Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/509

 9<*S. XI. JUNE 27, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

501

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1903.

CONTENTS. -No. 287.

NOTES :-Ben Jonson and Harvey, 501 Westminster Nev Charity School, 502 - Shakespearian - An Bnglish- Wom * n * L ve-Letters,' 504 Symington Moir's ' Table Talk English as a Universal Language Dr James Newton, 505 American Degrees Luther's Hymns Memorial to Livingstone-Apple-blossoms, 506-"Cronv' -"Oncost "Viscount Hampden's Portrait 507

QUERIES : -8t. Winnoc, 507-Guardi-" Sabbatic river "- Wharton=Gren fell Curates of North Hinksey "Oh tell me whence Love cometh ! " Barleycorn "Cards and spades "Spencer- Clarke Family Lord Monteagle's House, 508' A Pretty Woman ' : ' No Actress ' : 'The Eden Rose 'Athenaeum Institute for Authors and Men of Science Hiung-nu or Huns Ineen Dubh Editions, c. 1600 -St. Agnes, Haddington Lincolnshire Sayings E. W., Translator " Passagium Beati Johannis" Muhammed or Mohammed ? 509 Reynolda-Monmouth Gaol Files, 510.

REPLIES : Dante Portrait Craig and Hope, 510 Parallel Passages Blue and the Virgin " Gallant" "The sleep of the just "Quotations in ' Policraticus '" Delivered from the galling yoke of time "Sexton's Tombstone, 511 -"Advertise" Original "Uncle Tom "Definition of Genius Arms of Hanover Godwin Waugh Pope and Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 512 Mona Church Briefs-Heraldic Shields- Wykes Pedigree-" World with- out end," 513 Rookwood " To dive " Clement's Inn Registers Ludlow Clerks Folk-lore or Botany, 514 Bedfordshire : Lord Lieutenancy De la March e "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform "English Accentuation, 515 Notter Family "Pou sto" Wool as Foundation for Buildings Phineas Pett Wesley's Portrait by Romney. 516- Japanese Monkeys" Nothing" Jansenist Crucifix Owl, 517 Gillygate at York. 518 " Packet-boat," 519.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Scott's ' Portraitures of Julius Caesar ' Holy Bible : Revised Version Don Juan, XVIIth and XVIIIth Cantos ' Barnes's 'St. Peter in Rome ' ' Burlington Magazine.'

Notices to Correspondents.

BEN JONSON AND GABRIEL HARVEY. (See ante, pp. 201, 281, 343.)

BEN JONSON'S play 'The Case is Altered' is well worth perusal. It is not a very strenuous effort, but it is exceedingly amusing. With the plot, which is taken chiefly from the 'Aulularia,' we are not concerned, nor is it of much interest. An allusion in the play to Meres's 'Wit's Treasurie' (p. 519a) shows that it must have been written subsequently to the end of 1598, when that work was published. Nashe refers to the play in his 'Lenten Stuffe' (1599): "Is it not right of the merry cobbler's cutte in that witty play of 'The Case is Altered'?" ('Harl. Misc.,' ii. 230.) At the beginning of ' Lenten Stuffe ' Nashe tells us he wrote it in 1598 (' Harl. Misc.,' ii. 295).

In this play, in the first scene, Antonio Ballad ino is introduced in ridicule of Anthony Munday, "a plain, simple rascal, a true dunce," as he is called by Juniper, the merry cobbler. Anthony having been made a laugh- ingstock, he is sent packing, and we hear no more of him. The light comedy between Juniper, Onion, and Valentine is continued

good-humpuredly throughout in an easy unaffected manner, which Ben would have done well to cultivate instead of putting it

Since Jonson undoubtedly makes one assault, it is reasonable to suppose he is in the humour for others. There is not, how- ever, much that can be called personal cha- racterization in the persons of 'The Case is Altered. Before leaving the subject of the date I must notice one point. On p. 5i8b Antonio Balladino says :

"You shall have some now (as, for example, in plays) that will have every day new tricks, and write you nothing but humours; indeed, this pleases the gentlemen, but the common sort they care not for't."

This I believe to be an allusion by Ben to his own 'Every Man in his Humour,' which pro- bably preceded ' The Case is Altered' by a few months. 'Every Man ' was acted in spring Stephen says (I. ii. 8b), "Now summer is coming on." Munday may have annoyed Ben by expressing disapproval of it in an evil moment for himself.

In the Prologue to ' Every Man ' Ben had already found fault with the " foot and half- foot words " (foot and a half words) of the day. No writer of this time was such an adept at minting words as Gabriel Harvey, and that he was already in Jonson 's mind is shown by a passage (V. i. p. 58) where he attacks " these paper-pedlars, these irik- dablers." This passage and the character of Mathew are aimed at the poet Daniel, accord- ing to Penniman, which is, indeed, obviously the case, as Gifford had already shown. Judge Clement says : " He carries a whole realm, a commonwealth of paper in his hose: let us see some of his subjects," and then reads some lines of Daniel's 'Delia.' The joke of realm for ream (probably the pronuncia- tion was alike) is in Marlowe's 'Jew of Malta'; Dut it belongs properly and earlier to Harvey, who has it several times, notably in the passage which Jonson makes use of :

"Stationers are already too full of such Realmes and Commonwealths of waste paper ; and find more gaine in lily-pot blanke than in the lily-pot Suphued, a day or two fair for sheetes, and after- ward good for grosers."

This occurs in the reply to Lyly in 1589 ii. 219).

In 'The Case is Altered' Juniper, the merry cobbler, is a cheery, light-headed person,
 * ond of sonnets and travel ; but his raison

d'etre is to make use of long and, for the most part, new words without any reference to their meaning. There is nothing bitter or even personal in his reflections, but the words are constantly those of Harvey. The