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There are other more or less obscure indications of Jonson's spite, during the stage-quarrel, against Shakespeare, but the most unmistakable proof lies in his verses in "Poet-Ape." I am aware that Ben's intention here to hit at Shakespeare has been denied, for example by Mr. Collins with his usual vigour of language.
Poet-Ape is an actor-playwright "THAT WOULD BE THOUGHT OUR CHIEF" words which, by 1601, could only apply to Shakespeare; there was no rival, save Ben, near his throne. The playwright-actor, too, has now confessedly "grown To a little wealth and credit in the scene," of no other actor-playwright could this be said.
But this Shake- scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will Shakespeare as described by bitterly jealous and envious rivals. Where are now the "works" of "Poet-Ape" if they are not the works of Shakespeare which Ben so nobly applauded later, if they are not in the blank verse of Greene's Shake-scene? "Shakespeare's plays" we call them.
Jonson repeats this charge in his verses called Poet-Ape "HE TAKES UP ALL," makes each man's wit his own, And told of this, he slights it." "With a sad and serious verse to wound Pantalabus, railing in his saucy jests," and obviously slighting the charges of plagiarism. Perhaps Ben is glancing at Shakespeare, who, if accused of plagiary by an angry rival, would merely laugh.
I hope it is now clear that Poet-Ape, who, like Pantalabus, "takes up all"; who has "grown to a little wealth and credit in the scene," and who "thinks himself the chief" of contemporary dramatists, can be nobody but Shakespeare. Hence it follows that the "works" of Poet-Ape, are the works of Shakespeare.
THAT, with much bad humour, is the gist of the rhymes on Poet-Ape. Ben thinks Shakespeare's "works" very larcenous, but still, the "works," as such, are those of the poet-actor.
Thus Ben expresses, in accordance with his humour on each occasion, most discrepant opinions of Will's works, but he never varies from his identification of Will with the author of the plays. The "works" of which Ben wrote so splenetically in Poet-Ape, were the works of a Playwright-Actor, who could be nobody but the actor Shakespeare, as far as Ben then knew.
But though I would fain agree with him, the object of attack can be no known person save Will. Jonson was already, in The Poetaster, using the term "Poet-Ape," for he calls the actors at large "apes."
We must take Greene's evidence as we find it, it proves that by "Shake- scene" he means a "poet-ape," a playwright-actor; for Greene, like Jonson, speaks of actors as "apes." Both men saw in a certain actor and dramatist a suspected rival. This proves that the actor from Stratford was accepted in Greene's world as an author of plays in blank verse.
But "told of this he slights it," as most successful authors, when accused, as they often are, of plagiarism by jealous rivals, wisely do; so did Moliere. This Poet-Ape began his career by "picking and gleaning" and "buying reversions of old plays." This means that Shakespeare DID work over earlier plays which his company had acquired; or, if Shakespeare did not, then, I presume, Bacon did!
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