The Poetaster was written (Jonson says) in fifteen weeks, and it is certainly as creditable to his talents as his industry. It was favourably received by the public, though it gave offence to some of the military and the law. This could only arise from the slavish condition of the stage, which was then at the mercy of every captious officer who chose to complain to the master of the revels; for the satire, if such it be, is put into the mouths of such speakers as would almost convince an impartial spectator that it was designed for a compliment. Of the soldiers, Jonson got quit without much difficulty; but the lawyers were not so easily shaken off; and he was indebted, in some degree, for his escape, to the kindness of one of his earliest friends," the worthy master Richard Martin," who undertook for the innocency of his intentions to the lord chief justice, and to whom he subsequently dedicated the play.

3 Nothing can more clearly mark the tone of hostility with which every act of Jonson is pursued, than the obloquy which is still heaped on him for these speeches. It would be far more just, as well as generous in us to applaud the intrepid spirit with which he dared, in slavish times, to vent his thoughts, than to join in a silly clamour against his " arrogance and ill-nature." He stood forward as a moral satirist, and the abuses both of the law, and the military service, were legitimate objects of reprehension.

But there was yet a party which could neither be silenced nor shamed. The players, who had so long provoked him with their petulance on the stage, felt the bitterness of his reproof, and had address enough to persuade their fellows that all were included in his satire. Jonson readily admits that he taxed some of the players, as, indeed, he had a just right to do; but he adds, that he touched but a few of them, and even those few he forebore to name. He treats their clamours, however, with supreme contempt, and only regrets the hostility of some better natures, whom they had drawn over to their side, and induced to run in the same vile line with themselves. By better natures, the commentators assure us that Shakspeare was meant, and Mr. Malone quotes the passage in more than one place to evince the malignity of Jonson-as if it were a crime in him to be unjustly calumniated! I trust that Jonson was not exhibited in a ridiculous light at the Blackfriars; and, in any case, it is quite certain that the players on whom he retorts were to be found in the companies of the Swan, the Hope, the Fortune, and other houses situated on the river, or, as he expresses himself, "on the other side the Tiber." It would not redound greatly to the honour of

Shakspeare's humanity, if he should be found to have used his " weight and credit in the scene," to depress a young writer dependent on it for subsistence. I do not, however, think that Shakspeare was meant."

There is yet a charge from which it will not be so easy to exculpate Shakspeare. In the Return from Parnassus, written about this time (1602) Kempe and Burbage are introduced, and the former is made to say,-" Few of the University pen plays well; they smell too much of that writer, Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpine and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down: ay, 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." To this, Burbage, who seems somewhat ashamed of his associate, merely replies, " It's a shrewd fellow, indeed:" and changes the subject." In what manner," Mr. Malone says, "Shakspeare put Jonson down, does not appear." I should think it clear enough. He put him down as he put down every other dramatic writer. "Nor does it appear," he continues, "how he made him bewray his credit. His retaliation, we may be well assured, contained no gross or illiberal attack, and, perhaps, did not go beyond a ballad or an epigram.' ."-But with Mr. Malone's leave, if it went as far as either, Shakspeare was greatly to be blamed, for Jonson had given him no offence whatever. I will take upon myself to affirm that the Poetaster does not contain a single passage that can be tortured by the utmost ingenuity of malice, into a reflection on our great poet. It will scarcely be credited, that the sentence last quoted should be immediately followed

Be this as it may, Jonson was induced, after a few representations, to add to it, what he calls an Apologetical Dialogue, in which he bore the chief part. It was spoken only once, and then laid aside by command.' It is remarkable, the critics say, for nothing but arrogance. It

by these words: "Shakspeare has, however," (i. e. notwithstanding he had written a ballad against Jonson) "marked his disregard for the calumniator of his fame" (i.e. for the unoffending object of his ridicule) "by not leaving him any me. morial by his Will." Shak. vol. i. p. 541. Let Mr. Malone answer for the unforgiving temper with which he has dishonoured Shakspeare; -I believe nothing of it. Kempe is brought forward as the type of ignorance, in this old drama; but a darker quality than ignorance must possess those, who draw from his language any indications of Jonson's "malignity" to Shakspeare. And again, with Mr. Malone's permission, how can we be so sure that the ballad or the epigram which is here supposed to be written against Jonson contained nothing gross or illiberal? Time has spared two specimens of Shakspeare's mode of "attack." It so happens that one of them is a ballad and the other an epigram; the first written on a person whose park he had robbed, and the second, on a friend who left him a legacy. If there be nothing "gross or illiberal," in either of these, the "assurance" may be trusted.

5 Not in consequence of the interference of the town, as Mr. D'Israeli thinks; the town would, probably, have heard it with pleasure. Jonson's own account is, that "he was restrained from repeating it by authority." These words are found only in the 4to. edit. and Mr. D'Israeli probably consulted the fol. Quar. of Authors, vol. iii. p. 135.

is certainly not wanting in self-confidence; but it has something besides,—a vein of hightoned indignation springing from conscious innocence, and worth, and a generous burst of pathos and poetry in the concluding speech, to which an equal will not easily be found.

If Jonson expected to silence his enemies by giving them" a brave defiance," or even by proving his own innocence, he speedily discovered his mistake. Decker, who had sustained the part of Demetrius, was (apparently to his own satisfaction) put forward by the rest, and as he was not only a rapid but a popular writer, the choice of a champion was not injudicious. The Satiromastix was produced in

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• Jonson must have been aware of this; for he makes one of the players say of Decker," his doublet's a little decayed, otherwise he is a very simple honest fellow, sir, one Demetrius, a dresser of plays about the town, here; we have hired him to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play,” vol. ii. 461. And, a few lines lower, he makes Tucca promise that "Crispinus (Marston) shall help him." It might have been expected that Marston, who is, in fact, the Poetaster, would have been the principal in the meditated plan of revenge; but he was, perhaps, too slow for the wrath of his associates: it is also possible that he might not be equally exasperated with them; for it is observable that he is treated with some kind of deference as compared with his "hangeron," and that more than one allusion is made to the tability of his birth.

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