In Morose's exclamation, 2. 2. 8, 'O men! O manners!' there is an echo of Cicero, In L. Catilinam Oratio I, 'O tempora, O mores!' The pretence of Morose that he loves ceremonies and conventions, assuring his bride-to-be, 2. 5. 47, 'I must haue mine eares banqueted with pleasant and wittie conference. . .' is expressed, Upton points out, in the manner of Cicero. Cf. de Divinatione 1. 29. 61 'pars animi saturata bonarum cogitationum epulis'; and id. Top. 4 fin. 'discendi epulas'. Cf. also, Plato, Tim. 27o (p. 203) Τελέως τε καὶ λαμπρῶς ἔοικα ἀνταπολήψεσθαι τὴν τῶν λόγων oríaow: Rep. 10. 612 A, et al. To Virgil there are three references, all comically adapted. True-wit calls himself a 'night-crow' uttering 'left-handed cries' (3. 5. 16). Cf. Virgil, Eclogue 9. 15 Ante sinistra cava monuisset ab ilice cornix'; Horace, Ode 3. 27. 15 'Teque nec laevus vetet ire picus, Nec vaga cornix'; and Plautus, Asinaria 2. 1. 12 'Picus et cornix est ab laeva; corvus porro ab dextera'. Gifford calls attention to the source of Haughty's aphorism, 4. 3. 41, as Georgics 3. 66: Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi The third use of Virgil's lines is made by True-wit, when he says with mock gravity to trembling John Daw, 4. 5. 58: 'I vnderstood... that you had held your life contemptible in regard to your honor.' Cf. Aeneid 9. 205, 206: Est hic, est animus lucis contemptor, et istum Qui vita bene credat emi, quo tendis, honorem! When True-wit pretends to Daw, 4. 5. 266, that Amorous calls upon him to forfeit 'your vpper lip, and sixe o' your fore-teeth', Whalley refers to a similar fanciful punishment administered in the old romance of Huon de Bourdeaux: 'On ordonna au pauvre chevalier Huon de ne rentrer point en France, qu'il n'eust esté lui arracher la barbe, et quatre dents maschelieres.' The light satiric thrust at the romances is repeated in substance, 4. 1. 57. In 5. 3. 107 True-wit comforts Morose with a sympathetic ejaculation out of Terence, Heaut. 2. 2. 9, where Syrus exclaims, 'Quanta de spe decidi !' Morose, in the climax of his despair at obtaining a release from his termagant wife, 5. 4. 150, parodies St. Chrysostom with 'This is worst of all worst worsts' from 'N kakòv kakŵv kákɩσtov, which should be, says Whalley, 'This is worst, of all worsts, worst'. 3. Source of the lyric 'Still to be neat'. In the opening scene of the comedy Clerimont's boy sings a lyric of two stanzas, modeled on the mediaeval Latin lyric, Simplex Munditiis, a poem ascribed by Gifford and others to Jean Bonnefons, a mediaeval imitator of Catullus, who lived at Clermont, Auvergne, and died some four years after the production of Epicane. In Notes and Queries, 9th Series 6, Sept. 29,1900, Mr. Percy Simpson questions the authorship, affirming that the lines are not in the edition of Bonnefons, 1592, or in Delitiae Poetarum Gallorum, 1609. The verses are thus left anonymous, although their first appearance is known to have been among certain poems appended to editions of the Satyricon of Petronius (e. g. 1585, 1597). Mr. Simpson prints from Bonnefons's Pancharis verses in tone so much like that of Simplex Munditiis, that a confusion of the two poems is not surprising: Ad Fr. Myronem Senatorem Parisiensem. Sit in deliciis puella, Myro, Quae claris radiat superba gemmis, Tota conspicua atque onusta tota est: Sit in deliciis amoribusque Quae creta sibi, quaeque purpurisso Placet, Myro, mihi puella simplex Artis nescia negligensque fuci. Nil gemmae indiga, nilque margaritae, The verses which served Jonson as a model are as follows: Semper munditias, semper, Basilissa, decores, Non amo. Neglectim mihi se quae comit amica Nec ceram in faciem: mel habet illa suum. Fingere se semper non est confidere amori; Quid quod saepe decor, cum prohibetur, adest? Partly because of clever True-wit, and partly because of the rôles of Otter and Cutbeard, who smatter Latin and easily evolve into a learned divine and a lawyer, Epicone bristles with Latin expletives, 'old remnants', proverbs, and occasionally a quotation. The former are too insignificant to collect; but the direct citations are here enumerated. True-wit derogates Cutbeard to his master, 5. 5. 27, by quoting Horace, Sat. 1. 7. 3 'Omnibus et lippis notum et tonsoribus esse.' Otter noisily urges his companions to drink, 4. 2. 19, shouting: Et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu', from the Aeneid 8. 2. Growing more and more bold he begs Sir Amorous to drink and fear no cousins, 4. 2. 43, for 'Iacta est alea', the old proverb connected with Caesar's name in Suetonius 1. 32. As Otter again passes round the cups, 4. 2. 69, he calls on the trumpeters to play, and increases their noise with his sonorous 'Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero', from Horace, Ode 1. 37. I. With this list of quotations we close our consideration of the sources to which Epicone is indebted for plot and incident, for dialogue, song, and quotation. 4. Literary Descendants. It was inevitable that so popular a play as Epicone should have imitators and echoers; it is surprising that they are of so comparatively little importance, and so few. The comedy most closely modeled on Epicone is The City Match, by Jasper Mayne, played in 1639, and to be found in Hazlitt-Dodsley, Old Plays, vol. 13. Peter Plotwell, the Dauphine of the later comedy, to circumvent a miserly uncle, Warehouse, and keep him from marrying and disinheriting the nephew, plays upon him a trick. Instead of contriving a marriage, as did Dauphine, which was eventually invalidated by proving the supposed bride a boy, Plotwell arranges to marry Warehouse to a girl, Dorcas, whom he himself has just wedded, and to have the ceremony performed by a mock vicar. Dorcas has been instructed to have Warehouse sign over his property to her before the ceremony, thus insuring it to the nephew, her husband. As for the other people in the story, Plotwell has a sister Aurelia, who is a serious interpretation of the Haughty-Mavis type, and is known as one of the 'philosophical madams'. She marries a young gull for his money. There are various episodes necessitating much disguising, and dialogue of no profit and little pleasure. Two characters, Bright and Newcut, are ghosts of True-wit and Clerimont; Bannswright, the pander, takes the place of Cutbeard. There is to be granted to this comedy a certain dash and sprightliness. Indeed, I find recorded from Blackwood's Magazine 11. 195-201: 'It deserves to rank amongst the best of our early comedies, and the rich vein of humour which runs throughout will ever cause it to be perused with pleasure.' But it is entirely unworthy such praise. As illustration of some of the minor imitations of Epicane found in the City Match, we would point out the 'Acts and Monuments' joke in the latter, Act 2, Sc. 2, p. 227 in Haz.-Dods., and Epicane 1. 2. 9; the description A Sir John... that preaches the next parish once a week Many other examples of detailed similarities might be indicated, but this list should be sufficient to prove what the most casual reader of the City Match ought to observethat the author owes most of what is good in his comedy to Ben Jonson; but by interpreting seriously the satiric dialogue of Jonson's play he has introduced much that is disgusting rather than clever. After the City Match may be mentioned the Rival Friends, acted in 1631 and printed in 1632, the play to which attention is directed in the article on Jonson in the Dictionary of National Biography. The play, which is very rare, I have not seen; but there is a copy of it in the Barton Collection of the Boston Public Library. Its author, Peter Hansted, was a vicar of Gretton, and the author of several miscellaneous works. Accounts of him may be found in the Dictionary of National Biography; Allibone's Dict. of Authors; Wood's Athen. Oxon., Biog. Dram.; Langbaine's Dram. Poets, in which it is said: 'Our author seems to be |