ntemporary witness has been held to
testify that Shakespeare stemmed the tide of Jonson's embittered activity
by no peace-making interposition, but by joining his foes, and by
administering to him, with their aid, the identical course of medicine
which in the 'Poetaster' is meted out to his enemies. In the same year
(1601) as the 'Poetaster' was produced, 'The Return from Parnassus'--a
third piece in a trilogy of plays--was 'acted by the students in St.
John's College, Cambridge.' In this piece, as in its two predecessors,
Shakespeare received, both as a playwright and a poet, high commendation,
although his poems were judged to reflect somewhat too largely 'love's
lazy foolish languishment.' The actor Burbage was introduced in his own
name instructing an aspirant to the actor's profession in the part of
Richard the Third, and the familiar lines from Shakespeare's play--

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York--

are recited by the pupil as part of his lesson. Subsequently in a prose
dialogue between Shakespeare's fellow-actors Burbage and Kempe, Kempe
remarks of university dramatists, 'Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare
puts them all down; aye, and Ben Jonson, too. O! that Ben Jonson is a
pestilent fellow. He brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill; but our
fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his
credit.' Burbage adds: 'He is a shrewd fellow indeed.' This perplexing
passage has been held to mean that Shakespeare took a decisive part
against Jonson in the controversy with Dekker and Dekker's actor friends.
But such a conclusion is nowhere corroborated, and seems to be confuted
by the eulogies of Virgil in the 'Poetaster' and by the general handling
of the theme in 'Hamlet.' The words quoted from 'The Return from
Parnassus' hardly admit of a literal interpretation. Probably the
'purge' that Shakespeare was alleged by the author of 'The Return from
Parnassus' to have given Jonson meant no more than that Shakespeare had
signally outstripped Jonson in popular esteem. As the author of 'Julius
Caesar,' he had just proved his command of topics that were peculiarly
suited to Jonson's vein, {220} and had in fact outrun his churlish
comrade on his own ground.

'Hamlet,' 1602.

At any rate, in the tragedy that Shakespeare brought out in the year
following the production of 'Julius Caesar,' he finally left Jonson and
all friends and foe