and every sin kept

under writing for fear lest the devil waxing almost six thousand years of age should fail in his memory and so chance to forget it.”

The following stanzas have a sting in them:—

“Can you seem wise to any simple men
That seem’d so simple unto all the wise
And fitter far to hold the plough than pen,
Such incompt stuff you rudely poetise?
Yet I confess there’s much conceipt in it,
For you have shown great store of little wit.

Take me your staff and walk some half-score miles,
And I’ll be hang’d if in that quantity
You find me out but half so many stiles
As you have made within your poesy:
Nay for your style there’s none can you excel,
You may be called John-a-Stile full well.

* * * * *

But he that mounts into the air of Fame
Must have two wings, Nature and Art, to fly;
And that he may soar safely with the same
Must take his rise low from humility;
And not with you a goose’s quill to take,
Thinking with that an eagle’s flight to make.

Your stately Muse, starched with stiff-neck’d pride,
Dain’d it amongst us, most imperiously;
With lavish laughter she did each deride
That came within the prospect of her eye:
Despising all, all her again despise,
Contemn’d of foolish and condemn’d of wise.”

At this easy rate “W. I.” ambles on; and the quiet leisurely stanzas are a relief after the fury of the

Scourge. Modern readers will feel that Marston was not driven by “sæva indignatio” to write satire, and they will not be inclined to accept the young author of Pygmalion as a sedate moralist. “W. I.” puts the matter clearly:

“He scourgeth villainies in young and old
As boys scourge tops for sport on Lenten day.”

The publication of The Whipping of the Satire could hardly have been agreeable to Marston, but it is highly improbable that he is to be held responsible for the poor answer to The Whipping, published anonymously in the same year, under the title of The Whipper of the Satire, his Penance in a White Sheet; or the Beadle’s Confutation.[10] If I have read The Whipper aright, it is the work of one of Marston’s personal friends, or of some admirer who had more zeal than wit. There are some general remarks, of slight account, on the use of satire; and Marston is exhorted to persist in his task of scourging the vices of the age. It will be enough to quote two stanzas:—

“Meantime, good satire, to thy wonted train,
As yet there are no lets to hinder thee:
Thy touching quill with a sweet moving strain
Sings to the soul a blessèd lullaby:
Thy lines beget a timorous fear in all,
And that same fear deep thoughts angelical.

So that the whilom lewd lascivious man
Is now remote from his abhorred life,
And cloathes [loathes?] the dalliance of a courtezan;
And every breathing wicked soul at strife,
Contending which shall first begin to mend
That they may glory in a blessèd end.”

The italicised lines give a delightfully ludicrous description of The Scourge of Villainy.

It is abundantly clear that Marston’s uncouth satires, which to-day are so difficult to read, caused much excitement at the time of their publication. Meres in Palladis Tamia, 1598, reckons Marston among the leading English satirists. John Weever, in his Epigrams, 1599, couples Marston’s name with Jonson’s:—

“Ad Jo. Marston et Ben Johnson.

Marston, thy muse enharbours Horace’ vein,
Then some Augustus give thee Horace’ merit!
And thine, embuskin’d Johnson, doth retain
So rich a style and wondrous gallant spirit,
That if to praise your Muses I desired
My Muse would muse. Such wits must be admired.”

The following address is from Charles Fitzgeoffrey’s Affaniæ, 1601:—

“Ad Joannem Marstonium.

Gloria, Marstoni, satirarum proxima primæ,
Primaque, fas primas si numerare duas!
Sin primam duplicare nefas, tu gloria saltem,
Marstoni, primæ proxima semper eris.
Nec te pœniteat stationis, Jane: secundus,
Cum duo sint tantum, est neuter at ambo pares.”

But the most elaborate notice that any contemporary

has given of Marston’s satires is to be found in The Return from Parnassus.[11] The passage has been often quoted, but it must find a place here:—

“What, Monsieur Kinsayder, lifting up your leg and pissing against the world? put up, man! put up, for shame!
Methinks he is a ruffian in his style,
Withouten bands or garters’ ornament:
He quaffs a cup of Frenchman’s Helicon,
Then roister-doister in his oily terms;
Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoever he meets
And strews about Ram-Alley meditations.
Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch’d terms
Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?
Give him plain naked words stripp’d from their shirts,
That might become plain-dealing Aretine.
Ay, there is one that backs a paper-steed,
And manageth a pen-knife gallantly:
Strikes his poynado at a button’s breadth,
Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns,[12]
And at first volly of his cannon-shot
Batters the walls of the old fusty