He was a butcher's son." The writers of biography have let Aubrey's testimony pass. In spite of it they tell us he "was of an ancient and worthy family, originally descended from the town of Drayton, in Leicestershire, which gave name to his progenitors."* Not so indifferent has biography been to the descent of William Shakspere as recorded by the same historiographer: he "was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick: his father was a butcher." The original record in each case is of precisely equal value.

The Cleopatra' of Samuel Daniel places him amongst the dramatic poets of this period; but his vocation was not to the drama. He was induced, by the persuasion of the Countess of Pembroke,

"To sing of state, and tragic notes to frame."

After Shakspere had arisen he adhered to the model of the Greek theatre. According to Jonson, "Samuel Daniel was no poet." Jonson thought Daniel "envied him," as he wrote to the Countess of Rutland. He tells Drummond that "Daniel was at jealousies with him." Yet for all this even with Jonson he was "a good honest man." Spenser formed the same estimate of Daniel's genius as the Countess of Pembroke did :

"Then rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniel,

And to what course thou please thyself advance :
But most, meseems, thy accent will excel

In tragic plaints, and passionate mischance."+

Daniel did wisely when he confined his "tragic plaints" to narrative poetry. He went over the same ground as Shakspere in his Civil Wars;' and there are passages of resemblance between the dramatist and the descriptive poet which are closer than mere accident could have produced. The imitation, on whatever side it was, was indicative of respect.

In the company at the Falcon we may place John Marston, a man of original talent, who had at that period won some celebrity. He was at this time probably about five and twenty, having taken his Bachelor's degree at Oxford in 1592. There is very little known with any precision about his life; but a pretty accurate opinion of his character may be collected from the notices of his contemporaries, and from his own writings. He began in the most dangerous path of literary ambition, that of satire, bitter and personal :

"Let others sing, as their good genius moves,
Of deep designs, or else of clipping loves.
Fair fall them all that with wit's industry
Do clothe good subjects in true poesy ;
But as for me, my vexed thoughtful soul
Takes pleasure in displeasing sharp control.

Quake, guzzle-dogs, that live on spotted lime,
Scud from the lashes of my yerking rhyme."

His first performance, The Metamorphoses of Pygmalion's Image,' has been thought by Warton to have been written in ridicule of Shakspere's Venus and Adonis. The author says,

Know, I wrot

These idle rhymes, to note the odious spot
And blemish, that deforms the lineaments
Of modern poesy's habiliments."

In his parody, if parody it be, he has contrived to produce a poem, of which the licentiousness is the only quality. Thus we look upon a sleeping Venus of Titian, and see but the wonderful art of the painter; a dauber copies it, and then beauty becomes deformity. He is angry that his object is misunderstood, as well it might be:

"O these same buzzing gnats

That sting my sleeping brows, these Nilus rats,
Half dung, that have their life from putrid slime,
These that do praise my loose lascivious rhyme,
For these same shades I seriously protest,

I slubbered up that chaos indigest,

To fish for fools, that stalk in goodly shape :
What though in velvet cloak, yet still an ape!"

He had the ordinary fate of satirists-to live in a state of perpetual warfare, and to have offences imputed to him of which he was blameless. The “galled jade" not only winces, but kicks. The comedy of 'The Malecontent,' written in 1600, appears to have been Marston's first play; it was printed in 1605. He says in the Preface, " In despite of my endeavours, I understand some have been most unadvisedly over-cunning in misinterpreting me, and with subtilty (as deep as hell) have maliciously spread ill rumours, which springing from them'Scourge of Villainy; Three Books of Satire: 1598.

66

selves, might to themselves have heavily returned." Marston says in the Preface to one of his later plays, "So powerfully have I been enticed with the delights of poetry, and (I must ingenuously confess), above better desert, so fortunate in these stage-pleasings, that (let my resolutions be never so fixed, to call mine eyes unto myself) I much fear that most lamentable death of him—

'Qui nimis notus omnibus,

Ignotus moritur sibi.'"-Seneca.

6

He adds, "the over-vehement pursuit of these delights hath been the sickness of my youth." He unquestionably writes as one who is absorbed by his pursuit; over whom it has the mastery. In his plays, as well as in his satires, there is no languid task-work; but, as may be expected, he cannot go out of himself. It is John Marston who is lashing vice and folly, whatever character may fill the scene; and from first to last in his reproof of licentiousness we not only see his familiarity with many gross things, but cannot feel quite assured that he looks upon them wholly with pure eyes. His temper was no doubt capricious. It is clear that Jonson had been attacked by him previous to the production of The Poetaster.' He endured the lash which was inflicted on him in return, and became again, as he probably was before, the friend of Jonson, to whom he dedicates The Malecontent' in 1605. Gifford has clearly made out that the Crispinus of The Poctaster' was Marston. Tucca thus describes him, in addressing the player: "Go, and be acquainted with him then; he is a gentleman, parcel poet, you slave; his father was a man of worship, I tell thee. Go, he pens high, lofty, in a new stalking strain, bigger than half the rhymers in the town again: he was born to fill thy mouth, Minotaurus, he was; he will teach thee to tear and rand. Rascal, to him, cherish his muse, go; thou hast forty-forty shillings, I mean, stinkard; give him in earnest, do, he shall write for thee, slave! If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel any more, after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel heads to an old cracked trumpet." Jonson, in the same play, has parodied Marston's manner, and has introduced many of his expressions, in the following verses which are produced as those of Crispinus:

66

Ramp up, my genius, be not retrograde;

But boldly nominate a spade a spade.

What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery muse
Live, as she were defunct, like punk in stews!
Alas! that were no modern consequence,
To have cothurnal buskins frighted hence.
No, teach thy Incubus to poetize,
And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries,
Upon that puft-up lump of balmy froth,

Or clumsy chilblain'd judgment; that with oath

Magnificates his merit; and bespawls

The conscious time with humorous foam, and brawls,

As if his organons of sense would crack

The sinews of my patience. Break his back,

* See Note at the end of this Chapter.

O poets all and some! for now we list

Of strenuous vengeance to clutch the fist."

The following advice is subsequently given to him :

"You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms,

To stuff out a peculiar dialect;

But let your matter run before your words.
And if at any time you chance to meet
Some Gallo-Belgic phrase, you shall not straight
Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment,

But let it pass; and do not think yourself

Much damnified if you do leave it out,

When nor your understanding nor the sense
Could well receive it."

Marston, with all his faults, was a scholar and a man of high talent; and it is pleasant to know that he and Ben were friends after this wordy war. He appears to us to describe himself in the following narrative of a scholar in What You Will:'

whilst I bauz'd leaves,

Toss'd o'er the dunces, por'd on the old print

Of titled words, and still my spaniel slept.

Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, 'bated my flesh,

Shrunk up my veins, and still my spaniel slept.

And still I held converse with Zabarell,

Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antic Donate, still my spaniel slept.

Still on went I, first an sit anima,
Then, an it were mortal; oh, hold, hold,

At that they are at brain buffets, fell by the ears,
Amain, pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.
Then whether 't were corporeal, local, fix'd,
Extraduce; but whether 't had free will

Or no, O philosophers

Stood banding factions, all so strongly propp'd,
I stagger'd, knew not which was firmer part;
But thought, quoted, read, observ'd, and pried,
Stuff'd noting books, and still my spaniel slept.
At length he wak'd, and yawn'd, and by yon sky,
For aught I knew, he knew as much as I.

* Mr. Dilke, in his valuable Selection from the Early Dramatic Writers,' prints three of Marston's plays. He this word says be derived from baiser, to kiss; and that basse has been

may

used by Chaucer in this sense.

How 't was created, how the soul exists;

One talks of motes, the soul was made of motes;

Another fire, t' other light, a third a spark of star-like nature;

Hippo, water; Anaximenes, air;

Aristoxenus, music; Critias, I know not what;

A company of odd Phrenetici

Did eat my youth; and when I crept abroad,
Finding my numbness in this nimble age,
I fell a railing."

The light jest, the glancing wit, the earnest eloquence, the deep criticism, which would wear away the hours in such a company as that assembled at the Falcon, are to be interrupted. The festivity is about to close; when Marston, in the words of one of his own characters, says

"Stay, take an old rhyme first: though dry and lean,

'T will serve to close the stomach of the scene;"

and then bursts out into a song which bears the stamp of his personal character:

"Music, tobacco, sack, and sleep,

The tide of sorrow backward keep.
If thou art sad at others' fate,
Rivo! drink deep, give care the mate.

On us the end of time is come,

Fond fear of that we cannot shun;

Whilst quickest sense doth freshly last,
Clip time about, hug pleasure fast."*

Shakspere suddenly leaves the room, ere the song be ended; for one who bears the badge of the Earl of Essex waits without. His message is a brief, but a sad one. He returns just to hear the last lines of Marston's song,

"When I can breathe no longer, then
Heaven take all; there put amen,"

and to break up all revelry with the message-Spenser is dead.

In the obscure lodging-house in King's Street, Westminster, where he lay down heart-broken, alone, has the poor fugitive died in his forty-sixth year. Jonson says, "He died for lack of bread in King's Street, and refused twenty pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, and said he was sorry he had no time to spend them." The lack of bread could scarcely be. He could only have been a very short time in London when he came to seek that imperfect compensation which the government might afford him for some of his wrongs. His house was burnt; his wife and two children had fled from those outrages which had made

"The cooly shade

Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore"

What you Will.'