in the hall, nor in the dining-chamber, in any case; But in the gallery only; for 'tis not courtly else, O' my word, wife.

Chloe. 'Sprecious, never have done!

Alb. Wife— [Exit. Chloe. Do I not bear a reasonable corrigible hand over him,, Crispinus?

Cris. By this hand, lady, you hold a most sweet hand over him.

Alb. [re-entering.] And then, for the great gilt andirons—

Chloe. Again! Would the andirons were in your great guts for me!

Alb. I do vanish, wife. [Exit. Chloe. How shall I do, master Crispinus? here will be all the bravest ladies in court presently to see your cousin Cytheris: O the gods! how might I behave myself now, as to entertain them most courtly?

Cris. Marry, lady, if you will entertain them most courtly, you must do thus: as soon as ever your maid or your man brings you word they are come, you must say, A pox on 'em I what do they here? And yet, when they come, speak them as fair, and give them the kindest welcome in words that can be....

Chloe. Is that the fashion of courtiers, Crispinus?

Cris. I assure you it is, lady; I have observed it.

Chloe. For your pox, sir, it is easily hit on; but it is not so easy to speak fair after, methinks.

Alb. [re-entering.] O, wife, the coaches are come, on my word; a number of coaches and courtiers.

Chloe. A pox on them! what do they here?

Alb. How now, wife! would'st thou not have them come?

Chloe. Come! Come, you are a fool, you.—He knows not the trick on't. Call Cytheris, I pray you: and, good master Crispinus, you can observe, you say; let me entreat you for all the ladies' behaviours, jewels, jests, and attires, that you marking, as well as I, we may put both our marks together, when they are gone, and confer of them.

Cris. I warrant you, sweet lady; let me alone to observe till I turn myself to nothing but observation.— [Enter CYTHERIS. Good morrow, cousin Cytheris.

Cyth. Welcome, kind cousin. What! are they come?

Alb. Ay, your friend Cornelius Gallus, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius, with Julia, the emperor's daughter, and the lady Plautia, are 'lighted at the door; and with them Hermogenes Tigellius, the excellent musician.

Cyth. Come, let us go meet them, Chloe.

Chloe. Observe, Crispinus.

Crisp. At a hail's breadth, lady, I warrant you.

[As they are going out, enter CORNELIUS GALLUS, OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, HERMOGENES, JULIA, and PLAUTIA.

Gal. Health to the lovely Chloe! you must pardon me, mistress, that I prefer this fair gentlewoman.

Cyth. I pardon and praise you for it, sir; and I beseech your excellence, receive her beauties into your knowledge and favour.

Jul. Cytheris, she hath favour and behaviour, that commands as much of me: and, sweet Chloe, know I do exceedingly love you, and that I will approve in any grace my father the emperor may shew you. Is this your husband?

Alb. For fault of a better, if it please your highness.

Chloe. Gods my life, how he shames me!

Cyth. Not a whit, Chloe, they all think you politic and witty; wise women choose not husbands for the eye, merit, or birth, but wealth and sovereignty.

Ovid. Sir, we all come to gratulate, for the good report of you.

Tib. And would be glad to deserve your love, sir.

Alb. My wife will answer you all, gentlemen; I'll come to you again presently. [Exit. Plau. You have chosen you a most fair companion here, Cytheris, and a very fair house.

Cyth. To both which, you and all my friends are very welcome, Plautia.

Chloe. With all my heart, I assure your ladyship.

Plau. Thanks, sweet mistress Chloe.

Jul. You must needs come to court, lady, i'faith, and there be sure your welcome shall be as great to us.

Ovid. She will deserve it, madam; I see, even in her looks, gentry, and general worthiness.

Tib. I have not seen a more certain character of an excellent disposition.

Alb. [re-entering.] Wife!

Chloe. O, they do so commend me here, the courtiers! what's the matter now?

Alb. For the banquet, sweet wife.

Chloe. Yes; and I must needs come to court, and be welcome, the princess says. [Exit with Albius. Gal. Ovid and Tibullus, you may be bold to welcome your mistress here.

Ovid. We find it so, sir.

Tib. And thank Cornelius Gallus.

Ovid. Nay, my sweet Sextus, in faith thou art not sociable.

Prop. In faith I am not, Publius; nor I cannot. Sick minds are like sick men that burn with fevers, Who when they drink, please but a present taste, And after bear a more impatient fit. Pray let me leave you; I offend you all, And myself most.

Gal. Stay, sweet Propertius.

Tib. You yield too much unto your griefs and fate, Which never hurts, but when we say it hurts us.

Prop. O peace, Tibullus; your philosophy Lends you too rough a hand to search my wounds. Speak they of griefs, that know to sigh and grieve: The free and unconstrained spirit feels No weight of my oppression. [Exit. Ovid. Worthy Roman! Methinks I taste his misery, and could Sit down, and chide at his malignant stars.

Jul. Methinks I love him, that he loves so truly.

Cyth. This is the perfect'st love, lives after death.

Gal. Such is the constant ground of virtue still.

Plau. It puts on an inseparable face. [re-enter CHLOE. Chloe. Have you mark'd every thing, Crispinus?

Cris. Every thing, I warrant you.

Chloe. What gentlemen are these? do you know them?

Cris. Ay, they are poets, lady.

Chloe. Poets! they did not talk of me since I went, did they?

Cris. O yes, and extolled your perfections to the heavens.

Chloe. Now in sincerity they be the finest kind of men that ever I knew: Poets! Could not one get the emperor to make my husband a poet, think you?

Cris. No, lady, 'tis love and beauty make poets: and since you like poets so well, your love and beauties shall make me a poet.

Chloe. What! shall they? and such a one as these?

Cris. Ay, and a better than these: I would be sorry else.

Chloe. And shall your looks change, and your hair change, and all, like these?

Cris. Why, a man may be a poet, and yet not change his hair, lady.

Chloe. Well, we shall see your cunning: yet, if you can change your hair, I pray do. [Re-enter Albius. Alb. Ladies, and lordlings, there's a slight banquet stays within for you; please you draw near, and accost it.

Jul. We thank you, good Albius: but when shall we see those excellent jewels you are commended to have?

Alb. At your ladyship's service.—I got that speech by seeing a play last day, and it did me some grace now: I see, 'tis good to collect sometimes; I'll frequent these plays more than I have done, now I come to be familiar with courtiers. [Aside.

Gal. Why, how now, Hermogenes? what ailest thou, trow?

Her, A little melancholy; let me alone, prithee.

Gal. Melancholy I how so?

Her. With riding: a plague on all coaches for me!

Chloe. Is that hard-favour'd gentleman a poet too, Cytheris?

Cyth. No, this is Hermogenes: as humorous as a poet, though: he is a musician.

Chloe. A musician! then he can sing.

Cyth. That he can, excellently; did you never hear him?

Chloe. O no: will he be entreated, think you?

Cyth. I know not.—Friend, mistress Chloe would fain hear Hermogenes sing: are you interested in him?

Gal. No doubt, his own humanity will command him so far, to the satisfaction of so fair a beauty; but rather than fail, we'll all be suitors to him.

Her. 'Cannot sing.

Gal. Prithee, Hermogenes.

Her. 'Cannot sing.

Gal. For honour of this gentlewoman, to whose house I know thou mayest be ever welcome.

Chloe. That he shall, in truth, sir, if he can sing.

Ovid. What's that?

Gal. This gentlewoman is wooing Hermogenes for a song.

Ovid. A song! come, he shall not deny her. Hermogenes!

Her. 'Cannot sing.

Gal. No, the ladies must do it; he stays but to have their thanks acknowledged as a debt to his cunning.

Jul. That shall not want; ourself will be the first shall promise to pay him more than thanks, upon a favour so worthily vouchsafed.

Her. Thank you, madam; but 'will not sing.

Tib. Tut, the only way to win him, is to abstain from entreating him.

Cris: Do you love singing, lady?

Chloe. O, passingly.

Cris. Entreat the ladies to entreat me to sing then, I beseech you.

Chloe. I beseech your grace, entreat this gentleman to sing.

Jul. That we will, Chloe; can he sing excellently?

Chloe. I think so, madam; for he entreated me to entreat you to entreat him to sing.

Cris. Heaven and earth! would you tell that?

Jul. Good, sir, let's entreat you to use your voice.

Cris. Alas, madam, I cannot, in truth.

Fla. The gentleman is modest: I warrant you he sings excellently.

Ovid. Hermogenes, clear your throat: I see by him, here's a gentleman will worthily challenge you.

Cris. Not I, sir, I'll challenge no man.

Tib. That's your modesty, sir; but we, out of an assurance of your excellency, challenge him in your behalf.

Cris. I thank you, gentlemen, I'll do my best.

Her. Let that best be good, sir, you were best.

Gal. O, this contention is excellent! What is't you sing, sir?

Cris. If I freely may discover, sir; I'll sing that.

Ovid. One of your own compositions, Hermogenes. He offers you vantage enough.

Cris. Nay, truly, gentlemen, I'll challenge no man.—I can sing but one staff of the ditty neither.

Gal. The better: Hermogenes himself will be entreated to sing the other.

CRISPINUS sings.

If I freely may discover What would please me in my lover, I would have her fair and witty, Savouring more of court than city; A little proud, but full of pity: Light and humorous in her toying, Oft building hopes, and soon destroying, Long, but sweet in the enjoying; Neither too easy nor too hard: All extremes I would have barr'd.

Gal. Believe me, sir, you sing most excellently.

Ovid. If there were a praise above excellence, the gentleman highly deserves it.

Her. Sir, all this doth not yet make me envy you; for I know I sing better than you.

Tib. Attend Hermogenes, now.

HERMOGENES, accompanied.

She should be allow'd her passions, So they were but used as fashions; Sometimes froward, and then frowning, Sometimes sickish and then swowning, Every fit with change still crowning. Purely jealous I would have her, Then only constant when I crave her: 'Tis a virtue should not save her. Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me, Neither her peevishness annoy me.

Jill. Nay, Hermogenes, your merit hath long since been 'both known and admired of us.

Her. You shall hear me sing another. Now will I begin.

Gal. We shall do this gentleman's banquet too much wrong, that stays for us, ladies.

Jul. 'Tis true; and well thought on, Cornelius Gallus.

Her. Why, 'tis but a short air, 'twill be done presently, pray stay: strike, music.

Ovid. No, good Hermogenes; we'll end this difference within.

Jul. 'Tis the common disease of all your musicians, that they know no mean. to be entreated either to begin or end.

Alb. Please you lead the way, gentles.

All. Thanks, good Albius. [Exeunt all but Albius. Alb. O, what a charm of thanks was here put upon me! O Jove, what a setting forth it is to a man to have many courtiers come to his house! Sweetly was it said of a good old housekeeper, I had, rather want meat, than want guests, especially, if they be courtly guests. For, never trust me, if one of their good legs made in a house be not worth all the good cheer a man can make them. He that would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife! he that would have a fine wife, let him come to me. [Re-enter CRISPINUS. Cris. By your kind leave, master Albius.