Jonson. With the passage just quoted, compare the following statements by Mr. Fleay:

My hypothesis is that the "physic " given to "the great Myrmidon,” I. 3, 378; III. 3, 34, is identical with the "purge " administered by Shakespeare to Jonson in The Return from Parnassus, IV. 3, and that the setting up of Ajax as a rival to Achilles shadows forth the putting forward Dekker by the King's men to write against Jonson his Satiromastix. The subsequent defection of Thersites from Ajax to Achilles would then agree with the reconciliation of Marston and Jonson in 1601, when they wrote together Rosalind's Complaint.1

In another passage Mr. Fleay says that Dekker is Thersites in Troilus and Cressida.2

In the first passage Mr. Fleay states that Ajax is Crites and therefore Jonson, Thersites is Marston; in the second passage, Ajax is Dekker, Achilles is Jonson, and Thersites is Marston; in the third passage Thersites is Dekker. Dr. Cartwright declares that "in Troilus and Cressida the character of Thersites, be it accidental or intentional, is an inimitable caricature of Crites and Horace, that is, of Jonson. These contradictory statements by critics who advocate the theory that Troilus and Cressida was the "purge," are sufficient to awaken doubts, even though none had otherwise existed, as to the correctness of the theory. Were it not for the passage in The Return from Parnassus, it is not improbable that Shakespeare's name would not have been connected with the quarrel of Jonson, Marston, and Dekker. We have, however, the statement that Shake

1 Chronicle of the English Drama, II. 189.

2 ibid., I. 259.

3 Shakespeare and Jonson, Dramatic versus Wit Combats, p. 13. The writer of an article entitled "Ben Jonson's Quarrel with Shakespeare " (The North British Review, July, 1870) states that "the reply to the Poetaster was Troilus and Cressida" (p. 420); that "Achilles is Jonson" (p. 421), and "Thersites is Dekker" (p. 422). The same critic calls attention (p. 424) to the interesting fact that in Troilus and Cressida Shakespeare uses many unusual words, evidently in defiance of Jonson's ridicule of Marston's words in Poetaster.

speare gave Jonson "a purge that made him beray his credit," and, for those who do not believe this to be a reference to Troilus and Cressida, and who fail to find Jonson satirized in any play of Shakespeare's, there remains a possible, but rather unsatisfactory solution of the difficulty. Every Man in his Humour and Every Man out of his Humour were first acted by the Chamberlain's company, the former at the Curtain, the latter at the Globe, which was built in 1599. Shakespeare was one of the actors who presented Every Man in his Humour, but, for some reason unknown to us, he did not act in Every Man out of his Humour, although the play was performed by the same company. The latter play contained Jonson's first attack on Marston, and was in every way more direct and bitter in its satirical representation of contemporaries, a fact which may explain Shakespeare's taking no part. Jonson's connection with the Chamberlain's company then ceased, and his next two plays, Cynthia's Revels and Poetaster, were acted by the Chapel children. When Dekker's Satiromastix, voicing the general hostility to Jonson, was acted, it was by the Chamberlain's men at the Globe Theatre. This was by Shakespeare's company at Shakespeare's theatre, and therein may have consisted the giving of the "purge" to Jonson by Shakespeare.1 The author of The Return from Parnassus makes no mention of Satiromastix, unless the latter play be after all the "purge." Gifford maintained that the "purge" was merely Shakespeare's great superiority to other playwrights. The "purge" must have been something more definite than this, and was presum

1 "The author of The Return from Parnassus could not have supposed that Shakespeare was the author of the Satiromastix; nor is his statement explained by the fact that that play was 'acted publicly by the Lord Chamberlain's servants,' even though we make the most improbable supposition that Shakespeare acted the part of William Rufus in it." The North British Review, July, 1870, p. 397. The explanation is not unreasonable, however, in spite of the opinion quoted.

ably a play. Dr. Brinsley Nicholson attempts to cut the knot by supposing the "purge" to have been some play of Shakespeare's which has not come down to us -a play, moreover, performed before Poetaster.1 The latter statement is at variance with the evident meaning of the passage in The Return from Parnassus, while the supposition of a lost play is, at best, weak. This problem, like so many others concerning the Elizabethan drama, remains without any really satisfactory solution, and Shakespeare's connection with "The War of the Theatres" rests for proof wholly on the unexplained passage in The Return from Parnassus.

There have been numerous theories concerning Shakespeare's plays in this connection, and many of his characters have been identified by critics with Jonson, Marston, Dekker, and other contemporaries. In no case has anything like sufficient proof been adduced in support of the theories.

1 "It appears from The Return from Parnassus (IV. 3) that amongst the rest, the gentle Shakespeare, taking up the cause of his fellow dramatists, and perhaps also the interests of himself and his fellow actors, ridiculed him [Jonson] in some piece that has not come down to us, and, in the purge that he administered, gave Jonson the precedent for Horace's pills." Ben Jonson, ed. Brinsley Nicholson, Mermaid Series, I. 262.

2 For a presentation of some of the various views of the relations of Shakespeare's plays to the quarrel, the reader is referred to The North British Review, July, 1870, "Ben Jonson's Quarrel with Shakespeare," and to Dr. Cartwright's monograph, Shakespeare and Jonson, Dramatic versus Wit Combats. A specimen of the kind of criticism by which Shakespeare has been involved in the stage war is the following passage of Dr. Cartwright's (p. 50): “We may take, as a secure basis or ground to build upon, Jonson's three Comical Satires,' as he calls them: Every Man out of his Humour was brought out in 1599; Cynthia's Revels in 1600; and the Poetaster in 1601. Shakespeare replies to the first in Much Ado, followed by As You Like It; about the same time Marston brings out the first and second parts of Antonio and Mellida. Shakespeare then, indignant at the fresh insults offered to himself and Lyly in the characters of Amorphus and Asotus, pours forth his wrath on Jonson as Apemanthus, and repays Marston for the travesty of Hamlet by painting him as the Athenian general Alcibiades, a brave soldier, but of dissolute morals. Marston retaliates on Shakespeare in the Malcontent;

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and Jonson in the Poetaster takes his revenge on both of them. Marston replies again in the Dutch Courtesan, and Shakespeare repays both Jonson and Marston in Othello as well as in Troilus and Cressida." "Who can doubt that Iago is malignant Ben?" Ibid., p. 28. Mr. Fleay says: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or What You Will, which introduces Malevole (Marston) as Malvolio, and addresses him in an anagrammatic way as M. O. A. I., i.e. Jo. Ma. (John Marston), I take to be his rejoinder to the two plays What You Will and The Malcontent in 1601-2." Chronicle of the English Drama, II. 77. "With the locking up of Crispinus [Poetaster] in some dark place, compare the imprisonment of Malvolio in Twelfth Night," ibid., I. 369.

XII.

CONCLUSION.

IN the preceding pages has been set forth the evidence showing that the plays discussed were connected with "The War of the Theatres." That these were the only plays concerned in the quarrel is by no means certain. It remains to be proved, however, that other plays were so involved, and in the absence of such proof the discussion has been confined to these fifteen plays. The purpose of the first of the accompanying tables is to exhibit the relationship of these plays as regards the order in which they were acted, the authors, theatres, and companies. The second table gives in summarized form both the proved and the conjectural identifications which have been mentioned in the discussion of individual plays.