By her looks I do her know Which you call my shafts.
The italicized words may refer to U. 36. 3-4. They correspond, however, much more closely to Challenge, 2 Cup. The ‘bath your verse discloses’ (l. 21) may refer to DA. 2. 6. 82-3. U. 36. 7-8 or Gipsies 15-6.
... the bank of kisses, Where you say men gather blisses
is mentioned in U. 36. 9-10. ‘The passages in DA. and Gipsies[92] are less close. The ‘valley called my nest’ may be a reference to DA. 2. 6. 74 f. Jonson had already spoken of the ‘girdle ’bout her waist’ in Challenge, 2 Cup. Charis 5 seems then to have been written later than U. 36, Challenge, 1613, and probably Devil is an Ass, 1616. The evidence is strong, though not conclusive.
Charis 6 evidently refers to a marriage at Whitehall. That Cupid, who is referred to in 2, 3, 5, had any part in the marriage of Charis 6 is nowhere even intimated. That Charis led the Graces in a dance is a conjecture equally unfounded. Jonson of course takes the obvious opportunity (ll. 20, 26) of playing on the name Charis. That this occasion was the same as that celebrated in 4 we have no reason to believe. It applies equally well, for instance, to A Challenge at Tilt, but we are by no means justified in so limiting it. It may have been imaginary.
Charis 7 was written before 1618, since Jonson quoted a part of it to Drummond during his visit in Scotland (cf. Conversations 5). It was a favorite of the poet’s and this furnishes sufficient reason for its insertion here. It is worthy of note that the two sections of Charis, which we know by external proof to have been in existence before 1623, are those which give internal evidence of being interpolations.
Summary. The poem was probably a late production and of composite nature. There is no reason for supposing that the greater part was not written in 1622-3. The fourth and seventh parts are interpolations. The first stanza of the fourth part, upon which the identification largely rests, seems not to have been written until the poem was put together in 1622-3. If it was written at the same time as the other two stanzas, we cannot expect to find it forming part of a connected narrative. The events described in the fourth and sixth parts are not necessarily the same. There is practically no evidence that Lady Hatton was the Venus of 1608, or that Charis is addressed to any particular lady.
The other link in Fleay’s chain of evidence is of still weaker substance. The mere repetition of compliments does not necessarily prove the recipient to be the same person. In fact we find in these very pieces the same phrases applied indiscriminately to Lady Purbeck, Lady Frances Howard, Mrs. Fitzdottrel, perhaps to Lady Hatton, and even to the Earl of Somerset. Of what value, then, can such evidence be?
Fleay’s whole theory rests on this poem, and biographical evidence is unnecessary. It is sufficient to notice that Lady Hatton was a proud woman, that marriage with so eminent a man as Sir Edward Coke was considered a great condescension (Chamberlain’s Letters, Camden Soc., p. 29), and that an amour with Jonson is extremely improbable.
Fitzdottrel. Fleay’s identification of Fitzdottrel with Coke rests chiefly on the fact that Coke was Lady Hatton’s husband. The following considerations are added. Fitzdottrel is a ‘squire of Norfolk’. Sir E. Coke was a native of Norfolk, and had held office in Norwich. Fitzdottrel’s rôle as sham demoniac is a covert allusion to Coke’s adoption of the popular witch doctrines in the Overbury trial. His jealousy of his wife was shown in the same trial, where he refused to read the document of ‘what ladies loved what lords’, because, as was popularly supposed, his own wife’s name headed the list. Jonson is taking advantage of Coke’s disgrace in November, 1616. He had flattered him in 1613 (U. 64).