' And--'when your Playes are misse-likt at
Court, you shall not Crye Mew like a Pusse-Cat, and say you are
glad you write out of the Courtiers Elements.' [32]
In his Preface to 'Satiromastix' ('To the World '), Dekker says that
in this play he did '_only whip his_ (Horace's) _fortunes and
condition of life, where the more noble_ REPREHENSION _had bin of
his_ MINDES DEFORMITIE.' [33]
This nobler reprehension, as we have sufficiently shown, was undertaken
by Shakspere in his 'Hamlet.' [34] Dekker, in his Epilogue to
'Satiromastix' (he there speaks of the 'Heretical Libertine Horace'),
asks the public for its applause; for Horace would thereby be induced
to write a counter-play: which, if they hissed his own 'Satiromastix,'
would not be the case. By applauding, they would thus, in fact, get
more sport; for we 'will untrusse him agen, and agen, and agen.'
Shakspere may have been tired of this fruitless pastime, of those
pitiful squabbles, as appears also from the reproach he makes in
'Hamlet'to his people. By the '_more noble_ REPREHENSION' which
he administered to Jonson and his party, he became absorbed in the
profounder problems concerning mankind. The time of the lighter
comedies is now past for him. There follow now his grandest
master-works. Henceforth the poet stands in a relation created by
himself to his God and to the world.
We proceed to an examination of 'Volpone,' of that play which Jonson
sent as a counter-thrust after 'Hamlet,' and from which, as regards
our Hamlet-Montaigne theory, we hope to convince our readers in the
clearest manner possible.
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