Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/263

Marston not known. On 10 Oct. 1616 he was presented to the living of Christchurch, Hampshire, which he resigned (assumably from ill-health) on 13 Sept. 1631. In 1633 a collective edition of his plays was issued by the publisher, William Sheares, who, in a dedicatory address to Lady Elizabeth Carey, viscountess Falkland, speaks of the author as ‘in his autumn and declining age,’ and ‘far distant from this place.’ On 25 June 1634 Marston died in Aldermanbury parish, London, and on the following day he was buried in the Temple Church beside his father. The gravestone was inscribed ‘Oblivioni sacrum,’ and it is curious to note that his early satire, ‘The Scourge of Villainy’ (burned by archiepiscopal order in 1599), was dedicated ‘To everlasting Oblivion.’ Marston's will was proved on 9 July 1634 by his widow, who was buried by his side on 4 July 1657. She was a daughter of the Rev. William Wilkes, chaplain to James I, and rector of St. Martin's, Wiltshire. Ben Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden that ‘Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings and his father-in-law his comedies,’ pleasantly contrasting the playwright's asperity with the preacher's urbanity.

Marston's first work was ‘The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image. And certain Satyres,’ 8vo, entered in the Stationers' register 27 May 1598, and issued anonymously in the same year. The dedicatory verses ‘To the World's Mighty Monarch, Good Opinion,’ are subscribed ‘W. K.,’ i.e. W. Kinsayder, a pseudonym assumed by Marston. ‘The Scourge of Villanie. Three Bookes of Satyres,’ 8vo, appeared later in 1598, and was republished with additions in 1599. ‘Pigmalion's Image,’ written in the metre of ‘Venus and Adonis,’ is a somewhat licentious poem. Marston, in the ‘Scourge of Villainie’ (sat. vi.), pretends that it was written with the object of throwing discredit on amatory poetry, but the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1599 ordered both it and ‘Pigmalion’ to be burned (see the ‘Order for Conflagration’ cited in Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xii. 436). It was republished in 1613 and 1628 in a volume containing ‘Alcilia’ and ‘Amos and Laura.’ The satires are vigorous, but rough and obscure. Among the persons attacked was Joseph Hall [q. v.], who had assailed Marston in ‘Virgidemiæ.’ A certain ‘W. I.,’ in ‘The Whipping of the Satire,’ 1601, commented severely on Marston's satires, and in the same year an anonymous rhymester issued ‘The Whipper of the Satire’ in Marston's defence. Meres, in ‘Palladis Tamia,’ 1598, mentions Marston among leading English satirists; John Weever, in his ‘Epigrams,’ 1599, joins him, with Ben Jonson; and Charles Fitzgeoffrey, in ‘Affaniæ,’ 1601, has some Latin verses in his praise. The best criticism on Marston's satires is in ‘The Returne from Parnassus.’

Henslowe records in his ‘Diary,’ 28 Sept. 1599, that he lent ‘unto Mr. Maxton, the new poete, the sum of forty shillings.’ The name ‘Maxton’ is corrected by another hand to ‘Mastone.’ The entry plainly refers to Marston, but he is not mentioned again in the ‘Diary.’ In 1602 came from the press the ‘History of Antonio and Mellida. The First Part,’ 4to, and ‘Antonio's Revenge. The Second Part,’ 4to, both acted by the Children of Paul's. These plays had been entered in the ‘Stationers' Register’ on 21 Oct. 1601, and in the same year had been held up to ridicule by Ben Jonson in the ‘Poetaster.’ The writing is uneven; detached scenes are memorable, but there is an intolerable quantity of fustian. Frequently we are reminded of Seneca's tragedies, which Marston had closely studied. The ‘Malcontent,’ 1604, 4to, reissued in the same year, with additions by Webster, is more skilfully constructed, and shows few traces of the barbarous diction that disfigured ‘Antonio and Mellida.’ It was dedicated to Ben Jonson [q. v.], who told Drummond of Hawthornden that he had many quarrels with Marston, ‘beat him and took his pistol from him, wrote his “Poetaster” on him; the beginning of them were that Marston represented him on the stage in his youth given to venery.’ The original quarrel began about 1598. They had been reconciled in 1604, but other quarrels followed. In 1605 Marston prefixed complimentary verses to Jonson's ‘Sejanus,’ and in the same year was published ‘Eastward Ho,’ 4to, an excellent comedy of city life, written by Jonson and Marston in conjunction with Chapman. Passages in ‘Eastward Ho’ containing satirical reflections on the Scots, and particularly glancing at Sir James Murray, gave offence. The authors were sent to prison, but were quickly released. Hogarth is said to have drawn the plan of his prints, ‘The Industrious and Idle Prentice,’ from ‘Eastward Ho,’ which was revived at Drury Lane on lord mayor's day 1751, under the title of ‘The Prentices,’ and in 1775 as ‘Old City Manners.’ The spirited comedy, ‘The Dutch Courtezan,’ 1605, 4to, originally produced by the Children's company at Blackfriars, and revived by Betterton in 1680 under the title of ‘The Revenge, or a Match in Newgate,’ shows Marston at his best. ‘Parasitaster, or the Fawne,’ 1606, 4to, an entertaining comedy (partly founded on Boccaccio's ‘Tales,’ No. 3 of Day iii.), was