Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/110

94 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES Pol. You're undone then. Aut. With whom ? Pol. The world, Aut. The bawd ! Pol. It will be taken To be stupidity or tameness in you. Aut. But they that have incensed me can in soul Acquit me of that guilt." A few more lines of this "Dialogue" are worth quoting here : — > " Pol. They say you are slow, And scarce bring forth a play a year. Aut. 'Tis true. I would they could not say that I did that ! There's all thrf joy that I take in their trade, Unless such scribes as these might be proscribed Th' abused theatres." In effect, he says the "Poetaster" was written in fifteen weeks. Jonson told Drummond that "he had .many quarrels with Marston, beat him and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage, in his youth given to venerie." At the end of the " Dialogue " he says — " And since the Comic Muse Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try If Tragedy have a more kind aspect. ... Leave me ! there's something come into my thought, That must and shall be sung high and aloof, Safe from the wolfs black jaw and the dull ass's hoof." Accordingly, " Sejanus : His Fall " was brought out at the Globe, in 1603, with Shakespeare, Burbage, Hemings, and others in the principal parts. It was well received by the more educated of the audience,