He
receives an evasive answer from the prisoner. In 'Volpone,' as we
shall see, Jonson answers it very fully. [22]
Altogether, there are allusions in 'The Poetaster,' and in 'Volpone,'
to 'All's Well that Ends Well,' and to 'What You Will,' which we shall
have to touch upon in speaking of those plays.
The scene of 'The Poetaster' is laid at the court of Augustus Caesar.
Jonson therein describes himself under the character of Horace. The
whole drift of the play is, to take the many enemies of the latter
to task for their calumnies and libels against him. Rome is the place
of action, and the persons of the drama bear classic names. There are,
besides Augustus and Horace, Mecaenas (_sic_), Virgil, Propertius,
Trebatius, Ovid, Demetrius Fannius, _Rufus Laberius Crispinus_, and
so forth. The characters whom they are to represent are mostly
authors of the dramatic world around Ben Jonson. They are depicted
with traits so easily recognisable that--as Dekker says in his
'Satiromastix'--of five hundred people four hundred could 'all point
with their fingers in one instant at one and the same man.'
More especially against two disciples of the Muse is Jonson's 'gally
ink' directed. Let us give a few instances of the lampoons and
calumnious squibs by which Horace pretends having been insulted on
the part of envious colleagues who, he maintains, look askance at
him because 'he keeps more worthy gallants' company' than they can get
into.
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