166 
Jonson’s Prologue to Cynthia’s Revels is one of the best ex-— 
amples showing the select character of the Blackfriars audience, — 
before whose learned judgments Jonson is especially proud to ~ 
have his plays appear. Dekker in Satiromastix (summer, 1601) — 
enviously replies to this with the flirt of a sneer in which never- 
theless there lies the tacit admission of the difference in question.? — 
The declaration in the Prologue to Eastward Ho (spring, — 
1605) that the Blackfriars has ever been imitated® refers mainly ~ 
to the Elizabethan period. We know further from Hamlet that — 
the Boys were “now the fashion,” and it is not likely that other 
theatres and poets failed to get as nearly into fashion as possible. © 
The general evidence is sufficient to establish the fact of imi- 
tation, but details do not lie so patent. 
of the thesis involved must be reserved for later research. I think 
the evidence will show that the new sort of plays introduced at 
CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
The final investigation — 
lic theatres] have as much ribaldry 
in our plays as can be, as you would 
wish, captain: all the sinners in the 
suburbs come and applaud our ac- 
tion daily.”—Poetaster, III, i, op. 
cit., 232a. 
7 PROLOGUE 
If gracious silence, sweet attention, 
Quick sight and quicker apprehen- 
sion, 
The lights of judgment’s throne, 
shine any where, 
Our doubtful author hopes this is 
their sphere; 
And therefore opens he himself to 
those, 
To other weaker brains his labours 
close, 
As loth to prostitute their virgin- 
strain, 
To every vulgar 
brain. 
In this alone, his Muse her sweet- 
ness hath, 
She shuns the print of any beaten 
path ; 
And proves new ways to come to 
learned ears: 
Pied ignorance she neither loves nor 
fears. 
Nor hunts she after popular ap- 
plause, 
Or foamy praise, that drops from 
common jaws: 
and adulterate 
The garland that she wears, their 
hands must twine, 
Who can both censure, understand, — 
define 
What merit is: then cast those pierc- 
ing rays, 
Round as a crown, instead of hon- 
ored bays, 
About his poesy; which, he knows, 
affords 
Words, above action; matter, above 
words. 
—Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, 
Prologue. 
*Jonson is satirized under the 
name of Horace speaking thus in 
parody on the Prologue to Cynthia’s 
Revels :— 
“Horace.—The muses’ birds the bees 
were hiv’d and fled, 
Us in our cradle thereby prophesy- 
ing 
That we to learned ears should 
sweetly sing. 
But to the vulgar and adulterate 
brain 
Should loath to prostitute our vir- 
gin-strain,” 
[Italics in original] —Thomas Dek- 
ker, Satiromastix, in Origin of the 
English Drama (ed. Hawkins, 
1773), III, 132. 
Ss“... we have evermore been 
imitated.” 
280 
