he affect poems which, by any extension of the term, could be called madrigals? Was he able to 'make' but one kind of poem? And then lines 86-7! These sound much less like a bit of fun at his own expense than a bitter jibe at some one he despised. (5) Madrigal's song and saraband have just been sung:

Shv. A dainty ditty! Fit. O, hee's a dainty Poet!

When he sets to't. P. Iv. And a dainty Scholler!

Alm. No, no great scholler, he writes like a Gentleman. Shv. Pox o' your Scholler. P. Ca. Pox o' your distinction! As if a Scholler were no Gentleman.

With these, to write like a Gentleman, will in time

Become, all one, as to write like an Asse,

These Gentlemen? these Rascalls! I am sicke

Of indignation at 'hem.'

Was Jonson one of the poets who wrote like gentlemen rather than like scholars? (6) Peniboy Canter has thrown off his disguise and is denouncing the jeerers. When he comes to Madrigal, whom he takes up last, he says:

Or [do I] blast

The euer-liuing ghirlond, alwaies greene
Of a good Poet? when I say his wreath

Is piec'd and patch'd of dirty witherd flowers?

Away, I am impatient of these vlcers,

(That I not call you worse) There is no sore,

Or Plague but you to infect the times. I abhorre
Your very scent.2

We may infer from 'dirty, witherd flowers' that Madrigal lacks originality, or perhaps is given to plagiarizing. Jonson would never have put such an accusation against himself into the mouth of a character in a play without making some other character refute it. Nowhere do we feel that the poet himself approves of Madrigal.

It is plain from these passages that Jonson did not intend Madrigal to be, in any sense, a portrait of himself. If he

did, he was never so poor an artist as when he sketched that figure; for, except for his beardlessness, there is not a point in which Madrigal resembles him. Moreover, there is not a single line of Madrigal's in which Jonson himself seems to be speaking-not one in which we feel the fire of lofty moral indignation; on the other hand, he speaks often through Peniboy Senior, and constantly through the Canter. The last two passages above are striking instances of this. Note, too, what Gossip Mirth says of the Canter in the Fourth Intermean (5-6): ‘A beggarly Iacke it is, I warrant him, and a kin to the Poet.' In fact, the only allusions to Jonson himself are in the Induction and the Intermeans.

3. Madrigal and George Wither

Whom, then, did Jonson mean by Madrigal? The numerous allusions which cluster about that character are so specific that no one can doubt that he stands for some one in particular. To whom can the sneering words, 'the crowned Poet of these our times," apply but to George Wither, whose early poems, collected and republished in 1622 under the general title of Juvenilia, had met with remarkable success?

Wither's success is said to have been viewed with envy by Jonson. Certain it is that Jonson satirized him as Chronomastix in his mask, Time Vindicated, which was presented in January 1624. The excuse for this attack was the republication, in the Juvenilia, of Abuses Stript and Whipt, a series of satires in verse on various vices of the time. This work had first been printed in 1611, but for some reason it was then suppressed, and Wither was thrown into prison on account of it. In the Introduction of Abuses Stript and Whipt, as it appeared in 1622, Wither told his readers 'not to looke for Spencer's or Daniel's well composed numbers, or the deep conceits of the now flourishing

Jonson'; but to say 'tis honest plain matter, and there's as much as he expects.' Perhaps Jonson took offense at this allusion to himself. It is evidently a sneer, though elsewhere in the Juvenilia1 Wither spoke of Jonson in a tone of deep respect, as one of the poets whom he longed to know personally. Whatever the provocation, Jonson caught up Wither's frequent use in Abuses Stript and Whipt of the phrases, 'the time' and 'the times,' and satirized him in his mask as Chronomastix, the Scourge of the Times. And here in our play, in the person of Madrigal, Wither is receiving a second castigation. The words, 'the crowned poet of these our times,' allude both to Wither's pretensions to be called the satirist of the times, and to the popularity of the Juvenilia. When, in the last passage cited above, the Canter says that Madrigal's wreath is 'pieced and patched of dirty witherd flowers,' no doubt he is playing upon Wither's name. Note, too, that among the satellites of Chronomastix in Time Vindicated is a 'man of war,' who follows him 'i'the rear, and is both trumpet And Champion to his Muse.' This 'man of war' is probably our Shunfield, who used to be a muster-master, but is now a sea-captain. Note his praise of Madrigal in passage (5) cited above.

The clue once found, we have but to study the Juvenilia, and an abundance of evidence is forthcoming that Madrigal is Wither. (1) The phrase 'green plover,' and Peniboy Senior's words, 'his beard has time to grow," probably allude to the general title of Wither's poems, Juvenilia, and especially to his frequent apologetic reminders to the reader, in the various introductory passages in that collection, that the poems were mostly written when he was very young.3 (2) With Fitton's assertion, in the second passage cited above, that Madrigal is 'heyre to a faire fortune,' and the jeering allusions to his land in 2. 4. 144-54, compare Wither's allusion in his Motto to the estate he expected 3. 264.

1

2 Cf. the passages cited on page 52 above.

3

At the date of our play, however, Wither was about thirty-eight. *Juvenilia 3. 688.

some day to inherit, and his declaration that on leaving Oxford he found himself ill-adapted for a rural calling.1 (3) With passage (3) compare the following from Wither's satire on Covetousness:2

How many also of our graue Divines

That should seeke treasure not in earthly Mines
Descend to basenesse, and against the haire,

(As goes the common proverb) can speake faire?
Flatter for gaine, etc.

Jonson here turns Wither's arraignment of the money-worshipers against himself. He takes graue in the sense of heavy, and converts 'graue Divines' into 'cram'd divines.' Note also the use of the adverb faire, in both passages. As in Time Vindicated, by way of allusion to Wither's long poem, Fair Virtue, or Philarete to his Mistress, Jonson represents Chronomastix as having made Fame the mistress for whom he revels so in rime,' so here, and especially in the scene in the Apollo Room, he represents Madrigal as having made Pecunia his mistress. (4) With Almanach's assertion that Madrigal writes not like a scholar, but like a gentleman, compare the following points: (a) on the title pages of The Shepherd's Hunting and Fidelia Wither signs himself 'Gentleman'; (b) he several times refers in the Juvenilia to his gentle birth and breeding; (c) in his apology for his poems (1. 2) he says:

He knowes how farre they differ from those Layes,

By which the learned Poet hunts for praise;

(d) and again (3. 660) he says:

I want not so much Knowledge, as to know,
True Wisedome, lies not in a glorious show
Of humane Learning; or in being able
To cite Authorities innumerable;

(e) in another place he devotes several pages3 to a criticism

of the dry and useless pedantry of the Universities. Jonson

on the other hand, was of humble birth, and prided himself, perhaps first of all, on his scholarliness. (5) Lines 86-7 of the fourth passage allude to the great length of Wither's Fair Virtue, which is a somewhat formless rhapsody of over 4,700 lines. Lines 86-7 are an equivoque, however, and probably an allusion is intended to Philarete's oft-repeated professions of chastity. (6) When Madrigal is about to read his song1 he begins to explain that 'the Sun is father of all metals,' etc. 'I, leaue your Prologues, say!' exclaims Peniboy Junior in some haste. This no doubt alludes to the fact that Wither dealt extensively in Introductions, Addresses to the Readers, both in prose and verse, and in Prologues. The Prologue of Fair Virtue contains over 450 lines. In fact Philarete defiantly perseveres in it till the day wanes, and his eager listeners have to wait until the next morning for the real song in praise of his mistress. (7) The image of the torch in Madrigal's Song (4. 2. 95107) sounds like an echo of the passage2 in which Philarete describes the brilliancy of his mistress' beauty in terms of light; a torch figures prominently in that description. (8) One last parallel, though it has but an indirect bearing on the question of Madrigal's identity. The eulogium of Pecunia in the Apollo Room3 is a condensed parody of Philarete's detailed description of the physical charms of his mistress in the first and second parts of Fair Virtue. To compare in detail would require pages; suffice it to say that we have here not only most of the details on which Philarete descants (the more objectionable are omitted), but also great similarity of epithets, figures, and mythological allusions. Shunfield alludes to the extravagance of Philarete's eulogium when he says:*

2

Praise is strucke blind, and deafe, and dumbe with her!

She doth astonish Commendation!

1 4. 2. 93-4.

2 Juvenilia 3. 741.

3 4. 2.

4. 2. 78-9.