obloquy, misanthropic, Fleet, literary game, accusations

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128

Whatever the actual purpose of the poems, the exasperating lack of substance in their accusations prompted one G. C. to make a judicial intervention:

The stryfe I speake of, is betwyxt
One master Smyth & Wyllyam G.
Theyr wrytynges are confusely myxt
With bytynge wordes, and vylany
In eche of them, a wyll is fyxt
To maynteyne styll his vanyte
Which hath a very feble grounde
Wherwith his enemy to confounde. (ll.17-24) ²²⁹

Thankfully, G. C. brings closure to the debate by pointing out that neither party can be victorious, and that their misanthropic preoccupation with obloquy renders them both suspect and culpable, and he was right, since (as already mentioned) their game did misfire and landed them in the Fleet. Their arguments are based on “feble grounde” and, having no foundation or basis, the only explanation for their attitudes towards one another that G. C. can envisage is that they are both misanthropically disposed. He is also readily able to identify W. G. as “Wyllyam G.”, and through his familiarity he implies that he knows them both well enough to be sure that their accusations are groundless. A misanthropic disposition does not, however, explain satisfactorily why they would become engrossed in such a seemingly futile literary game.

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²²⁹ A Paumflet Compyled by G. C. To Master Smyth and Wyllyam G. Prayenge Them Both, for the Loue of our Lorde, to Growe at Last to an Honest Accorde (printed by Rycharde Bankes, 1540), STC 4268.5.

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