THE WORKS

OF

JOHN MARSTON

EDITED BY

A. H. BULLEN, B.A.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE FIRST

LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
MDCCCLXXXVII

Two hundred copies of this Edition on Laid paper, medium 8vo, have been printed, viz., 120 for the English Market, and 80 for America. Each copy numbered as issued.

No. 30

TO

AN OLD FRIEND AND FELLOW-STUDENT,

CHARLES H. FIRTH,

These Volumes

ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY THE EDITOR.

PREFACE.

Marston’s Works were edited in 1856 by Mr. Halliwell (3 vols. 8vo.) for Mr. Russell Smith’s Library of Old Authors. I yield to none in my admiration for the best and the most accurate of living Shakespearean scholars; but I am sure that Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who in his Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare has set so singularly high a standard of excellence, would be the first to acknowledge that his edition of Marston’s Works needs revision.

In the present volumes I have done my best to regulate the text, which is frequently very corrupt; but I am painfully conscious that I have left plenty of work for future editors.

A valuable edition of Marston’s poems was published in 1879, for private circulation, by Dr. Grosart. I have availed myself freely of the results of Dr. Grosart’s

biographical researches; and I am indebted to his edition for the text of the Entertainment in vol. iii.

Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, whose recently published edition of Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft met with the enthusiastic welcome that it deserved, has helped me liberally with advice and suggestions; and I have to thank Mr. P. A. Daniel, whose scholarship is as sound as it is acute, for his kindness in reading my Introduction.

In deference to friendly criticism, I have prefixed to each play a brief summary of the plot.

18th March 1887.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

INTRODUCTION.

When other poets were repeating Horace’s boast, “Exegi monumentum,” &c., John Marston dedicated the first fruits of his genius “To everlasting Oblivion.” In much of Marston’s satire there is an air of evident insincerity, but the dedicatory address at the close of The Scourge of Villainy is of startling earnestness:—

“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.”

Those lines were printed in 1598. Six and thirty years afterwards the poet was laid in his grave, and on the grave-stone was inscribed “Oblivioni sacrum.” But prayers cannot purchase oblivion; and the rugged Timon of the Elizabethan drama, who sought to shroud himself “in the uncomfortable night of nothing,” will be forced from time to time to emerge from the shades and pass before the eyes of curious scholars.

It was established by the genealogical researches of that acute and indefatigable antiquary, Joseph Hunter,[1] that John Marston belonged to the old Shropshire family of Marstons. The dramatist’s father, John Marston, third son of Ralph Marston of Gayton (or Heyton), co. Salop, was admitted a member of the Middle Temple in 1570; married Maria, daughter of Andrew Guarsi[2] (or Guersie), an Italian surgeon who had settled in London, and had married Elizabeth Gray, daughter of a London merchant; migrated to Coventry; was lecturer of the Middle Temple in 1592.

The year of the poet’s birth is unknown, but it may be fixed circ. 1575, and we shall probably not be wrong in assuming that the birthplace was Coventry. For his early education Marston was doubtless indebted to the Coventry free-school. On 4th February 1591-2, “John Marston, aged 16, a gentleman’s son, of co. Warwick,” was matriculated at Brazennose College, Oxford (Grosart’s Introduction, p. x.). There is not the slightest doubt that this John Marston, who was admitted Bachelor of Arts on 6th February 1593-4 as the “eldest son of an Esquire” (Wood’s Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 602), was the poet; and Wood went wrong in identifying our John Marston with another John Marston, or Marson, who belonged to Corpus. In the will of the elder Marston, proved in 1599, there is a curious passage which shows that the poet, contrary to his father’s wishes, abandoned the profession

of the law. An abstract of the will (communicated by Col. Chester) has been printed by Dr. Grosart, and is here reprinted:—

“John Marston of City of Coventry Gent dated 24 Oct. 1599