[16] We have "Port Esquiline" twice in the _Scourge of Villainy_; but the very phrase _Paunch of Esquiline_ occurs in _Histriomastix_ (Simpson's _School of Shakspere_, ii. 51), an anonymous play which undoubtedly contains some of Marston's work. "Zodiac," "ecliptic line," "demonstrate," and "tropics" are also found in _Histriomastix_ (_ibid._ ii. 25-6); they are not in Marston's satires. The other words will be found in the _Scourge of Villainy_. [17] Of _Histriomastix_ I shall have to speak later. [18] Dekker's _Works_ (Pearson's Reprint), i. 195. [19] "Some booksellers this year," says Nixon, "shall not have cause to boast of their winnings, for that many write that flow with phrases and yet are barren in substance, and such are neither wise nor witty; others are so concise that you need a commentary to understand them, others have good wits but so critical that they arraign other men's works at the tribunal seat of every censurious Aristarch's understanding, when their own are sacrificed in Paul's Churchyard for bringing in the _Dutch Courtezan_ to corrupt English conditions and sent away westward for carping both at court, city, and country. For they are so sudden-witted that a flea can no sooner frisk forth but they must needs comment on her." [20] Among the Hatfield MSS. is a letter (communicated to Gifford by the elder Disraeli), dated "1605," of Ben Jonson to Lord Salisbury, in which Jonson writes that he had been committed to prison unexamined and unheard, "and with me a gentleman (whose name may perhaps have come to your lordship), one Mr. George Chapman, a learned and honest man," for introducing into a play some matter which had given offence. With much warmth he declares that, since his "first error," he had been scrupulously careful not to write anything against which objection could be taken. Gifford assumed that "first error" referred to _Eastward Ho_, and that Jonson was suffering for another offence when the letter was written. What the "first error" was cannot be determined with certainty, for it is not improbable that Jonson was frequently in trouble. It is quite possible that the letter was written when Jonson and Chapman were in prison on the _Eastward Ho_ charge. Jonson may have written on Chapman's behalf and his own, leaving Marston to shift for himself. But such conduct would have been ungenerous; and I prefer to adopt Gifford's view that the imprisonment of which the letter complains was not connected with _Eastward Ho_. Besides, the satirical reflections on the Scots, and any particular allusions to Sir James Graham, would have been more pertinent in 1603 than in 1605.