Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/411

 xii. NOV. 21, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

403

this Macaroni has not been established. Like "Handsome Tracy " (8 th S. x. 195), he is one of those shadowy figures that flit through the pages of Wai pole, leaving no trace behind them. Perhaps one of the correspondents of ' N. & Q.' may be more fortunate than I have been in identifying this individual. It is desirable that he should not be confused with either of his namesakes.

This inquiry is of interest and value if it clears the ground of stumbling-blocks in the paths of the unwary. The account of Lady Crewe in the 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' not only wrongly dates her marriage, but states that she figures in a picture by Reynolds along with Mrs. Bouverel (sic). There is no doubt that the Mrs. Crewe in this painting is often identified with the daughter of Fulke Gre- ville. This, however, is a mistake, the two ladies who are represented in the picture being the two daughters of Sir Everard Fawkener, Mrs. Crewe and her sister, the Hon. Mrs. Bouverie. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

BEN JONSON, GABRIEL HARVEY,

AND NASHE.

(See 9 th S. xi. 201, 281, 343, 501 ; xii. 161, 263, 342.) I HAVE made a list of some of the affected terms used by Amorphus in the first act of Harvey. It is not necessary to quote the passages or rather space forbids and any one desirous of doing so can verify them. I take them in the order they occur in Amorphus's speeches, giving reference by volume and page to Harvey : "preposterously" ("preposterous," i. 179), "rhinoceros" (ft. 302), "ambrosiac" ("ambrosiall," ii. 366, 340), " subtle " (i. 263, 285 ; ii. 180, &c.), "illiterate" (iii. 30), "Helicon" (i. 198; ii. 46, 218, 238, &c.), " mellifluous " (ii. 254), ,-. *-;,-. HOT-XT" (\\ f&\ " a 11 f.Vi pn f-.i r^a.l 1 v " f'aiithftn-
 * Cynthia's Revels' which belong to Gabriel

duction" ' (i- 62), "similitude" (i. 46, 283), " encomiastic speech " (" encoroiasticall ora- tion," ii. 110), "enamoured" (ii. 8, &c.), "fan- tastic " (" phantasticall " or " fantasticall," i. 65; ii. 53, &c., the former commoner), "hieroglyphic" (ii. 57, 310), "intendment" (i. 264 ; ii. 169, 170, &c.), " paradox " (i. 48, 105, 273 ; ii. 36, 261, &c.), " methodical " (ii. 312). The last two belong to Act II. After this the language of Amorphus (though recalling that of Juniper in several places from ' The Case is Altered ') does not remind me particularly of Harvey. Nevertheless it

certainly is levelled distinctly in several places at some person or some person's writings, which have yet to be discovered.

If Juniper be admitted to be sketched in ridicule of the absurdity of pedantry and the affectation which were so offensive in Gabriel Harvey, do the other characters bear any interpretation or personal reference? We will notice Valentine first. Valentine is a foreshadowing of Asper in * Every Man out of his Humour,' a good-humoured and sketchy sort of prototype ; that is to say, Valentine, who never says or does anything injudicious foolish, stands, as Asper does, for Jonson bimself. It is Valentine who immediately pounces upon Juniper (I. i.) for his extra- ordinary language (" O how pitifully are these words forced I as though they were pumped out on 'a belly ") in terms reminding us of the later disgorgements of Crispinus in 'Poetaster.' Valentine is again and again the critic, the Crites of Cynthia's Revels. In II. iv. he says, " How dost thou bastinado the poor cudgel with terms I " This attitude places Valentine in the proper position for Jonson himself. But it is in this latter scene (II. iv.) that I find Jonson uses Valentine as his mouthpiece. He gives us a disquisition here upon tragedy and comedy, plays and theatres, quite in the style and language which he adopts as that of his own dictatorial self in his later plays. It is strange that the commentators have not observed this " preliminary canter " of the later censor. Valentine says (532a) of the " grounded capa- cities " of the auditory that they " sit dis- persed, making faces and spitting, wagging

their upright ears, and cry filthy ! filthy !

using their wryed countenance instead of a vice, to turn the good aspects of all that shall sit near them." Asper says ('Every Man Out,' Induction) :

Sit

Taking men's lines with a tobacco face,

In snuff', still spitting, using his wry'd looks

In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn

The good aspect of those that shall sit near him.

Indeed, most of what Valentine says is the text of the later sermons of Asper on the subject.

The sweet-scented, perfumed style that Harvey affects is characterized in the name of Juniper, the most prevalent and favourite stench- killer of this time, whether as litter, or in the bough-pot, or in the fireplace. Against this is set the strongest- smelling of herbs, the Onion, a character who in some respects is perhaps a jocular repre- sentation of Nashe, whose language was as coarse (and often deliberately and purposely