Epicoene | Page 9

writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any
other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most
diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His
peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant
blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most
complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a
walking dictionary of slang."
It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply,
"Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary
back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did
not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether
plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak,

to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of
chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of
William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical
characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire
of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman
king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at
the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of
Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has
recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend,
the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix,"
especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant
satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to
Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical
satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief
Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked
lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It
may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take
was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and
on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that
the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the
common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills,
and dare scarce come thither."
Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in
the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college
play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a
much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why
here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson,
too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace,
giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a
purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then
concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the
nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and
Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which
Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation
finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by
Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his
approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company.

The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a
dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a
dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays
on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage
from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no
new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore
when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's
company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's
footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one
hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other,
were very different. Heywood some years before had put five
straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from
stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination.
Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented
to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and
dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and
a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and
wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and
other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his
atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the
margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine
dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of
the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our
drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of