To dispose for ever of this pitiful
argument it would be sufficient to mention the names of its two first and
principal supporters--Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (hisses
and laughter). Now, in these "adycions to Jeronymo" a painter was
introduced complaining of the murder of his son. In the play before them
a painter was introduced as an accomplice in the murder of Arden. It was
unnecessary to dwell upon so trivial a point of difference as that
between the stage employment or the moral character of the one artist and
the other. In either case they were as closely as possible connected
with a murder. There was a painter in the _Spanish Tragedy_, and there
was also a painter in _Arden of Feversham_. He need not--he would not
add another word in confirmation of the now established fact, that Ben
Jonson had in this play held up to perpetual infamy--whether deserved or
undeserved he would not pretend to say--the names of two poets who
afterwards became his friends, but whom he had previously gibbeted or at
least pilloried in public as Black Will Shakespeare and Murderous Michael
Drayton.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293