adult actors in their rivalry with the
boys, but he wrote more like a disinterested spectator than an active
partisan when he made specific reference to the strife between the poet
Ben Jonson and the players. In the prologue to 'Troilus and Cressida'
which he penned in 1603, he warned his hearers, with obvious allusion to
Ben Jonson's battles, that he hesitated to identify himself with either
actor or poet. {217} Passages in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster,' moreover,
pointedly suggest that Shakespeare cultivated so assiduously an attitude
of neutrality that Jonson acknowledged him to be qualified for the role
of peacemaker. The gentleness of disposition with which Shakespeare was
invariably credited by his friends would have well fitted him for such an
office.

Jonson's 'Poetaster.'

Jonson figures personally in the 'Poetaster' under the name of Horace.
Episodically Horace and his friends, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogise the
work and genius of another character, Virgil, in terms so closely
resembling those which Jonson is known to have applied to Shakespeare
that they may be regarded as intended to apply to him (act v. sc. i.)
Jonson points out that Virgil, by his penetrating intuition, achieved the
great effects which others laboriously sought to reach through rules of
art.

His learning labours not the school-like gloss
That most consists of echoing words and terms . . .
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance--
Wrapt in the curious generalities of arts--
But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of arts.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life
That it shall gather strength of life with being,
And live hereafter, more admired than now.

Tibullus gives Virgil equal credit for having in his writings touched
with telling truth upon every vicissitude of human existence.

That which he hath writ
Is with such judgment laboured and distilled
Through all the needful uses of our lives
That, could a man remember but his lines,
He should not touch at any serious point
But he might breathe his spirit out of him.

Finally, Virgil in the play is nominated by Caesar to act as judge
between Horace and his libellers, and he advises the administration of
purging pills to the offenders. That course of treatment is adopted with
satisfactory results. {218}

Shakespeare's alleged partisanship.

As against this interpretation, one co