What I have filch'd from them. This I could do.
But O for shame that man should so arraign
Their own fee-simple wits for verbal theft!
Yet men there be that have done this and that,
And more by much more than the most of them.1

[Act iii., Sc. 2.]

After this specimen of the pleasanter vein of Heywood, I am tempted to extract some lines from his "Hierarchie of Angels, 1634;" not strictly as a Dramatic Poem, but because the passage contains a string of names, all but that of Watson, his contemporary Dramatists. He is complaining in a mood half serious, half comic, of the disrespect which Poets in his own times meet with from the world, compared with the honours paid them by Antiquity. Then they could afford them three or four sonorous names, and at full length; as to Ovid, the addition of Publius Naso Sulmensis; to Seneca, that of Lucius Annæas Cordubensis; and the like. Now, says he,

Our modern Poets to that pass are driven,

Those names are curtail'd which they first had given;

And, as we wish'd to have their memories drown'd,

We scarcely can afford them half their sound.
Greene, who had in both Academies ta'en

Degree of Master, yet could never gain

To be call'd more than Robin: who, had he
Profest aught save the Muse, served, and been free
After a sev'n years 'prenticeship, might have
(With credit too) gone Robert to his grave.
Marlowe, renown'd for his rare art and wit,
Could ne'er attain beyond the name of Kit;
Although his Hero and Leander did

Was call'd but Tom. Tom Watson; though he wrote
Able to make Apollo's self to dote

Upon his Muse; for all that he could strive,

Yet never could to his full name arrive.

Tom Nash (in his time of no small esteem)

Could not a second syllable redeem.

1 The full title of this Play is "The Fair Maid of the Exchange, with the Humours of the Cripple of Fenchurch." The above Satire against some Dramatic Plagiarists of the time, is put into the mouth of the Cripple, who is an excellent fellow, and the Hero of the Comedy. Of his humour this extract is a sufficient specimen; but he is described (albeit a tradesman, yet wealthy withal) with heroic qualities of mind and body; the latter of which he evinces by rescuing his Mistress (the Fair Maid) from three robbers by the main force of one crutch lustily applied; and the former by his foregoing the advantages which this action gained him in her good opinion, and bestowing his wit and finesse in procuring for her a husband, in the person of his friend Golding, more worthy of her beauty, than he could conceive his own maimed and halting limbs to be. It would require some boldness in a dramatist now-a-days to exhibit such a Character; and some luck in finding a sufficient Actor, who would be willing to personate the infirmities, together with the virtues, of the Noble Cripple.

Excellent Beaumont, in the foremost rank
Of the rarest wits, was never more than Frank.
Mellifluous SHAKSPEARE, whose inchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but WILL;
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.
Fletcher, and Webster, of that learned pack
None of the meanest, neither was but Jack;
Decker but Tom; nor May, nor Middleton ;

And he's now but Jack Ford, that once were John.

Possibly our Poet was a little sore, that this contemptuous curtailment of their Baptismal Names was chiefly exercised upon his Poetical Brethren of the Drama. We hear nothing about Sam Daniel, or Ned Spenser, in his catalogue. The familiarity of common discourse might probably take the greater liberties with the Dramatic Poets, as conceiving of them as more upon a level with the Stage Actors. Or did their greater publicity, and popularity in consequence, fasten these diminutives upon them out of a feeling of love and kindness, as we say Harry the Fifth, rather than Henry, when we would express good-will?—as himself says, in those reviving words put into his mouth by Shakspeare, where he would comfort and confirm his doubting brothers [2nd Part "Henry IV.," Act v., Scene 2, line 48]:— Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry, Harry!

And doubtless Heywood had an indistinct conception of this truth, when, (coming to his own name), with that beautiful retracting which is natural to one that, not satirically given, has wandered a little out of his way into something recriminative, he goes on to say :

Nor speak I this, that any here exprest

Should think themselves less worthy than the rest
Whose names have their full syllables and sound;
Or that Frank, Kit, or Jack, are the least wound
Unto their fame and merit. I for my part
(Think others what they please) accept that heart,
Which courts my love in most familiar phrase;
And that it takes not from my pains or praise,
If any one to me so bluntly come:

I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.1

JACK DRUM'S ENTERTAINMENT.2

A COMEDY [PUB

LISHED 1601]. AUTHOR UNKNOWN [PROBABLY BY
MARSTON]

The free humour of a Noble Housekeeper.

Fortune (a Knight). I was not born to be my cradle's drudge. To choke and stifle up my pleasure's breath.

[For other extracts from Heywood see note to page 100.]
2[Or, the Comedie of Pasquil and Katherine.]

Vest. Ne shall he do. But swear me secrecy; The Babe shall live, and we be dangerless.1

[Act i., Sc. 1.]

A TRAGEDY

THE REVENGE OF BUSSY D'AMBOIS.
BY GEORGE CHAPMAN, 1613

Plays and Players.

Guise. I would have these things

Brought upon Stages, to let mighty Misers
See all their grave and serious mischiefs play'd,
As once they were in Athens and old Rome.

Clermont. Nay, we must now have nothing brought on Stages But puppetry, and pied ridiculous antics.

Men thither come to laugh, and feed fool-fat;
Check at all goodness there, as being profaned:
When, wheresoever Goodness comes, she makes
The place still sacred, though with other feet
Never so much 'tis scandal'd and polluted.
Let me learn any thing, that fits a man,
In any Stables shewn, as well as Stages.-

Baligny. Why, is not all the World esteem'd a Stage?
Clermont. Yes, and right worthily; and Stages too

Have a respect due to them, if but only

For what the good Greek Moralist says of them:

"Is a man proud of greatness, or of riches?
Give me an expert Actor; I'll shew all
That can within his greatest glory fall:
Is a man 'fraid with poverty and lowness?
Give me an Actor; I'll shew every eye
What he laments so, and so much does fly:
The best and worst of both."-If but for this then,
To make the proudest outside, that most swells
With things without him, and above his worth,
See how small cause he has to be so blown up;
And the most poor man, to be griev'd with poorness;
Both being so easily borne by expert Actors:
The Stage and Actors are not so contemptful,
As every innovating Puritan,

[For other extracts from Heywood see note to page 100.]

And ignorant Swearer out of jealous envy,
Would have the world imagine. And besides
That all things have been liken'd to the mirth
Used upon Stages, and to Stages fitted;
The Splenetive Philosopher, that ever

Laugh'd at them all, were worthy the enstaging:
All objects, were they ne'er so full of tears,
He so conceited, that he could distil thence
Matter, that still fed his ridiculous humour.
Heard he a Lawyer, never so vehement pleading,

He stood and laugh'd. Heard he a Tradesman, swearing
Never so thriftily, selling of his wares,

He stood and laugh'd. Heard he a Holy Brother,
For hollow ostentation, at his prayers

Ne'er so impetuously, he stood and laugh'd.

Saw he a Great Man, never so insulting,
Severely inflicting, gravely giving laws,

Not for their good, but his-he stood and laugh'd.
Saw he a Youthful Widow,

Never so weeping, wringing of her hands

For her dead Lord, still the Philosopher laugh'd.-
Now, whether he supposed all these Presentments
Were only maskeries, and wore false faces,
Or else were simply vain, I take no care;

But still he laugh'd, how grave soe'er they were.

Stoicism.

-in this one thing all the discipline Of manners and of manhood is contain'd; A Man to join himself with the Universe

In his main sway; and make (in all things fit)
One with that All; and go on, round as it:

Not plucking from the whole his wretched part,
And into straits, or into nought revert;
Wishing the complete Universe might be
Subject to such a rag of it as He.

[Act i., Sc. 1.1]

[Act iv., Sc. 1.]

Apparitions before the Body's Death: Scoticè, Second Sight.

these true Shadows of the Guise and Cardinal, Fore-running thus their Bodies, may approve, That all things to be done, as here we live,

Are done before all times in th' other life.2

[Act v., Sc. 1.]

1[Mermaid Series, ed. Phelps.]

[For other extracts from Chapman see note to p. 83.]

SATIRO-MASTIX.1 A COMEDY. BY THOMAS DECKER,2

16023

Horace. What could I do, out of a just revenge,

But bring them to the Stage? they envy me,

Because I hold more worthy company.

Demetrius. Good Horace, no; my cheeks do blush for thine,

As often as thou speak'st so.

Where one true

And nobly-virtuous spirit for thy best part

Loves thee, I wish one ten even from my heart.
I make account I put up as deep share

In any good man's love, which thy worth owns,
As thou thyself; we envy not to see

Thy friends with bays to crown thy Poesy.
No, here the gall lies; we that know what stuff
Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk
On which thy learning grows, and can give life
To thy (once dying) baseness, yet must we

Dance antics on thy paper.

Crispinus. This makes us angry, but not envious.
No; were thy warpt soul put in a new mould,
I'd wear thee as a jewel set in gold.

1640:

THE ANTIPODES. A COMEDY [PUBLISHED PRODUCED 1638]. BY RICHARD BROME [DIED 1652?]

Nobleman.

Directions to Players.

-My actors

Are all in readiness, and I think all perfect
But one, that never will be perfect in a thing
He studies; yet he makes such shifts extempore,
(Knowing the purpose what he is to speak to),
That he moves mirth in me 'bove all the rest.
For I am none of those Poetic Furies,
That threats the actor's life, in a whole Play

[Or "The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet ".]

"In this Comedy, Ben Jonson, under the name of Horace, is reprehended, in retaliation of his "Poetaster;" in which he had attacked two of his Brother Dramatists, probably Marston and Decker, under the names of Crispinus and Demetrius.

[Pearson's ed., vol. i., p. 244. See p. 56 and note to p. 59.]