Ben Jonson's " Poetaster" and Dekker's " Satiromastix." Edited by
Josiah H. Penniman. (D. C. Heath and Co. 3s. net.)--Not very much is known of the circumstances of the bitter dispute—the so-called " stage-war "—wh ich raged between Ben Jonson and certain other dramatists, of whom
the chief were Marston and Dekker, in the last year or two of the sixteenth century. The two plays printed in this volume must figure prominently in any discussion of the "war" ; for it is certain that Jonson wrote Poetaster as an attack upon Marston—we have Jonson's own word, as reported by Drummond of Hawthornden, for this—and Satiromastix is a direct counter-attack. Professor Penniman has produced a careful text, with many explanatory notes and an elaborate introduction giving, not very clearly perhaps, the main facts that are known or inferred as to the dispute. But the reader will probably find the plays, especially Poetaster, so entertain- ing that he will forget to trouble about pedantic questions of origin and allusion.
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