New set are easly mou'd, and pluck'd away; But elder roots clip faster in the clay." Of the influence of the drama, which now began to be the most polite and popular diversion, on conversation, we have the following in stance. Luscus, what's plaid to-day? Faith, now I know, I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flowe Nought but pure JULIET AND ROMEO. Say, who acts best, Drusus or Roscio? Nowe I have him, that nere, if aught, did speake He alludes to the furred gown of a gra- B. iii. 9. He speaks of a critic abusing Mortimer's numbers. I believe he means Drayton's epistle of Mortimer to Queen Isabel. Drayton's Epistles appeared in 1597. Or perhaps Drayton's Mortimeriados, published in 1596. -B. iii. 11. Her seate of sense is her rebato set.. The set of her rebato is the stiffness of her ruff newly plaited, starched, and poked. To set a hat, is to cock a hat, in provincial language. The ruff was adjusted or trimmed by what they called a pokingstick, made of iron, which was gently. heated. A pamphlet is entered to W. Wright, Jul. 4, 1590, called "Blue starch and poking-stickes." Registr. Station. B. f. 260 a. Jonson says of a smoking coxcomb, "The other opened his nostrils with a poaking-sticke, to giue the smoake more free deliuerie." Euerie M. out of his H. act iii. sc. 3. In Goddard's Dogges from the Antipedes, a lady says, whose ruff was discomposed, Sat. 29. Lord! my ruffe! Sett it with thy finger, VOL. III. And our author, Sc. of Vill. i. 2. Lucia, new set thy ruffe. In the Guls Horne Booke, p. 7. "Your stiff-necked rebatoes, that have more arches for pride to rowe vnder, than can stand vnder fiue London bridges, durst not then set themselves out in print." And hence we must explain a line in Hall, iii. 7. His linnen collar Labyrinthian set. B. i. 3. A Crabs bakt guts, a lobsters buttered thigh, &c. So in Marston's Malecontent, printed 1604. act ii. sc. 2. "Crabs guts baked, distilled ox-pith, the pulverized hairs of a lions upper lip," &c. 2 G Sat. iii. 8. I sawe him court his mistresse lookingglasse, Worship a buske-point. A buske was a flexile pin or stick for keeping a woman's stays tight before. Marston's context too clearly explains the meaning of the word. So in Pigmalion's Image, st. xix. Loue is a child contented with a toy, But see Old Plays, v. 251. Ye Granta's white Nymphs, come! White was anciently used as a term of fondling or endearment. In the Return from Parnassus, 1606, Amoretto's Page says, "When he returns, I'll tell twenty admirable lies of his hawk: and then I shall be his little rogue, his WHITE villain, for a whole week after." A. ii. s. 6. Doctor Busby used to call his favourite scholars, his White Boys. I could add a variety of other combinations. 2 B. i. 4. Hath made a common-place book out of playes, If e'er you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes, He appears to have been a violent enemy of the puritans. I'll make an ape as good a christian : Shall scorne to say, good brother, sister deare! With vnchast armes. Disguised Messaline, I'll teare thy mask, and bare thee to the eyne, &c.b It is not that I am afraid of being tedious, that I find myself obliged to refrain from producing any more citations. There are however a few more passages which may safely be quoted, but which I choose to reserve for future illustration. There is a carelessness and laxity in Marston's versification, but there is a freedom and facility, which Hall has too frequently missed, by labouring to confine the sense to the couplet. Hall's measures are more musical, not because the music of verse consists in uniformity of pause and regularity of cadence. Hall had a correcter ear; and his lines have a tuneful strength, in proportion as his language is more polished, his phraseology more select, and his structure more studied. Hall's meaning, among other reasons, is not always so soon apprehended, on account of his compression both in sentiment and diction. Marston is more perspicuous, as he thinks less and writes hastily. Hall is superior in penetration, accurate conception of character, acuteness of reflection, and the accumulation of thoughts and images. Hall has more humour, Marston more acrimony. Hall often draws his materials from books and the diligent perusal of other satirists; Marston from real life. Yet Hall has a larger variety of characters. He possessed the talent of borrowing with address, and of giving originality to his copies. On the whole, Hall is more elegant, exact, and elaborate. It is Marston's misfortune, that he can never keep clear of the im purities of the brothel. His stream of poetry, if sometimes bright and unpolluted, almost always betrays a muddy bottom. The satirist who too freely indulges himself in the display of that licentiousness which he means to proscribe, absolutely defeats his own design. He inflames those passions which he professes to suppress, gratifies the depravations of a prurient curiosity, and seduces innocent minds to an acquaintance with ideas which they might never have known. The satires of Hall and Marston were condemned to the same flame and by the same authority. But Hall certainly deserved a milder sentence. Hall exposes vice, not in the wantonness of description, but with the reserve of a cautious yet lively moralist. Perhaps every censurer of obscenity does some harm, by turning the attention to an immodest object. But this effect is to be counteracted by the force and propriety of his reproof, by showing the pernicious consequences of voluptuous excesses, by suggesting motives to an opposite conduct, and by making the picture disgustful by dashes of deformity. When Vice is led forth to be sacrificed at the shrine of Virtue, the victim should not be too richly dressed. SECTION LXVI. Epigrams and Satires. Skialetheia. A Scourge of Truth. Scourge of Truth by John Davies of Hereford. Chrestoloros by Thomas Bastard. Microcynicon by T. M. Gent. William Goddard's Mastiff Whelp. Pasquill's Mad-Cap, Message, Foole-Cap. Various collections of Epigrams. Rowland's Letting of Humours blood in the head vaine. Lodge, Greene and Decker's Pamphlets. Catalogue of Epigrammatic Miscellanies. Satires by G. Walter. Donne's Satires. THE popularity of Hall's and Marston's Satires, notwithstanding their proscription or rather extermination by spiritual authority, produced an innumerable crop of SATIRISTS, and of a set of writers, differing but little more than in name, and now properly belonging to the same species, EPIGRAMMATISTS. In 1598, printed at London, appeared "SKIALETHEIA, or a Shadowe of Truth in certaine Epigrams and Satyres." The same year, SEUEN SATIRES, applied to the week, including the world's ridiculous follies". This form was an imitation of the SEMAINES of Du Bartas, just translated into English by Delisle. The same year, "A SHADOWE of TRUTH in certaine Epigrams and Satires"." This year also, as I conjecture, & Entered to William Fyrebrand, May 3, 1598. Registr. Station. C. f. 34 b. b Entered to N. Linge, Sept. 15, 1598. Ibid. f. 41 b. were published Epigrams by sir John Davies, author of Nosce teipSUMC. These must not be confounded with the ScOURGE OF FOLLY, by John Davies of Hereford, printed in 1611. In 1598 also, was published in quarto, "Tyros roaring Megge, planted against the walls of Melancholy, London, 1598." With two Decads of Epigrams. The author appears to have been of Cambridge. Tyro is perhaps a real name. The dedication is to Master John Lucas. In the year 1598, was also published, under the general title of CHRESTOLOROS, seven Books of Epigrams, by Thomas Bastarde. Bastard, a native of Blandford in Dorsetshire, was removed from a fellowship of New-College Oxford, in 1591, being, as Wood says, "much guilty of the vices belonging to the poets," and "given to libelling!." Harrington, the translator of Ariosto, has an Epigram addressed to “Master Barnard, a minister, that made a pleasant Booke of English Epigrams." Wood, in his manuscript Collection of Oxford libels and lampoons, which perhaps he took as much pleasure in collecting as the authors in writing, now remaining in the Ashmolean Musuem, and composed by various students of Oxford in the reign of queen Elizabeth, has preserved two of Bastard's satirical piecesh. By the patron [One edition of these Epigrams, which appears to have been the earliest, had Marlowe's name annexed to the title of Ovid's Elegies. From the printed conversation between Drummond and Ben Jonson, the Epigrams are ascertained to belong to sir John Davis the Judge, and not to Davies of Hereford the writingmaster, as was conceived by Mr. Chalmers. See Apol. The author in Skialetheia is styled our English Martial, and at that period the appellation seems not to have been misapplied.—PRICE.] [The following specimen becomes interesting from its allusions to remarkable persons and events. Gereon's mouldy memory corrects Old Holinshed, our famous chronicler, Accounts the time of every old event, prince's raigne, But from some other famous accident, Which in men's generall notice doth remaine: The siege of Bulloigne and the plaguy sweat, The going to saint Quintin's and New haven, The rising in the North, the frost so great, were seene; The fall of money and burning of Paul's steeple, The blazing starre, and Spaniards overthrow : By these events, notorious to the people, But most of all he chiefly reckons by This is to him the dearest memory d With "sequitur Tyronis Epistola.” f Ath. Oxon. i. 431. Harrington's Epigrams, B. ii. 64. See also B. ii. 84. They are also mentioned with applause in Goddard's Mastif, no date, Sat. 81. And in Parrot's Springes for Woodcockes, Lib. i. Epigr. 118. One of them is entitled, "An Admonition to the City of Oxford, or Mareplate's Bastardine." In this piece, says Wood, he "reflects upon all persons of note in Oxford, who were guilty of amorous exploits, or that mixed themselves with other men's wives, or with wanton houswives age or favour of lord-treasurer Suffolk, he was made vicar of Bere-regis, and rector of Hamer in Dorsetshire; and from writing smart epigrams in his youth, became in his graver years a quaint preacher. He died a prisoner for debt, in Dorchester gaol, April 19, 1618. He was an elegant classic scholar, and appears to have been better qualified for that species of the occasional pointed Latin epigram established by his fellow-collegian John Owen, than for any sort of English versifica tion. In 1599, appeared "MICROCYNICON, six snarling satyres by T. M. Gentleman," perhaps Thomas Middleton. About the same time appeared, without date, in quarto, written by William Goddard, “A MASTIF WHELP, with other ruff-i-landlike currs fetcht from amongst the Antipedes, which bite and barke at the fantastical humourists and abusers of the time. Imprinted at the Antipedes, and are to be bought where they are to be sold." It contains eighty-five satires. To these is added, "Dogges from the Antipedes," containing forty-one. in Oxon." The other is a disavowal of this lampoon, written after his expulsion, and beginning, Jenkin, why, man, &c. See Meres, Wit's Tr. f. 284. i There are two sets of his Sermons, Five, London, 1615, 4to. The first three of these are called the Marigold of the Sun. Twelve, London, 1615. 4to. The name of the author, who appears to have been a soldier, is added in the Dedication, to some of his flatt-cappe friends at the Temple. The Satires were written after Bastard's Epigrams, which are [thus] commended, Sat. 81. [Talke you with Poet Asse, sitting in 's seate, You'le heare him ex'lent Epigrames repeate ; Demaund him "whose they bee, they runn soe fine?" He answers straight-" Fruits of this brayne of myne;' Yet let a well-read Poet heare the vaine, Hee'lle finde they came out of a Bastardes braine. Vnmaskt, and sit i' th' booth without a fanne : Speake, could you iudge her lesse than be some manne, &c. Here is the dress of a modern amazon, in Beside a long French locke. |