iv. 2, exemplify Marston's potent gift of presenting bold conceptions

in strenuously compact language.

_The Malcontent_ was dedicated by Marston in very handsome terms to Ben Jonson, and there is a complimentary allusion to Jonson in the epilogue. At this distance of time it is impossible to fully understand the relations that existed between Jonson and Marston. There seem to have been many quarrels and more than one reconciliation. During his visit to Hawthornden, Jonson told Drummond that "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him and took his pistol from him, wrote his _Poetaster_ on him; the beginning of them were that Marston represented him in the stage in his youth given to venery."[14] The original quarrel seems to have begun about the year 1598. In the apology at the end of _The Poetaster_, Jonson writes:

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

_The Poetaster_ was produced in 1601; so these attacks on Jonson, in which Marston must have taken a leading part, began about 1598. In the address "To those that seem judicial Perusers" prefixed to _The Scourge of Villainy_, Marston undoubtedly ridicules Ben Jonson for his use of "new-minted epithets[15] (as _real_, _intrinsecate_, _Delphic_)." "Real" occurs in _Every Man out of his Humour_ (ii. 1); "intrinsecate" in _Cynthia's Revels_ (v. 2); and "Delphic" in an early poem of Jonson's. But, as _Every Man out of his Humour_ was first produced at Christmas 1599, and _Cynthia's Revels_ in 1600, these "new-minted epithets" must have been used by Jonson in some early plays that have perished. Jonson retaliated by attacking Marston in _Every Man out of his Humour_, and _Cynthia's Revels_. In the former play (iii. 1) he introduces two characters, Clove and Orange, who are expressly described as "mere strangers to the whole scope of our play." They are on the stage only for a few minutes. Clove is represented as a pretender to learning: "he will sit you a whole afternoon sometimes in a bookseller's shop, reading the Greek, Italian, and Spanish, when he understands not a word of either." Orange is a mere simpleton who can say nothing but "O Lord, sir," and "It pleases you to say so, sir." In the "characters of the persons" (prefixed to the play) we are told that this "inseparable case of coxcombs ... being well flattered" will "lend money and repent when they have done. Their glory is to invite players and make suppers." Dr. Brinsley Nicholson suggests that Orange was intended as a caricature of Dekker, and that Clove stands for Marston. This view is, doubtless, partly correct, but we must not insist on it too strongly. Dekker--whatever may be said of Marston--had no money to lend, and would rather have expected to sup at the players' expense than to be made the shot-clog of the feast: again and again in _The Poetaster_ he is ridiculed on the score of poverty. It is undeniable that Jonson, to raise a laugh against Marston, puts into Clove's mouth grotesque words culled from _The Scourge of Villainy_. "Monsieur Orange," whispers Clove to his companion, as they are walking in the middle aisle of Paul's, "yon gallants observe us; prithee let's talk fustian a little and gull them; make them believe we are great scholars." Presently we have the passage containing the Marstonian words (which I have printed in italics):--

"Now, sirs, whereas the ingenuity of the time and the soul's _synderisis_ are but _embryons_ in nature, added to the _paunch of Esquiline_,[16] and the intervallum of the _zodiac_, besides the _ecliptic line_ being optic and not mental, but by the contemplative and theoric part thereof doth _demonstrate_ to us the vegetable circumference and the ventosity of the _tropics_, and whereas our _intellectual_, or _mincing capreal_ (according to the metaphysics) as you may read in Plato's _Histriomastix_.[17] You conceive me, sir?"

In the first scene of the second act, Puntarvolo addresses Carlo Buffone as "thou _Grand Scourge_, or Second Untruss of the time," in allusion to Marston's _Scourge of Villainy_.

_Cynthia's Revels_ was produced in 1600 and printed in 1601. In this play, Anaides and Hedon are represented as being jealous of Crites, and as seeking by underhand means to bring him into discredit. It is certain that Jonson was glancing particularly at Marston and Dekker. In the second scene of the third act, Crites, defending himself against his two traducers, observes:--

"If good Chrestus, Euthus, or Phronimus, had spoke the words, They would have moved me, and I should have call'd My thoughts and actions to a strict account Upon the hearing; but when I remember 'Tis Hedon and Anaides, alas, then I think but what they are, and am not stirr'd. The one a light voluptuous reveller, The other a strange arrogating puff, Both impudent and arrogant enough; That talk as they are wont, not as I merit; Traduce by custom, as most dogs do bark; Do nothing out of judgment, but disease; Speak ill because they never could speak well: And who'd be angry with this race of creatures?"

Dekker in _Satiromastix_[18] puts four of these lines ("I think but what they are ... arrogant enough") into the mouth of Horace (Jonson), plainly assuming that the abuse was intended for Marston and himself. Marston, too, in _What You Will_ (p. xlviii.), fastens on this speech of Crites and uses it as a weapon against Jonson. _Cynthia's Revels_ was quickly followed by _The Poetaster_, which was produced in 1601 by the Children of the Queen's Chapel. Hitherto, Jonson had merely skirmished with his adversaries; in _The Poetaster_ he assails them might and main with all the artillery of invective. Marston is ridiculed as Crispinus, and Dekker as Demetrius Fannius. Crispinus is represented as a coarse-minded, ill-conditioned fellow, albeit of gentle parentage, who, like the bore encountered by Horace in the Via Sacra, is prepared to adopt the meanest stratagems in order to gain admittance to the society of courtiers and wits. He plots with the shifty out-at-elbows Demetrius (a witless "dresser of plays about the town here," to wit, Thomas Dekker), and a huffing Captain Tucca, to disgrace Horace (Ben Jonson). But the attempt results in a ludicrous failure; Crispinus and Demetrius are arraigned at a session of the poets, and, after receiving a severe rebuke for their calumnies, are contemptuously dismissed on taking oath for their future good behaviours. In court a dose of hellebore is administered to Crispinus, who thereupon proceeds to vomit up gobbets of Marston's fustian vocabulary. When the physic has worked its effect Virgil gives Crispinus such advice as Lycinus gave to Lexiphanes in Lucian's dialogue; bidding him form his style on classical models and not

"hunt for wild outlandish terms To stuff out a peculiar dialect."

_The Poetaster_ was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21st December 1601, and _Satiromastix_ had already been entered on the 11th of the preceding month. The title-page of _Satiromastix_ bears only Dekker's name, and to Dekker the play is attributed in the Stationers' Register. It was doubtless with Marston's approval that Dekker took up the cudgels against the truculent Ben, but there is no evidence to show that Marston had any share in the authorship of _Satiromastix_. It is not necessary to deal here with Dekker's spirited rejoinder, but there is one difficult passage, put into the mouth of Horace, to which passing attention must be called:--

"As for Crispinus, that Crispin-ass and Fannius his play-dresser, who (to make the Muses believe their subjests' [_sic_] ears were starved and that there was a dearth of poesy) cut an innocent Moor i'th middle, to serve him in twice, and when he had done made Poules' work of it; as for these twins, these poet-apes,

Their mimic tricks shall serve With mirth to feast our muse whilst their own starve." (_Works_, 1873, i. 212.)

The meaning of this obscure passage seems to be that Marston and Dekker wrote in conjunction a play which had a Moor for its leading character; that the writers' barren invention prompted them to treat the story again in a Second Part; and that the two parts, when they had served their time upon the stage, were published in Paul's Churchyard. At least that is the only intelligible explanation that I can give to the words; but I am altogether unable to fix on any extant play, in which a Moor figures, that could be attributed to Marston and Dekker. From Henslowe's _Diary_ we know that Dekker was concerned in the authorship of a play called _The Spanish Moor's Tragedy_ (which has been doubtfully identified with _Lust's Dominion_, printed in 1657 as a work of Marlowe's); but Dekker's coadjutors in that play were William Haughton and John Day.

It is curious to note that in the very year (1601) when the quarrel between Marston and Jonson reached a climax, the two enemies are contributing poems to the _Divers Poetical Essays_ appended to Robert Chester's tedious and obscure _Love's Martyr_. The other contributors were Shakespeare and Chapman; Marston's verses follow Shakespeare's _Phoenix and Turtle_. In 1604, as we have noticed, Marston dedicated his _Malcontent_ to Jonson in very cordial terms; and in 1605 he prefixed some complimentary verses to _Sejanus_.

In 1605 was published the comedy of _The Dutch Courtezan_, which had been acted by the Children's Company at the Blackfriars. There is more of life and movement in this play than in any other of Marston's productions. The character of the passionate and implacable courtesan, Franceschina, is conceived with masterly ability. Few figures in the Elizabethan drama are more striking than this fair vengeful fiend, who is as playful and pitiless as a tigress; whose caresses are sweet as honey and poisonous as aconite. All the characters are drawn with skill and spirit. Young Freevill is a typical Elizabethan gallant, very frank in his utterances, and not burthened with an excess of modesty. Malheureux, his moody friend, is noted for his strictness of life, but a glance from Franceschina scatters his virtuous resolutions, and he is ready at the temptress' bidding to kill his friend in order to satisfy his passion. The innocent shamefaced Beatrice, affianced to young Freevill, is drawn with more tenderness than Marston usually shows; and her gay prattling sister Crispinella recalls (_longo intervallo_) another more famous Beatrice. Cockledemoy, the droll and nimble trickster, who at every turn dexterously cozens Master Mulligrub, the vintner, affords abundance of amusement; but his plain speaking shocks the sensitively chaste ears of Mary Faugh, the old bawd. Antony Nixon, in _The Black Year_, 1606, speaks of the play as "corrupting English conditions";[19] but Nixon's protest went for little. In December 1613 _The Dutch Courtezan_ was acted at Court (Cunningham's _Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels_, p. xliv.). Having received some alterations at the hands of Betterton, it was revived in 1680 under the title of _The Revenge, or A Match in Newgate_.

A singularly fresh and delightful study of city-life is the comedy of _Eastward Ho_, published in 1605. Three dramatists combined to produce this genial masterpiece--Chapman, Jonson, and Marston. It seems to have been written shortly after James' accession, when the hungry Scots were swarming southwards in quest of preferment. Englishmen were justly indignant at the favours bestowed by James on these Scotch adventurers, and a passage in _Eastward Ho_ stated the grievance very plainly. "You shall live freely there" [_i.e._, in Virginia], says Seagull, "without sergeants, or courtiers, or lawyers, or intelligencers, only a _few_ industrious Scots, perhaps, who, indeed, are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on't, in the world, than they are. And for my part, I would a hundred thousand of 'hem were there, for we are all one countrymen now, ye know; and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here." At the instance of Sir James Graham, one of James' newly-created knights, the playwrights were committed to prison[20] for their abuse of the Scots, and the report went that their ears were to be cut and their noses slit. Ben Jonson told Drummond that he had not contributed the objectionable matter, and that he voluntarily imprisoned himself with Chapman and Marston, who "had written it amongst them." After his release from prison Jonson gave a banquet to "all his friends," Camden and Selden being among the guests. In the middle of the banquet his old mother drank to him and produced a paper containing "lusty strong poison," which she had intended, if the sentence had been confirmed, to take to the prison and mix in his drink; and she declared--to show "that she was no churl"--that "she minded first to have drunk of it herself." The passage about the Scots is found only in some copies of the 4tos; in others it was expunged. Scotch pride seems to have been easily wounded. On 15th April, 1598, George Nicolson, the English agent at the Scotch Court, writing from Edinburgh to Lord Burghley, stated that "it is regretted that the Comedians of London should scorn the king and the people of this land in their play; and it is wished that the matter be speedily amended, lest the king and the country be stirred to anger" (_Cal. of State Papers, Scotland_, ii. 749). Certainly the reflections in _Eastward Ho_ have somewhat more of bitterness than banter; but one would have thought that the favoured Scots about the Court would be content to let the matter pass. Sir James Murray was the person who acted as _delator_, and it is not improbable that he found in the play some uncomplimentary allusions to himself, in addition to the sweeping satire on his countrymen. In the first scene of the fourth act there is a curious passage which has no point unless we suppose that it is directed against some particular courtier:

"_1st Gent._ I ken the man weel; he's one of my thirty pound knights.

"_2d Gent._ No, no, this is he that stole his knighthood o' the grand day for four pound given to a page; all the money in's purse, I wot well."

Satirical references to King James' knights, the men who purchased knighthood from the king, are as common as blackberries; but in the present passage there must be a covert allusion to some person who procured the honour by an unworthy artifice, and I suspect that the allusion is to Sir James Murray. It is surprising that, when the reflections on the Scots were expunged, the passage in iv. 1 was allowed to stand; for, whether Sir James Murray was or was not personally ridiculed, the mimicry of James' Scotch accent is unmistakeable. Perhaps the king joined in the laugh against himself, when the play was acted before him by the Lady Elizabeth's Servants at Whitehall on 25th January 1613-4 (Cunningham's _Extracts from the Account of the Revels_, p. xliv.).

Of the merits of _Eastward Ho_ it would be difficult to speak too highly. To any who are in need of a pill to purge melancholy this racy old comedy may be safely commended. Few readers, after once making his acquaintance, will forget Master Touchstone, the honest shrewd old goldsmith, rough of speech at times but ever gentle at heart, thrifty to outward show but bountiful as the sun in May: he lives in our affections with Orlando Friscobaldo and Simon Eyre. Quicksilver, the rowdy prentice, dazed from last night's debauch, reciting in a thick voice stale scraps of Jeronymo as he reels about Master Touchstone's shop, heedless of the maxims of temperance which frown in print from the walls; Golding, the well-conducted prentice, the apple of his master's eye, armed at all points with virtue and sobriety; Gertrude, the goldsmith's extravagant daughter, with her magnificent visions of coaches, and castles, and cherries at an angel a pound; Mildred, her sister, simple and dutiful; Mistress Touchstone, who has been infected with Gertrude's vanity, but quickly learns penitence in the school of necessity; Sir Petronel Flash, the shifty knight, eager to escape from creditors and serjeants to the new-found land of Virginia; Security, the blood-sucker and egregious gull:--all these characters, and the list is not exhausted, stand limned in all the warmth of life. Mr. Swinburne, in his masterly essay on Chapman, says with truth that "in no play of the time do we get such a true taste of the old city life so often turned to mere ridicule by playwrights of less good humour, or feel about us such a familiar air of ancient London as blows through every scene."

It is very certain that Marston could never have written single-handed so rich and genial a play. In all Marston's comedies there is a strong alloy of bitterness; we are never allowed to rise from the comic feast with a pleasant taste in the mouth. What precise share Marston had in _Eastward Ho_ it would be difficult to determine with any approach to certainty. In the very first scene (vol. iii. p. 8) we come across a passage which is distinctly in Marston's manner:--

"I am entertained among gallants, true; they call me cousin Frank, right; I lend them monies, good; they spend it well."

Compare a passage of _The Fawn_ (vol. ii. p. 181):--

"His brother your husband, right; he cuckold his eldest brother, true; he get her with child, just."

But in the same opening scene there are equally unmistakable signs of Jonson's presence. Touchstone says of Golding:--"He is a gentleman, though my prentice ...; well friended, _well parted_." The curious expression "_well parted_" will be at once recognised as Jonsonian by the vigilant reader, who will remember how Macilente, in "The Characters of the Persons" prefixed to _Every Man out of his Humour_,[21] is described as "A man _well parted_, a sufficient scholar," &c. Jonson and Marston worked on the first scene together; and it seems to me that throughout the first two acts we have the mixed work of these two writers. In the second scene of the third act, as Mr. Swinburne notices, Chapman's hand is clearly seen in the quaint allusion to "the ship of famous Draco." Quicksilver's moralising, in