The Alchemist | Page 9

never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or
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.