The actual authorship of the Martinist Tracts is still purely a matter of hypothesis. Penry has been the general favourite, and perhaps the argument from the difference of style in his known works is not quite convincing. The American writer Dr. Dexter, a fervent admirer, as stated above, of the Puritans, is for Barrow. Mr. Arber thinks that a gentleman of good birth named Job Throckmorton, who was certainly concerned in the affair, was probably the author of the more characteristic passages. Fantastic suggestions of Jesuit attempts to distract the Anglican Church have also been made,—attempts sufficiently refuted by the improbability of the persons known to be concerned lending themselves to such an intrigue, for, hotheads as Penry and the rest were, they were transparently honest. On the side of the defence, authorship is a little better ascertained. Of Cooper's work there is no doubt, and some purely secular men of letters were oddly mixed up in the affair. It is all but certain that John Lyly wrote the so-called Pap with a Hatchet,[45] which in deliberate oddity of phrase, scurrility of language, and desultoriness of method outvies the wildest Martinist outbursts. The later tract, An Almond for a Parrot,[46] which deserves a very similar description, may not improbably be the same author's; and Dr. Grosart has reasonably attributed four anti-Martinist tracts (A Countercuff to Martin Junior [Martin Junior was one of the Marprelate treatises], Pasquil's Return, Martin's Month's Mind, and Pasquil's Apology), to Nash. But the discussion of such questions comes but ill within the limits of such a book as the present.
[45] Pap with a Hatchet, alias A fig for my godson! or Crack me this nut, or A country cuff that is a sound box of the ear for the idiot Martin for to hold his peace, seeing the patch will take no warning. Written by one that dares call a dog a dog, and made to prevent Martin's dog-days. Imprinted by John-a-noke and John-a-stile for the baylive [sic] of Withernam, cum privilegio perennitatis; and are to be sold at the sign of the crab-tree-cudgel in Thwackcoat Lane. A sentence. Martin hangs fit for my mowing.
[46] An Almond for a Parrot, or Cuthbert Curryknaves alms. Fit for the knave Martin, and the rest of those impudent beggars that cannot be content to stay their stomachs with a benefice, but they will needs break their fasts with our bishops. Rimarum sum plenus. Therefore beware, gentle reader, you catch not the hicket with laughing. Imprinted at a place, not far from a place, by the assigns of Signior Somebody, and are to be sold at his shop in Troubleknave Street at the sign of the Standish.
The discussion of the characteristics of the actual tracts, as they present themselves and whosoever wrote them, is, on the other hand, entirely within our competence. On the whole the literary merit of the treatises has, I think, been overrated. The admirers of Martin have even gone so far as to traverse Penry's perfectly true statement that in using light, not to say ribald, treatment of a serious subject, he was only following [Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde and] other Protestant writers, and have attributed to him an almost entire originality of method, owing at most something to the popular "gags" of the actor Richard Tarleton, then recently dead. This is quite uncritical. An exceedingly free treatment of sacred and serious affairs had been characteristic of the Reformers from Luther downward, and the new Martin only introduced the variety of style which any writer of considerable talents is sure to show. His method, at any rate for a time, is no doubt sufficiently amusing, though it is hardly effective. Serious arguments are mixed up with the wildest buffoonery, and unconscious absurdities (such as a solemn charge against the unlucky Bishop Aylmer because he used the phrase "by my faith," and enjoyed a game at bowls) with the most venomous assertion or insinuation of really odious offences. The official answer to the Epistle and the Epitome has been praised by no less a person than Bacon[47] for its gravity of tone. Unluckily Dr. Cooper was entirely destitute of the faculty of relieving argument with humour. He attacks the theology of the Martinists with learning and logic that leave nothing to desire; but unluckily he proceeds in precisely the same style to deal laboriously with the quips assigned by Martin to Mistress Margaret Lawson (a noted Puritan shrew of the day), and with mere idle things like the assertion that Whitgift "carried Dr. Perne's cloakbag." The result is that, as has been said, the rejoinder Hay any Work for Cooper shows Martin, at least at the beginning, at his very best. The artificial simplicity of his distortions of Cooper's really simple statements is not unworthy of Swift, or of the best of the more recent practitioners of the grave and polite kind of political irony. But this is at the beginning, and soon afterwards Martin relapses for the most part into the alternation between serious argument which will not hold water and grotesque buffoonery which has little to do with the matter. A passage from the Epistle lampooning Aylmer, Bishop of London, and a sample each of Pap with a Hatchet and the Almond, will show the general style. But the most characteristic pieces of all are generally too coarse and too irreverent to be quotable:—
[47] In his Advertisement Touching the Controversies of the Church of England (Works. Folio, 1753, ii. p. 375).
"Well now to mine eloquence, for I can do it I tell you. Who made the porter of his gate a dumb minister? Dumb John of London. Who abuseth her Majesty's subjects, in urging them to subscribe contrary to law? John of London. Who abuseth the high commission, as much as any? John London (and D. Stanhope too). Who bound an I'll make you weary of it dumb John, except you leave persecuting. Essex minister, in 200l. to wear the surplice on Easter Day last? John London. Who hath cut down the elms at Fulham? John London. Who is a carnal defender of the breach of the Sabbath in all the places of his abode? John London. Who forbiddeth men to humble themselves in fasting and prayer before the Lord, and then can say unto the preachers, now you were best to tell the people that we forbid fasts? John London. Who goeth to bowls upon the Sabbath? Dumb Dunstical John of good London hath done all this. I will for this time leave this figure, and tell your venerable masterdoms a tale worth the hearing: I had it at the second hand: if he that told it me added anything, I do not commend him, but I forgive him: The matter is this. A man dying in Fulham, made one of the Bishop of London's men his executor. The man had bequeathed certain legacies unto a poor shepherd in the town. The shepherd could get nothing of the Bishop's man, and therefore made his moan unto a gentleman of Fulham, that belongeth to the court of requests. The gentleman's name is M. Madox. The poor man's case came to be tried in the Court of Requests. The B. man desired his master's help: Dumb John wrote to the masters of requests to this effect, and I think these were his words:
"'My masters of the requests, the bearer hereof being my man, hath a cause before you: inasmuch as I understand how the matter standeth, I pray you let my man be discharged the court, and I will see an agreement made. Fare you well.' The letter came to M. D. Dale, he answered it in this sort:
"'My Lord of London, this man delivered your letter, I pray you give him his dinner on Christmas Day for his labour, and fare you well.'
"Dumb John not speeding this way, sent for the said M. Madox: he came, some rough words passed on both sides, Presbyter John said, Master Madox was very saucy, especially seeing he knew before whom he spake: namely, the Lord of Fulham. Whereunto the gentleman answered that he had been a poor freeholder in Fulham, before Don John came to be L. there, hoping also to be so, when he and all his brood (my Lady his daughter and all) should be gone. At the hearing of this speech, the wasp got my brother by the nose, which made him in his rage to affirm, that he would be L. of Fulham as long as he lived in despite of all England. Nay, soft there, quoth M. Madox, except her Majesty. I pray you, that is my meaning, call dumb John, and I tell thee Madox that thou art but a Jack to use me so: Master Madox replying, said that indeed his name was John, and if every John were a Jack, he was content to be a Jack (there he hit my L. over the thumbs). The B. growing in choler, said that Master Madox his name did shew what he was, for saith he, thy name is mad ox, which declareth thee to be an unruly and mad beast. M. Madox answered again, that the B. name, if it were descanted upon, did most significantly shew his qualities. For said he, you are called Elmar, but you may be better called marelm, for you have marred all the elms in Fulham: having cut them all down. This far is my worthy story, as worthy to be printed, as any part of Dean John's book, I am sure."