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1692. The 1692 folio closely follows the 1640: note its continuance of the error of friends for fiends, 3. 4. 45, 5. 3. 451; my for thy, 4. 5. 125; his for this, 5. 3. 190. It initiates some slight improvements in spelling (methinks for Mee thinkes, 1. 2. 59).

1716. The edition of 1716 follows the folios of 1640 and 1692 in changing the 1616 enforme to enforce, Envy 54; fiends to Friends, 3. 4. 45, 5. 3. 451. It follows 1692 in changing certified of 1616 to satisfied, 4. 2. 66; sire of 1616 to Fire, 3. 4. 235; into earth of 1616 to into the Earth, 4. 5. 105. Such parallels make it probable that the 1716 edition is a reprint of the 1692, which is a reprint of the 1640.

1756. Whalley aims to follow the text of the first folio, but has at hand the quarto, from which he occasionally draws (cf. 1. 3. 3-4). He seems, however, to have depended often upon the 1716 edition alone, for collation would not have permitted changes like the following: I not whether of 1616 to I know not whether, 3. 5. 57; puet to Poet, 4. 3. 68; better to doe to better do, 4. 5. 222. In many cases, also, he follows the readings of 1692 and 1716, without having corrected them by reference to quarto or first folio: satisfied for certified, 4. 2. 66; into the earth for into earth, 4. 5. 105; even the inexcusable Junio for Ivno 4. 5. 219. He makes some corrections, but is inconsistent in his alterations: the 'hem of folio 1616 he sometimes makes into 'em, and again into them, often putting both forms into the same sentence. He makes some new errors of which no real critic would have been capable: one of our cates for the 1616 of our cates, 4. 5. 41; best for blest, 4. 9. 103; half my days for all my dayes, A.D. 220. Whalley's text is therefore not critical, and his notes are of but moderate value.

1816. The text of Gifford might be called licentious in respect to its alterations of arrangements, diction, and metre. At the end of act 5, he inserts the quarto address to the

reader, which did not appear in folio; he transposes the Horace-Trebatius dialogue to the end of the play proper; after this dialogue he prints the 1616 address to the reader, and then gives the Apologetical Dialogue. With Jonson, the entrance of a character who alters the situation regularly makes a new scene; Gifford marks a scene only when the place of action is changed. As for minor alterations, Gifford, like Whalley, changes Jonson's 'hem to 'em or them without consistence; he usually, but not uniformly, gives the full form of words purposely abbreviated in folio 1616; he arbitrarily interpolates or excludes a; he has a gentlemanly shrinking from Tucca's gent'man, metamorphosing him into gentleman; he calls attention to ungenteel words by emasculating them: d-n'd for damn'd, 3. 4. 272. Censuring the textual criticism of Whalley, he yet follows him often in the most unscholarly errors or emendations: cf. beforehand, 1. 2. 23-4; I know not whether, 3. 5. 57; better do, 4. 5. 222; into the earth, 4. 5. 105; one of our cates, 4. 5. 41.

Gifford's notes are much more copious and important than Whalley's, notably in respect to classical sources of Jonsonian passages; but all the matter offered by Gifford needs verification and reconstruction to make it of present value. Certain notes are quoted from Whalley, which yet did not appear in Whalley's edition. Probably Gifford gathered these from MS. jottings made by Whalley subsequent to 1756.

1893. In the Mermaid Series, vol. 1 of Jonson's Plays contains Poetaster. Dr. Nicholson explains in the editor's preface the construction of his critical texts: he draws from the quartos, the 1616 folio, and the 'two-volumed folios of 1631-40'; he rejects various emendations and additions made by Gifford; in the verse, he introduces or excludes apostrophes with the aim of approximating the author's metrical idea; while 'with regard to the punctuation, Jonson's, excessive though it may appear, has in great

measure been followed.' The object, then, was a modernized, critical text, and that presented is certainly better than Gifford's. The unpardonable liberties of Gifford are avoided, though his arrangement of scenes is adhered to; but the inclusion of quarto passages not printed in the early folios seems a new audacity. Only a few particular points with reference to Poetaster need be mentioned here. I know not whether 3. 5. 57, is uncritically imitated from Whalley and Gifford, who followed the booksellers' reprint of 1716; one of our cates, 4. 5. 41, again appears; the gent'man is sometimes unnecessarily rehabilitated; a few out of many exasperating bits of carelessness in the edition are recorded in our Variants. It is regrettable that the popular features of the Mermaid Series precluded the sort of notes we had a right to expect from Dr. Nicholson's Elizabethan scholarship. Finally, this edition of Jonson is typographically about on the level of the 1640 folio, which fact alone would prevent its becoming the standard for scholars.

B. THE STAGE-QUARREL

Much has been written concerning the dramatic war waged, some time between 1598 and 1603, by Jonson against Marston, Dekker, and certain other of his literary contemporaries. From the address to the reader subjoined to the 1602 edition of Poetaster, and from the similar address appended to the 1616 version, we might conclude that this particular play was of controversial nature; while the scarcely humble Apologetical Dialogue appearing in the 1616 folio would confirm us in such an opinion. What could be plainer than the Author's statement (A.D. 70 ff.) that, having been for three years assailed on every stage, he had at last produced a drama, dealing with the fortunes of the great poets of Augustus Caesar's time, but supplying a hint to the detractors of an Elizabethan Horace? Within the play itself, the following passages are found peculiarly sig

nificant: 3. 4. 212-7, 335-358; 4. 3. 100-135; 4. 7. 30-4; 5. 3. 177 to the close. Moreover, in the Conversations (p. 20) we read: 'He had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him.' Finally, we have the address 'To the World,' prefixed to the 1602 edition of Dekker's Satiromastix, which contains the following:

J care not much if I make description (before thy Universality) of that terrible Poetomachia, lately commenced betweene Horace the second, and a band of leane-witted Poetasters. They haue bin at high wordes, and so high, that the ground could not serue them, but (for want of Chopins) haue stalk't vpon Stages.

Horace hal'd his Poetasters to the Barre; the Poetasters vntruss'd Horace: how worthily eyther, or how wrongfully, (World) leaue it to the Jurie: Horace (questionles) made himselfe belleue, that his Burgonian wit might desperately challenge all commers, and that none durst take vp the foyles against him: It's likely, if he had no so beleiu'd, he had not bin so deceiu'd, for hee was answer'd at his owne weapon: And if before Apollo himselfe (who is Coronator Poetarum) an Inquisition should be taken touching this lamentable merry murdering of Innocent Poetry: all mount Helicon to Bun-hill, it would be found on the Poetasters side Se defendendo.

The dramatic quarrels centering in Poetaster have been dealt with by many students of the Elizabethan drama; two monographs have been devoted to them: the War of the Theaters, by J. H. Penniman, and the Stage-Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the So-called Poetasters, by R. A. Small. Dr. Small's work, in particular, is at once ingenious, fearless, painstaking, and accurate. A brief inquiry with especial reference to Poetaster is therefore all that is necessary here.

Excepting Samuel Daniel, who, according to Small's investigations, (Stage-Quarrel 181-197), probably had no share, we may accept Fleay's list (Stage 119; cf. also Chr. I. 369-370; Shakespeare 220) of the chief participators in the stage-quarrel: Jonson, and against him more or less actively, Monday, Shakespeare, Marston, Dekker. But our concern is primarily with Jonson's quarrel with Marston and

Dekker, since Shakespeare and Monday are apparently not alluded to in Poetaster. When did this quarrel with the Poetaster and his Journeyman begin? Are we to accept literally the 'three yeeres' of the Apologetical Dialogue 83, thus, since Poetaster was composed in the summer of 1601, referring the beginning of the Marston attacks to the summer of 1598? The critics have agreed that in act I sc. I of the Case is Altered, first acted about December 1598, Anthony Monday is satirized in the person of Antonio Balladino; but we have no references in that play to Marston or Dekker. Antonio and Mellida, which Marston wrote, and Histriomastix, which he revised, did not appear until the latter part of 1599. Fleay asserts (Chr. 1. 97-8): 'It is clear that the beginning [on the stage] of the turmoil among the three theatrical houses arose from Marston's abuse of Jonson and praise of Daniel and Drayton in his Satires (entered S. R. 27th May 1598).' Cf. also Fleay, Chr. 2. 69. Now this view that the beginning on the stage of the Jonson-Marston quarrel was something in Marston's early satires, is contravened by Jonson's own report (Conversations p. 20): 'He had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage, in his youth given to venerie. He thought the use of a maide nothing in comparison to the wantoness of a wyfe, and would never have ane other mistress.' I quote those two sentences because, though the second has nothing to do with our subject, I incline to change the punctuation as suggested by Small (StageQuarrel 3-4), placing a period after 'stage' as well as after 'venerie.' Since we do not find Marston representing Jonson on the stage as 'given to venerie,' but do find him representing Jonson as the poet-scholar Chrysogonus in Histriomastix, 1599, the importance of this slight change in punctuation is obvious. It seems clear, in conclusion, that the 'three yeeres' mentioned by Jonson take us back to

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