Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/209

 9* S. XL MARCH 14, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH U, 1903.

CONTENTS. -No. 272.

NOTES : Gabriel Harvey, Marston, and Ben Jonson, 201 Shakespeare's Books, 203 " Oss " : its Etymology, 204 Willoughby Mynors Dr. Halley, 205 Lord Brougham's Reported Death Fitchett's ' Nelson and his Captains,' 20*.

QUERIES :-Hail, in Arabia Picture in Berlin Arsenal John Carter, Antiquary The Asra ' Butterfly's Ball and Grasshopper's Feast' London Apprentices: their Dress "Clarke's Delight "'Banter,' 207 Irish Genealogy Helm Modern Witchcraft Jewish Charm Hock- :

Ocker Verses ascribed to Longfellow and Others

" Celia is sick "Shakespeare's Geography. 2d8-Samfrey of Boyle or Rossmoyle Dublin Parish Registers Glad- stone on Ritml Quartered Arms -Historical Catechism Historical Rime Pavo Septentrionis, 209.

REPLIES : Kind's Weigh House, 209- Ancient Demesne. 210 Quotation Wanted Henslowe's ' Diary 'Magic Ring Harrison, Regicide, 211' English Kings : an Estimate ' Purcell Family Equation of Time, 212 Counsellor Lacy Constantinople Thackeray and 'Vanity Fair,' 213 Sandwich " Should he upbraid" 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' 214 Gifford=Pagett Bacon-Shakespeare Ques- tion, 215 Watchhouses against Bodysnatching Sans Pareil Theatre Cornish Rimes in an Epitaph Retarded Germination, -21 6 Crooked Usage, Chelsea Garret John- sonOriginal Diocese of New Zealand Fashion in Lan- guage Newspn per Cuttings changing Colour. 217 Pope self-condemned for Heresy ' Discursos de la Nobleza de Espana,' 218.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Farmer and Henley's ' Slang and its Analogues ' Fleming's ' Shakespeare's Plavs ' Good- win's Hamilton's 'Memoirs of Count Grammont' Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

GABRIEL HARVEY, MARSTON, AND BEN JONSON.

THE literary quarrels which were waged between Harvey and Nashe (1592-7), and the later one amongst Marston, Jonson, and Dek- ker (1599-1602), do not form the subject of this paper. These have been often dealt with, and I refer readers to the editors of these writers, and for the latter "war" especially to Prof. Penniman's ' Wars of the Theatres ' (Pennsylvania University Publications, 1897). I shall have, however, occasion to refer to the opinions of various predecessors upon these authors in my remarks, and much indeed remains to be said upon both of these interest- ing, though forgotten topics ; but my pur- pose is to endeavour to establish a wholly new or rather unnoticed element in the Jonson battle, which, if I can prove it, will modify and alter several received personal explanations concerning these (and other) Elizabethan worthies, and will form a con- necting link between two most entertaining and acrimonious debates. A few words of introduction are absolutely necessary.

I begin with the earlier. Gabriel Harvey is best known now as the college friend of Spenser, who kept up a correspondence with his senior for a few years. Harvey was

elected a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in December, 1578. He was a man of vast erudition, and of equally vast vanity com- mingled with pedantry. He delivered lectures on rhetoric and logic. He prided himself especially on his skill in English hexameters, which he claimed to have introduced, and Spenser had some difficulty in freeing himself from this distasteful and unsuitable sway. His dictatorial and offensive manners and writings probably sufficed to make enemies for him ; but a disquisition upon earthquakes, in which Spenser took part, and which was caused by the memorable one of 1580 (which damaged St. Paul's), made him a subject of public ridicule. It was a "short but sharp and learned judgment upon earthquakes." He got into some other serious troubles with his patrons and superiors at Cambridge. He was junior proctor in 1583, and succeeded as Master in 1585, but he was set aside.

The first blood seems to have been drawn by Lyly in his ' Papp with an Hatchet ' (1588- 1589). Lyly appears to be airing old grudges, and drags in his attack in the midst of an assault upon Martin Marprelate. He says :

"And one will we conjure up, that writing a familiar epistle about the naturall causes of an earthquake, fell into the bowells of libelling, which made his eares quake for fear of clipping," &c.

He goes on to what was a very weak point in Harvey's armour his descent from a parent who was a well-to-do ropemaker at Saffron Walden. He calls him a " son of a ship-wright or a Tiburnian wright." Harvey, in a fury of indignation, at once wrote his reply, 'An Advertisement to Papp-hatchet,' in 1589. In this violently vituperative tract he lays about him all round. He insults Greene, Elderton, Tarleton, and all play-actors and play-makers. He brought down an old house about his ears, and was finally reduced to pulp by Thomas Nashe in his 'Have with you to Saffron Walden' in 1596, to which Harvey's brother Richard (instigated by Gabriel) produced a coarse and nerveless reply, ' The Trimming of Thomas Nashe,' in the following year. The Harveys had fallen foul of Peele, Chettle, Marlowe, as well as Nashe. Lyly's euphuism had laid him readily open to attack ; but what especially added venom to the war was Harvey's attack upon Greene, both before his death and after it. At the date of 'The Trimming' the authorities intervened and put a stop to a public scandal.

There were other ways of venting spleen upon a literary opponent. Hall set a new method in swing with his classical satires in ' Virgidemiarum ' (1597). Hall lived to be an eminent bishop and a distinguished preacher,