THE POETASTER.

After the second Sounding.

ENVY arises in the midst of the stage.

Light, I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, Wishing thy golden splendor pitchy darkness. What's here? THE ARRAIGNMENT!' ay; this, this

is it,

That our sunk eyes have waked for all this while :
Here will be subject for my snakes and me.
Cling to my neck and wrists, my loving worms,'

1 What's here? THE ARRAIGNMENT!] Envy says this upon discovering, as Whalley observes, the title of the play, which, as is already mentioned, was always written or painted in large letters, and fixed in some conspicuous part of the stage. To this practice there are innumerable allusions in our old dramatists.

2 Cling to my neck and wrists, my loving worms,] Worms, the generic English word for snake, is very common in our ancient writers, though now confined to one or two of the species. Cowley seems to have had this description in view, in the first book of the Davideis. Envy rises from the infernal regions, attired as she is here, and thus addresses her ministers:

"With that she takes

"One of her worst, her best beloved snakes,

<< Softly, dear worm, soft and unseen, she said,
"Into his bosom steal," &c.

Cowley is so pleased with the management and address of

And cast you round in soft and amorous folds,
Till I do bid uncurl; then, break your knots,
Shoot out yourselves at length, as your forced stings
Would hide themselves within his maliced sides,
To whom I shall apply you. Stay! the shine
Of this assembly here offends my sight;
I'll darken that first, and outface their grace.
Wonder not, if I stare: these fifteen weeks,
So long as since the plot was but an embrion,
Have I, with burning lights mixt vigilant thoughts,
In expectation of this hated play,

To which at last I am arrived as Prologue.
Nor would I you should look for other looks,
Gesture, or compliment from me, than what
The infected bulk of Envy can afford:
For I am risse here with a covetous hope,
To blast your pleasures and destroy your sports,
With wrestings, comments, applications,
Spy-like suggestions, privy whisperings,
And thousand such promoting sleights as these.
Mark how I will begin: The scene is, ha !
Rome? Rome? and Rome? Crack, eye-strings, and
your balls

Envy, that he very characteristically makes her "envy her

self!"

3

these fifteen weeks,

So long as since the plot was but an embrion.] There is no pleasing Decker; for he twits Jonson with this confession. "What, will he be fifteen weeks about this cockatrice's egg too? has he not cackled yet? has he not lay'd yet?" Surely our Untrusser must have possessed a very extraordinary facility in writing, if such a period as this appeared too long for the production of the Poetaster.

4

-the scene is, ha!

Rome? Rome? &c.] We have here a curious proof of the absolute poverty of the stage. As far as we have hitherto gone in Jonson, not the slightest notice has occurred of a moveable scene: a board, or a slip of paper, tells the audience that Rome is before them; and if there is any necessity for changing the

Drop into earth; let me be ever blind.
I am prevented; all my hopes are crost,
Check'd, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat
Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn:
What should I do? Rome! Rome! O, my vert soul,
How might I force this to the present state?
Are there no players here? no poet-apes,
That come with basilisk's eyes, whose forked tongues
Are steep'd in venom, as their hearts in gall?
Either of these would help me; they could wrest,
Pervert, and poison all they hear, or see,
With senseless glosses, and allusions.
Now, if you be good devils, fly me not.
You know what dear and ample faculties

I have endow'd you with: I'll lend you more.
Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat,
And while the squeez'd juice flows in your black jaws,
Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth
Upon his lines, and shew your rusty teeth
At every word, or accent: or else choose
Out of my longest vipers, to stick down

In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth
At your rank mouths; that he may see you arm'd
With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear
His work and him; to forge, and then declaim,
Traduce, corrupt, apply, inform, suggest;

O, these are gifts wherein your souls are blest.
What! do you hide yourselves? will none appear?
None answer? what, doth this calm troop affright
you?

Nay, then I do despair; down, sink again :
This travail is all lost with my dead hopes.

place of action, as in Catiline, another bit of deal is thrust in, to inform them that they now see Fesulæ. The rage of Envy is excited because the scene is not laid in London, and among the poet's contemporaries; a little patience, however, would have rendered her fury unnecessary.

If in such bosoms spite have left to dwell,
Envy is not on earth, nor scarce in hell.

[Descends slowly.

The third sounding.

As she disappears, enter PROLOGUE hastily, in

armour.

Stay, monster, ere thou sink-thus on thy head
Set we our bolder foot; with which we tread
Thy malice into earth: so Spite should die,
Despised and scorn'd by noble Industry.
If any muse why I salute the stage,

5

An armed Prologue; know, 'tis a dangerous age:
Wherein who writes, had need present his scenes
Forty-fold proof against the conjuring means
Of base detractors, and illiterate apes,
That fill up rooms in fair and formal shapes.

5 An armed Prologue.] The prologue is spoken by a person in armour, to defend the author against the attacks of his adversaries and detractors. This whimsical circumstance has been imitated in the prologue to Langartha, a tragi-comedy by Henry Burnell, which an Amazon delivers with a battle-axe in her hand. And the prologue to Troilus and Cressida was so spoken: ❝ And hither am I come,

"A prologue arm'd—but not in confidence

"Of author's pen."

Not, as the commentators observe, in confidence of the author's. abilities, but in a character suited to the subject. Troilus and Cressida is supposed to have been written in 1602.

66

WHAL.

O bone, TOO σE ETTOS QUYEN! But for this inadvertent introduction of the date of Troilus and Cressida, the passage in the 'text might have passed for a wanton sneer" at Shakspeare; now, alas! the quotation can only be considered as a "just reflection" upon Jonson; which, as the commentators well know, is a very different thing.