The description that the malcontent gives of himself in iii. 1, and the other description of the hermit's cell in iv. 2, exemplify Marston's potent gift of presenting bold conceptions in strenuously compact language. _The Malcontent_ was dedicated by Marston in very handsome terms to Ben Jonson, and there is a complimentary allusion to Jonson in the epilogue. At this distance of time it is impossible to fully understand the relations that existed between Jonson and Marston. There seem to have been many quarrels and more than one reconciliation. During his visit to Hawthornden, Jonson told Drummond that "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him and took his pistol from him, wrote his _Poetaster_ on him; the beginning of them were that Marston represented him in the stage in his youth given to venery."[14] The original quarrel seems to have begun about the year 1598. In the apology at the end of _The Poetaster_, Jonson writes: "Three years They did provoke me with their petulant styles On every stage: and I at last unwilling, But weary, I confess, of so much trouble, Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em." _The Poetaster_ was produced in 1601; so these attacks on Jonson, in which Marston must have taken a leading part, began about 1598. In the address "To those that seem judicial Perusers" prefixed to _The Scourge of Villainy_, Marston undoubtedly ridicules Ben Jonson for his use of "new-minted epithets[15] (as _real_, _intrinsecate_, _Delphic_)." "Real" occurs in _Every Man out of his Humour_ (ii. 1); "intrinsecate" in _Cynthia's Revels_ (v. 2); and "Delphic" in an early poem of Jonson's. But, as _Every Man out of his Humour_ was first produced at Christmas 1599, and _Cynthia's Revels_ in 1600, these "new-minted epithets" must have been used by Jonson in some early plays that have perished. Jonson retaliated by attacking Marston in _Every Man out of his Humour_, and _Cynthia's Revels_. In the former play (iii. 1) he introduces two characters, Clove and Orange, who are expressly described as "mere strangers to the whole scope of our play." They are on the stage only for a few minutes. Clove is represented as a pretender to learning: "he will sit you a whole afternoon sometimes in a bookseller's shop, reading the Greek, Italian, and Spanish, when he understands not a word of either." Orange is a mere simpleton who can say nothing but "O Lord, sir," and "It pleases you to say so, sir." In the "characters of the persons" (prefixed to the play) we are told that this "inseparable case of coxcombs ... being well flattered" will "lend money and repent when they have done. Their glory is to invite players and make suppers." Dr. Brinsley Nicholson suggests that Orange was intended as a caricature of Dekker, and that Clove stands for Marston. This view is, doubtless, partly correct, but we must not insist on it too strongly.