57-113) and a number of
passages
scattered through Jonson's works.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
(3) Jonson does not draw upon historical events, but personal
idiosyncrasies. (4) The chief motive is in the spirit of Aristophanes,
the great master of personal satire. These methods are what we should
naturally expect in a composition of this sort. Of such internal
evidence we find little or nothing in _The Devil is an Ass_. Several
plausible identifications, however, have been proposed, and these we
must consider separately.
The chief characters are identified by Fleay as follows: Wittipol is
Jonson. He has returned from travel, and had seen Mrs. Fitzdottrel
before he went. Mrs. Fitzdottrel is the Lady Elizabeth Hatton.
Fitzdottrel is her husband, Sir Edward Coke.
=Mrs. Fitzdottrel=. The identification is based upon a series of
correspondences between a passage in _The Devil is an Ass_ (2. 6.
57-113) and a number of passages scattered through Jonson's works. The
most important of these are quoted in the note to the above passage. To
them has been added an important passage from _A Challenge at Tilt_,
1613. Fleay's deductions are these: (1) _Underwoods 36_ and _Charis_
must be addressed to the same lady (cf. especially _Ch. _, part 5). (2)
Charis and Mrs. Fitzdottrel are identical. The song (2. 6. 94 f. ) is
found complete in the _Celebration of Charis_. In Wittipol's preceding
speech we find the phrases 'milk and roses' and 'bank of kisses', which
occur in _Charis_ and in _U. 36_, and a reference to the husband who
is the 'just excuse' for the wife's infidelity, which occurs in _U.
36_. (3) Charis is Lady Hatton.
