Crispinus gets rid easily of some, but others were he observes, "Horace haled his Poetasters to the of more difficult passage.— bar *; the Poetasters untrussed Horace: Horace

'Magnificate!' that came up somewhat hard! made himself believe that his Burgonian wit† Crispinus. O barmy froth

Augustus. What's that?

might desperately challenge all comers, and that none durst take up the foils against him." But

Crispinus. Inflate !-Turgidous !-and Ven- Decker is the Earl Rivers! He had been tositous'

blamed for the personal attacks on Jonson ;

Horace. Barmy froth, inflate, turgidous, and for "whipping his fortunes and condition of life; ventosity are come up.'

Tibullus. O terrible windy words!
Gallus. A sign of a windy brain."

But all was not yet over: "Prorumpt" made a terrible rumbling, as if his spirit was to have gone with it; and there were others which required all the kind assistance of the Horatian "light vomit." This satirical scene closes with some literary admonitions from the grave Virgil, who details to Crispinus the wholesome diet to be observed after his surfeits, which have filled

"His blood and brain thus full of crudities." Virgil's counsels to the vicious Neologist, who debases the purity of English diction, by affecting new words or phrases, may too frequently be applied.

where the more noble reprehension had been of
his mind's deformity:" but for this he retorts on
Ben. Some censured Decker for barrenness of
invention, in bringing on those characters in his
own play whom Jonson had stigmatised; but "it
was not improper," he says,
"to set the same dog
upon Horace, whom Horace had set to worry
others." Decker warmly concludes with defying
the Jonsonians.

"Let that mad dog Detraction bite till his teeth be worn to the stumps; Envy, feed thy snakes so fat with poison till they burst; World, let all thy adders shoot out their Hydra-headed forked stings! I thank thee, thou true Venusian Horace, for these good words thou givest me. Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo."

The whole address is spirited. Decker was a very popular writer, whose numerous tracts

"You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms exhibit to posterity a more detailed narrative of

To stuff out a peculiar dialect;

But let your matter run before your words.
And if at any time you chance to meet
Some Gallo-Belgick phrase, you shall

straight

Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment,
But let it pass; and do not think yourself
Much damnified, if you do leave it out
When not the sense could well receive it."

Virgil adds something which breathes all the haughty spirit of Ben: he commands Crispinus: "Henceforth, learn

the manners of the town in the Elizabethan age, than is elsewhere to be found.

In Decker's Satiromastix, Horace junior is first not exhibited in his study, rehearsing to himself an Ode: suddenly the Pindaric rapture is interrupted by the want of a rhyme; this is satirically applied to an unlucky line of Ben's own. One of his "sons," Asinius Bulbo, who is blindly worshipping his great idol, or "his Ningle," as he calls him, amid his admiration of Horace, perpetually breaks out into digressive accounts of what sort of a man his friends take him to be. For one, Horace in wrath prepares an epigram; and for Crispinus and Fannius, brother bards, who threaten "they'll bring your life and death on the stage, as a bricklayer in a play," he says, " I can bring a prepared troop of gallants, who, for my sake, shall distaste every unsalted line in their fly-blown comedies." "Ay," replies Asinius, "and all men of my rank!" Crispinus, Horace calls "a light voluptuous reveller," and Fannius "the slightest cobweblawn piece of a poet." Both enter, and Horace receives them with all friendship.

To bear yourself more humbly, nor to swell
Or breathe your insolent and idle spite
On him whose laughter can your worst affright:"|
and dismisses him

To some dark place, removed from company; He will talk idly else after his physic."

"The Satiromastix" may be considered as a parody on "The Poetaster." Jonson, with classical taste, had raised his scene in the court of Augustus: Decker, with great unhappiness, places it in that of William Rufus. The interest of the piece arises from the dexterity with which Decker has accommodated those very characters which Jonson has satirised in his "Poetaster." This gratified those who came every day to the theatre, delighted to take this mimetic revenge on the Arch Bard. In Decker's prefatory address "To the World,"

* Alluding to the trial of the Poetasters, which takes place before Augustus and his poetical jury of Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, &c. in Ben's play.

+ Decker alludes here to the bastard of Burgundy, who considered himself unmatchable, till he was overthrown in Smithfield by Woodville Earl Rivers.

The scene is here conducted not without skill. he does not mean them. How, then, of five hundred and four, five hundred

Horace complains, that

"when I dip my pen
In distill'd roses, and do strive to drain
Out of mine ink all gall—
Mine enemies, with sharp and searching eyes,
Look through and through me.
And when my lines are measured out as straight

As even parallels, 'tis strange, that still,
Still some imagine that they're drawn awry.
The error is not mine, but in their eye,
That cannot take proportions."

"Should all point with their fingers in one instant,

At one and the same man?"

Horace is awkwardly placed between these two

friendly remonstrants, to whom he promises per

petual love.

Captain Tucca, a dramatic personage in Jonson's "Poetaster," and a copy of his own Bobadil, whose original the poet had found at "Powles," the fashionable lounge of that day, is here continued with the same spirit; and as that character per

now made the vehicle for those more personal

To the querulous satirist, Crispinus replies mitted from the extravagance of its ribaldry, it is with dignified gravity. "Horace! to stand within the shot of galling retorts, exhibiting the secret history of Ben, which

tongues

Proves not your guilt; for, could we write on paper

perhaps twitted the great bard more than the keenest wit, or the most solemn admonition which Decker could ever attain. Jonson had

Made of these turning leaves of heaven, the cruelly touched on Decker being out at elbows,

clouds,

Or speak with angels' tongues, yet wise men know

That some would shake the head, though saints should sing :

Some snakes must hiss, because they're born with stings.

Be not you grieved

and made himself too merry with the histrionic tribe: he, who was himself a poet, and had been a Thespian! The blustering captain thus attacks the great wit:-" Do'st stare, my Saracen's head at Newgate? I'll march through thy Dunkirk guts, for shooting jests at me." He insists that as Horace," that sly knave, whose shoulders were once seen lapp'd in a player's old cast cloak," and

If that which you mould fair, upright, and who had reflected on Crispinus's satin doublet

being ravelled out; that he should wear one of
"old cast sattin suits," and that
Crispinus's
Fannius should write a couple of scenes for his
own "strong garlic comedies," and Horace should
swear they were his own-he would easily bear
"the guilt of conscience." "Thy Muse is but a
hagler, and wears clothes upon best be trust (a
humorous Deckerian phrase)-thou'rt great in
Did it become
somebody's books for this!"
Jonson to gibe at the histrionic tribe, who is him-
self accused of "treading the stage, as if he were
treading mortar." He once put up

-"a supplication to be a poor journeyman player,
and hadst been still so, but that thou couldst not

set a good face upon't. Thou hast forgot how thou

ambled'st in leather-pilch, by a play-waggon in the highway; and took'st mad Jeronimo's part, to get service among the mimics," &c.

Ben's person was, indeed, not gracious in the playfulness of love or fancy. A female, here, thus delineates Ben :

"That same Horace has the most ungodly face,

Horace acknowledges he played Zulziman at Paris-garden. "Sir Vaughan: Then, master Horace, you played the part of an honest man—”

Tucca exclaims : "Death of Hercules! he could never play that part well in 's life!"

by my fan; it looks for all the world like a rotten russet-apple, when 'tis bruised. It's better than a spoonful of cinnamon-water next my heart, for me to hear him speak; he sounds it so i' th' nose, and talks and rants like the poor fellows under Ludgate-to see his face make faces, when he reads his songs and sonnets."

horrible swearer; for your oath must be, like your wits, of many colours; and like a broker's book, of many parcels."

Horace offers to swear till his hair stands up on end, to be rid of this sting. "Oh, this sting!" alluding to the nettles. ""Tis not your sting of conscience, is it?" asks one. In the inventory of

Again, we have Ben's face compared with that his oaths, there is poignant satire, with strong

of his favourite, Horace's

"You staring Leviathan! look on the sweet visage of Horace; look, parboil'd face, look—he has not his face punchtfull of eylet-holes, like the cover of a warming-pan."

humour; and it probably exhibits some foibles in
the literary habits of our bard.
He swears

"Not to hang himself, even if he thought any man could write plays as well as himself; not to bombast out a new play with the old linings of

Joseph Warton has oddly remarked that most of our poets were handsome men. Jonson, how-jests stolen from the Temple's Revels; not to sit ever, was not poetical on that score; though his in a gallery, when your comedies have entered bust is said to resemble Menander's. their actions, and there make vile and bad faces at Such are some of the personalities with which every line, to make men have an eye to you, and Decker recriminated.

Horace is thrown into many ludicrous situations. He is told that "admonition is good meat." Various persons bring forward their accusations; and Horace replies, that they envy him,

"Because I hold more worthy company."

The greatness of Ben's genius is by no means denied by his rivals; and Decker makes Fannius reply, with noble feelings, and in an elevated strain of poetry :

to make players afraid; not to venture on the stage, when your play is ended, and exchange courtesies and compliments with gallants, to make all the house rise and cry-That's Horace! that's he that pens and purges humours. When you bid all your friends to the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, your Wits and Necessities-alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale-you shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, have done homage to you, or paid

"Good Horace, no! my cheeks do blush for quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you

thine,

As often as thou speakst 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 earns,
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 anticke on your paper -

But were thy warp'd soul put in a new mould,
I'd wear thee as a jewel set in gold."

To which one adds, that "jewels, master Horace,
must be hanged, you know."-This “Whip of
Men," with Asinius his admirer, are brought to
court, transformed into satyrs, and bound together;
"not lawrefied, but nettle-fied;" crowned with a
wreath of nettles.

"With stinging-nettles crown his stinging wit." Horace is called on to swear, after Asinius had sworn to give up his "Ningle."

64

his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake,-you will swear not to make scald and wry-mouth jests upon his knighthood. When your plays are misliked at court, you shall not cry Mew! like a puss-cat, and say, you are glad you write out of the courtier's element; and in brief, when you sup in taverns, amongst your betters, you shall swear not to dip your manners in too much sauce; nor, at table, to fling epigrams or play-speeches about you." The King observes, that

"He whose pen Draws both corrupt and clear blood from all

men

Careless what vein he pricks; let him not rave When his own sides are struck; blows, blows do crave."

Such were the bitter apples which Jonson, still in his youth, plucked from the tree of his broad satire, that branched over all ranks in society. That even his intrepidity and hardiness felt the incessant attacks he had raised about him, appears from the close of the Apologetical Epilogue to the Poetaster; where, though he replies with all the consciousness of genius, and all its haughtiness, he closes, with a determination to give over

Now, master Horace, you must be a more the composition of Comedies! This, however,

U

like all the vows of a poet, was soon broken; | And again, alluding to these mimics-
and his masterpieces were subsequently pro-
duced.

"Friend. Will you not answer then the

libels?

Author. No.

Friend. Nor the Untrussers ?
Author. Neither.

Friend. You are undone, then.
Author. With whom?

Friend. The world.

Author. The bawd!

Friend. It will be taken to be stupidity or tameness in you.

Author. But they that have incensed me, can in
soul

Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare
To spurn or baffle them; or squirt their eyes
With ink or urine or I could do worse,
Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write iambicks,
Would make the desperate lashers hang them-
selves."-

His Friend tells him that he is accused, that "all his writing is mere railing;" which Jonson nobly compares to "the salt in the old Comedy;" that they say, that he is slow, and "scarce brings forth a play a year."

I would they could not say that I did that.

He is angry that their

"This 'tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips,

And apts me rather to sleep out my time,

Than I would waste it in contemned strifes
With these vile Ibides, these unclean birds,
That make their mouths their clysters, and still

purge

From their hot entrails. But I leave the

monsters

To their own fate. And since the Comic Muse
Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try
If Tragedy have a more kind aspéct.
Leave me! There's something come into my
thought

That must and shall be sung, high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull

ass's hoof.

Friend. I reverence these raptures, and obey them."

Such was the noble strain in which Jonson replied to his detractors in the town, and to his rivals about him. Yet this poem, composed with all the dignity and force of the bard, was not suffered to be repeated. It was stopped by authority. But Jonson, in preserving it in his works, sends it "TO POSTERITY, that it may make a difference between their manners that provoked me then, and mine that neglected them ever."

* Among those arts of imitation which man has derived from the practice of animals, Naturalists assure us that he owes the use of Clysters to the "base and beggarly conceits Egyptian Ibis. There are some who pretend this Should carry it, by the multitude of voices, medicinal invention comes from the stork. The Against the most abstracted work, opposed French are more like Ibises than we are: ils se To the stufft nostrils of the drunken rout."donnent des lavements eux-mêmes. But as it is rather uncertain what the Egyptian Ibis is; wheAnd then exclaims, with admirable enthusiasm― ther, as translated in Leviticus xi. 17, the cormo"O this would make a learn'd and liberal soul rant, or a species of stork, or only "a great owl," To rive his stained quill up to the back, as we find in Calmet; it would be safest to And damn his long-watch'd labours to the attribute the invention to the unknown bird. I fire; recollect, in Wickliffe's version of the Pentateuch,

Things, that were born, when none but the still which I once saw in MS. in the possession of my night, valued friend Mr. Douce, that that venerable his pinching Translator interpolates a little, to tell us that the Ibis "giveth to herself a purge."

And the dumb candle, saw throes."

CAMDEN AND BROOKE.

Literary, like political history, is interested in the cause of an obscure individual, when deprived of his just rights -character of CAMDEN-BROOKE'S "Discovery of Errors" in the Britannia-his work disturbed in the printingafterwards enlarged, but never suffered to be published-whether BROOKE's motive was personal rancour ?—the persecuted author becomes vindictive-his keen reply to CAMDEN-CAMDEN's beautiful picture of calumny-BROOKE furnishes a humorous companion-piece-CAMDEN's want of magnanimity and justice-when great authors are allowed to suppress the works of their adversary, the public receives the injury and the insult.

In the literary as well as the political common- | weakness of the age as to his own extreme timidity, wealth, the cause of an obscure individual violently and perhaps to a little pride. Conscious as was deprived of his just rights is a common one. We Camden of enlarged views, we can easily pardon protest against the power of genius itself, when it him for the contempt he felt, when he compared strangles rather than wrestles with its adversary, or them with the subordinate ones of his cynical combats in mail against a naked man. The general adversary. interests of literature are involved by the illegitimate suppression of a work, of which the purpose is to correct another, whatever may be the invective which accompanies the correction: nor are we always to assign to malignant motives even this spirit of invective, which, though it betrays a contracted genius, may also show the earnestness

of an honest one.

The quarrel between CAMDEN, the great author of the Britannia, and BROOKE, the York Herald, may illustrate these principles. It has hitherto been told to the shame of the inferior genius; but the history of Brooke was imperfectly known to his contemporaries. Crushed by oppression, his tale was marred in the telling. A century sometimes passes away before the world can discover the truth even of a private history.

Brooke is aspersed as a man of the meanest talents, insensible to the genius of Camden, rankling with envy at his fame, and correcting the "Britannia" out of mere spite.

When the history of Brooke is known, and his labours fairly estimated, we shall blame him much less than he has been blamed; and censure Camden, who has escaped all censure, and whose conduct, in the present instance, was destitute of magnanimity and justice.

The character of the author of "Britannia" is great; and this error of his feelings, now first laid to his charge, may be attributed as much to the

Camden possessed one of those strongly-directed minds which early in life plan some vast labour, while their imagination and their industry feed on it for many successive years; and they shed the flower and sweetness of their lives in the preparation of a work which at its maturity excites the gratitude of their nation. His passion for our national antiquities discovered itself even in his school-days, grew up with him at the University; and, when afterwards engaged in his public duties as master at Westminster school, he there composed his "Britannia," "at spare hours, and on festival days." To the perpetual care of his work, he voluntarily sacrificed all other views in life, and even drew himself away from domestic pleasures; for he refused marriage and preferments, which might interrupt his beloved studies! The work, at length produced, received all the admiration due to so great an enterprise; and even foreigners, as the work was composed in the universal language of learning, could sympathise with Britons, when they contemplated the stupendous labour. Camden was honoured by the titles (for the very names of illustrious genius become such), of the Varro, the Strabo, and the Pausanias, of Britain.

While all Europe admired the "Britannia," a cynical genius, whose mind seemed bounded by his confined studies, detected one error amidst the noble views the mighty volume embraced;