MARSTON, JOHN (c. English dramatist and satirist, eldest son of John Marston of Coventry, at one time lecturer of the Middle Temple, was born in 1575 or early in 1576. His mother was the daughter of an Italian physician, Andrew Guarsi. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1592, taking his B.A. degree in 1594. He married Mary Wilkes, daughter of one of the royal chaplains, and Ben Jonson said that "Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his sermons." His first work was The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image, and certain Satyres (1598). "Pigmalion" is an erotic poem in the metre of Venus and Adonis, and Joseph Hall attached a rather clumsy epigram to every copy that was exposed for sale in Cambridge. In the same year Marston published, under the pseudonym of W. Kinsayder, already employed in the earlier volume, his Scourge of Villanie, eleven satires, in the sixth of which he asserted that Pigmalion was intended to parody the amorous poetry of the time. Both this volume and its predeces sor were burnt by order of the archbishop of Canterbury.
The satires, in which Marston avowedly took Persius as his model, are coarse and vigorous. In addition to a general attack on the vices of his age he avenges himself on Joseph Hall who had assailed him in Virgidemiae. He had a great reputation among his contemporaries. John Weever couples his name with Ben Jonson's in an epigram; Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia (1598) mentions him among the satirists; a long passage is devoted to "Monsieur Kinsayder" in the Return from Parnassus (1606), and Dr. Brinsley Nicholson has suggested that Furor poeticus in that piece may be a satirical portrait of him.
On Sept. 28, 1599, Henslowe notices in his diary that he lent "unto Mr. Maxton, the new poete, the sum of forty shillings," as an advance on a play which is not named. Another hand has amended "Maxton" to "Mastone." The earliest plays to which Marston's name is attached are The History of Antonio and Mel lida. The First Part; and Antonio's Revenge. The Second Part (both entered at Stationers' Hall in i6o1 and printed 1602). These were written for the Paul's Boys, for whom he also prob ably revised the anonymous Histriomastix, and finally wrote What you Will (which was certainly written before 1607), while he was doubtless part author of Jacke Drums Entertainment (I6o0). The melodrama and the exaggerated expression of these two plays offered an opportunity to Ben Jonson, who had already twice ridiculed Marston, and now pilloried him as Crispinus in The Poetaster (I6oi). The quarrel was patched up, for Marston
dedicated his Malcontent (1604) to Jonson, and in the next year he prefixed commendatory verses to Sejanus. Far greater re straint is shown in The Malcontent than in the earlier plays. It was printed twice in 1604, the second time with additions by John Webster. The Dutch Courtezan (16o5) and Parasitaster, or the Fawnc (1606) followed. In 1605 Eastward Hoe, a gay comedy of London life, which gave offence to the king's Scottish friends, caused persons concerned in its production—Marston with others —to be imprisoned. (See JoNsoN.) In the preface to The Wonder of W omen, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba (1606), Marston mocks at those authors who make a parade of their authorities and their learning, and the next play, What you Will (printed 1607; but probably written much earlier), contains a further attack on Jonson. Marston's undoubted dramatic work was completed in 1607. It is uncertain at what time he exchanged professions, but in 1616 he was presented to the living of Christchurch, Hampshire. He formally resigned his charge in 1631, and when his works were collected in 1633 the publisher, William Sheares, stated that the author "in his autumn and declining age" was living "far distant from this place." Nevertheless he died in London, in the parish of Aldermanbury, on June 25, 1634. He was buried in the Temple Church.
Marston's works were first published in 1633, once anonymously as Tragedies and Comedies, and then in the same year as Workes of Mr. John Marston. The Works of John Marston (3 vols.) were reprinted by Mr. J. 0. Halliwell (Phillipps) in 1856, and again by Mr. A. H. Bullen (3 vols.) in 1887. His Poems (2 vols.) were edited by Dr. A. B. Grosart in 1879. For an account of the quarrel of Dekker and Marston with Ben Jonson see Dr. R. A. Small, The Stage Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters; in E. Koelbing, Forschungen zur englischen Sprache and Litteratur, pt. i. (1899). See also three articles John Marston als Dramatiker, by Ph. Aronstein in Englische Studien (vols. xx. and xxi., 1895), and "Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Ben Jonsons, John Marstons . . ." by Emil Koeppel (Miinchener Beitrtige zur roman. and engl. Philologie, pt. xi. 1895) also M. S. Allen, The Satire of John Marston (Columbia, 1920).