the London theatres. On May 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the
attention of the Middlesex magistrates to the abuse covertly levelled by
the actors of the 'Curtain' at gentlemen 'of good desert and quality,'
and directed the magistrates to examine all plays before they were
produced (_Privy Council Register_). Jonson subsequently issued an
'apologetical dialogue' (appended to printed copies of the _Poetaster_),
in which he somewhat truculently qualified his hostility to the players:

'Now for the players 'tis true I tax'd them
And yet but some, and those so sparingly
As all the rest might have sat still unquestioned,
Had they but had the wit or conscience
To think well of themselves. But impotent they
Thought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe;
And much good do it them. What they have done against me
I am not moved with, if it gave them meat
Or got them clothes, 'tis well; that was their end,
Only amongst them I am sorry for
Some better natures by the rest so drawn
To run in that vile line.'

{217} See p. 229, note I, _ad fin_.

{218} The proposed identification of Virgil in the 'Poetaster' with
Chapman has little to recommend it. Chapman's literary work did not
justify the commendations which were bestowed on Virgil in the play.

{220} The most scornful criticism that Jonson is known to have passed on
any composition by Shakespeare was aimed at a passage in _Julius Caesar_,
and as Jonson's attack is barely justifiable on literary grounds, it is
fair to assume that the play was distasteful to him from other
considerations. 'Many times,' Jonson wrote of Shakespeare in his
_Timber_, 'hee fell into those things [which] could not escape laughter:
As when hee said in the person of _Caesar_, one speaking to him [_i.e._
Caesar]; _Caesar_, _thou dost me wrong_. Hee [_i.e._ Caesar] replyed:
_Caesar did never wrong_, _butt with just cause_: and such like, which
were ridiculous.' Jonson derisively quoted the same passage in the
induction to _The Staple of News_ (1625): 'Cry you mercy, you did not
wrong but with just cause.' Possibly the words that were ascribed by
Jonson to Shakespeare's character of _Caesar_ appeared in the original
version of the play, but owing perhaps to Jonson's captious criticism
they do not figure in the Folio version, the sole version that has
reached us. The only words there that correspond with Jonson's quotation
are Caesar'