A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 25

But softly may our honour's ashes rest, That lie by merry Chaucer's n.o.ble chest.

But, I pray thee, proceed briefly in thy censure, that I may be proud of myself; as in the first, so in the last, my censure may jump with thine.--Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel,[44] Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson.

JUDICIO.

Sweet Constable[45] doth take the wond'ring ear, And lays it up in willing prisonment: Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage War with the proudest big Italian, That melts his heart in sugar'd sonneting; Only let him more sparingly make use Of others' wit, and use his own the more, That well may scorn base imitation.

For Lodge[46] and Watson,[47] men of some desert, Yet subject to a critic's marginal; Lodge for his oar in ev'ry paper boat, He, that turns over Galen ev'ry day, To sit and simper Euphues' Legacy.[48]

INGENIOSO.

Michael Drayton?

JUDICIO.

Drayton's sweet muse is like a sanguine dye, Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye.

INGENIOSO.

However, he wants one true note of a poet of our times, and that is this: he cannot swagger it well in a tavern, nor domineer in a hothouse. John Davis?[49]

JUDICIO.

Acute John Davis, I affect thy rhymes, That jerk in hidden charms these looser times; Thy plainer verse, thy unaffected vein, Is graced with a fair and sweeping[50] train.

INGENIOSO.

Lock and Hudson?[51]

JUDICIO.

Lock and Hudson, sleep, you quiet shavers, among the shavings of the press, and let your books lie in some old nooks amongst old boots and shoes; so you may avoid my censure.

INGENIOSO. Why, then, clap a lock on their feet, and turn them to commons. John Marston?[52]

JUDICIO.

What, Monsieur Kinsayder, lifting up your leg, and p.i.s.sing against the world? put up, man, put up, for shame!

Methinks he is a ruffian in his style, Withouten bands or garters' ornament: He quaffs a cup of Frenchman's Helicon; Then roister doister in his oily terms, Cuts, thrusts, and foins, at whomsoever he meets, And strews about Ram-Alley meditations.

Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms, Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?

Give him plain naked words, stripp'd from their shirts, That might beseem plain-dealing Aretine.

Ay, there is one, that backs a paper steed, And manageth a penknife gallantly, Strikes his poinardo at a b.u.t.ton's breadth, Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns; And, at first volley of his cannon-shot, Batters the walls of the old fusty world.

INGENIOSO.

Christopher Marlowe?

JUDICIO.

Marlowe was happy in his buskin'd muse; Alas! unhappy in his life and end: Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell Wit lent from heav'n, but vices sent from h.e.l.l.[53]

INGENIOSO.

Our theatre hath lost, Pluto hath got, A tragic penman for a dreary plot.

Benjamin Jonson?

JUDICIO.

The wittiest fellow of a bricklayer in England.

INGENIOSO.

A mere empiric, one that gets what he hath by observation, and makes only nature privy to what he indites; so slow an inventor, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying; a bold wh.o.r.eson, as confident now in making of[54] a book, as he was in times past in laying of a brick. William Shakespeare?

JUDICIO.

Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape, His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life, Could but a graver subject him content, Without love's foolish, lazy[55] languishment.

INGENIOSO.

Churchyard?[56]

Hath not Sh.o.r.e's wife, although a light-skirts she, Giv'n him a chaste, long-lasting memory?

JUDICIO.

No; all light pamphlets once I finden shall, A Churchyard and a grave to bury all!

Thomas Nash.[57]

INGENIOSO.

Ay, here is a fellow, Judicio, that carried the deadly stock[58] in his pen, whose muse was armed with a gag-tooth,[59] and his pen possessed with Hercules' furies.

JUDICIO.

Let all his faults sleep with his mournful chest, And then for ever with his ashes rest: His style was witty, though he had some gall, Something he might have mended; so may all: Yet this I say that, for a mother-wit, Few men have ever seen the like of it.

INGENIOSO _reads the rest of the names_.

JUDICIO.

As for these, they have some of them been the old hedge-stakes of the press; and some of them are, at this instant, the bots and glanders of the printing-house: fellows that stand only upon terms to serve the term,[60] with their blotted papers, write, as men go to stool, for needs; and when they write, they write as a bear p.i.s.ses, now and then drop a pamphlet.

INGENIOSO.

_Durum telum necessitas_. Good faith, they do, as I do--exchange words for money. I have some traffic this day with Danter[61] about a little book which I have made; the name of it is, A Catalogue of Cambridge Cuckolds. But this Belvidere, this methodical a.s.s, hath made me almost forget my time; I'll now to Paul's Churchyard; meet me an hour hence at the sign of the Pegasus in Cheapside, and I'll moist thy temples with a cup of claret, as hard as the world goes.

[_Exit_ JUDICIO.

ACTUS I., SCAENA 3.

_Enter_ DANTER _the Printer_.

INGENIOSO.

Danter, thou art deceived, wit is dearer than thou takest it to be: I tell thee, this libel of Cambridge has much fat and pepper in the nose; it will sell sheerly underhand, when all these books of exhortations and catechisms lie moulding on thy s...o...b..ard.

DANTER.

It's true: but, good faith, Master Ingenioso, I lost by your last book; and, you know, there is many a one that pays me largely for the printing of their inventions: but, for all this, you shall have forty shillings and an odd bottle of wine.

INGENIOSO.

Forty shillings! a fit reward for one of your rheumatic poets, that beslavers all the paper he comes by, and furnishes all the chandlers with waste-papers to wrap candles in; but as for me, I'll be paid dear even for the dregs of my wit: little knows the world what belongs to the keeping of a good wit in waters, diets, drinks, tobacco, &c. It is a dainty and a costly creature; and therefore I must be paid sweetly.

Furnish me with money, that I may put myself in a new suit of clothes, and I'll suit thy shop with a new suit of terms. It's the gallantest child my invention was ever delivered of: the t.i.tle is, A Chronicle of Cambridge Cuckolds. Here a man may see what day of the month such a man's commons were enclosed, and when thrown open; and when any entailed some odd crowns upon the heirs of their bodies unlawfully begotten.

Speak quickly: else I am gone.

DANTER.

O, this will sell gallantly; I'll have it, whatsoever it cost: will you walk on, Master Ingenioso? We'll sit over a cup of wine, and agree on it.

INGENIOSO.

A cup of wine is as good a constable as can be to take up the quarrel betwixt us.