..
Hence, thou misjudging censor: know I wrot
Those idle rimes to note the odious spot
and blemish that deformes the lineaments
of modern poesies habiliments.
At the end of his satire ('Pigmalion's Image'), Marston
self-complacently tacks on a concluding piece: 'The Author in Praise
of his Precedent Poem.' Whom else does he address there than him
whose poetical manner he wished to mock--namely, Shakspere's--when
he begins with these words:--
Now, Rufus! by old Glebron's fearfull mace,
Hath not my Muse deserv'd a worthy place? ...
Is not my pen compleate? Are not my lines
Right in the swaggering humour of these times?
The name of 'Rufus' has two peculiarities which may have induced
Marston to confer it upon Shakspere. First of all, like the English
king of that name, Shakspere's pre-name was William. Secondly, the
best-preserved portrait of Shakspere shows him with hair verging upon
a reddish hue.
But not only the colour of the hair, but also its thinness (according
to all pictures and busts we have of Shakspere, he was bald-headed),
seems to have been satirised by Jonson in his 'Poetaster.' In act ii.
sc. 1, Chloe asks Crispinus, who, excited by her love and her beauty,
pretends becoming a poet, whether, as a poet, he would also change his
hair? To which Crispinus replies, 'Why, a man may be a poet, and yet not
change his hair.
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