234 Lawrence Mason, 



Cambridge was at this time perhaps particularly bitter/ and the 

 competition for royal favor and patronage was the bitterest point 

 in the contention. In 1615 King James had visited Cambridge 

 twice, the second time expressly to witness another performance of 

 the play with which he had been entertained on the occasion of his 

 first visit, namely "Ignoramus," by George Ruggle, fellow and tutor 

 of Clare Hall.^ The fame of this piece and the pamphleteering battle 

 long waged over its satirical attack upon lawyers and Puritans 

 spurred on the partisans of Oxford to a special effort in order to di- 

 minish the prestige of their rivals and win some laurels for themselves. 

 Accordingly, it was determined to make a special excursion to Wood- 

 stock in order to present Barten (or Barton) Holyday's comedy called 

 " Technogamia : or. The Marriages of the Arts" before the King 

 and court, Aug. 26, 1621.^ The play had met with only moderate 

 success at its first hearing, February 13, 1618, in Christ Church hall ; 

 and though the author revised it* for its second performance, it 

 nevertheless so bored the King that after the second act he attempted 

 to leave and was with difficulty prevailed upon to sit out the play, 

 "least the young men should be discouraged."^ Such an opportunity 

 was not to be passed over in silence by the foes of Oxford, and number- 

 less mocking epigrams and taunting satires immediately sprang into 

 active circulation. The most popular of these squibs, in a new form, 

 occurs in MS. on a small slip of paper inserted to face p. 22 in the 

 British Museum copy of King's poems catalogued under shelf-number 

 11,623, aa. 26.,^ and may be given here as a sample of what King 

 undertook to answer in his impassioned and (for a dignitary in an 

 established church) outspoken lines "To his Friends of Christ Church 

 upon the mislike of the Marriage of the Arts acted at Woodstock " : 



"At Christ Church Marriage, play'd before the King, 



His Majesty did make an Offering. 



An Offering! He offered what, I pray? — 



He offered — twice or thrice to go away." 



1 Cf., e. g., "Annals of Oxford," by J. C. Jeaffreson, 1871, Chapter I. 



2 Many accounts of play, author, and furore caused, have been written ; 

 the brief summary in " Diet. Nat. Biog.," xlix, 392 — 3, is perhaps most widely 

 accessible. 



3 "Athen. Oxon.," Ill, 522. 



^ "making some foolish alterations in it," — "Athen. Oxon.," ibid. 



5 Ibid. 



" Cf. Bibliog., p. 26.1, inf. 



