without a tongue? Ist not as law full then for mee to imitate Horace, as Horace Hannam?' Who this honest Captain Hannam was, we shall probably never know; and the charge of staging him may or may not be deserved by Jonson. We should remember, however, that with or without the outline in Guilpin's Skialetheia, the creator of Bobadil, Shift, and Brainworm would not have to go far afield for a Captain Tucca.

Virgil. Critics generally have insisted upon identifying the Virgil of Poetaster with Shakespeare or with Chapman. We begin with the view of Gifford, who, after asserting that the real Virgil is well characterized in 5. I. 100-115 of Poetaster, but that in lines 116-138, the speeches of Tibullus and Horace, he is not, continues: Jonson could not think that Virgil was the poet of common life, as Tibullus affirms; or, as Horace, that he was unostentatious of literature, and averse from echoing the terms of others: whereas all this is as undoubtedly true of Shakspeare, as if it were pointedly written to describe him. Indeed, the speech of Tibullus is so characteristic of our great poet, that I am persuaded nothing but the ignorance of his numerous editors of the existence of such a passage, has prevented its being taken for the motto of his works.' Sidney Lee (Shakespeare 174) takes a similar view. Brandes (Shakespeare 1. 394-5) quotes lines 118-138, and agrees with Gifford's conclusion. Symonds (Ben Jonson 40) says: 'It is probable that by Virgil Jonson intended some dramatic poet of his day; and, on the whole, his description suits none better than Shakespeare.' Fleay (Chr. 1. 367) takes a different view: '. . Virgil, [is] Chapman (already at work on his Homer).' Ward (Eng. Dram. Lit. 2. 360) believes Chapman to be meant by Virgil, and adds in a foot-note: 'It is odd, by-thebye, that Gifford should deny the appropriateness to the author of the Georgics of the praise involved in the lines,

"That which he hath writ

Is with such judgment laboured and distilled
Through all the common uses of our lives," &c.'

In his introduction to the Mermaid Edition of Ben Jonson (1. xxxiii-xxxiv), Herford asserts that Virgil cannot possibly be intended for Shakespeare, but is in all probability Chapman.

We have thus to consider three distinct assertions: 1) that Virgil in Poetaster is not the historical Virgil; 2) that he is Shakespeare; or, 3) that he is Chapman. Now the first and the fair assumption of any unprejudiced hearer or reader of Poetaster must be that, in presenting the character Virgil, Jonson had in mind the Augustan poet; while a second assumption, scarcely less natural, would be that if Jonson meant not the historical Virgil, but some Elizabethan poet, the condition of mere dramatic effectiveness would be to give the audience clear evidence that this eulogy was intended for such or such a contemporary of the author. The burden of proof therefore rests with those who take up the cudgels in favor of Shakespeare or of Chapman. In our inquiry we shall ask and try to answer three questions, suggested by the assertions recorded above: 1) is the characterization of Virgil in Poetaster 5. 1. 100-138 one that, in the Elizabethan period and by a man so imbued with the spirit of the classics as was Jonson, might naturally be applied to the real Virgil? 2) is this characterization, in whole or in part, such as Jonson is likely to have written of Shakespeare? 3) is this characterization, in whole or in part, such as Jonson is likely to have written of Chapman? In our investigation of these questions we must try to take the views both of Jonson's time and of Jonson himselfsomething not easy to do, since these views inevitably differ from our own, particularly in respect to literary estimates of classical and of Elizabethan poets.

To begin with, all of the critics seem explicitly or implicitly to accept as aimed at the real Virgil lines 100-115, in which Horace and Gallus dwell upon the culture, selfscrutiny and literary fastidiousness of the greatest of the Augustans. Gifford takes issue, however, upon the speech of Tibullus (118–123):

That, which he hath writ,

Is with such iudgement, labour'd, and distill'd
Through all the needfull víes of our liues,
That could a man remember but his lines,
He should not touch at any serious point,
But he might breathe his spirit out of him.

Despite the cavalier treatment of the pronouns, it is clear enough that what is here said of the Poetaster Virgil is this: something out of his works might easily be discovered apt for use in all the glad or sad experiences of life, though the word 'serious' in the fifth verse indicates that for the graver exigences in particular this poet has wisdom for us. Now the question is not primarily, do these lines, according to our prepossessions and experience, apply more strictly to Shakespeare or to Chapman than to Virgil? but, do they, according to the prepossessions, experience, and habit of thought of Ben Jonson, apply at all to Virgil? Ward sees nothing here that may not aptly be said of the author of the Georgics, though I suppose most modern scholars would shrink from such a characterization of Virgil's work. One might say off-hand, for instance, that Horace is more generally quotable than Virgil. Yet is it not in the little social exigences that Horace offers the bon mot or the sly bit of worldly wisdom, while in the more serious moments, if we were still classical students, like our fathers, would not 'grave Maro' prove first among the Latins for pithy and beautiful precept? Moreover, we should recollect the reverence, the adoration, for Virgil which was the literary legacy of the Renaissance to modern times. In the Middle Ages, of course, Virgil was not only first of poets, but philosopher and magician as well; and the guide of Dante was still mighty in the day of Sir Philip Sidney and of Ben Jonson. By men taught from childhood to regard him as the fountain-head of poetic wisdom, as well as of poetic beauty, almost no praise of Virgil could be deemed extravagant.

Lines 129-135 also have been regarded as inapplicable to

Virgil:

His learning labours not the schoole-like gloffe,
That most confifts in ecchoing wordes, and termes,
And fooneft wins a man an empty name;
Nor any long, or far-fetcht circumstance,
Wrapt in the curious generalties of artes:
But a direct and analyticke fumme

Of all the worth and firft effects of artes.

This purports to be Horace's opinion of Virgil's learning: .can this be accepted as a justifiable judgment, in Jonson's view and in our own? Some will immediately answer: Virgil did seek the 'fchoole-like gloffe' for his learning, the gloss that consists in echoing high-sounding words and phrases. If we reply that the grace and polish of Virgil's phrase is seldom an end in itself, that the preciousness of the ointment demands the beauty of the vase-these critics may retort, 'But Virgil was an imitator of the Alexandrians.' It is worth while to remind ourselves just what Virgil's 'Alexandrianism' amounted to, and I turn therefore to Professor W. Y. Sellar, (Virgil 42): 'Virgil, while familiar with the whole range of Greek poetry and pressing it all into his service, has used the Alexandrians more freely than any other Greek writers, with the exception of Homer. This poetry of Alexandria, or rather this poetry of the Greek race in its latter days, was, to a much greater extent, the artificial product of culture and knowledge than the manifestation of original feeling or intellectual power. The very language in which it was written was artificial, far removed, not only in phraseology, but in dialectal forms, from the language of common life.' And again (p. 45) These writers [Aratus, Callimachus, and Nicander] supplied materials which Virgil used in the Georgics, and in the special examination of that poem it will be seen that he adopted other characteristics of the Alexandrian learning.'

Now there is nothing very damaging in this. The meteorology of Aratus was necessary to the Georgics, per

haps; while, as regards the latter part of the Aeneid, the archaeological and antiquarian lore displayed in working among the local legends and cults of Italy was not learning of the Alexandrian sort. Catullus and Propertius may be accused of lugging in far-fetched learning, obscure allusions and curious conceits after the Alexandrian manner; but not so Virgil. Virgil was rightly regarded in his own time as a serious and accomplished scholar. Acknowledged for nearly a score of centuries as perhaps the most stylistically perfect of poets, he has never been thought of as a stylist merely his sentences, however chiseled, or moulded, or sublimed, are pregnant with meaning. In short, Virgil does not 'echo words and terms,' his verses are not 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,' nor does he seek the 'farfetched circumstance,' the strange and burdensome learning, of the Alexandrian school.

So much for lines 129-135, as dealing with Virgil's learning; lines 136-8 speak of his poesy:

And for his poefie, 'tis fo ramm'd with life,

That it fhall gather ftrength of life, with being,
And liue hereafter, more admir'd, then now.

Line 136 harks back to lines 118 ff., already discussed. And the prophecy of ever-increasing glory is probably less an apology for the Roman poet, than a censure of the English audiences, now flocking to the romantic dramas, and not sufficiently enthusiastic over the classicism that Ben Jonson was ever manfully trying to re-establish on the Elizabethan stage.

Our conclusion with regard to this first question must therefore be that Jonson's characterization of Virgil in Poetaster is such as might have been seriously intended and unreservedly accepted in England at the beginning of the 17th century. And this conclusion furnishes, of course, strong presumptive evidence against the theory that either Shakespeare or Chapman is alluded to in the passages under consideration. Several alleged identifications of other char