book i

. of _Virgidemiæ_, is directed against Marston. The opening lines run thus:--

"Envy, ye Muses, at your thrilling mate, Cupid hath crowned a new laureat; I saw his statue gaily tired in green, As if he had some second Phoebus been; His statue trimm'd with the Venerean tree And shrined fair within your sanctuary. What! he that erst to gain the rhyming goal, The worn recital-post of capitol, Rhymed in rules of stewish ribaldry Teaching experimental bawdery, Whiles th' itching vulgar, tickled with the song, Hanged on their unready poet's tongue? Take this, ye patient Muses, and foul shame Shall wait upon your once profaned name."

When _Pygmalion_ was published Hall wrote a poor epigram (see vol. iii. p. 369), which he contrived to paste in those copies of the poem "that came to the stationers at Cambridge."[8] One of the satires, entitled "Reactio,"[9] appended to _Pygmalion_, is a violent attack on Hall. In his "Defiance to Envy," prefixed to _Virgidemiæ_, Hall had boasted that he could, an' that he would, hold his own with any of the poets,--even hinting that he was a match for Spenser. The "Defiance" is a well-written piece of verse, but it gave Marston an excellent opportunity, which he used to the full in "Reactio," of making a very effective attack. In the first satire of