Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/123

 12 s. vii. JULY si, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 99 A Study of A Newe Metamorphosis, written by J. M., Gent., 1600. By John Henry Hobart Lyon. (Columbia University Press. London : Humphrey Milford, 8s. Qd. net.) IN 1844 the authorities of the British Museum purchased from Payne & Foss an Elizabethan MS. in three volumes quarto " very neatly written, in the original vellum binding " entitled ' The Newe Metamorphosis,' and said to be by J. M., Gent. 1600. It is known to have been in the hands of Francis Gol dolphin Waldron (1744-1818) who annotated it on the margins, and to have been examined by Joseph Haslewood, of Rox- burghe Club fame. Waldron conjectured that the author might have been John Marston, Jervase Markham, James Martin or John Mason ; Hasle- wood believed that John Marston was he, and stated this belief with sufficient assurance to create a tradition to that effect. Only four other critics have made any pronouncement on the subject: Halliwell-Phillipps, throws doubt on the attribution to Marston ; Grosart also sees diffi- culties therein ; Bullen, admitting but a super- ficial acquaintance with the poem, shows himself unfavourable rather than not, and Miss Lucy Toulmin-Smith, who seems to have spent more time over the volumes than her predecessors and enters somewhat further into the question, decides that neither Marston nor yet Markham can very well have written it. The quasi-neglect of a work which has all the appearance of importance is partly explained by its great length the excuse put forward by Bullen. But a more operative cause has cef- tainly been its dulness. Dr. Lyon gives us to start with a short but detailed outline of the contents of the twenty-four books. These, speaking generally, are .composed of groups or series of licentious tales, the intention of which is to be taken as satirical. . But. this mere indication shows plainly enough that J. M.'s material is such as can be made into tolerable reading only by the strongest transmuting forces, those of a brilliant wit or imagination or charm of music, or that of a scathing indigna- tion with not one of which the author is provided. In the sixty pages of ' Selections ' which we bent ourselves to go through with some measure of attention we have not succeeded in finding a single passage, hardly here and there a line, which had any kind of arresting quality. A rearrangement of the words into prose might make something less stupid of them : as verse they can only be regarded as a minor instrument of torment. We imagine that these sixty pages, together with the numerous other quotations occurring in the rest of the book, are all of ' The Newe Metamorphosis,' which the world will ever require to see in print ; and also that the book before us will, to the end of time, suffice for every student of whom some slight acquain- tance with J. M. is demanded. The real interest of Dr. Lyon's work, lies, as he himself admits, not in the MS. itself. It is satisfactory to have had this once for all tho- roughly studied, so that no more hopes of buried treasure and no further industry, can be wasted upon it ; but with that negative satisfaction we might simply take our leave of it. The author- ship, however, presents a pretty problem, and one worth solving ; Dr. Lyon has entered into this both with competence and with zest ; to watch him disproving the attribution to Marston and proving his own counter- theory that Jervase Markham is J. M. (for we think he achieves this) makes the true reason why a student does well to concern himself with 'The Newe Metamorphosis/ This work could not have been done without a study of the text of the poem ; for the best of the arguments are drawn from the character, ex- perience and tastes of the poet as the poem; reveals them. Below the 'Epistle dedicatorie ' is a couplet which has much exercised the minds of the few stalwarts who have looked at the MS : My name is Frenche to tell you in a worde but came not in w th Conqueringe Williams sworde. This alone, as our author sees, seems to throw Marston out of the question, and its effect is not counteracted by a comparison between Marston's 'known work and ' The Newe Meta- morphosis,' nor by an examination of what is- implied in the poem about the writer's career. Dr. Lyon shows good reason to believe that 'JVM. had served as a soldier at Cadiz, in Ireland, possibly in Flanders ; that he was a follower, or at any rate an admirer of Essex ; that he was well-versed in the occupations and sports of a country gentleman, having in a high degree the tastes belonging to that quality, and also the- knowledge of rural economy to be expected ; and that he was a well-read, even a multifariously read, person, with an affection for Cambridge,, and a home on the east of England (on the "outmost side" of the East Angles). All this as well as his filial affection, his depreciation of himself as a writer of poetry, and the justification for that humility in the roughness of his verses,. agree excellently with Jervase Markham, and with no other known bearer of the initials J. M. so well. We agree with Dr. Lyon in making light of the objection which Miss Toulmin-Smith grounded upon the words in the prologue : to filching lynes I am a deadly foe. It is true that Markham was notorious for his plagiarisms : but it is equally true that in the- prefaces to works known to be his we get pro- fessions of disdain for such a practice. This sort of profession then, may more justly be counted a characteristic trick of Markham 's than an indication of his absence. Miss Toulmin-Smith boggles a little at Myne infante Muse, longe studieng what to- wright at first resolved, some bloody warres t'endighte ; but two or three explanations, any one of which would be compatible with Markham's having: published verse before 1600, might be offered to reassure her. Read in its context we think the expression "Myne infante Muse" may well be supposed to begin a hasty retrospect of the- writer's career as a poet. When he first began to write verses (be they now printed or no) his