[From Sir John Suckling, The Sad One .]
This unfinished tragedy was first published in 1659. 'A Song to a Lute' in Act 4, Scene 4 is a parody of 'Have you seen but a bright lily grow' from The Devil is an Ass and the character Signior Multecarni, a poet preparing a masque for the court in the play, is evidently a caricature of Jonson. Ironically, the publisher of the 1659 edition, Humphrey Moseley, cites the publication of The Sad Shepherd, by 'an Author who confessedly is reputed the Glory of the English Stage', as a precedent for publishing Suckling's fragment: Jonson's pastoral, though it 'wants two entire Acts, was nevertheless judg'd a Piece of too much worth to be laid aside, by the Learned and Honorable Sir Kenelme Digby, who published that Volume'; the example of the publication of Jonson's fragment The Fall of Mortimer is also quoted ( p. 3).
Nicholas Rowe's probably mythical story of Suckling's defence of Shakespeare against Jonson in a conversation including Jonson himself, Sir William Davenant, Endymion Porter, and John Hales of Eton ( The Works of Mr William Shakespeare, 1709, 1, xii-xiv), suggests that Suckling was a partisan against Jonson in the controversy over the latter's merits as against Shakespeare's. (There are versions of the story in Dryden's Essay, and in Charles Gildon, Miscellaneous Letters and Essays , pp. 85-6 - though in Gildon's version, Jonson is not mentioned and Suckling appears as one of the 'Judges' of the issue rather than as partisan for Shakespeare). In 'Sir, / Whether these lines do find you out', a poem in Suckling's Fragmenta Aurea, the poet invites Hales to come to London where (among other pleasures) a hackney-coach will convey him to 'The sweat of learned Johnson's brain, /And gentle Shakespear's easier strain' ((p. 35)).
*****************************************The characters are as follows: Multecarni; 1. Actor; 2. Actor; Drollio; and Lepido.
Well, if there be no remedy, one must act two parts; Rosselio shall be the Fool and the Lord, and Tisso the Citizen and the Cuckold.
1. ACTOR.That cannot be, Signior, you know, one still comes in, when the other goes out.
MULTECARNI.By Jove 'tis true; let me see, we'll contrive it, the Lord and the Usurer, the Citizen and the Polititian; and sure they never are together. But who shall act the Honest Lawyer? 'Tis a hard part, that.
2. ACTOR.And a tedious one, it's admired you would put it in, Squire; and 'tis against your own rules, to represent any thing on the Stage, that cannot be.
MULTECARNI.Why, dost think 'tis impossible for a Lawyer to be honest?
1. ACTOR.As 'tis for a Lord Treasurer to be poor, or for a King not to be cozened. There's little Robin, in debt within these three years, grown fat and full by the trade: and then there's Borachio, an unknown man, got it all by speaking loud and bawling: believe it, Signior, they have no more conscience then an Inn-keeper. -
MULTECARNI.I grant you all this; An old Cook, and a good, will please all palates: There's that for the young Tapers of the Law; then there's a bawdy Jest or two extraordinary for the Ladies; and when it comes to be acted in private, I'll have a jerk at the State for the Country-Gentlemen: If it does not take, my masters, it lies not upon me, I have provided well; and if the stomack of the times be naught, the fault's not in the meat or the Cook. Come, let's find out Lepido and dine at the Mermaid - Come let us have one Rowse, my Joves, in Aristippus, we shall conceive the better afterwards.
ACTORS.Agreed, Agreed -
Come, come away, to the Tavern I say,(pp. 26-7)
A rare Masque, no doubt, who contriv'd it?
LEPIDO.Marry he that says 'tis good, howsoere he has made it, Signior Multecarni.
DROLLIO.Who, the Poet Laureat?
LEPIDO.The same.
DROLLIO.Oh then 'twere blasphemy to speak against it: What, are we full of Cupids ? Do we sail upon the vast, and resail, and fetch the Masque from the clouds?
LEPIDO.Away Critick, thou never understoodst hirn.
DROLLIO.Troth I confess it; but my comfort is, others are troubled with the same disease, 'tis epidemical, Lepido, take't on my word, and so let's in, and see how things go forward.
Exeunt.(29-30)