his own attack (however caused) upon Anthony Monday in 1598, but cannot refer to any quarrel with Marston or with Dekker at that time. Jonson's earliest satire of the last two dramatists seems to have been in Hedon and Anaides of Cynthia's Revels, produced probably in the winter of 1600-1.

The character Chrysogonus in Histriomastix, a play revised by Marston in 1599, is regarded by Fleay (Chr. 2. 71) as having been designed for a complimentary representation of Jonson. Translator, dramatist, writer of epigrams and satires, Chrysogonus appears much what Jonson was. 'Nevertheless,' writes Fleay, 'Jonson took offence; he could not tolerate being made to talk fustian, and his scholarly service to all the sciences implied in i. I did not compensate for that. Hence his abuse of Marston.' Evidently Fleay has here hit upon the real beginning of Jonson's quarrel with Marston. Small, who has made the only complete analysis of Histriomastix (cf. Stage-Quarrel 67-90), concludes that Marston, then a friend of Jonson, ridiculed Monday, Jonson's enemy, as Posthaste, at the same time drawing a wellintended portrait of Jonson as Chrysogonus. The portrait, however, did not please its original, and the seeds of a quarrel were sown. This conclusion seems warranted by an undoubted attack upon Jonson made in Jack Drum's Entertainment (dating in the spring of 1600), a play which all the critics have agreed in assigning to Marston. Jonson's spleen becoming evident, it is not surprising that in Jack Drum Marston should undertake to give Jonson something to cry for. Simpson (School of Shakespeare 2. 129) was the first to identify Old Brabant of Jack Drum: 'Old Brabant, who was first of all intended for a witless patron of wit, a rich gull who spends his wealth in giving suppers to poets, insensibly becomes transformed to the great critic and scourge of the times. . . . This phase of Brabant senior is clearly meant for Jonson; in his character of a rich gull, and in the punishment which overtakes him in

the end of the play, he could hardly be meant for Jonson, even in those days of reckless misstatement.' Small (StageQuarrel 99-100) goes further, arguing that both as gull and as satirist Brabant senior represents Jonson. In any case, the essential fact is indisputable: with the entrance of Old Brabant upon the stage, the Marston-Jonson quarrel was setting toward high-tide.

As our object here is not a new investigation of all the dramas and characters concerned in the Stage-Quarrel, but only a brief statement of the part played in it by the Horace, the Crispinus, and the Demetrius of Poetaster, we shall simply state categorically that Fastidious Brisk and Carlo Buffone in Every Man out of his Humour, acted early 1599, were not directed at Marston and Dekker; but that in Cynthia's Revels, produced nearly a year later, Hedon is intended for Marston and Anaides for Dekker. As for Poetaster, it was probably undertaken, as it was certainly hurried to completion, in order to forestall a counterattack which Jonson had heard was to be made by the dramatists whom he had been satirizing. The popularity of the performances by the Chapel Children, who had produced Cynthia's Revels, and the consequent losses of the adult companies, were doubtless the chief cause of the readiness of the Chamberlain's men to take advantage of the known hostility of Dekker and Marston toward Jonson, and to retain Dekker for a dramatic attack. We can hardly accept Jonson's sneering assertion (Poetaster 3. 4. 337 ff.) that Dekker's natural malevolence and present poverty were his sole reasons for undertaking the 'untrussing.' That Dekker was usually in straitened circumstances seems clear; but that he was also envious and vengeful is to be doubted. The representation of him as Anaides, moreover, even without the added insults in Poetaster, was sufficient reason for all the vituperation of Satiromastix. Finally, there is clear evidence in Satiromastix itself that when he was invited to join Marston and the Globe company in a public attack upon

Jonson, Dekker had already been at work upon what would have proved at least a bread-and-butter play. Upon this William Rufus tragedy was grafted the satire of Jonson. Incidentally, I would suggest that Dekker may have drawn from Jonson himself the idea of tossing Horace-Jonson in a blanket: cf. Cynthia's Revels 3. 2, Anaides and Hedon loq.

As to the ending of the Stage-Quarrel, I can do no better than refer again to Small (op. cit. 127-8). 'We have no means of knowing exactly when the quarrel ended. Fleay has several times asserted (so also Symonds, Ben Jonson, p. 43) that it ended before the publication of Chester's Love's Martyr, 1601: for to that book Jonson, Chapman, Marston, and Shakspere contributed. This idea is unfounded; for the contributions of the four men are wholly independent. No doubt the compiler of the book asked these four poets for verses for the simple reason that they were at the moment the most prominent literary figures of the time; this prominence came in no small measure from this very quarrel. From ii Return from Parnassus we may be fairly sure that Shakspere and Jonson, at least, were still on ill terms at Christmas, 1601. When Dekker published Satiromastix in 1602, he was as bitter as ever toward Jonson. Late in 1603, however, we find Marston highly complimenting Jonson in the Epilogue to the Malcontent; and the most friendly relations lasted until 1606. We cannot tell whether the coolness that ensued was permanent; for after that year Marston wrote no more, and completely dropped out of the literary world.'

C. THE DATE OF POETASTER

Poetaster was entered on the Stationers' Register Dec. 21, 1601, and published in quarto in 1602. The title-page of the first folio, 1616, tells us that the play had been acted in 1601. What, then, can we gather as to the date of composition and of first stage production? Poetaster itself, Cynthia's Revels, and Dekker's Satiromastix, are our sources of information.

Lines 14-15 of the speech of Envy in Poetaster give us the time Jonson spent on composition:

These fifteene weekes

(So long as fince the plot was but an embrion).

It is evident also that when Jonson was at work on Poetaster, he had reason to believe that Dekker was already engaged upon a counter-attack; for Histrio (3. 4. 338–342) speaks of Dekker as 'one DEMETRIVS, a dresser of plaies about the towne, here; we haue hir'd him to abuse HORACE [i. e. Ben Jonson], and bring him in, in a play, with all his gallants: as, TIBVLLVS, MECONAS, CORNELIVS GALLVS, and the rest.' When Jonson writes, moreover, it is still early enough in 1601 for him to speak of 'this winter,' which has made Histrio's company of adult actors poorer than so many starved snakes, and this seems to be an allusion to the success of the children's companies during the winter of 1600-1601 particularly. In the year 1600 the Chapel Children had been playing Jonson's Cynthia's Revels at the Blackfriars, hence the hint that the adult players have retained Demetrius in order to attack the successful dramatist and regain their own lost patronage. Lastly, note lines 180-1 of the Apologetical Dialogue of Poetaster:

POL. Yes they fay you are flow,

And scarfe bring forth a play a yeere. AVTHOR. 'Tis true. In this connection, we must turn to Cynthia's Revels, entered Sta. Reg. May 23, 1601. Small (Stage-Quarrel 24) finds internal evidence placing the production of this play in the latter part of 1600, perhaps as late as February or March, 1600-1. So we cannot go back of, say March, 1601, for the inception of Poetaster; nor can its first production take us forward of December, 1601. Ordinarily, we should not expect to find another play produced by Jonson until the late winter of 1601-1602, but in the case of Poetaster he was laboring to anticipate a probable dramatic satire on the part of Dekker, Marston, and the adult players. We may suppose, then, that Jonson began work on Poetaster

soon after the production of Cynthia's Revels, which would be early in March, 1601. The fifteen weeks devoted to composition would place the first staging of our play sometime in June, 1601. Before accepting this date, however, let us draw what inferences we fairly may from Dekker's play.

The date of entry of Satiromastix is November 11, 1601; and, since the play abounds in phrases, situations, allusions, and names taken from Poetaster, we are certain that both plays were on the boards sometime before November, 1601. Satiromastix, then, was being acted before November: but it must have been largely composed after the appearance of Poetaster which it parodies. And, as Dekker (Works, 1873, I. 202) scoffs at even the fifteen weeks devoted to Poetaster as too long a time, he must himself be understood as having composed the reply in considerably less time-say in six or eight weeks. His known speed and fertility make this wholly probable. This allowance to Dekker for the production of Satiromastix after the appearance of Poetaster would push our terminus ad quem for the latter back to probably the first of October.

Some particular fifteen weeks, therefore, between February, 1600-1601, and October, 1601, is the time in which Poetaster was in process of composition. The performance of the play may have begun as early as June, which is the month set by Small. I am inclined, however, to accept Fleay's opinion that Satiromastix was first produced in September; to believe that it was written about August; and to place the first appearance of Poetaster in late July, 1601.

D. LITERARY SOURCES

In order to give some idea of the method of composition pursued in Poetaster, it is purposed to cite here the principal passages and situations found in classical authors of which Jonson, by virtue of his learning and his peculiar theories of the drama, in this instance availed himself. Jonson's defense of his practice may be found in Poetaster 5. 3. 375-8, and in the Discoveries, on Imitation.