' Then there is a most clear
allusion to Hamlet (act iv. sc. 6), where he informs his friend Horatio,
by letter, of his voyage to England when he was made prisoner by
pirates, who dealt with him 'like thieves of mercy.' A further remark
of Volpone on 'base pilferies,' and 'wholesome penance done for it,'
may be taken as a hit against Hamlet's 'fingering' the packet to 'unseal
their grand commission;' for which, in Jonson's view, he would be forced
by his father confessor, in a well-regulated Roman Catholic State, to
do penance.
This is what Volpone says:--
'No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see
the rabble of these ground ciarlatani, that ... come in lamely, with
their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist;
some of them discoursing their travels; and of their tedious captivity
[31] in the Turks' galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they
were the Christians' gallies, where very temperately they eat bread
and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, [32] enjoined them by their
confessors for base pilferies.'
Shakspere, as we have already explained, got a 'pill' in 'The Poetaster,'
whereupon 'our fellow Shakespeare,' as is maintained in the 'Return from
Parnassus,' 'has given him' (Jonson) 'a purge that made him bewray his
credit' Now Ben, clearly enough, calls this answer of the great
adversary--a 'finely wrapt-up antimony,' whereby minds 'stopped with
earthy oppilations,' are purged into another world.
Pages:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195