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JOHN MARSTON.

[MARSTON has been identified with an Oxford man of that name who was admitted B.A. in 1593, and with Maxton or Mastone, 'the new poet' mentioned in Henslowe's Diary in 1599. But nothing is known of his private life. He published The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image and Certain Satires in 1598, and The Scourge of Villany, Three Books of Satires, in the same year. He was conjoined with Chapman and Jonson in the composition of the play called Eastward Ho! which had unpleasant consequences for its authors, and he wrote several plays by himself, the dates of which range from 1602 to 1613.]

If we were asked whether Marston should be classed as a satirist or as a dramatist, it would be difficult to give a satisfactory answer. His plays are full of satiric power, and his satires are not without evidences of the dramatist's way of looking at life. The personages of his dramas, though boldly and fully pourtrayed, are set up as types of base or noble humanity, to be vehemently disliked or liked. The author is far from being impartial in his exhibition of their character; the reader seems to be aware of him standing by with a stern moral purpose to emphasize their vices and their virtues. In his satires, on the other hand, he has a habit of turning round upon himself which may truly be called dramatic. He rails, and then rails at himself for railing; pours forth torrents of abuse upon the objects of his dislike,—dancing, fencing, sonnetteering dandies, apish scholars, pedants, gulls, perfumed inamoratos,-the vices, the effeminacies, the affectations of the time, and then vituperates himself no less roundly as a vile, snarling, canker-eaten, rusty cur, who will rake everything into his tumbril, and cannot see good in anything. The Elizabethan time was too large and fullblooded, too full of sanguine aspiration, of prosperous bustle and variety, to be favourable to the production of satire. It was not sufficiently out of temper with itself to encourage the satirist. 'Marston's so-called satires are rather wild buffooneries, than the

offspring of deep-seated and savage indignation. Though the language is strong enough to warrant the idea that he was much offended by the profligacy and apish fopperies of the gilded youth of the time, and he makes himself out to be a terrible cynic, 'who cannot choose but bite,' he does not really bite, but only belabours with a clown's cudgel of inflated skin.

The eloquence of Hall's satires makes one hesitate to say that the language had not then been developed into a fitting instrument for polished satire, but, however this may be, Marston made no attempt at rapier-like thrusts of cynical wit. He guffawed at Hall's 'worthless satires,' and the graceful archaism of his style, which seemed to him as contemptible as any of the minor vices which the satirist undertook to expose. Hall in one of his satires expressed a wish that he could use the freedom of speech of the ancient satirists. Marston gratified this wish without scruple, to such an extent that he has been stigmatised as the most filthy and scurrilous writer of his time. To the first of these epithets Marston has some claim, but to call him scurrilous conveys an imputation of ill-nature which would be most undeserved. That he could write better things than the coarse, rugged, furious, ribald, broadlyhumorous couplets which he called satires, and which he estimated himself at their true value, when he took his 'solemn congé of this fusty world,' may be seen by any one who consults Charles Lamb's extracts from his plays, or better still, the plays themselves.

W. MINTO.

VOL. I.

N n

TO DETRACTION.

Foul canker of fair virtuous action,
Vile blaster of the freshest blooms on earth,
Envy's abhorred child, Detraction,

I here expose to thy all-tainting breath

The issue of my brain; snarl, rail, bark, bite,
Know that my spirit scorns Detraction's spite.

Know that the Genius, which attendeth on
And guides my powers intellectual,

Holds in all vile repute Detraction.
My soul-an essence metaphysical,

That in the basest sort scorns critics' rage
Because he knows his sacred parentage-

My spirit is not puff'd up with fat fume
Of slimy ale, nor Bacchus' heating grape;
My mind disdains the dungy muddy scum
Of abject thoughts and Envy's raging hate.
'True judgment slight regards Opinion,
A sprightly wit disdains Detraction.'

A partial praise shall never elevate
My settled censure of my own esteem;
A canker'd verdict of malignant hate

Shall ne'er provoke me, worse myself to deem.
Spite of despite, and rancour's villany,
I am myself, so is my poesy.

TO EVERLASTING OBLIVION..

Thou mighty gulf, insatiate cormorant !
Deride me not, though I seem petulant
To fall into thy chops. Let others pray
For ever their fair poems flourish may,

But as for me, hungry Oblivion
Devour me quick. Accept my orison,

My earnest prayers, which do importune thee
With gloomy shade of thy still empery

To veil both me and my rude poesy. Far worthier lines, in silence of thy state, Do sleep securely, free from love or hate; From which this living ne'er can be exempt, But whilst it breathes, will hate and fury tempt. Then close his eyes with thy all-dimming hand, Which not right-glorious actions can withstand; Peace, hateful tongues; I now in silence pace, Unless some hound do wake me from my place. I with this sharp, yet well-meant poesy Will sleep secure, right free from injury Of cankered hate, or rankest villainy.

SIR JOHN DAVIES.

[BORN at Tisbury, Wiltshire, and educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford. After a somewhat riotous youth, he gained the friendship and patronage of Lords Mountjoy and Ellesmere, and became Solicitorand Attorney-General for Ireland under James. On the dismissal of Chief Justice Crew by Charles I in Nov. 1626, Sir John Davies, who had distinguished himself by zealous championship of anti-popular views, was appointed his successor. He did not live however to enter upon the office, dying suddenly of apoplexy in the following month. The Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dauncing was licensed 1593, published 1596; Nosce Teipsum was published 1599; Hymns to Astraea 1599. Davies was a contributor to England's Helicon (1600) and to Davison's Poetical Rhapsody (1602). An edition of his works appeared in 1622, and a modern complete edition, containing hitherto unpublished matter, was made by Mr. Grosart in 1869 (republished 1876).]

Sir John Davies belongs to that late Elizabethan circle of courtly poets which still gathered round the declining age of the great Queen with apparently as much personal devotion as the circle of Sidney and Spenser had gathered round her prime. His Nosce Teipsum, published in 1599, was dedicated

'To that clear majesty which in the North
Doth like another sun in glory rise;'

and the Hymns to Astraea, which appeared in the same year, may be ranked as one of the most readable and freely written expressions of that complex sentiment toward the Queen of which each considerable Elizabethan poet became in turn the mouthpiece. This later group is to be distinguished on the one hand from the earlier lyrical and pastoral school, and on the other from the great dramatic circle which crowds the foreground of this second period. Its production was reflective and philosophical, and only occasionally and subordinately either lyrical or dramatic. It testified to revolt against pastorals and love poetry, but no member of it was

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