A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 24

THE RETURN FROM PARNa.s.sUS.

ACTUS I, SCAENA 1.

INGENIOSO, _with Juvenal in his hand_.

INGENIOSO.

_Difficile est satyram non scribere. Nam quis iniquae Tam patiens Urbis, tam ferreus,[32] ut teneat se_?

Ay, Juvenal, thy jerking hand is good, Not gently laying on, but fetching blood; So, surgeon-like, thou dost with cutting heal, Where nought but lancing[33] can the wound avail: O, suffer me, among so many men, To tread aright the traces of thy pen, And light my link at thy eternal flame, Till with it I brand everlasting shame On the world's forehead, and with thine own spirit Pay home the world according to his merit.

Thy purer soul could not endure to see Ev'n smallest spots of base impurity, Nor could small faults escape thy cleaner hands.

Then foul-fac'd vice was in his swaddling-bands, Now, like Anteus, grown a monster is, A match for none but mighty Hercules: Now can the world practise in plainer guise Both sins of old and new-born villanies: Stale sins are stole; now doth the world begin To take sole pleasure in a witty sin: Unpleasant as[34] the lawless sin has been, At midnight rest, when darkness covers sin; It's clownish, unbeseeming a young knight, Unless it dare outface the glaring light: Nor can it nought our gallant's praises reap, Unless it be done in staring Cheap, In a sin-guilty coach, not closely pent, Jogging along the harder pavement.

Did not fear check my repining sprite, Soon should my angry ghost a story write; In which I would new-foster'd sins combine, Not known erst by truth-telling Aretine.

ACTUS I, SCAENA 2.

_Enter_ JUDICIO _and_ INGENIOSO.

JUDICIO.

What, Ingenioso, carrying a vinegar bottle about thee, like a great schoolboy giving the world a b.l.o.o.d.y nose?[35]

INGENIOSO.

Faith, Judicio, if I carry the vinegar bottle, it's great reason I should confer it upon the baldpated world: and again, if my kitchen want the utensils[36] of viands, it's great reason other men should have the sauce of vinegar; and for the b.l.o.o.d.y nose, Judicio, I may chance, indeed, give the world a b.l.o.o.d.y nose, but it shall hardly give me a crack'd crown, though it gives other poets French crowns.

JUDICIO.

I would wish thee, Ingenioso, to sheathe thy pen, for thou canst not be successful in the fray, considering thy enemies have the advantage of the ground.

INGENIOSO.

Or rather, Judicio, they have the grounds with advantage, and the French crowns with a pox; and I would they had them with a plague too: but hang them, swads, the basest corner in my thoughts is too gallant a room to lodge them in. But say, Judicio, what news in your press?

did you keep any late corrections upon any tardy pamphlets?

JUDICIO.

_Veterem jubes renovare dolorem_, Ingenioso: whate'er befalls thee, keep thee from the trade of the corrector of the press.

INGENIOSO.

Marry, so I will, I warrant thee; if poverty press not too much, I'll correct no press but the press of the people.

JUDICIO.

Would it not grieve any good spirits to sit a whole month knitting out a lousy, beggarly pamphlet, and, like a needy physician, to stand whole years tossing and tumbling the filth that falleth from so many draughty inventions as daily swarm in our printing-house.

INGENIOSO.

Come, I think we shall have you put finger in the eye, and cry, O friends, no friends! Say, man, what new paper hobby-horses, what rattle-babies, are come out in your late May morris-dance?

JUDICIO.

Fly[37] my rhymes as thick as flies in the sun; I think there be never an alehouse in England, not any so base a maypole on a country green, but sets forth some poet's petronels or demi-lances to the paper wars in Paul's Churchyard.

INGENIOSO.

And well too may the issue of a strong hop learn to hop all over England, when as better wits sit, like lame cobblers, in their studies.

Such barmy heads will always be working, when as sad vinegar wits sit souring at the bottom of a barrel; plain meteors, bred of the exhalation of tobacco and the vapours of a moist pot, that soar[38] up into the open air, when as sounder wit keeps below.

JUDICIO.

Considering the furies of the times, I could better endure to see those young can-quaffing hucksters shoot off their pellets, so they would keep them from these English _Flores poetarum_; but now the world is come to that pa.s.s, that there starts up every day an old goose that sits hatching up those eggs which have been filched from the nest of crows and kestrels. Here is a book, Ingenioso; why, to condemn it to clear [fire,][39] the usual Tyburn of all misliving papers, were too fair a death for so foul an offender.

INGENIOSO.

What's the name of it, I pray thee, Judicio?

JUDICIO.

Look, it's here; "Belvidere."[40]

INGENIOSO.

What, a bell-wether in Paul's Churchyard! so called because it keeps a bleating, or because it hath the tinkling bell of so many poets about the neck of it? What is the rest of the t.i.tle?

JUDICIO. "The Garden of the Muses."

INGENIOSO.

What have we here, the poet garish, gaily bedecked, like fore-horses of the parish? What follows?

JUDICIO.

_Quem, referent musae, vivet, dum robora tellus, Dum coelum stellas, dum vehit amnis aquas_.

Who blurs fair paper with foul b.a.s.t.a.r.d rhymes, Shall live full many an age in latter times: Who makes a ballad for an alehouse door, Shall live in future times for evermore: Then ( )[41] thy muse shall live so long, As drafty ballads to thy praise are sung.

But what's his device? Parna.s.sus with the sun and the laurel?[42] I wonder this owl dares look on the sun; and I marvel this goose flies not the laurel: his device might have been better, a fool going into the market-place to be seen, with this motto: _Scribimus indocti_; or, a poor beggar gleaning of ears in the end of harvest, with this word: _Sua cuique gloria_.

JUDICIO.

Turn over the leaf, Ingenioso, and thou shalt see the pains of this worthy gentleman: _Sentences, gathered out of all kind of poets, referred to certain methodical heads, profitable for the use of these times, to rhyme upon any occasion at a little warning_. Read the names.

INGENIOSO.

So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them.

Edmund Spenser. Thomas Watson.

Henry Constable. Michael Drayton.

Thomas Lodge. John Davis.

Samuel Daniel. John Marston.

Kit Marlowe.

Good men and true; stand together; hear your censure. What's thy judgment of Spenser?

JUDICIO.

A sweeter[43] swan than ever sung in Po, A shriller nightingale than ever bless'd The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome.

Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, While he did chant his rural minstrelsy: Attentive was full many a dainty ear, Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, While sweetly of his Fairy Queen he sung; While to the waters' fall he tun'd for fame, And in each bark engrav'd Eliza's name: And yet for all this unregarding soil Unlac'd the line of his desired life, Denying maintenance for his dear relief; Careless care to prevent his exequy, Scarce deigning to shut up his dying eye.

INGENIOSO.

Pity it is that gentler wits should breed, Where thickskin chuffs laugh at a scholar's need.