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sleep in, either to moisten or dry the superficies of your face,' etc. I have suggested elsewhere that the absurdly stilted language of courtship and compliment used in the academy of French carriage' in the New Academy (4. 2, p. 79), as well as the same thing in the Antipodes (4. 6, 7, 8) and the Sparagus Garden (4. 9, 10, pp. 195 ff.), may be a reminiscence of the language of courtship which Amorphus teaches Asotus in Cynthia's Revels. Other passages, Jonsonian in style, though not imitations, are the remarks on the qualities of a good servant in the Northern Lass (4. 1, pp. 69–71), and that on the disadvantages of honesty and the ways of London tradesmen, in the City Wit (1. I, p. 284), quoted by Faust, Ward, and Bayne. Dr. H. S. Murch1 has called attention to the ridicule in Covent Garden Weeded (2. 1, p. 23) of the reading of old-fashioned romances. The influence of Jonson in the satire on the Puritans, lawyers, and projectors is discussed later in Appendix II. A typical play to read for the Jonsonian harshness of touch in satire is the early piece, the Northern Lass.

The display of learning that is so marked in Jonson can hardly be called a trait of Brome. Schelling, in speaking of Nabbes,2 says that he is free from pedantry and fine writing, darling sins of most of the sons of Ben. Brome should also be included in the exception. Such a scene as 4.4 of Staple of News, with its allusions to heraldry, anatomy, astrology, geometry, prosody, and law, was quite impossible for Brome to imitate, not because he knew better, but because he did not know enough. In the prologue to the Novella he contemptuously refers his hearers who look for more than 'Mirth and Sence' to

Those Poet-Bownces that write English Greeke.

1 Knight of the Burning Pestle (Yale Studies in English. 33. lxxiii). Eliz. Drama 2. 281.

Once in a while, however, he has a passage that suggests an attempt to display some out of the way facts, showing that his contempt was due to lack of knowledge rather than to good judgment. For instance, the speeches of the Jonsonian figure, Sarpego, the pedant in the City Wit, bristle with Latin phrases and classical allusions, but none of them show special erudition. In the Sparagus Garden (2. 1, p. 136) there is a long list of aphrodisiacs. Ward1 suggests three other similar examples-the vagabond's argot in the Jovial Crew, the military terms in Covent Garden Weeded (5. 3), and the enumeration of dances in the New Academy (3.2). But all this learning, if it may be called so, culled from three volumes of plays, is not so much as Jonson has put into the single scene mentioned above. A comparison of any act in Brome's plays with one of Marmion's will show a marked difference in pedantic affectation and fine writing.

There is an affectation, however, that Brome has acquired from the imitation of his master-that of a fondness for unusual words, particularly for words of Latin derivation. Schelling 2 cites some of Jonson's Latinisms of phrase and word, but says that his vocabulary is remarkably English for a scholar of his day. I think, however, his vocabulary is a little heavier than that of most of the comic dramatists. He speaks in one place of a character who is 'like one of your ignorant poetasters of the time, who, when they have got acquainted with a strange word, never rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the whole fabric of the sense.'" Again, in the Poetaster, he ridicules Marston for the use of such words as oblatrant, furibund, fatuate, and strenuous. These words sound very like some of Brome's attempts at the unusual. In the Lovesick Court occur morigerous, 1 Dict. Nat. Biog. 6. 395.

2 Jonson's Timber, Introduction, p. xxii.

Cynthia's Revels 2. 1.

oraculous perduit, testudinous, auspicate, æquability, procere (used of grass), and induce (applied to a masque; cf. Jonson's induce a morris, used in the Satyr). In the City Wit we find deprome, suspiration, surphuled, carkanetted, outrecuidance. Covent Garden Weeded has dehort, and Sparagus Garden, depusilated. In the Antipodes occur somniferous, capital (used of a beaver hat), and lacerate (used of papers). Some of these words I quote, not because they are unusual in themselves, but because they sound very pedantic in their context. Not many of them have actual precedents in Jonson's usage, but I think his style would easily lead an inferior mind like Brome's into the pitfall of verbal pedantry.

Actual verbal reminiscences of Jonson are not so common as might be expected. Dr. Faust has noted one in the City Wit.1 Sarpego says: Diogenes Laertius on a certain time demanded of Cornelius Tacitus, an areopagite of Syracusa, what was the most commodious and expeditest method to kill the itch.' This may be compared with Clove's speech in Every Man Out: 'Aristotle in his dæmonologia approves Scaliger for the best navigator in his time, and in his hypercritics he reports him to be Heautontimorumenos '! Another parallel noted by Dr. Faust2 occurs in the Antipodes (1. 5, p. 244) Blaze tells Letoy that the herald has Letoy's genealogy

Full four descents beyond

The conquest, my good Lord, and finds that one
Of your French ancestry came in with the Conqueror.
Letoy lefrey Letoy, twas he, from whom the English
Letoys have our descent.

La-Foole in the Silent Woman (1. 4) says:

They all come of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the south-we are as 1 Faust, op. cit., p. 52.

2 Op. cit., p. 59.

ancient a family as any in England, but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles.

Ward1 points out another passage in Brome, parallel to this in the English Moor (3. 2, p. 43): The Buzzards. are all gentlemen. We came in with the Conqueror. Our name (as the French has it) is Beaudesert.' Two more verbal reminiscences have been noted by Professor Koeppel. The same Malapropism which occurs in Covent Garden Weeded (1. 1, p. 10), where, after a song one character says, O most melodious,' and another, 'Most odious, Did you say? It is methinks most odoriferous,' is to be found in the Poetaster (4. 1), where, after Crispinus sings, Albius remarks, O, most odoriferous music!' The general resemblance of Covent Garden Weeded 1. I and Alchemist 4. 2 has already been noted. There is also a verbal resemblance in Clotpoll's speech (p. 11), 'Do you think if I give my endeavor to it, I shall ever learn to roar and carry it as you do, that have it naturally as you say '? and Kastrill's 'Do you think doctor, I e'er shall quarrel well '?

One last detail in which Brome imitated Jonson is a minor one, but obvious. This is the use of the induction.' With Brome we never find it in such elaborate form as those of Bartholomew Fair, Every Man out of his Humor, or the Staple of News, but it appears rather as a humorous and somewhat longer prologue than usual. The City Wit has one of this sort spoken by the pedant in the play, and the prologue to the Novella has a humorously impromptu air that suggests Jonson. The long epilogue to the Court Begger, with its personal remarks and advertisement of the author's works, is another example of the same kind of thing. Another similar and purely external device is that of occasionally adding a brief characterization of 2 Op. cit., pp. 145, 169.

1 Op. cit., 3. 129, n. 2.

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some of the dramatis personæ in printing a play. For instance, before the Mad Couple well Matched, we read 'Wat, a blunt fellow,' 'Mrs. Crostill, a rich Vintners Widow, and humorous'; before the Court Begger, ' Mr. Courtwit, a Complimenter,' 'Mr. Swaynwit, a blunt Country Gentleman,'' Mr. Citwit, a citizens son that supposes himself a wit,'' Sir Raphael, an old Knight that talkes much and would be thought wise,' etc. This is a very faint imitation of the long character-sketches that precede the early plays of Jonson.

After all this detailed discussion of the influence of Jonson on Brome, I repeat what I said at the beginning of it, that Brome's imitation is not a completely servile copying. His plays are the work of a man who learned playwriting by being apprenticed to it as a trade, just as he might have learned carpentry. He followed his master's methods, and applied them to his own pieces of work with much skill and intelligence, but without much literal plagiarism and without any originality.

INFLUENCE OF SHAKESPEARE

The influence of Shakespeare on Brome has naturally been worked out with much care. Certain of the more obvious indications of it have been pointed out by Ward and by Dr. Faust, but a full study of the question is to be found in Professor Koeppel's Studien über Shakespeare's Wirkung auf Zeitgenössische Dramatiker.1 This careful work must be supplemented, however, by a few further cases of resemblance.

Professor Koeppel says, in introducing his chapter on Brome: 'In verschwenderischer weise hat Richard Brome die stoffe verwendet, die ihm das drama und die

1 Materialien zur Kunde des Alteren Englischen Dramas (1905) 9. 42-47.

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