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The two persons who are specially taken to task, and most harshly treated, are Demetrius Fannius, 'play-dresser and plagiarius, and RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, 'poetaster and plagiarius. In 'Satiromastix, Demetrius clearly comes out as Dekker.
The authors of the additions must have been friends of Shakspere; for, as we shall find, the enemies of the latter are also theirs. 2: Act iv. sc. 3. 3: In The Poetaster, of which we shall speak farther on. 4: According to certain indications in Satiromastix, he had an 'ambling' walk, or dancing kind of step. 5: Collier's Memoirs of Alleyn, pp. 50 and 51. 6: Conversations with Drummond.
In the beginning of 'Satiromastix, Crispinus approaches Horace for the object of peace and reconciliation. The latter excuses himself, in words similar to those of the 'Apologetical Dialogue, that even if he should 'dip his pen in distilde Roses, or strove to drain out of his ink all gall, yet his enemies would look at his writings 'with sharpe and searching eyes. Nay
7: Satiromastix, 1602. 8: Collier's Drama, i. 334. 9: Poetaster. 10: Compare his Dedication in Volpone, of which we shall have more to say. 11: Drummond's Conversations. 12: Of all styles, Jonson liked best to be named 'Honest; and he 'hath ane hundred letters so naming him. Conversations with Drummond. 13: Life of Dryden, p. 265. 14: By Aubrey called 'Jack Young.
Another allusion occurs in Lodge's Wits' Miserie, "and though this fiend be begotten of his father's own blood, yet is he different from his nature; and were he not sure that jealousie could not make him a cuckold, he had long since published him for a bastard: you shall know him by this, he is a foule lubber, his tongue tipt with lying, his heart steeled against charity; he walks for the most part in black under color of gravity, and looks as pale as the visard of the ghost which cried so miserably at the theator like an oister-wife, Hamlet, revenge'." Again, in Decker's Satiromastix, 1602: "Asini.
In Satiromastix, Horace is laughed at for his 'ambling' walk; wherefore he had so badly played mad Jeronimo's part. Jonson is reproached with all his sins: that he had killed a player; that he had not thought it necessary to keep his word to those whom he held to be heretics and infidels, and so forth.
Sir Toby: 'Let there be gall in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen. It is highly probable that the reconciliation between Crispinus and Horace, which is described in the beginning of Satiromastix, had taken place between Shakspere and Ben Jonson, and that, during this period of peace, the performance of Sejanus occurred, in which Shakspere actively co-operated.
He also declares that he is studying architecture, and that, if he builds a house, it must be similar to one before which they are standing. In Dekker's 'Satiromastix, Crispinus is described as being of a most gentle nature. This is in harmony with the well-known quality generally attributed to Shakspere.
After that, traces of hostility only are to be discovered between the two poets. Even when Horace, in the 'Satiromastix, has again broken the peace, the gentle Crispinus says to him: Were thy warpt soule put in a new molde, I'd weare thee as a jewell set in golde.
32: The Satiromastix was performed in 1602, probably in the beginning of the year, as the Epilogue speaks of cold weather, and Dekker scarcely would have waited a year with his answer to The Poetaster. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. 33: In such type it is printed in the original.
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