The detection of personal satire in Jonson’s drama is difficult, and at best unsatisfactory. Jonson himself always resented it as an impertinence.[86] In the present case Fleay suggests that the motto, Ficta, voluptatis causa, sint proxima veris, is an indication that we are to look upon the characters as real persons. But Jonson twice took the pains to explain that this is precisely the opposite of his own interpretation of Horace’s meaning.[87] The subject of personal satire was a favorite one with him, and in The Magnetic Lady he makes the sufficiently explicit statement: ‘A play, though it apparel and present vices in general, flies from all particularities in persons’.
On the other hand we know that Jonson did occasionally indulge in personal satire. Carlo Buffone,[88] Antonio Balladino,[89] and the clerk Nathaniel[90] are instances sufficiently authenticated. Of these Jonson advances a plea of justification: ‘Where have I been particular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease?’[91]
In only one play do we know that the principal characters represent real people. But between Poetaster and The Devil is an Ass there is a vast difference of treatment. In Poetaster (1) the attitude is undisguisedly satirical. The allusions in the prologues and notices to the reader are direct and unmistakable. (2) The character-drawing is partly caricature, partly allegorical. This method is easily distinguishable from the typical, which aims to satirize a class. (3) Jonson does not draw upon historical events, but personal idiosyncrasies. (4) The chief motive is in the spirit of Aristophanes, the great master of personal satire. These methods are what we should naturally expect in a composition of this sort. Of such internal evidence we find little or nothing in The Devil is an Ass. Several plausible identifications, however, have been proposed, and these we must consider separately.
The chief characters are identified by Fleay as follows: Wittipol is Jonson. He has returned from travel, and had seen Mrs. Fitzdottrel before he went. Mrs. Fitzdottrel is the Lady Elizabeth Hatton. Fitzdottrel is her husband, Sir Edward Coke.
Mrs. Fitzdottrel. The identification is based upon a series of correspondences between a passage in The Devil is an Ass (2. 6. 57-113) and a number of passages scattered through Jonson’s works. The most important of these are quoted in the note to the above passage. To them has been added an important passage from A Challenge at Tilt, 1613. Fleay’s deductions are these: (1) Underwoods 36 and Charis must be addressed to the same lady (cf. especially Ch., part 5). (2) Charis and Mrs. Fitzdottrel are identical. The song (2. 6. 94 f.) is found complete in the Celebration of Charis. In Wittipol’s preceding speech we find the phrases ‘milk and roses’ and ‘bank of kisses’, which occur in Charis and in U. 36, and a reference to the husband who is the ‘just excuse’ for the wife’s infidelity, which occurs in U. 36. (3) Charis is Lady Hatton. Fleay believes that Charis, part 1, in which the poet speaks of himself as writing ‘fifty years’, was written c 1622-3; but that parts 2-10 were written c 1608. In reference to these parts he says: ‘Written in reference to a mask in which Charis represented Venus riding in a chariot drawn by swans and doves (Charis, part 4), at a marriage, and leading the Graces in a dance at Whitehall, worthy to be envied of the Queen (6), in which Cupid had a part (2, 3, 5), at which Charis kissed him (6, 7), and afterwards kept up a close intimacy with him (8, 9, 10). The mask of 1608, Feb. 9, exactly fulfils these conditions, and the Venus of that mask was probably L. Elizabeth Hatton, the most beautiful of the then court ladies. She had appeared in the mask of Beauty, 1608, Jan. 10, but in no other year traceable by me. From the Elegy, G. 36, manifestly written to the same lady (compare it with the lines in 5 as to “the bank of kisses” and “the bath of milk and roses”), we learn that Charis had “a husband that is the just excuse of all that can be done him”. This was her second husband, Sir Edward Coke, to whom she was married in 1593’.
Fleay’s theory rests chiefly upon (1) his interpretation of The Celebration of Claris; (2) the identity of Charis and Mrs. Fitzdottrel. A study of the poem has led me to conclusions of a very different nature from those of Fleay. They may be stated as follows:
Charis 1. This was evidently written in 1622-3. Jonson plainly says: ‘Though I now write fifty years’. Charis is here seemingly identified with Lady Purbeck, daughter of Lady Hatton. Compare the last two lines with the passage from The Gipsies. Fleay believes the compliments were transferred in the masque at Lady Hatton’s request.
Charis 4 and 7 have every mark of being insertions. (1) They are in different metres from each other and from the other sections, which in this respect are uniform. (2) They are not in harmony with the rest of the poem. They entirely lack the easy, familiar, half jocular style which characterizes the eight other parts. (3) Each is a somewhat ambitious effort, complete in itself, and distinctly lyrical. (4) In neither is there any mention of or reference to Charis. (5) It is evident, therefore, that they were not written for the Charis poem, but merely interpolated. They are, then, of all the parts the least valuable for the purpose of identification, nor are we justified in looking upon them as continuing a definite narrative with the rest of the poem. (6) The evident reason for introducing them is their own intrinsic lyrical merit.
Charis 4 was apparently written in praise of some pageant, probably a court masque. The representation of Venus drawn in a chariot by swans and doves, the birds sacred to her, may have been common enough. That this is an accurate description of the masque of February 9, 1608 is, however, a striking fact, and it is possible that the lady referred to is the same who represented Venus in that masque. But (1) we do not even know that Jonson refers to a masque of his own, or a masque at all. (2) We have no trustworthy evidence that Lady Hatton was the Venus of that masque. Fleay’s identification is little better than a guess. (3) Evidence is derived from the first stanza alone. This does not appear in The Devil is an Ass, and probably was not written at the time. Otherwise there is no reason for its omission in that place. It seems to have been added for the purpose of connecting the lyric interpolation with the rest of the poem.
Charis 5 seems to be a late production. (1) Jonson combines in this single section a large number of figures used in other places. (2) That it was not the origin of these figures seems to be intimated by the words of the poem. Cupid is talking. He had lately found Jonson describing his lady, and Jonson’s words, he says, are descriptive of Cupid’s own mother, Venus. So Homer had spoken of her hair, so Anacreon of her face. He continues: