And if the evil star which seems
generally to have presided over the literary fortunes of John Marston
should misguide the student, on first opening a volume of his works,
into some such arid or miry tract of wilderness as too frequently
deforms the face of his uneven and irregular demesne, the inevitable
sense of disappointment and repulsion which must immediately ensue will
too probably discourage a casual explorer from any renewal of his
research.
Two of the epithets which Ben Jonson, in his elaborate attack on
Marston, selected for ridicule as characteristically grotesque instances
of affected and infelicitous innovation--but which nevertheless have
taken root in the language, and practically justified their
adoption--describe as happily as any that could be chosen to describe
the better and the worse quality of his early tragic and satiric style.
These words are "strenuous" and "clumsy." It is perpetually,
indefatigably, and fatiguingly strenuous; it is too often vehemently,
emphatically, and laboriously clumsy. But at its best, when the clumsy
and ponderous incompetence of expression which disfigures it is
supplanted by a strenuous felicity of ardent and triumphant aspiration,
it has notes and touches in the compass of its course not unworthy of
Webster or Tourneur or even Shakespeare himself.
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