There are yet other facts which tend to prove the identity of
Amorphus and Anthony Monday.^ In 1598 Jonson satirized
Monday as Antonio Balladino, ** pageant-poet to the city of
Milan." ^ He is said to lack originality, and to be unable to



1 See above, p. 41.
2 Attempts to identify Amorphus have led to some interesting conclusions.
A writer (qy. Simpson?) in The North British Review (1870, p. 407) says of
" Amorphus, the Deformed " : " There are indications that Shakespeare had been
already nicknamed ' Deformed ' by the purist school of critics, who, ever since
Nash in 1 589, and Greene in 1 592, had been attacking him for ignorance of art,
for decking himself in other men's feathers, and gleaning his wit at second hand.
This supposition gives a very piquant meaning to the joke in Much Ado about
Nothings about * one Deformed,' whom Dogberry and his wise watchman had
known as a * vile thief this seven year.' " Simpson, in a paper on The Political
use of the Stage (Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1874, Part II. p.
391) says: "In Cynthia^ s Revels^ * Amorphus, or the Deformed,' evidently repre-
sents the person mentioned in Much AdOy as ' one Deformed,' * a vile thief this
seven year.' " Mr. Fleay identifies " one Deformed " in Much Ado with Nashe.
but not with Amorphus. Chronicle of the English Drama^ II. 144.
8 The Case is Altered, I. i.
