A. H. BULLEN, B.A.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE FIRST

LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. MDCCCLXXXVII

Two hundred copies of this Edition on Laid paper, medium 8vo, have been printed, viz., 120 for the English Market, and 80 for America. Each copy numbered as issued.

No. 30

TO

AN OLD FRIEND AND FELLOW-STUDENT,

CHARLES H. FIRTH,

These Volumes

ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY THE EDITOR.

PREFACE.

Marston’s Works were edited in 1856 by Mr. Halliwell (3 vols. 8vo.) for Mr. Russell Smith’s Library of Old Authors. I yield to none in my admiration for the best and the most accurate of living Shakespearean scholars; but I am sure that Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who in his Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare has set so singularly high a standard of excellence, would be the first to acknowledge that his edition of Marston’s Works needs revision.

In the present volumes I have done my best to regulate the text, which is frequently very corrupt; but I am painfully conscious that I have left plenty of work for future editors.

A valuable edition of Marston’s poems was published in 1879, for private circulation, by Dr. Grosart. I have availed myself freely of the results of Dr. Grosart’s biographical researches; and I am indebted to his edition for the text of the Entertainment in vol. iii.

Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, whose recently published edition of Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft met with the enthusiastic welcome that it deserved, has helped me liberally with advice and suggestions; and I have to thank Mr. P. A. Daniel, whose scholarship is as sound as it is acute, for his kindness in reading my Introduction.

In deference to friendly criticism, I have prefixed to each play a brief summary of the plot.

18th March 1887.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

INTRODUCTION.

When other poets were repeating Horace’s boast, “Exegi monumentum,” &c., John Marston dedicated the first fruits of his genius “To everlasting Oblivion.” In much of Marston’s satire there is an air of evident insincerity, but the dedicatory address at the close of The Scourge of Villainy is of startling earnestness:—

“Let others pray For ever their fair poems flourish may; But as for me, hungry Oblivion, Devour me quick, accept my orison, My earnest prayers, which do importune thee, With gloomy shade of thy still empery To veil both me and my rude poesy.”

Those lines were printed in 1598. Six and thirty years afterwards the poet was laid in his grave, and on the grave-stone was inscribed “Oblivioni sacrum.” But prayers cannot purchase oblivion; and the rugged Timon of the Elizabethan drama, who sought to shroud himself “in the uncomfortable night of nothing,” will be forced from time to time to emerge from the shades and pass before the eyes of curious scholars.

It was established by the genealogical researches of that acute and indefatigable antiquary, Joseph Hunter,[1] that John Marston belonged to the old Shropshire family of Marstons. The dramatist’s father, John Marston, third son of Ralph Marston of Gayton (or Heyton), co. Salop, was admitted a member of the Middle Temple in 1570; married Maria, daughter of Andrew Guarsi[2] (or Guersie), an Italian surgeon who had settled in London, and had married Elizabeth Gray, daughter of a London merchant; migrated to Coventry; was lecturer of the Middle Temple in 1592.

The year of the poet’s birth is unknown, but it may be fixed circ. 1575, and we shall probably not be wrong in assuming that the birthplace was Coventry. For his early education Marston was doubtless indebted to the Coventry free-school. On 4th February 1591-2, “John Marston, aged 16, a gentleman’s son, of co. Warwick,” was matriculated at Brazennose College, Oxford (Grosart’s Introduction, p. x.). There is not the slightest doubt that this John Marston, who was admitted Bachelor of Arts on 6th February 1593-4 as the “eldest son of an Esquire” (Wood’s Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 602), was the poet; and Wood went wrong in identifying our John Marston with another John Marston, or Marson, who belonged to Corpus. In the will of the elder Marston, proved in 1599, there is a curious passage which shows that the poet, contrary to his father’s wishes, abandoned the profession of the law. An abstract of the will (communicated by Col. Chester) has been printed by Dr. Grosart, and is here reprinted:—

“John Marston of City of Coventry Gent dated 24 Oct. 1599 to Mary my wife, my mansion &c. in Crosse Cheepinge in Coventry and other premises for life remr to John my son and heirs of body remr to heirs of body of Raphe Marston Gent my father decd remr to right heirs of my sd son[;] to sd wife my interest in certain lands &c. after death of John Butler[3] my father in law and Margaret his now wife in par. Cropedy co. Oxon and others in Wardington co. Oxon remr to John my son to sd wife ½ of plate and household stuff &c. to sd son John my furniture &c. in my chambers in the Middle Temple my law books &c. to my sd son whom I hoped would have profited by them in the study of the law but man proposeth and God disposeth &c. to kinsman and servant Thos Marston 20 nobles to my poorest brother Richd Marston 20 nobles for him and his children all residue to Mary my wife &c. (G. Gascoigne a witness) Proved 29 Nov. 1599.” In the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (82 Kidd.).

Wood vaguely says that the poet (the John Marston of Brazennose College) “after completing that degree [the degree of B.A.] by determination, went his way and improved his learning in other faculties.” It is clear from his father’s will that he found legal studies distasteful, and we may conjecture that he quickly turned from the professional career on which he had entered and devoted his attention to literature and the stage. Few biographical facts concerning Marston have come down. He married (but at what precise date we cannot determine) Mary, daughter of the Rev. William Wilkes, Chaplain to James I., and Rector of St. Martin’s, co. Wilts. Ben Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden that “Marston wrote his father-in-law’s preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies;” a witty remark, contrasting the asperity of Marston’s comedies with the blandness of his father-in-law’s sermons. Marston’s plays—with the exception of The Insatiate Countess—were published between 1602 and 1607. He seems to have definitely abandoned play-writing

about the year 1607; but the date at which he entered the Church is not clearly ascertained. On 10th October 1616 he was presented to the living of Christ Church in Hampshire;[4] he compounded for the firstfruits of Christ Church on 12th February 1616-7; and he formally resigned the living (probably from ill-health) on 13th September 1631. William Sheares the publisher issued in 1633 a collective edition of Marston’s plays, and in the dedicatory address to Lady Elizabeth Carey, Viscountess Falkland, speaks of the author as “in his autumn and declining age” and “far distant from this place.” On 25th June 1634 Marston died in Aldermanbury parish, London. His will, dated 17th June 1634, was drawn up when he was so ill as to be compelled to make a mark instead of affixing his signature. The will[5] runs thus:—

“In the name of God Amen I John Marston of London Clarke being sicke in bodie but of perfect and sound mind and memorie doe make my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following Imprimise I give and bequeath my soule into the hands of Allmightie God my Maker and Redeemer and my bodie to be buried in Christian buriall in some convenient place where my executor hereafter named shall appointe Item I give and bequeath to James Coghill and James Boynton both of Christchurch in the County of Southtn the somme of fortie shillinges apeece to be paide within six mounthes after my decease Item I give and bequeath to Marie Fabian the wife of Wm Fabian of Christchurch aforesaide towards the educac’on of hir five sonnes the somme of twentie eight pound of currant money of England to be paide to hir within sixe monthes after my decease Item I give to the parrish Church of Christchurch aforesaide the somme of five poundes to be paide within sixe monthes next after my decease Item I give and bequeath to my couzin Hunt of Ashford in the countie of Saloppe

the somme of twentie poundes to be paide within sixe moneths after my decease Item I give and bequeath to my cozen Griffins daughter of Kingston in the Countie of Surrey the somme of five poundes to be paide unto hir within sixe monthes after my decease Item I give to Marie Collice the daughter of my cozen Anne Collis of Chancerie Lane the somme of five poundes to be paide unto hir sixe monthes after my decease Item I give and bequeath to my cozen Richard Marston of Newe Inne in the Countie of Midd’ my silver bason and ewre but my will is that my wife shall have the use of it untill it shalbe demaunded of hir by the said Richard or his attorney in that behalfe lawfullye deputed Item I give and bequeath unto George Wallie and James Walley sonnes of Mr Henry Wallie the somme of five poundes apeece to be paide to the saide Henrie for theier vse within sixe monthes after my decease Item all the rest of my goodes and cattles moveable and vnmoveable my debts and legacies and funeral expences being charged I give and bequeathe to my wel beloved

wiefe Marie whome I ordaine my soule Executrixe of this my last Will and Testament And I doe hereby renounce and make voide all former Wills by me heretofore made In Witnes whereof I have herevnto putt my hand and seale the seaventeenth daie of June in the tenth yeere of the rainge [sic] of oure Soveraigne Lord Charles 1634.”

Wood tells us that he was buried beside his father “in the church belonging to the Temple in the suburb of London, under the stone which hath written on it Oblivioni Sacrum.” Dr. Grosart prints the following entry from the Temple Church burial-register:

“1634, June 26. Mr. John Marston, Minister, sometimes of the Middle Temple, who died in Aldermanbury parish: buried below the Communion Table on the Middle Temple side.”

The will was proved on 9th July 1634 in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury by his widow, who was buried by his side on 4th July 1657. She had desired in her will,[6] dated 12th June 1657, that she should be buried “by the body of my dear husband decd;” and she bequeathed her “dear husband’s picture” to Master Henry Wally of Stationers’ Hall. Neither in Marston’s will nor in his widow’s is there mention of children.

Marston’s earliest publication was The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image:[7] And Certain Satires, which was entered in the Stationers’ Registers on 27th May 1598, and issued in the same year. Another series of satires, The Scourge of Villainy, was published later in 1598; it had been entered in the Stationers’ Registers on 8th September. A second edition of the Scourge, containing an additional satire (the tenth), appeared in 1599.

Pygmalion is written in the same metre as Venus and Adonis (from which poem Marston drew his inspiration)—a metre which Lodge had handled with considerable success. A poet who would approach the subject of Pygmalion and his image ought to be gifted with tact and delicacy. In our own day Mr. Morris (in The Earthly Paradise) has told the old Greek story in choice and fluent narrative verse; no poet could have treated it more gracefully. Tact and delicacy were precisely the qualities in which Marston was deficient; but the versification is tolerably smooth, and the licentiousness does not call for any special reprehension. In the Scourge of Villainy (sat. vi.) Marston pretends that Pygmalion was written to bring contempt on the class of poems to which it belongs:—

“Hence, thou misjudging censor! know I wrote Those idle rhymes to note the odious spot And blemish that deforms the lineaments Of modern poesy’s habiliments.”

But it would require keener observation than most readers possess to discover in Pygmalion any trace of that moral motive by which the poet claimed to have been inspired. Archbishop Whitgift did not approve of its moral tone, for in 1599 he ordered it to be committed to the flames with Sir John Davies’ Epigrams, Cutwode’s Caltha Poetarum, and other works of a questionable character. In Cranley’s Amanda, 1635, it is mentioned, in company with Hero and Leander and Venus and Adonis, as part of a courtezan’s library.

There is not much pleasure or profit to be derived from a perusal of Marston’s satires. The author deliberately adopted an uncouth and monstrous style of phraseology; his allusions are frequently quite unintelligible to modern readers, and even the wits of his contemporaries must have been sorely exercised. After a course of Marston’s satires Persius is clear as crystal. In the second satire there are some lines which aptly express the reader’s bewilderment:

"O darkness palpable; Egypt’s black night! My wit is stricken blind, hath lost his sight: My shins are broke with searching for some sense To know to what his words have reference.”

Our sense is deafened by the tumult of noisy verbiage “as when a madman beats upon a drum.” In Marston’s satires there is little of the raciness and buoyancy that we find in the elder satirists—Skelton, Roy, and William Baldwin—who dealt good swashing blows in homely vigorous English. Persius would not have been flattered by Marston’s or Hall’s attempts at imitation: “nec pluteum cædit nec demorsos sapit ungues” would have been his comment on the spurious pseudo-classical Elizabethan satire. Hall claimed to have been the first to introduce classical satire into England. In the prologue to the first book of Virgidemiæ, 1597, he writes:—

“I first adventure with foolhardy might To tread the steps of perilous despight: I first adventure: follow me who list, And be the second English satirist.”

It matters little whether Hall’s claim was well-founded or not; but it has been often pointed out that there is extant a MS. copy of Donne’s satires dated 1593. Hall, who lived to be one of the glories of the English Church, in early manhood certainly did not present an example of Christian meekness and charity. He took a very low view of contemporary writers, but never had the slightest misgivings about his own abilities. It is not easy to ascertain how his quarrel with Marston arose, but it seems clear that he was the aggressor. Pygmalion was published a year later than Virgidemiæ, but it had probably been circulated in manuscript, according to the custom of the time, before it issued from the press. There can be little doubt that the ninth satire of book i. of Virgidemiæ, is directed against Marston. The opening lines run thus:—

“Envy, ye Muses, at your thrilling mate, Cupid hath crowned a new laureat; I saw his statue gaily tired in green, As if he had some second Phœbus been; His statue trimm’d with the Venerean tree And shrined fair within your sanctuary. What! he that erst to gain the rhyming goal, The worn recital-post of capitol, Rhymed in rules of stewish ribaldry Teaching experimental bawdery, Whiles th’ itching vulgar, tickled with the song, Hanged on their unready poet’s tongue? Take this, ye patient Muses, and foul shame Shall wait upon your once profaned name.”

When Pygmalion was published Hall wrote a poor epigram (see vol. iii. p. 369), which he contrived to paste in those copies of the poem “that came to the stationers at Cambridge.”[8] One of the satires, entitled “Reactio,”[9] appended to Pygmalion, is a violent attack on Hall. In his “Defiance to Envy,” prefixed to Virgidemiæ, Hall had boasted that he could, an’ that he would, hold his own with any of the poets,—even hinting that he was a match for Spenser. The “Defiance” is a well-written piece of verse, but it gave Marston an excellent opportunity, which he used to the full in “Reactio,” of making a very effective attack. In the first satire of book vi. of Virgidemiæ Hall replies to Marston’s raillery with less vigour than we should have expected. Again and again in The Scourge of Villainy Marston attacks Hall; he would not let the quarrel drop, but worried his adversary with the pertinacity of a bull-dog. In 1601 a certain “W. I.,” who has been doubtfully identified (by Dr. Nicholson) with a Cambridge man,

William Ingram, published The Whipping of the Satire, which was chiefly directed against Marston (with gibes at Ben Jonson and others). There is a lengthy and spirited preface, in which Marston is taken to task after this fashion:—

“Think you that foul words can beget fair manners? If you do I will not bate you an ace of an ass, for experience gives you the lie to your face. But your affection over-rules your reason, and therefore you are as sudden of passion in all matters as an interjection and yet as defective in most cases as an heteroclite: you gathered up men’s sins as though they had been strawberries, and picked away their virtues as they had been but the stalks. They shall not make me believe but that you were the devil’s intelligencer, for there went not a lie abroad but it was presently entertained of your ear; and every sin kept under writing for fear lest the devil waxing almost six thousand years of age should fail in his memory and so chance to forget it.”

The following stanzas have a sting in them:—

“Can you seem wise to any simple men That seem’d so simple unto all the wise And fitter far to hold the plough than pen, Such incompt stuff you rudely poetise? Yet I confess there’s much conceipt in it, For you have shown great store of little wit.

Take me your staff and walk some half-score miles, And I’ll be hang’d if in that quantity You find me out but half so many stiles As you have made within your poesy: Nay for your style there’s none can you excel, You may be called John-a-Stile full well.

* * * * *

But he that mounts into the air of Fame Must have two wings, Nature and Art, to fly; And that he may soar safely with the same Must take his rise low from humility; And not with you a goose’s quill to take, Thinking with that an eagle’s flight to make.

Your stately Muse, starched with stiff-neck’d pride, Dain’d it amongst us, most imperiously; With lavish laughter she did each deride That came within the prospect of her eye: Despising all, all her again despise, Contemn’d of foolish and condemn’d of wise.”

At this easy rate “W. I.” ambles on; and the quiet leisurely stanzas are a relief after the fury of the Scourge. Modern readers will feel that Marston was not driven by “sæva indignatio” to write satire, and they will not be inclined to accept the young author of Pygmalion as a sedate moralist. “W. I.” puts the matter clearly:

“He scourgeth villainies in young and old As boys scourge tops for sport on Lenten day.”

The publication of The Whipping of the Satire could hardly have been agreeable to Marston, but it is highly improbable that he is to be held responsible for the poor answer to The Whipping, published anonymously in the same year, under the title of The Whipper of the Satire, his Penance in a White Sheet; or the Beadle’s Confutation.[10] If I have read The Whipper aright, it is the work of one of Marston’s personal friends, or of some admirer who had more zeal than wit. There are some general remarks, of slight account, on the use of satire; and Marston is exhorted to persist in his task of scourging the vices of the age. It will be enough to quote two stanzas:—

“Meantime, good satire, to thy wonted train, As yet there are no lets to hinder thee: Thy touching quill with a sweet moving strain Sings to the soul a blessèd lullaby: Thy lines beget a timorous fear in all, And that same fear deep thoughts angelical.