University Wits

With Keats, no doubt, poetry and the hope of success in it were passions more glowing than we have reason to attribute to his contemporaries at the same time of life.3 The letters remind us also that, compared with them, he was at a disadvantage in intellectual training and acquisitions, like the young Shakespeare among the University wits.

The nascent drama of genius can be found in the “University wits,” who flourished Drama. between 1580 and 1595, and the chief of whom are Lyly, Kyd, Peele, Greene and Marlowe.

It is bright and amusing, in the style common to the “sons” of Ben Jonson, the university wits who wrote more for the closet than the public stage.

He was an active opponent of the first University Commission, in reference to which he wrote the most brilliant satire of the kind proper to University wits which this century has produced—the Aristophanic parody entitled Phrontisterion.

Corbet's work is of that peculiar class which is usually, though not always, due to "University Wits," and which only appeals to people with a considerable appreciation of humour, and a large stock of general information.