382
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io< s. i. MAY u, im.
to suppose Marston had any hand in the
original play. In the added bits there are
undoubtedly what appear to be gibes ("trans-
lating Scholler," &c.) at Ben. This sneer at
Ben would not be appropriate till later than
'Every Man in his Humour.' The words
selected for ridicule by Clove do not come
from ' Histriomastix,' with any exception of
importance, except "paunch of Esquiline,"
but "Port Esquiline " is referred to by Spenser
and by Hall earlier. The uncouth terms
pilloried by Clove come from the 'Scourge
of Villany.'
If any one is identifiable with Marston, therefore, it is Clove. Clove is an absolute nonentity, a mere peg upon which to hang this good-humoured rebuke to Marston for his pedantic language. Clove makes reference to other empirics in the tongue besides Marston. Clove, in fact, began the paper war, and it is likely that Marston's first retort was in his additions to ' Histriomastix'; but with this question, which is all vague, I have dealt already.
It seems to me an outrageous thing to identify Marston with Carlo Buffone. As Penniman says, it is indeed " a severe arraignment." Carlo is an abominable cha- racter, a cur who has not the pluck to defend himself when Sir Puntarvolo strikes him and seals up his mouth with " hard wax " in a notable scene in the fifth act. Marston was quite famous as a poet from his ' Pygmalion ' and his ' Scourge.' There is not a trace of the literary vein in Carlo. Com- pare Carlo with Crispinus in the ' Poetaster,' who is undoubtedly Marston, and how can any one suppose them to represent the same person ? Crispinus is an affected versifier, a spewer-up of terrible words, a harmless, toadying courtier in fact, rather a pleasant if silly person. We know nothing against Marston except that he and Ben quarrelled ; that his language was very gross, in common with that of numerous of his contemporaries ; and that his muse walked upon phraseo- logical stilts in a manner that roused the wrath of Ben, the Crites of the stage.
I observe that Mr. Bullen, Marston's last editor, does not assimilate the identification of Carlo with his author. He barely refers to it.
The question remains, Who was intended to be represented by Carlo Buffone 1 There are undoubted personal allusions, as in the drinking bout (borrowed, apparently, from a German custom) in Act V., and his gluttony, there and elsewhere referred to; and in IV. vi., " Carlo comes not to Court indeed " is surely a personal reference to one who
had been forbidden the presence for some
misbehaviour.
Nares quotes from 'Aubrey Papers,' p. 514, that Carlo Buffone is said to have been intended for one Charles Chester, "a bold impertinent a perpetual talker, who made a noise like a drum in a room." There are various opinions as to the weight to be attached to the statements of the Oxford antiquary (who wrote in Charles II. 's reign) on account of his over-credulousness. But he certainly picked up this legend, and I am able to add likelihood to it by certain references to this individual which I have not seen anywhere adduced. I would dismiss at once Collier's supposed allusion to Charles Chester in Nash's ' Pierce Penilesse ' at p. 38 in Collier's edition (Shakespeare Society, 1842, note p. 99). I wrote " bosh " against that note many years ago, and I hold the same opinion still. '
Charles Chester was quite a notable person. In ' An Apology for the Metamorphosis of Ajax' (Chiswick, folio 50), 1596, Sir T. Harington says :
"You know the book well enough Out upon
it, have you put it in print ? did not I tell you then, Charles Chester and two or three such scoffing fellows would laugh at you for it?"
And the same writer, in 'A Treatise on Playe' ('Nugse Antiquse,' ii. 180, ed. 1779), circa 1600, says :
"Now yf the yrreverent Doctor Fawstus, or
some such grave patron of great play, should
with some Chester-like elloquens, deride the weak- nes of the conceyt," &c.
E. Guilpin says in the ' Preludium ' to his ' Satyra Prima' (' Skialetheia,' rept., p. 27). 1598:
the Satyre hath a nobler vaine : He 's the strappado, rack, and some such paine To base lewd vice : the Epigram's Bridewell, Some whipping cheere ; but this is follies hell. The Epigram's like dwarfe Kings scurrill grace, A Satyre's Chester to a painted face : It is the bone-ach unto lechery... It is the scourge, the Tamberlaine of vice.
The use of the word "scourge" may be noticed here. King is, no doubt, " little Numps," Humphrey King, to whom Nashe dedicated his ' Lenten Stuffe,' and who was a bit of a writer himself.
Guilpin mentions Chester again in his ' Satyra Secunda ' (p. 35) : Then, what 's a wench but a quirke, quidlit case, Which makes a painter's pallat of her face ? Or would not Chester sweareher downe that shee Lookt like an Elench, logicke sophistrie ?
Dekker refers to some of these charac- teristics of Charles Chester under the name of Carlo Buffone ; at least, that is the sense I put upon the following passage in his ' Satiromastix ' (Pearson, p. 263) :
