The title of the comedy of this unclassical classic, for Holyday is known as the translator of Juvenal with a very learned commentary, is TEXNOTAMIA, or the Marriage of the Arts, 1630, quarto; extremely dull, excessively rare, and extraordinarily high-priced among collectors.
It may be exhibited as one of the most extravagant inventions of a pedant. Who but a pedant could have conceived the dull fancy of forming a comedy, of five acts, on the subject of marrying the Arts! They are the dramatis personæ of this piece, and the bachelor of arts describes their intrigues and characters. His actors are Polites, a magistrate;—Physica;—Astronomia, daughter to Physica;—Ethicus, an old man;—Geographus, a traveller and courtier, in love with Astronomia;—Arithmetica, in love with Geometres;—Logicus;—Grammaticus, a schoolmaster;—Poeta;—Historia, in love with Poeta;—Rhetorica, in love with Logicus;—Melancholico, Poeta's man;—Phantastes, servant to Geographus;—Choler, Grammaticus's man.
All these refined and abstract ladies and gentlemen have as bodily feelings, and employ as gross language, as if they had been every-day characters. A specimen of his grotesque dulness may entertain:—
Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit.
Geographus opens the play with declaring his passion to Astronomia, and that very rudely indeed! See the pedant wreathing the roses of Love!
"Geog. Come, now you shall, Astronomia.
Ast. What shall I, Geographus?
Geog. Kisse!
Ast. What, in spite of my teeth!
Geog. No, not so! I hope you do not use to kisse with your teeth.