He thus nervously describes the strength of custom. Are not so soon discoloured. B. i. 4. He'll cleanse himself to Shoreditch puritie. He I have before observed that Shoreditch was famous for brothels. just before speaks of a "White friers queane. We have a Shoreditch baulke. B. iii. 11." In his CERTAIN SATYRES he mentions the gallants trooping to "Brownes common.' " Sat. ii. In Goddard's MASTIF, or Satires, No Date. SAT. 27. Or is he one that lets a Shoreditch wench The golden entrailes of his purse to drench. In Dekker's IESTS TO MAKE YOU MERIE, 1607. JEST 59. "Sixpenny signets that lay in the Spittle in Shoreditch." In Middleton's INNER TEMPLE MASQUE, printed 1619. Tis in your charge to pull down bawdy houses. Cause spoile SHOREDITCH, And deface Turnbull [street.]And in the Preface to The Letting of Humours blood in the head vaine, or Satires, 1600, Signat. A. 2. Some coward gull That is but champion to a Shoreditch drab. I know not whether it will illustrate the antiquity of the Ballad of George Barnwell to observe, that the house of the Harlot, the heroine of the story, is in Shore-ditch. The CURTAINE, one of our old theatres, was in Shoreditch. B. ii. PROEM. st. 3. Young slips Looke you, comes John a noke, and He means two lawyers. Note his French herring-bones. His band-strings. Wood says, that Dr. Owen, dean of Christ church, and Cromwell's vice-chancellor at Oxford, in 1652, used to go, in contempt of form, "like a young scholar, with powdred hair, snakebone bandstrings, or bandstrings with very large tassells, lawn band, a large set of ribbands, pointed, at his knees, and Spanish-leather boots with large lawn tops, and his hat mostly cocked." ATHEN. OXON. ii. 738. Num. 572. B. ii. 7. He is speaking of a Judge, in his furred damaske-coate. He's nought but budge. That is, fur. So Milton in COMUS, v. 707. Those budge doctors of the stoick fur. He alludes to the furred gown of a graduate. See Life of SIR T. POPE, p. 285. edit. 2. B. iii. 9. He speaks of a critic abusing Mortimer's numbers. I believe he means Drayton's epistle of MORTIMER TO QUEEN ISABEL. Drayton's EPISTLES appeared in 1597. Or perhaps Drayton's MORTIMERIADOS, published in 1596. B. iii. 11. Lothsome brothell-rime, That stinks like Aiax-froth, or muckpit slime. He means sir John Harrington's Ajax, which gave great offence to queen Eli With tricksey tales of speaking Cornish zabeth. See Harrington's EPIGRAMS, New set are easly mou'd, and pluck'd away; But elder roots clip faster in the clay. Of the influence of the drama, which now began to be the most polite and popular diversion, on conversation, we have the following instance. Luscus, what's plaid to day? Faith, now I know, I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flowe Say, who acts best, Drusus or Roscio? Nowe I have him, that nere, if aught, did speake B. ii. 7. Her seate of sense is her rebato set. The set of her rebato is the stiffness of her ruff newly plaited, starched, and poked. To set a hat, is to cock a hat, in provincial language. The ruff was adjusted or trimmed by what they called a pokingstick, made of iron, which was gently heated. A pamphlet is entered to W. Wright, Jul. 4. 1590, called "Blue starch and poking-stickes." REGISTR. STATION. B. f. 260. a. Jonson says of a smoking coxcomb: "The other opened his nostrils with a poaking-sticke, to giue the smoake more free deliuerie." EUERIE M. OUT OF HIS H. Act iii. Sc. iii. In Goddard's Dogges from the Antipedes, a lady says, whose ruff was discomposed, SAT. 29. B. i. 3. A Crabs bakt guts, a lobsters buttered thigh, &c. So in Marston's MALECONTENT, printed 1604. A. ii. S. ii. "Crabs guts baked, distilled ox-pith, the pulverized hairs of a lions upper lip," &c. 1 SAT. iii. 8. sawe him court his mistresse lookingglasse, Worship a buske-point. A buske was a flexile pin or stick for keeping a woman's stays tight before. Marston's context too clearly explains the meaning of the word. So in PIGMALION'S IMAGE, St. xix. Loue is a child contented with a toy, A buske-point or some favour stills the boy. "Lord! my ruffe! SETT it with thy But see OLD-PLAYS, V. 251. finger, Iohn!" And our author, Sc. VILL. i. 2. Lucia, new SET thy ruffe. In the GULS HORNE BOOKE, p. 7. "Your stiff-necked rebatoes, that have more arches for pride to rowe vnder, than can stand vnder fiue London bridges, durst not then set themselves out in print." And hence we must explain a line in Hall, iii. 7. His linnen collar Labyrinthian set. SATYRES, Sat. iv. Ye Granta's white Nymphs come! White was antiently used as a term of fondling or endearment. In the RETURN FROM PARNASSUS, 1606, Amoretto's Page says, "When he returns, I'll tell twenty admirable lies of his hawk: and then I shall be his little rogue, his WHITE villain, for a whole week after." A. ii. S. vi. Doctor Busby used to call his favourite scholars, his White Boys. I could add a variety of other combinations. z B. i. 4. Is warranted by curtaine-plaudities. If eer you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes, He appears to have been a violent enemy of the puritans. But thou, rank Puritan, I'll make an ape as good a christian : I'll force him chatter, turning vp his eye, Shall scorne to say, good brother, sister deare! With vnchast armes. Disguised Messaline, I'll teare thy mask, and bare thee to the eyne, &c.1 It is not that I am afraid of being tedious, that I find myself obliged to refrain from producing any more citations. There are however a few more passages which may safely be quoted, but which I choose to reserve for future illustration. There is a carelessness and laxity in Marston's versification, but there is a freedom and facility, which Hall has too frequently missed, by labouring to confine the sense to the couplet. Hall's measures are more musical, not because the music of verse consists in uniformity of pause, and regularity of cadence. Hall had a correcter ear; and his lines have a tuneful strength, in proportion as his language is more polished, his phraseology more select, and his structure more studied. Hall's meaning, among other reasons, is not always so soon apprehended, on account of his compression both in sentiment and diction. Marston is more perspicuous, as he thinks less and writes hastily. Hall is superiour in penetration, accurate conception of character, acuteness of reflection, and the accumulation of thoughts and images. Hall has more humour, Marston more acrimony. Hall often draws his materials from books and the diligent perusal of other satirists, Marston from real life. Yet Hall has a larger variety of characters. He possessed the talent of borrowing with address, and of giving originality to his copies. On the whole, Hall is more elegant, exact, and elaborate. It is Marston's misfortune, that he can never keep clear of the impurities of the brothel. His stream of poetry, if sometimes bright and unpolluted, almost always betrays a muddy bottom. The satirist who too freely indulges himself in the display of that licentiousness which he means to proscribe, absolutely defeats his own design. He inflames those passions which he professes to suppress, gratifies the depravations of a prurient curiosity, and seduces innocent minds to an acquaintance with ideas which they might never have known. The satires of Hall and Marston were condemned to the same flame and by the same authority. But Hall certainly deserved a milder sentence. Hall exposes vice, not in the wantonness of description, but with the reserve of a cautious yet lively moralist. Perhaps every censurer of obscenity does some harm, by turning the attention to an immodest object. But this effect is to be counteracted by the force and propriety of his reproof, by shewing the pernicious consequences of voluptuous excesses, by suggesting motives to an opposite conduct, and by making the picture disgustful by dashes of deformity. When Vice is led forth to be sacrificed at the shrine of Virtue, the victim should not be too richly dressed. SECTION LXVI. THE popularity of Hall's and Marston's Satires, notwith standing their proscription or rather extermination by spiritual authority, produced an innumerable crop of SATIRISTS, and of a set of writers, differing but little more than in name, and now properly belonging to the same species, EPIGRAMMATISTS. In 1598, printed at London, appeared "SKIALETHEIA, or a Shadowe of Truth in certaine Epigrams and Satyres." The same year, SEUEN SATIRES, applied to the week, including the world's ridiculous follies 2. This form was an imitation of the SEMAINES of Du Bartas, just translated into English by Delisle. The same year, "A SHADOWE of TRUTH in certaine Epigrams and Satires"." This year also, as I conjecture, were published Epigrams by sir John Davies, author of Nosce TEIPSUM C. These must not be confounded with the SCOURGE a Entered to William Fyrebrand, May 3, 1598. REGISTR. STATION. C. f. 34. b. master, as was conceived by Mr. Chalmers. See Apol. The author in Skialetheia is styled our English Martial, b Entered to N. Linge, Sept. 15, and at that period the appellation seems 1598. Ibid. f. 41. b. c Marlowe's OVID'S ELEGIES were accompanied with these Epigrams. The whole title is, "Epigrammes and Elegies, by J. D. and C. M. [Marlowe.] at Middleburgh." No date. Davies's Epigrams are commended in Jonson's Epigrams, xviii. And in Fitzgeoffry's ArFANIÆ, Lib. ii. Signat. E. 4. not to have been misapplied.-EDIT.] [The following specimen becomes interesting from its allusions to remarkable persons and events. Old Holinshed, our famous chronicler, Out of all actions done these fourescore DAVISIOS lædat mihi, Jonsoniosque la- Accounts the time of every old event, cessat. [One edition of these Epigrams, which appears to have been the earliest, had Marlowe's name annexed to the title of Ovid's Elegies. From the printed conversation between Drummond and Ben Jonson, the Epigrams are ascertained to belong to sir John Davis the Judge, and not to Davies of Hereford the writing Not from Christ's birth, nor from the prince's raigne, But from some other famous accident, Which in men's generall notice doth remaine: The siege of Bulloigne and the plaguy sweat, The going to saint Quintin's and Newhaven, |