[396] A sneer at Hall, who left Cambridge (soon to return), before completing his course, to take temporary work as a schoolmaster, as he relates in Some Specialities of the Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich (Works, ed. Wynter, 1. xxiv).
[397] The satirist is Hall, who wrote in the third satire of Book iv. of Virgidem:—
“Ventrous Fortunio his farm hath sold
And gads to Guiane land to fish for gold.”
[398] Marston is ridiculing Hall’s Defiance to Envy, prefixed to Virgidem.:—
“Or would we loose her plumy pinion,
Manacled long with bonds of modest fear,
Soon might she have those kestrels proud outgone
Whose flighty wings are dew’d with weeter [sic] air;
And hopen now to shoulder from above
The eagle from the stairs of friendly Jove.
“Or list she rather in late triumph rear
Eternal trophies to some conqueror
Whose dead deserts slept in his sepulchre,
And never saw nor life nor light before,
To lead sad Pluto captive with my song
To grace the triumphs he obscured so long, &c.”
[399] It is not improbable that Hall published an early volume of pastorals which is now unknown. See Corser’s Collectanea, vii. 134. In Virgidem. vi. 1. ll. 175-184 (“Shall the controller of proud Nemesis, &c.”), Hall replies to Marston’s raillery.
[400] Edward Guilpin in his sixth Satire (Skialetheia, 1598, sig. E. V.) alludes to Marston’s Reactio:—
“The double-volum’d satire praised is
And liked of divers for his rods in piss,
Yet other some who would her credit crack,
Have clapp’d Reactio’s action on her back.”
The expression “rods in piss” is used in reference to Sat. i. l. 44. of the Scourge of Villainy. “Double-volum’d satire” seems to refer to Hall’s two collections of Satires; but the passage is obscure.
SATIRE V.
Parva magna, magna nulla.
Ambitious Gorgons, wide-mouth’d Lamians,[401]
Shape-changing Proteans, damn’d Briarians,
Is Minos dead, is Rhadamanth asleep,
That ye thus dare unto Jove’s palace creep?
What, hath Rhamnusia spent her knotted whip,
That ye dare strive on Hebe’s cup to sip?