Our reasons for rejecting this theory are as follows: (1) The natural inference is that Jonson would not deliberately attack the man whom he had highly praised three years before. I do not understand Fleay’s assertion that Jonson was always ready to attack the fallen. (2) The compliment paid to Coke in 1613 (U. 64) was not the flattery of an hour of triumph. The appointment to the king’s bench was displeasing to Coke, and made at the suggestion of Bacon with the object of removing him to a place where he would come less often into contact with the king. (3) Fitzdottrel is a light-headed man of fashion, who spends his time in frequenting theatres and public places, and in conjuring evil spirits. Coke was sixty-four years old, the greatest lawyer of his time, and a man of the highest gifts and attainments. (4) The attempted parallel between Fitzdottrel, the pretended demoniac, and Coke, as judge in the Overbury trial, is patently absurd. (5) If Lady Hatton had not been selected for identification with Mrs. Fitzdottrel, Coke would never have been dreamed of as a possible Fitzdottrel.
Wittipol. He is a young man just returned from travel, which apparently has been of considerable duration. He saw Mrs. Fitzdottrel once before he went, and upon returning immediately seeks her out. How does this correspond to Jonson’s life? The Hue and Cry was played February 9, 1608. According to Fleay’s interpretation, this was followed by an intimacy with Lady Hatton. Five years later, in 1613, Drummond tells us that Jonson went to France with the son of Sir Walter Raleigh. He returned the same year in time to compose A Challenge at Tilt, December 27. Three years later he wrote The Devil is an Ass at the age of forty-three.
Wittipol intimates that he is Mrs. Fitzdottrel’s equal in years, in fashion (1. 6. 124-5), and in blood (1. 6. 168). For Jonson to say this to Lady Hatton would have been preposterous.
Justice Eitherside. Only the desire to prove a theory at all costs could have prevented Fleay from seeing that Coke’s counterpart is not Fitzdottrel, but Justice Eitherside. In obstinacy, bigotry, and vanity this character represents the class of judges with which Coke identified himself in the Overbury trial. Nor are these merely class-traits. They are distinctly the faults which marred Coke’s career from the beginning. It is certain that Coke is partially responsible for this portraiture. Overbury was a personal friend of the poet, and the trial, begun in the previous year, had extended into 1616. Jonson must have followed it eagerly. On the other hand, it is improbable that the picture was aimed exclusively at Coke. He merely furnished traits for a typical and not uncommon character. As we have seen, it is in line with Jonson’s usual practise to confine personal satire to the lesser characters.
Merecraft. Fleay’s identification with Sir Giles Mompesson has very little to commend it. Mompesson was connected by marriage with James I.’s powerful favorite, George Villiers, later Duke of Buckingham. In 1616 he suggested to Villiers the creation of a special commission for the purpose of granting licenses to keepers of inns and ale-houses. The suggestion was adopted by Villiers; Mompesson was appointed to the Commission in October, 1616, and knighted on November 18 of that year. The patent was not sealed until March, 1617. His high-handed conduct soon became unpopular, but he continued in favor with Villiers and James, and his disgrace did not come until 1621.
It will readily be seen that Mompesson’s position and career conform in no particular to those of Merecraft in the present play. Mompesson was a knight, a friend of the king’s favorite, and in favor with the king. Merecraft is a mere needy adventurer without influence at court, and the associate of ruffians, who frequent the ‘Straits’ and the ‘Bermudas’. Mompesson was himself the recipient of a patent (see section III. 2). Merecraft is merely the projector who devises clever projects for more powerful patrons. Mompesson’s project bears no resemblance to those suggested by Merecraft, and he could hardly have attracted any popular dislike at the time when The Devil is an Ass was presented, since, as we have seen, his patent was not even sealed until the following year. Finally, Jonson would hardly have attacked a man who stood so high at court as did Mompesson in 1616.
It is evident that Jonson had particularly in mind those projectors whose object it was to drain the fens of Lincolnshire. The attempts, as we have seen, were numerous, and it is highly improbable that Jonson wished to satirize any one of them more severely than another. In a single passage, however, it seems possible that Sir John Popham (see page lx) is referred to. In Act 4. Sc. 1 Merecraft speaks of a Sir John Monie-man as a projector who was able to ‘jump a business quickly’ because ‘he had great friends’. That Popham is referred to seems not unlikely from the fact that he was the most important personage who had embarked upon an enterprise of this sort, that his scheme was one of the earliest, that he was not a strict contemporary (d. 1607), and that his scheme had been very unpopular. This is proved by an anonymous letter to the king, in which complaint is made that ‘the “covetous bloody Popham” will ruin many poor men by his offer to drain the fens’ (Cal. State Papers, Mar. 14?, 1606).
Plutarchus Guilthead. Fleay’s identification with Edmund Howes I am prepared to accept, although biographical data are very meagre. Fleay says: ‘Plutarchus Gilthead, who is writing the lives of the great men in the city; the captain who writes of the Artillery Garden “to train the youth”, etc. [3. 2. 45], is, I think, Edmond Howes, whose continuation of Stow’s Chronicle was published in 1615.’
Howes’ undertaking was a matter of considerable ridicule to his acquaintances. In his 1631 edition he speaks of the heavy blows and great discouragements he received from his friends. He was in the habit of signing himself ‘Gentleman’ and this seems to be satirized in 3. 1, where Guilthead says repeatedly: ‘This is to make you a Gentleman’ (see N. & Q. 1st Ser. 6. 199.).
The Noble House. Two proposed identifications of the ‘noble house’, which pretends to a duke’s title, mentioned at 2. 4. 15-6. have been made. The expenditure of much energy in the attempt to fix so veiled an allusion is hardly worth while. Jonson of course depended upon contemporary rumor, for which we have no data.