Marston, JOHN, dramatist and satirist, a son of John Marston, of Gayton (or Heyton), County Salop, by his wife Maria, daughter of Andrew Guarsi, an Italian surgeon, who had settled in London, was born about 1575, probably at Coventry. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, 4th February 1591–92, and was admitted B.A. 6th February 1593–94. From the elder Marston's will (dated 24th October 1599) it may be gathered that, after adopting the profession of the law, he abandoned it against his father's wish. He married (but the date of his marriage cannot be fixed) Mary, daughter of Rev. William Wilkes, chaplain to James I. and rector of St Martin's, County Wilts. Ben Jonson wittily observed to Drummond of Hawthornden that 'Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies, contrasting the asperity of Marston's comedies with the blandness of the chaplain's sermons. With the exception of The Insatiate Countess (which is of doubtful authorship), all Marston's plays were published between 1602 and 1607. He gave up play-writing about 1607, but the date at which he entered the church has not been ascertained. In 1616 he was presented to the living of Christ Church, Hampshire, which he resigned in 1631. He died 25th June 1634 in Aldermanbury parish, London, and was buried beside his father in the Temple Church, 'under the stone which hath written on it Oblivion! Saerum.' His widow was buried by his side, 4th July 1657.
Marston's first work was The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image: and Certain Satires (1598). Another series of satires, The Seourge of Villany, appeared later in the same year, a second edition (with an additional tenth satire) following in 1599. Pygmalion, a somewhat licentious poem, may have owed its inspiration to Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. Marston pretends that it was written with the object of bringing discredit on amatory poetry; but the apology cannot be accepted. Archbishop Whitgift condemned it to the flames with other works of a similar tendency. The satires, which were published under the nom de plume of 'William Kinsayder,' are uncouth and obscure. There was a feud between Marston and the satirist Joseph Hall (the future bishop of Norwich), and many hard knocks were dealt on either side. A
Cambridge man, one 'W. J.', intervened with his Whipping of the Satire, in which he handled Marston roughly; and he was answered, not very effectively, by one of Marston's friends in the anonymous Whipper of the Satire. The controversy raged hotly and excited lively interest, but the allusions in these various satirical pieces are not very intelligible to-day.
In September 1599 Henslow records in his Diary that he advanced forty shillings to 'Mr Maxtone, the new poete (Mr Mastone),' in part payment for an unnamed play. This 'new poete' was Marston; but there is no other mention of him in the Diary. Two gloomy and ill-constructed tragedies, Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge, were entered in the Stationers' Register, 24th October 1601, and were published in the following year. They contain passages of striking power, and a deal of intolerable fustian. In 1604 was published The Malecontent, a second edition, augmented by Webster, appearing in the same year. It is more skilfully constructed than the two parts of Antonio and Mellida. Marston's command of bold and vivid imagery is effectively displayed in the description of the hermit's cell, iv. 2. He dedicated The Malecontent in very cordial terms to Ben Jonson, and in 1605 prefixed some complimentary verses to Sejanus. There seem to have been many quarrels and reconciliations between Jonson and Marston. 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 on the stage in his youth given to venery.' The original quarrel began in or about 1598.
The Dutch Courtezan (1605) is full of life and spirit, the character of the vengeful courtesan Franceschina being drawn with masterly ability. Eastward Ho (1605), from which Hogarth is said to have taken the plan of his prints 'The Industrious and Idle Prentices,' was written in conjunction with Chapman and Jonson. It is far more genial than any comedy which Marston wrote single-handed. Some satirical reflections on the Scots were introduced, for which offence the authors were committed to prison at the instance of Sir James Murray, and the report went that their ears were to be cut and their noses slit. Parasitaster, or the Fawn (1606), in spite of occasional tediousness, is an attractive comedy; but the tragedy of Sophonisba (1606) appals us with its horrors, the description of the witch Erichtho and her cave being gruesome to the last degree. What You Will, published in 1607, but probably written some years earlier, has many flings at Ben Jonson. The Insatiate Countess was published in 1613 with Marston's name on the title-page, but in a copy (belonging to the Duke of Devonshire) of the 1631 edition the author's name is given as William Barksteed, a poet of some ability and an actor. The rich and graceful poetry scattered through The Insatiate Countess is unlike anything that we find in Marston's undoubted works. Probably Marston left the play unfinished when he entered the church, and Barksteed took it in hand. An indifferent anonymous comedy, Jack Drum's Entertainment, written about 1600, may be safely assigned to Marston from internal evidence; and he appears to have had some share in another poor play, Histriomastix. In 1633 William Sheares, the publisher, issued 1 vol. sm. 8vo, The Works of Mr John Marston, comprising the two parts of Antonio and Mellida, Sophonisba, What You Will, The Fawn, and The Dutch Courtezan. Marston's works were edited by the late Mr Halliwell-Phillipps (then Mr Halliwell) in 1856, 3 vols., and by the present writer in 1887, 3 vols.