hose who have written on the
topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin
of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to
Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form
after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright,
subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand,
epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously
charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with
scurrility, cowardice, and 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."*

* 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 Buf