Burbage thinks they might amend their
faults in course of time, and that, at least, advantage could be taken
of them in so far as to make them write a part now and then; which
certainly they could do. To this Kemp replies:--
'Few of the University pen plaies well; they smell too much of that
writer _Ovid_ and that writer _Metamorphosis_, and talk too much of
_Proserpina_ and _Jupiter_. Why, here's our fellow _Shakespeare_ puts
them all down--I, and _Ben Jonson_ too. O that _Ben Jonson_ is a pestilent
fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill; [3] but our
fellow Shakespeare hath given him spurge that made him bewray his
credit.'
Burbage answers:--'It's a shrewd fellow indeed.'
For the better understanding of this most interesting controversy, the
centre of which Hamlet forms, it is necessary that we should give a
characteristic of Shakspere's adversary, Ben Jonson, whose individuality
and mode of action are too little known among the general reading
public.
Ben Jonson, born in 1573, in the neighbourhood of Westminster, was
the posthumous child of a Scot who had occupied a modest position at
the Court of Henry VIII., but who, under Queen Mary, had to suffer
long imprisonment, probably on account of his religious opinions.
His estates were confiscated by the Crown. After having obtained his
liberation, he became a priest of the Reformed Church of England.
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