Compare a passage of The Fawn (vol. ii. p. 181):—
“His brother your husband, right; he cuckold his eldest brother, true; he get her with child, just.”
But in the same opening scene there are equally unmistakable signs of Jonson’s presence. Touchstone says of Golding:—“He is a gentleman, though my prentice ...; well friended, well parted.” The curious expression “well parted” will be at once recognised as Jonsonian by the vigilant reader, who will remember how Macilente, in “The Characters of the Persons” prefixed to Every Man out of his Humour,[21] is described as “A man well parted, a sufficient scholar,” &c. Jonson and Marston worked on the first scene together; and it seems to me that throughout the first two acts we have the mixed work of these two writers. In the second scene of the third act, as Mr. Swinburne notices, Chapman’s hand is clearly seen in the quaint allusion to “the ship of famous Draco.” Quicksilver’s moralising, in iv. 1, after he has scrambled ashore at Wapping on the night of the drunken shipwreck, is again in Chapman’s manner; but his elaborate devices for blanching copper and sweating angels (later in the
same scene) must, without the shadow of a doubt, be ascribed to the invention of the author of The Alchemist. It would be of doubtful advantage to pursue the inquiry at length.
Eastward Ho was revived at Drury Lane on Lord Mayor’s day 1751, under the title of The Prentices (n. d. 12mo), and again in 1775 under the title of Old City Manners. Hogarth is said to have drawn from Eastward Ho the plan of his prints The Industrious and Idle Prentices. Nahum Tate’s farce Cuckold’s Haven, published in 1685, is drawn partly from Eastward Ho and partly from The Devil is an Ass.
Parasitaster, or the Fawn, published in 1606, takes us again to Italy, and once more we have to listen to a satirical exposure of the courtiers’ vices and follies. In spite of occasional tediousness the play is interesting. Dulcimel, Gonzago’s witty daughter, who gulls her self-conceited old father by a pretended discovery of Tiberio’s love for her, and succeeds by her blandishments in converting the young misogynist into a perfervid wooer, is a delightfully attractive heroine. The stratagem employed by Dulcimel is of ancient date: it is found in Terence’s Adelphi, Boccaccio’s Decameron (third tale of the third day), and Molière’s L’École des Maris. I am half inclined to suspect that Marston was slily glancing at the “wise fool” King James in the person of the silly and pedantic Gonzago; and it is probable that some social scandals of the time afforded material for the description of the intrigues of Gonzago’s courtiers. Granuffo, who gains a reputation for wisdom
by never opening his mouth, might possibly be made an amusing character by an actor skilled in facial contortions; but the humour of the thing is not very apparent in print. Signior No in the Noble Spanish Soldier (attributed to Samuel Rowley, though the play may properly belong to Dekker), and Littleword in Nabbes’ Covent Garden, are somewhat similar characters. The address To the Equal Reader, prefixed to Parasitaster, is excellently written, and exhibits Marston in a very pleasant light. “For mine own interest for once,” he writes, with a frankness which is not without a touch of pathos, “let this be printed,—that of men of my own addiction I love most, pity some, hate none; for let me truly say it, I once only loved myself, for loving them, and surely I shall ever rest so constant to my first affection, that let their ungentle combinings, discourteous whisperings, never so treacherously labour to undermine my unfenced reputation, I shall (as long as I have being) love the least of their graces and only pity the greatest of their vices.” A candid and creditable avowal, but, alas, “words is wind and wind is mutable.” In the second edition there follows a briefer address, in which the writer promises to “present a tragedy which shall boldly abide the most curious perusal;” and from a marginal note we learn that the tragedy of Sophonisba, published in 1606, was the work which was so boldly to challenge criticism. It is to be feared that this cherished offspring of Marston’s imagination will not be regarded with affection by many readers. For hideous blood-curdling realism the description of the witch
Erictho and her cave is, I venture to think, without a parallel in literature. Tough as whipcord must have been the nerves of an audience which could listen patiently to the recital of Erictho’s atrocities. If there were any women of delicate health among the audience, a repetition of the mishaps connected with the performance of the Eumenides must surely have been unavoidable. Regarded, however, as a whole, the play is not impressive. Sophonisba is a fearless and magnanimous heroine, but her temper is too masculine; she talks too much and too bluntly, and is too fond of striking an attitude. Syphax, the villain of the play, is so prodigiously brutal as to appear perfectly grotesque; and the hero Massinissa bores us by his trite moral reflections. Marston strove to produce a stately tragedy, and was under the impression that his efforts had been crowned with success; but candid readers will judge the performance to be stiff and crude, wanting in energy and dramatic movement, too rhetorical, “climbing to the height of Seneca his style.” In the prefatory address he has a hit at Sejanus (to which in the previous year he had contributed a copy of eulogistic verses), informing us that “to transcribe authors, quote authorities, and translate Latin prose orations into English blank verse, hath, in this subject, been the least aim of my studies.” But Sejanus has certainly not less of dramatic interest than Sophonisba, and in other respects it is far superior.
In 1607 was published the comedy of What You Will (written, I suspect, shortly after the appearance of Cynthia’s Revels), which is largely indebted for its plot
to Plautus’s Amphitruo. In the Induction, Marston again has his fling at Ben Jonson. Philomusus’ heated denunciation of censorious critics,