POST. You may see what it is to laugh at the audience.
The further development of this narrative will make it evident beyond any reasonable doubt that Posthaste, the poet-actor, is intended to caricature Shakespeare, and Sir Oliver Owlet's company and its misfortunes to reflect the Earl of Pembroke's company in similar circumstances in 1593; that Mavortius is the young Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593, and _Lucrece_ in the year following; that Landulpho, the Italian lord, represents John Florio, who, in 1591, in his _Second Fruites_, criticised English historical drama and praised Italian plays, and who, at about the same time as teacher of languages entered into the pay and patronage of the Earl of Southampton, a connection which his odd and interesting personality enabled him to hold thereafterwards for several years. The part which Landulpho takes in the play was somewhat developed by Marston in 1599, at which time it shall later on be shown that the relations between Florio and Shakespeare had reached a heated stage. The play of _The Prodigal Child_, which was the play within the play acted by Posthaste and his fellows in the earlier form of _Histriomastix_, did not, in my opinion, represent the English original of the translated German play of _The Prodigal Son_ which Mr. Simpson presents as the possible original, but was meant to indicate Shakespeare's _Love's Labours Won_, which was written late in the preceding year as a reflection of Southampton's intimacy with Florio, and the beginning of his affair with Mistress Davenant,[25] the Oxford tavern keeper's wife. The expression _The Prodigal Child_ differs from that of _The Prodigal Son_ in meaning, in that the word "Child" at that period meant a young nobleman. There is nothing whatever suggestive of Shakespeare's work in the translated German play, and it was merely the similarity of title that led Mr. Simpson to propose it as the play indicated. The play satirised by Chapman under the title of _The Prodigal Child_ was undoubtedly written by Shakespeare, and it is no more likely that Chapman would use the actual name of the play at which he points than that he would use the actual names of the various persons or of the company of players whose actions and work he caricatures.