Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/57

 10 s. XL JAN. 16, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

41

LOMDON, SATURDAY. JANUARY 1>J, 1<J09.

CONTENTS. No. 264.

NOTES : Ben Jonson's 'The Case is Altered,' 41 A Seven- teenth-Century Woman Surgeon, 42 Unpublished Songs by T. L. Peacock, 43 Seaquake and Earthquake, 44 " Miramoline " Irish Curses Houses of Historic Interest Saltfleetby Irish Custom on Christmas Eve, 45 'The Bride of Lammennoor 'Gibbon" Pictures," 46.

QUERIES : " St. Anthony of Vienne Blue Coat School Costume Vincent Alsop Ruckolt House 'The Young Lawyer's Recreation,' 47 Charter of Henry II. St. Mary's, Shrewsbury Jack Cade's Chimney Wellington Trousers Harriet Wainewright Mrs. Gordon Sir B. Fletcher, 48 " Grzymala " " Knights without noses " Authors Wanted Arcruleacon Stubbs Bullingdon Club Broken Cross, Westminster " Fernandes in Dukes Place" American Genealogies "Spanish Strapps" Chamber-Horse for Exercise C. FitzGeffrey, 49 Rev. Mr. Power" Great Unpaid " " Pudworm," 50.

KEPLIES : The Longmans, 50 First English Bishop to Marry, 51 Milton : Portrait as a Boy, 52 "He which drinketh well "Man in the Moon in 1590 Names terrible to Children Sir John Sydenham, 53 Omar Khayyam Bibliography "Psychological moment," 54 Cuthbert Shields "Mamamouchi" King Charles the Martyr Guernsey Lily Army Lists, 55 Authors Wanted Samuel ,Foote " Old King Cole" Fire Engines, 56 "Teenick 1

Benedictine, 57 - " Brokenselde " El-Serujah The

'Tenth Wave Yew Trees by Act of Parliament, 58.

7*OTES : ON BOOKS : Bufler's Characters Crabbe's Poetry Baptist Historical Society 'National Review.'

.Booksellers' Catalogues.

BEN JONSON'S 'THE CASE IS ALTERED ' : ITS DATE.

THIS play was printed in quarto, appa- rently for the first time, in 1609, and the only contemporary allusion to it that has hitherto been found occurs in Thomas Nashe's ' Lenten Stuff e,' printed in 1599, and written, as the author tells us, " in the latter ende of Autumne," 1598. After giving his readers a discourse on princes and their parasites, Nashe asks them what fault they can find with it ;

" la it riot right of the merry coblers cutte in that witty Play of ' the Case is altered ' ? "

Nashe's ' Works,' iii. 220, ed. R. B. M c Kerrow.

The " merry cobler " is, of course, Juniper, .and ' The Case is Altered ' is what Nashe describes it as being, a " witty Play.'

In 1598 Meres's 'Wits' Treasurie ' was published, and in that famous book the author describes Anthony Munday as being " our best plotter." This compliment to Munday raised Jonson's ire, and hence we find Anthony appearing in ' The Case is Altered ' as Antonio Balladino, only to be held up to scorn and ridicule, and Meres's phrase turned against the " city-poet " with crushing effect :

Onion you are in print already tor the best

plotter. I. i. 95-6, Hart's ed.

When was this part of the scene written ?

Internal evidence and the evidence of Nashe point to ' The Case is Altered ' as being earlier than any other of Jonson's published dramas, including the first draft of ' Every Man in his Humour,' which, Jonson tells us, was acted for the first time in 1598. When Nashe refers his readers to the "merry cobler," he does so in familiar terms, as if the play were known to all. How is it, then, that this play, which Nashe had seen acted in or before the autumn of 1598, is able to quote frcan Meres's book, which was not entered through the Sta- tioners' Registers until 7 September of the same year ? The answer is that that part of the scene in which Antonio Balladino is exhibited on the stage was revised or interpolated between the time that Nashe saw the play acted and the publication of the quarto in 1609. As soon as Jonson has done with Antonio in the scene and given him his quietus, the latter disappears from the play altogether. There is nothing whatever in the quotation from ' Wits' Treasurie ' to debar us from concluding that ' The Case is Altered ' is Jonson's first play among the dramas now included in his works.

In 1600 Bodenham's ' Belvedere ; or The Garden of the Muses,' was put into circulation. This neglected book consists of between three and four thousand quota- tions from contemporary and earlier poets, but nobody has troubled to identify them in a systematic manner. It is a most interest- ing volume, full of suggestion, and, as regards ' The Case is Altered,' of prime importance in relation to the play.

We gather from Bodenham's Preface and the Conclusion, but especially from a sonnet addressed to Bodenham by the compiler of the work, who signs himself "A. M.," that these quotations were brought together by Bodenham as the results of his reading, and handed over to " A. M." to form from them a kind of dictionary of quotations, the plan of the book being "A. M.'s." A list of the names of the authors from whose works quotations were made is supplied by Boden- ham, but the reader is left to find out for himself from whom and where the quota- tions come, although, very probably, before " A. M." dealt with them, each quotation had appended to it the author's name, and perhaps the name of the piece from which it was taken. The list is both inaccurate and misleading, for I find that certain authors who are named are not represented in ' Belvedere,' and others, of established repu- tation, are but very sparingly quoted from ;