In I. I, we are told that Master Stephen is "a country gull," nephew of Knowell; is interested in hawking and hunting; wants to imitate courtiers; dwells at Hogsden. He is called by his uncle "a prodigal absurd coxcomb." He wastes that which his friends have left him, and affects to make a blaze of gentry to the world. He is next heir to Knowell, if Edward Knowell die. He has a living of his own hard by. He swears all kinds of strange oaths. He is vain of his legs in silk hose (I. 2); is a coward and "protests." In II. 2, Master Stephen has a jet ring sent him by "Mistress Mary" with the "poesie":

to which he replies :

Though fancy sleep
My love is deep.

The deeper the sweeter

I'll be judged by Saint Peter.

In the same scene Master Stephen buys Brainworm's rapier. In III. 2, Wellbred calls Master Stephen "a fool . . . it needs no affidavit to prove it."

Master Stephen's name is entered in the "Artillery Garden." In IV. 9, he wears Downright's coat and is arrested by Brainworm. Downright calls Master Stephen "Signior gull . . turned filcher of late." Such are the facts stated concerning Master Stephen. When Master Mathew speaks of overflowing "half a score, or a dozen sonnets," Master Stephen replies "I love such things out of measure"; this, taken with the fact that he is friendly to Master Mathew, and praises the latter's poems, suggests the possibility that Master Stephen and Master Mathew in this play may be the same persons as Fungoso and Fastidious Brisk in Every Man out of his Humour, and Asotus and Hedon in Cynthia's Revels. It will be shown that Master Mathew, Fastidious Brisk, and Hedon are all represen

1 III. I.

tations of Samuel Daniel, and that Asotus and Fungoso were meant for Thomas Lodge. In his desire to make a blaze of gentry, as well as in some other particulars, Master Stephen suggests Sogliardo in Every Man out of his Humour.

Another supposed identification, which has more apparent probability than the identification of Master Stephen with Shakespeare, is that of George Downright with Jonson. It is a well-known fact that Jonson does appear in each of his next three plays as Asper in Every Man out of his Humour, as Crites in Cynthia's Revels, and as Horace in Poetaster.

Downright is "a plain squire," "half-brother of Wellbred." He brags that he will give Master Mathew the bastinado (I. 4). Bobadil threatens to beat Downright if he chance to meet him (I. 4), but is a coward when he does (IV. 5). Downright is "a tall, big man he goes in a cloak most commonly of silk russet laid about with russet lace" (IV. 7). The general hostility of Downright to Master Mathew strongly suggests Jonson's hostility to Daniel, of which further mention will be made. Against any identification of Jonson in this play must be taken Dekker's statement made in his dedication of Satiromastix "To the world":

I meete one, and he runnes full Butt at me with his Satires hornes, for that in untrussing Horace I did onely whip his fortunes, and condition of life, where the more noble Reprehension had bin of his mindes Deformitie, whose greatnes if his Criticall Lynx had with as narrow eyes, observ'd in himselfe, as it did little spots upon others, without all disputation, Horace would not have left Horace out of Every Man in's Humour.1

If any character in Every Man in his Humour had been a representation of Jonson himself, Dekker would not have omitted to mention the fact and the name of the character when he wrote in Satiromastix:

1 Satiromastix, Quarto, 1602, p. 3.

You must be call'd Asper and Criticus and Horace; thy tytle's longer areading than the stile a the big Turkes: Asper, Criticus,1 Quintus Horatius Flaccus.2

Justice Clement is a clearly defined character. He lived on Coleman Street (III. 2); "he is a city magistrate, a justice here, an excellent good lawyer, and a great scholar, but the only mad merry old fellow in Europe. He is a very strange presence, methinks; it shews as if he stood out of the rank from other men. I [Edward Knowell] have heard many of his jests in the University. They say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse . . . or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or serving God, any thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour" (III. 2); he will permit no one to speak against tobacco (III. 3); Clement always pardons culprits; will challenge the poet, Master Mathew, at ex tempore ; he burns Mathew's poems (V. 1). It would seem that from these particulars it might be possible to identify the original of this character.

It has been thought by some that Clement may be Lyly.3 Cob speaks of having been his neighbor eighteen years, which may possibly have reference to the date of publication of Euphues and his England, 1580. There are several points in which the facts concerning Lyly agree with what we are told of Justice Clement. Lyly graduated B.A. Oxford, 1573, and was granted the degree M.A. by Cambridge in 1579. He gained at Oxford the reputation of being "a noted wit." Nashe says that Lyly was an immoderate tobacco-smoker. Joseph Hall, the satirist, when in charge of a parish at Halsted, in Suffolk, was opposed by a "Mr. Lilly," who has been

200.

1 Crites was called Criticus in the quarto of Every Man out of his Humour.

2 Satiromastix, Works of Thomas Dekker, published by John Pearson, 1873, I.

3 Shakespeare and Jonson, Dramatic versus Wit Combats, p. 19.

* Have with you to Saffron Walden.

Works of Nashe, ed. Grosart, III. 204.

thought to have been the author of Euphues, and who is described as "a witty and bold atheist." This was in 1601.1 It is barely possible that Justice Clement's love of tobacco and committing a man for "serving God" may be allusions to the facts in Lyly's case. During the latter part of his life, and up to his death in 1606, Lyly lived in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less in the ward of Farringdon without, and is buried in that church.2 Justice Clement lived on Coleman Street, which was within "the city."

Kitely has been thought, absurdly, to be Ford, the dramatist,3 but as Ford was not baptized until 1586, it is impossible that he could have been represented by Jonson in 1598. Kitely is a merchant who took Thomas Cash "as a child" and christened

him . . . and bred him at the Hospital" (II. 1). In V. I, Kitely quotes a passage "out of a jealous man's part in a play."

See what a drove of horns fly in the air,

Winged with my cleansed and my credulous breath!
Watch 'em suspicious eyes, watch where they fall.
See, see on heads, that think they have none at all!

O what a plenteous world of this will come !

When air rains horns all may be sure of some.

No editor of Jonson has discovered from what play these lines are taken. Kitely has not been identified.

Thomas Cash, whose name suggests Thomas Nashe, was servant to Kitely; bred at the Hospital (II. 1); "is no precisian nor rigid Roman Catholic"; "he'll play at fayles and tick-tack' (III. 2). The use of the exclamation "Martin !" (III. 2) suggests the Martin Marprelate controversy. Cash remains unidentified.

1 Dictionary of National Biography, XXIV. 76, s. v. Joseph Hall. The Rev. Canon Perry, the author of the article, says of this "Mr. Lilly," "probably John Lilly or Lyly, author of Euphues." It is by no means certain that he was. 2 London Past and Present, Wheatley and Cunningham, I. 117. 3 Shakespeare and Jonson, Dramatic versus Wit Combats, p. 23.

4 Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 230.

Brainworm claims that he has been in all the late wars, Bohemia, Hungary, Dalmatia, Poland; fourteen years a soldier by sea and land, shot twice at Aleppo, once at Vienna; has been at Marseilles, Naples, and Adriatic gulf ;1 slave in galleys thrice, shot in head and thighs (II. 2). In the same scene, in disguise, he sells his rapier. Some have thought 2 that the various battles and campaigns referred to are allusions to Jonson's own career. This can hardly be the case. Cob is descended from a herring (cob); is a water carrier (I. 3); is a cuckold (III. 2); is threatened with jail for speaking against Bobadil's tobacco (III. 3).

Bobadil is the braggart soldier who evidently appears a second time as Shift in Every Man out of his Humour, and a third time as Tucca in Poetaster. In his dedication "To the World," prefixed to Satiromastix, Dekker wonders "what language Tucca [and therefore probably Bobadil] would have spoke, if honest Capten Hannam had bin borne without a tongue. Ist not as lawfull then for mee to imitate Horace as Horace Hannam?” Bobadil swears strange oaths; he was in the fight at Strigonium (III. 1); he has been to the Indies, where tobacco grows, and calls tobacco "divine tobacco" (quoting Spenser, Faery Queen, III. v, 32). He brags of having defeated several men at once, and proposes a plan by which twenty skillful swordsmen could kill forty thousand men (IV. 5).

3

Knowell "is a man of a thousand a year Middlesex land" (I. 1); says of himself, quoting in substance words of old Jeronimo in The Spanish Tragedy,

1 The quarto reads "America" for " Adriatic gulf."

2 Gifford states in a note that “in the French version of this play we are told that this and what follows is an account of the campaigns really made by Jonson! It is a pity that the editors stopped here; a life of Jonson on the authority of quartermaster Brainworm would have been a great curiosity." Works of Jonson, ed. Gifford, I. 54.

3 Works of Dekker, Pearson, I. 182.