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of Bartholomew fair promised a fertile subject for the display of this peculiar talent.

Part of the amusements of this carnival in the time of Jonson consisted of a spurious sort of theatrical representation, under the title of motions or puppet-plays, of which the most celebrated possessors were, it should seem, Pod and Cokely. These exhibitions, which consisted of vulgar dialogues, known by the name of Enterludes, assisted by mummery and pantomimic gesture, with jigs and dances, were the delight of the vulgar'; and, from their extreme popularity, were thought worthy of Jonson's satire. To give a stimulus to the curiosity of the ignorant, tutored animals lent their assistance; and monsters, natural or artificial, composed a medley irresistibly attractive. The more barbarous and extravagant the nature of these scenic representations were, by so much the more delightful would they be to their unlettered spectators: it is not therefore to be wondered, that lions roaring, or whales spouting, on the stage, composed the majority of their subjects, and were the prominent objects of their admiration and delight.*

* Steevens observes, in a note on "The Tempest," that "it was very common to exhibit fishes on the stage." In Jasper Mayne's "City Match," 1638, Roseclap enters hanging out the picture of a strange fish: and observes

These were the objects of Jonson's censure, not of his imitation. "It is covenanted and agreed," he says, in the induction to his Bartholomew fair, "between the spectators and hearers on the one side, and the author on the other, that how great soever the expectation be, no person here is to expect more than he knows, or better ware. than a fair will afford; neither to look back to the sword and buckler age of Smithfield, but content himself with the present. Instead of a little Davy to take toll of the bawds, the author doth promise a strutting horse-courser, with a leer drunkard, two or three to attend him, in as good equipage as you would wish. And then, for Kind-heart the tooth-drawer, a fine oily pigwoman, with her tapster to bid you welcome; and a consort of roarers for musick. A wise justice-of-peace meditant, instead of a juggler with an ape; a civil cut-purse searchant; a sweet singer of new ballads allurant; and as fresh an hypocrite as ever was broached rampant. If there be never a servant-monster in the

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This is the fifth fish

That he hath shown thus:

speaking of Quartfield.

In the same comedy, Mrs. Holland, the sempstress, is eager to know "when will the fish begin?" To which Bright replies, "Heart! she makes him a puppet-play."

Old Plays, ver. 9, 320. Svo. 1780. ·

fair, who can help it, he says, nor a nest of antiques? He is loth to make nature afraid in. his plays, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like drolleries, to mix his head with other men's heels'; let the concupiscence of jigs and dances reign as strong as it will amongst you; yet if the puppets will please any body, they shall be entreated to come in."

Stripped of italics and capitals, and accompanied with its context, this passage contains nothing offensive towards Shakspeare, and the objects of the author's satire* are sufficiently in

* Notwithstanding Jonson himself boasts of his freedom from individual censure, the critics, either through perverseness, or ignorance of the poet's character, contend that his satire is perpetually personal. In the dedication of The Fox (1605) to the two Universities, he boldly asks, "Where have I been particular? Where personal? except to a mimick, cheater, bawd, buffon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be taxed?"

The conscious integrity, on which this challenge was founded, has been confirmed by Cartwright in these manly lines:

Thy models yet are not so framed that we
May call them libels and not imagery;

No name, on any basis; 'tis thy skill

still:

To strike the vice, but spare the person
As he, who, when he saw the serpent wreathed
About his sleeping son, and, as he breathed,
Drink in his soul, did so the shot contrive
To kill the beast, but keep the child alive:

telligible. But lest any doubt should exist as to the objects of his ridicule, he has openly named the exhibitions at which his shafts were directed, in the fifth act of his comedy.

"O the motions that I, Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to in my time, since my master Pod died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Neniveh, and the city of Norwich, and Sodom and Gomorrah; with the rising of the prentices, and pulling down the bawdyhouses there upon Shrove Tuesday; but the gunpowder-plot, there was a get-penny! I presented that to an eighteen or twenty-pence audience, nine times in an afternoon."

These excrescences of the histrionic art are not more the object of Jonson's than of Shakspeare's satire. The critic must be blind indeed, who does not discover in Bottom, the weaver, a poignant ridicule of the "enactors" of these drolls, and in the preposterous devices of Pyramus and Thisbe; talking through the chink, and kissing through the cranny; with the speaking

So dost thou aim thy darts, which, even when
They kill the poisons, do but wake the men.
Jonsonus Virbius. 4to. 1638.

Against this belt Mr. Chalmers may throw his javelin, and share the fate of Iphidamas--ΜΟΛΙΒΟΣ ὡς, «τραπεί αιχμη. Against such authority, Mr. Malone, "heavy lightness, serious vanity!" cannot prevail.

lion and moonshine; the most exquisité burlesque of these scenic absurdities. In chastising these follies, Jonson has apparently seized on the most popular specimen, and which would probably present all the features of the offensive passage in the induction to Bartholomew fair. "Of all the sights that ever were in London since I was married," says the citizen's wife in "The Knight of the Burning Pestle,"*"methinks the child that was so fair grown about the members was the prettiest; that and the hermaphrodite."

"Nay, by your leave, Nell," replies the citizen, "Ninive was better."

Wife. "Ninive? O, that was the story of Jonah and the Whale, was it not, George?"

"Yes, lamb;" answers the husband.

It is scarcely necessary to suggest that the Tale of Jonah's voyage to Niniveh would be naturally abundant in tempests, monsters, and such like drolleries. Nor were these exhibitions confined to the booths of Bartholomew fair; the story of Harry Goldingham;† appearing

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* Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, vol. vi. p. 473... 1778.

“There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth upon the water; and, among others, Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon the dolphin's back; but finding his voice to be very hoarse and unpleasant, when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and swears he was none of Arion,

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