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 instance. Luscus, what's plaid to day? Faith, now I know, I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flowe Say, who acts best, Drusus or Roscio? Nowe I have him, that nere, if aught, did speake B. ii. 7. 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. iii. In Goddard's Dogges from the Antipedes, a lady says, whose ruff was discomposed, SAT. 29. B. i. 3. A Crabs bakt guts, a lobsters buttered thigh, &c. So in Marston's MALECONTENT, printed 1604. A. ii. S. ii. "Crabs guts baked, distilled ox-pith, the pulverized hairs of a lions upper lip," &c. 1 SAT. iii. 8. 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, A buske-point or some favour stills the boy. "Lord! my ruffe SETT it with thy But see OLD-PLAYS, v. 251. finger, Iohn!" And our author, Sc. 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. SATYRES, Sat. iv. Is warranted by curtaine-plaudities. If eer you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes, He appears to have been a violent enemy of the puritans. But thou, rank Puritan, I'll make an ape as good a christian: I'll force him chatter, turning vp his eye, 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 superiour 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 impurities 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 shewing 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. THE popularity of Hall's and Marston's Satires, notwith standing 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 2. 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 b." This year also, as I conjecture, were published Epigrams by sir John Davies, author of Nosce TEIPSUM. These must not be confounded with the SCOURGE Entered to William Fyrebrand, May 3, 1598. REGISTR. STATION. C. f. 34. b. Entered to N. Linge, Sept. 15, 1598. Ibid. f. 41. b. Marlowe's OVID'S ELEGIES were accompanied with these Epigrams. The whole title is, "Epigrammes and Elegies, by J. D. and C. M. [Marlowe.] at Middleburgh." No date. Davies's Epigrams are commended in Jonson's Epigrams, xviii. And in Fitzgeoffry's ArFANIE, Lib. ii. Signat. E. 4. DAVISIOS lædat mihi, Jonsoniosque la cessat. [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 writing master, 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.-EDIT.] [The following specimen becomes interesting from its allusions to remarkable persons and events. Old Holinshed, our famous chronicler, Out of all actions done these fourescore Accounts the time of every old event, Not from Christ's birth, nor from the 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 Newhaven, 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 Bastard. 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 Bastard, 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 Museum, and composed by various students of Oxford in the reign of queen Elizabeth, has preserved two of Bastard's satyrical pieces". By the patronage 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, The rising in the North, the frost so great, That cart wheeles prints on Thamis The fall of money and burning of The blazing starre, and Spaniards over- 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." Compare Wood, ATH. Oxox. F. i. 219. e Entered to Joane Brome, Apr. 3, 1598. Ibid. f. 38. b. 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 in Oxon." The other is a disavowal of this lampoon, written after his expulsion, and beginning Jenkin, why, man, &c. See Meres, WITS TR. f. 284. |