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Thomas Dekker.

FLOR. CIRC. A. D. 1624.

A MELANCHOLY evidence is afforded of the negligence with which literary ability is often treated, in the scanty notices which remain of men who certainly deserved to be remembered, as having contributed to increase, or mould, or colour the great mass of intellectual wealth which exists in the country. This is remarkably the case with several dramatic poets: but little is known, as we have said, of the excellent Massinger himself, and still less is recorded of Dekker, and other writers who lived at a subsequent period. That they did not possess commanding talents is no reason why they should not have been honoured by their contemporaries. They were among the best writers the age produced: they flattered, and, at the same time, formed the popular taste: they furnished the nation with incessantly renewed supplies of mirth or sentiment, and their inventions were applauded with as much apparent delight as those of far greater minds. Surely such men ought not to have sunk into obscure graves, and been forgotten as soon as the dust was cast on their remains. Out of the many with whom they associated, or out of the still greater number whose vacant hours they amused, surely some one should have been found ready to employ a few hours in keeping alive some knowledge of the men whose productions were deemed worthy of observation. All that we could

have stated of Dekker would have been, that he lived and wrote in the reign of James the First, but for the quarrel which he had with Ben Jonson. That celebrated dramatist, it is well known, was as ambitious of rule, and as determined to force respect from his cotemporaries, as he was deserving of admiration. The means which he employed to effect his purpose not being such as all men could relish, he was continually involved in disputes, and his mingled spleen and anger at length vented themselves in his play of the Poetaster.' There was not a writer against whom he had any cause of dislike who escaped in this bitter satire; and the rage with which it was witnessed by some, the vexation and confusion which it inspired in others, were as strong a tribute to the power of the poet's sarcasm as he could have desired. He did not escape,

however, unharmed from the storm he had raised; and Dekker was the one who, out of a crowd of sufferers, turned fiercely on the assailant. He had perhaps the most reason to thirst for vengeance. Under the character of Crispinus he had been represented on the stage in the most ludicrous situations that the wit of Jonson could conceive. At one moment he is heard humbly begging a lady, when a very famous singer had refused to exercise his art, "to entreat the ladies to entreat him to sing." At another, as telling a jeweller's wife, who is struck with the beautiful countenances of Ovid and other bards, that they are poets, and that he, as she admires them so, will become a poet to please her. But this does not satisfy the lady, and she continues to ask him if his looks will change, and particularly, his hair when he becomes a poet. Some idea of poor Dekker's personal appearance may be formed from this jest, for having told the jeweller'e wife that it was not necessary he

should change his looks on becoming a poet, she says, “Well, we shall see your cunning; yet if you can change your hair I pray do" This ridicule of Dekker is continued through two whole scenes, and he must be a strong-minded man indeed who could see himself so depicted without feeling galled. The cure which he sought for his wounds was retaliation, and in a short time, the public had the amusement of seeing Jonson himself represented in a scarcely less ridiculous form. Dekker gave the title of Satiromastic, or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet,' to his parody on the Poetaster,' and there are portions of this production which would not have disgraced the most famous of wits. The rude taste of the times allowed great licence to writers of every description, and it is not to be expected, that a satirist could refrain from exercising the liberty given him; there is, consequently, a strong tinge of coarseness in many of the jests employed by our author in his attacks; but where they are not really offensive to delicacy, their broadness often provokes a laugh at the expense of the veteran bard. The following will give some notion of the nature of these sarcasms. Jonson had assumed the name of Horace, and Dekker, remembering the ridicule cast on his own person, thus alludes to the circumstance: "You staring Leviathan! look on the sweet visage of Horace: look, parboiled face: look-he has not his face puncht full of eylet-holes, like the cover of a warming pan !" To the reader of the present day, however, the best strokes of satire which occur in this curious production, will give much less pleasure than the lines in which Dekker, with a magnanimity that speaks volumes for his character, pauses in the attack to pay a tribute of honour to his enemy's genius, and lament that he had not rather striven to gain men's love, which they would have willingly given him, than provoke their resentment by ungenerous satires.

The success of this piece was considerable, and its author thenceforth enjoyed sufficient popularity to reward him for the pain he endured under Jonson's castigation. He was acquainted with all the literary characters of the day; wrote several plays in conjunction with the most reputed wits about town; and published pamphlets on the chief topics of cotemporary interest, which are regarded as furnishing some of the most useful materials in being for the literary history of his age.

Thomas Middleton.

FLOR. CIR. A. D. 1624.

Or Thomas Middleton, the sole author of about sixteen or eighteen regular dramas, besides being concerned in different plays jointly with Rowley, Dekker, Webster, Massinger, Fletcher, and Jonson, nothing more is known than that he lived in intimacy with all his great contemporary dramatists, and was regarded by them with admiration and respect. "It is difficult," says a writer in the Retrospective Review,' "to assign Middleton any precise station among the remarkable men who were his contemporaries. Indeed, nothing is more unsafe than to guage the comparative merits of authors by the depth of one's own personal admiration; especially where, as in dramatic writing, the in

dividual claims to excellence are so various, as to make it almost impossible to institute any very close comparison among them. Besides, one critic may prefer tragedy, another comedy, another pastoral; a fourth may value only the truth of character; while a fifth may be careless of it, and esteem little else beyond the vigour of the diction, or the melodious flow of the verse. Dekker, Webster, Middleton, Ford, were all men of excelling talent. The first had the best idea of character; the second was the most profound; the third had most imagination; and the last equalled the others in pathos, and surpassed them in the delineation of the passion of love. Yet these particular points were not all by which these writers caught the attention of critics, and retained the admiration of their readers. They had other qualities, differing in shade and varying in colour, which it would be difficult to contrast with any useful effect. Dekker was sometimes as profound as Webster, and Middleton as passionate as Ford. Again, the verse of Ford is, generally speaking, musical; while that of Webster is often harsh, but it is more pregnant with meaning, shadowy, spectral, and fuller of a dark and earthy imagination. So it is that Middleton, although he has drawn no sketches, perhaps, so good as Matheo or Friscobaldo, lets fall nevertheless, occasionally, shrewd observations, and displays a wealth of language, which would illuminate and do honour to the better drawn characters of Dekker. In short, one was often rich in qualities, of which another possessed little or nothing; while he, on his part, could retort upon his rival a claim to other excellencies, to which the first did not affect to have even a pretension. It seems, therefore, almost idle to determine the rank and 'classes' to which these old writers should respectively belong. We can no more accomplish this, than we can determine upon the positive beauty of colours, or fix the standard of metals, whose durability or scarcity is utterly unknown. Independently of all these reasons, it is invidious, and not very grateful in us, who profess ourselves idolaters, to anatomize the remains of our gods, or to impale the reputations of these old fathers of poetry (sacrificing them face to face with each other), upon the hard and unrelenting spikes of modern criticism. They had faults which we have not-and excellencies which we do not possess. They were a fresh, shrewd, vigorous people-full of fire, and imagination, and deep feeling. They were not swathed and swaddled in the bands by which we cramp the thoughts, and paralyze the efforts of our infant poets; but they were rioters in their fancy,-bold, unfettered writers, whom no critics, monthly or quarterly, watched over for the benefit of the time to come. Accordingly, they dared to think,-they wrote what they thought, and their thoughts were generally strenuous, and often soaring, and sometimes even rich in wisdom."

George Chapman.

BORN A. D. 1557.-died A. D. 1634.

GEORGE CHAPMAN was born in Kent in the year 1557. At the age of seventeen he entered of Trinity college, Oxford, and applied himself principally to the study of the Greek and Latin languages, in

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which he made a rapid and successful progress. He is said to hav had so strong a predilection for these studies as to have neglected the higher pursuits of logic and philosophy. It is probable that his early propensity to the drama and to poetry, induced him to think that an acquaintance with the high standards of classic composition was the best preparation, if not the only one, essential to the cultivation of his own talent, and the attainment of his own object. But this was manifestly an egregious error, and involved a palpable oversight of that process by which the masters of song have attained their honourable pre-eminence.-Quitting the university after he had attained what he conceived a competent knowledge of the classic tongues, he went to London, where he sought and enjoyed the friendship of the most distinguished poets and wits of the age. Shakspeare, Jonson, Dryden, Spenser, Sidney, Marlow, Daniel, and others, constituted the society in which he moved, and the men with whom he conversed. He early obtained the sanction and patronage of Sir Thomas Walsingham; and after the death of the father, had the good fortune to be warmly patronized by his son, Thomas Walsingham, Esq. In that age it was essential to the success of a poet that he should enjoy the patronage of some rich or powerful Mecenas to bring him into notice, and to give him a graceful entrance into that literary aristocracy which then determined the fates of authors and their productions. Chapman enjoyed still higher patronage than that of Walsingham, being favoured by the young Prince Henry, who was cut off in youth, and also by the earl of Somerset, who, unhappily for our poet, lost his influence at court, and fell into disgrace, for the part he had taken in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. The first publication of Chapman's appeared in 1595, entitled 'Ovid's Banquet of Sauce.' The year after, appeared his translation of the seven first books of Homer's Iliad. He proceeded rapidly with his translation, having published the whole of the remaining books in the next five years. This work is worthy of special notice as the first attempt ever made to present Homer in the garb of an English dress. As a curiosity of literature it will continue to excite attention, although, on its own account, it is not entitled to any special notice. During the progress of this work it may be supposed that he beguiled the weary task by the occasional production of a comedy. In 1598 he brought out The Blind Beggar of Alexandria,' and attracted some notice at court; but he was subsequently concerned with Jonson and Marston in writing the comedy of Eastward Hoe,' which contained some severe ridicule of the Scotch, and gave unpardonable offence to the royal Solomon. The poets who had engaged in this piece were of course rendered offensive at court, and were no longer acceptable there. The favour of royalty in those days had greater influence than at present, and the disfavour into which these poets fell seriously impeded their success. In 1614 appeared his version of the Odyssey, and soon after, the minor pieces of Homer. Succeeding years produced various other works, original and translated, many of them of a light and amorous kind, and mostly adapted for masks or scenic representation. His tragedies and comedies are too numerous to be separately recounted here. Several dramatic pieces, with some translations from Petrarch, appear to have been published long after his death, which took place in 1634, at the age of 77.

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