Of application) wrest what he doth write;
And that he meant or him, or her, will say:
They make a libell, which he made a play.
Jonson evidently refers to the same matter in the Epistle, where he says: ‘There is not a line, or syllable in it changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certaine hatred of some, how much a mans innocency may bee indanger’d by an vn-certaine accusation; you will, I doubt not, so beginne to hate the iniquitie of such natures, as I shall loue the contumely done me, whose end was so honorable, as to be wip’d off by your sentence.’ I think the explanation is to be found in a dispatch of the Venetian ambassador on 8 Feb. 1610 (V. P. xi. 427), who reports that Lady Arabella Stuart ‘complains that in a certain comedy the playwright introduced an allusion to her person and the part played by the Prince of Moldavia. The play was suppressed.’ The reference may be to V. i. 17 of the play:
La Foole. He [Daw] has his boxe of instruments ... to draw maps of euery place, and person, where he comes.
Clerimont. How, maps of persons!
La Foole. Yes, sir, of Nomentack, when he was here, and of the Prince of Moldauia, and of his mistris, mistris Epicoene.
Clerimont. Away! he has not found out her latitude, I hope.
The Prince of Moldavia visited London in 1607 and is said to have been a suitor for Arabella, but if Jonson’s text is really not ‘changed from the simplicity of the first copy’, it is clear that Arabella misunderstood it, since Epicoene was Daw’s mistress.
The Alchemist. 1610