Jonson told Drummond that he had not contributed the objectionable matter, and that he voluntarily imprisoned himself with Chapman and Marston, who “had written it amongst them.” After his release from prison Jonson gave a banquet to “all his friends,” Camden and Selden being among the guests. In the middle of the banquet his old mother drank to him and produced a paper containing “lusty strong poison,” which she had intended, if the sentence had been confirmed, to take to the prison and mix in his drink; and she declared—to show “that she was no churl”—that “she minded first to have drunk of it herself.” The passage about the Scots is found only in some copies of the 4tos; in others it was expunged. Scotch pride seems to have been easily wounded. On 15th April, 1598, George Nicolson, the English agent at the Scotch Court, writing from Edinburgh to Lord Burghley, stated that “it is regretted that the Comedians of London should scorn the king and the people of this land in their play; and it is wished that the matter be speedily amended, lest the king and the country be stirred to anger” (Cal. of State Papers, Scotland, ii. 749). Certainly the reflections in Eastward Ho have somewhat more of bitterness than banter; but one would have thought that the favoured Scots about the Court would be content to let the matter pass. Sir James Murray was the person who acted as delator, and it is not improbable that he found in the play some uncomplimentary allusions to himself, in addition to the sweeping satire on his countrymen. In the first scene of the fourth act there is a curious
passage which has no point unless we suppose that it is directed against some particular courtier:
“1st Gent. I ken the man weel; he’s one of my thirty pound knights.
“2d Gent. No, no, this is he that stole his knighthood o’ the grand day for four pound given to a page; all the money in’s purse, I wot well.”
Satirical references to King James’ knights, the men who purchased knighthood from the king, are as common as blackberries; but in the present passage there must be a covert allusion to some person who procured the honour by an unworthy artifice, and I suspect that the allusion is to Sir James Murray. It is surprising that, when the reflections on the Scots were expunged, the passage in iv. 1 was allowed to stand; for, whether Sir James Murray was or was not personally ridiculed, the mimicry of James’ Scotch accent is unmistakeable. Perhaps the king joined in the laugh against himself, when the play was acted before him by the Lady Elizabeth’s Servants at Whitehall on 25th January 1613-4 (Cunningham’s Extracts from the Account of the Revels, p. xliv.).
Of the merits of Eastward Ho it would be difficult to speak too highly. To any who are in need of a pill to purge melancholy this racy old comedy may be safely commended. Few readers, after once making his acquaintance, will forget Master Touchstone, the honest shrewd old goldsmith, rough of speech at times but ever gentle at heart, thrifty to outward show but bountiful as the sun in May: he lives in our affections with Orlando
Friscobaldo and Simon Eyre. Quicksilver, the rowdy prentice, dazed from last night’s debauch, reciting in a thick voice stale scraps of Jeronymo as he reels about Master Touchstone’s shop, heedless of the maxims of temperance which frown in print from the walls; Golding, the well-conducted prentice, the apple of his master’s eye, armed at all points with virtue and sobriety; Gertrude, the goldsmith’s extravagant daughter, with her magnificent visions of coaches, and castles, and cherries at an angel a pound; Mildred, her sister, simple and dutiful; Mistress Touchstone, who has been infected with Gertrude’s vanity, but quickly learns penitence in the school of necessity; Sir Petronel Flash, the shifty knight, eager to escape from creditors and serjeants to the new-found land of Virginia; Security, the blood-sucker and egregious gull:—all these characters, and the list is not exhausted, stand limned in all the warmth of life. Mr. Swinburne, in his masterly essay on Chapman, says with truth that “in no play of the time do we get such a true taste of the old city life so often turned to mere ridicule by playwrights of less good humour, or feel about us such a familiar air of ancient London as blows through every scene.”
It is very certain that Marston could never have written single-handed so rich and genial a play. In all Marston’s comedies there is a strong alloy of bitterness; we are never allowed to rise from the comic feast with a pleasant taste in the mouth. What precise share Marston had in Eastward Ho it would be difficult to determine with any approach to certainty. In the
very first scene (vol. iii. p. 8) we come across a passage which is distinctly in Marston’s manner:—
“I am entertained among gallants, true; they call me cousin Frank, right; I lend them monies, good; they spend it well.”