The Alchemist | Page 8

named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he
was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a
room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that
is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo
Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after
all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an
intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and
profane" Chester?
We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of
criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on
sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The
Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony
Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In
"Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted
poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held
recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence
to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages
of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel
under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus;
but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is
traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to
London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal
ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet,
but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he
came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.
"Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even
more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here
personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is
admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central
idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times
to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama
should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them
Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later
how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died
before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson
immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the
character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and

tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been
literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the
conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's
Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the
prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente
in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the
just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the
yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections
with only too mindful a neglect.
The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the
Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray.
According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report
that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing
of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his
enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success.
While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster"
is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from
the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw
up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded
his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to
keep the peace and