plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with
certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had
many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote
his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston
represented him on the stage."*

[footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the
edition of 'Poetaster' and 'Satiromastrix' by J. H. Penniman in 'Belles
Lettres Series' shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, 'The War of
the Theatres', 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H.
C. Hart in 'Notes and Queries', and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.

Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel
are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been
regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage";
although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and
translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems
rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the
personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo
Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described
as "a public scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand
scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall
being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The
Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious
character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey
relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and
made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter
Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether
beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.',
jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable that