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lEnolieb Mortbics 
 
 Edited by ANDREW LANG 
 
 BEN JONSON 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ADDINGTON 8YMONDS 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 I). A PPL ETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1898 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. BIRTH AKD APPRENTICESHIP . • i • . 1 
 
 II. FIRST PERIOD OP MANHOOD 22 
 
 III. JONSON'S DRAMATIC STYLE • .... 60 
 
 IV. THE MASTERPIECES . • , 70 
 
 T. MASQUES AT COURT AND LYRICS .... 123 
 
 TL SECOND PERIOD OP MANHOOD 143 
 
 VIL OLD AGE 173 
 
 S3184 
 
-^* OF THE ^r^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 CHAPTER J.\. . . yjo^^Ki 
 
 BIRTH AND APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 Benjamin Jonson was born in 1573^__In the course of 
 conversation with Drummond, at Hawthornden, he gave 
 some particulars of his parentage. ' His grandfather 
 came from Carlisle, and, he thought, from Annandale to 
 it ; he served King Henry VIII., and was a gentleman. 
 His father lost all his estate under Queen Mary, having 
 been cast in prison and forfeited ; at last turned minister: 
 so he was a minister's son. He himself was posthumous 
 born, a month after his father's decease.' 
 
 The spelling of family names varied almost in- 
 definitely in the sixteenth century. It is therefore no 
 argument against Jonson's Annandale descent that he 
 did not write himself Johnston. When he called his 
 grandfather ' a gentleman,' this meant, in the customary 
 parlance of the time, that he had the right to bear coat- 
 armour. From Drummond we learn that the poet's 
 coat was of ' three spindles or rhorribi: This indication 
 has led me upon a somewhat pircuitous route to the 
 
 B 
 
2 Ben Jonson 
 
 conclusion that lie was really of Border blood. The 
 main features of the Annandale Johnstones' shield are 
 a saltire and a chief, the latter charged with three 
 cushions. With this shield Jonson's Hhree spindles' 
 have no apparent connection. But I found that Burke, 
 in his ^ General Armoury/ blazoned one coat of Johnson 
 as follows : ^ Or, three fusils in fesse, sable.' Now the 
 heraldic fusil is e(][uivalent, etymologically, to a spindle, 
 ', jind in form \ reseniibles the geometrical figure called 
 rhombus. On applying to our Heralds' College I was 
 iiiifbi'ilicd that io official authority existed for the coat 
 of Johnson as above blazoned by Burke. ^ Next I made 
 application to the Lyon Office, in Edinburgh, and from 
 R. R. Stodart, Esq., to whom my cordial thanks are 
 due, obtained the following solution of the problem. A 
 saltire and a chief formed the original bearings of the 
 Lords of Annandale, and these were adopted by the 
 Annands, Griersons, Johnstones, Moffats, and others, 
 with changes of tincture and additional charges. 
 Among such additions, that of a cushion was distinctive 
 of the Johnstones. In old Scotch heraldry the cushion 
 was presented in the form of a lozenge, not, as now, 
 in that of a rectangle. It seems, therefore, tolerably 
 certain that Jonson had retained the specific bearing 
 of his Annandale forbears, namely, three cushions, 
 depicted lozenge-wise, in which . shape they assum 
 the semblance of the heraldic fusil, spindle, or 
 rhombus. His grandfather's Christian name being 
 wanting, it is hopeless to prove his descent from any 
 of the numerous Border Johnstones. Yet I think the 
 
 * For this information, courteously and liberally given, I have to 
 thank E. Bellasis, Esq., Blue Mantle. 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 3 
 
 argument which I have set forth, and which illustrates 
 the importance of heraldry in historical investigations, 
 gives us the right to believe that English literature 
 owes the honour of Ben Jonson to the Scotch Border. 
 
 Two years after the death of her first husband, 
 Jonson's mother married a master-bricklayer or builder, 
 who subsequently took his step-son into his trade. 
 This circumstance gave rise to much malicious gibing 
 on the part of his literary enemies, and established 
 the tradition that the author of ^ Sejanus ' and 
 ' The Alchemist ' was bred a working mason. Fancy 
 pictures have, accordingly, been freely drawn by im- 
 aginative biographers of Jonson as an ungainly youths 
 ascending a ladder with his hod or trowel in one hand 
 and a ' Tacitus ' in the other. JSTothing could be farther 
 from the truth. Though Jonson tells us himself that 
 he was ' br ought up poorlvv he vet received the best 
 edu cation which the times afforded. His step-father 
 sent him first to a private school at St. Martin's-in-the- 
 Fields, whence he afterwards advanced, through the 
 liberality of a friend, to Westminster. Here the great 
 scholar and antiquary, William Camden, was then 
 second master; and we have reason to believe that 
 Camden was the friend to whom Jonson owed his 
 entrance into one of the chief nurseries of English 
 J iith. Under Camden's personal guidance he laid the 
 foundation of that thorough and extensive knowledge 
 of Greek and Latin literature which made him the most 
 fear ned poet of his age. Camden also tr ained h im in 
 • habits ot composition ,', which exercised no slight m- 
 ^fluence over his style. He told Drummond that it was 
 his wont to write first in prose, and then to versify the 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Ben J on son 
 
 matter thus digested', adding that ^so his master, 
 Camden, had learned him.' The benefits which he 
 received at Westminster were repaid by Jonson with 
 grateful and affectionate remembrance. The magnifi- 
 cent dedication of his first great comedy, ^ Every Man 
 in his Humour,' testifies to Jonson's feeling for his 
 master ; while one of his most spontaneous effusions in 
 elegiac verse : — 
 
 / Camden ! most reverend head, to whom I owo 
 All that I am in arts, all that I know, 
 
 l^ears upon it the stamp of heartfelt sincerity*--. 
 
 Whether Jonson proceeded from Westminster to 
 Cambridge is a matter of doubt ; for the records of the 
 university are imperfect during some years in which he 
 may have matriculated. Jonson made no mention of 
 Cambridge to Drummond, and ascribed his degree of 
 M.A. in both universities to ' their favour, not his 
 studies.' Moreover, the couplet just quoted from his 
 address to Camden proves that he recognised no debt 
 to any other Alma Mater than his school. Yet our 
 authority for the fact that he resided at least a few 
 weeks at Cambridge is fairly good. Fuller states it 
 without hesitation. It was, anyhow, at this period, 
 after his first studies were completed, that he became 
 assistant or apprentice to his step-father. From what 
 he told Drummond, we should be rather inclined to 
 suppose that he went straight from Westminster into 
 the builder's service. 
 
 His previous education and the bent of his genius 
 rendered Jonson unfit for trade or han dicraft. Nothing 
 is more strongly marked in him than a conviction 6F 
 ^is own vocation as a scliolar-poet, comb ined with his^ 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 5 
 
 Iiauylity_sense of its dijgnity._ Whether he was now set 
 tbbuild walls with his own hands, to superintend wall- 
 building, or to keep accounts in the builder's office, does 
 not signify. Whatever his duties were, they proved 
 distasteful. He broke suddenly away from home, en- 
 listed as a soldier, and joined the Entrlish troops in the 
 IjOW Co untries. T)ruriimond records his boast of having 
 engaged m single combat with an enemy ' in the face of 
 both the camps.' He killed the man and stripped him 
 of his armour, which he characteristically called ' taking 
 sjjolia o^ima from him.' History is silent on this ex« 
 ploit, but there is nothing improbable in the narration. 
 Jonson w as a man of vjgorous build, inr^nhiJ-alxLe 
 courage, and almost truculent thirst for distinction^ 
 Such ^uels, too, were common in an age when cam- 
 paigns dragged indolently on, the leaguered forces of 
 two hostile nations lying for months together within 
 earshot of each other. 
 
 Jonson did not stay long abroad. It is clear from 
 the biographical notes supplied to Drummond that he 
 adopted military service only as a means of escape from 
 his step-father's uncongenial industry. When he re- 
 turned to London, having thus asserted his independ- 
 ence, he resumed his wonted studies, and soon, 
 apparently, took to himself a wife. This was probably 
 in 1592. Of his domestic life we know but little. He 
 described hi s^ helpmate as ^ a shrew, yet honest ' ; which 
 means, I suppose, that though sh e had a bad temper, she 
 remained loyal to her marriao-e vows . This is more 
 than can be said for Jonson, who, upon his own avowal 
 in certain coarsely outspoken anecdotes, was by no 
 means a faithful husband.^ On one occasion he spent 
 
6 Ben Jonson 
 
 five years apart from his family, lodging all tliat while 
 in the house of his friend, Esm^ Stuart, Lord Aubigny. 
 There were several children by this marriage, all of 
 whom Jonson survived. _To these he was attac^ dL^s 
 appears from the elegi es on his eldest daughter and 
 eldest so n ; and also from his anxiety, in later life, to 
 obtain the reversion of a place at Court for another of 
 his sons. Yet Fuller says—' He was not very happy in 
 his children.' 
 
 This may be the fitting place to introduce a singular 
 incident connected with h is son s death^ The boy died 
 of plague, in 1603, when his father was staying, together 
 with old Camden, at Sir Kobert Cotton's house in the 
 country. On this occasion, as Drummond reports 
 Jonson's words, ' he saw in a vision his eldest son, then 
 a child and at London, appear unto him with the mark 
 of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if it had been cutted 
 with a sword, at which, amazed, he prayed unto God ; 
 and in the morning he came to Mr. Camden's chamber 
 to tell him, who persuaded him it was but ane appre- 
 hension of his phantasy, at which he should not be 
 dejected. In the meantime comes there letters from 
 his wife of the death of that boy in the plague. He 
 appeared to him (he said) of a manly shape, and of that 
 growth that he thinks he shall be at the resurrection.' 
 We shall soon learn to know Jonson as eminently the 
 poet of sound common sense and robust workmanship. 
 Therefore it may not be amiss to point out now what 
 there was of visio nary in his temperament . Drummond, 
 in the final abstract of his character, describes him as 
 'oppressed with phantasy, which hath ever mastered his 
 reason, a general disease in many poets.' And, beside 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 7 
 
 the curious tale of second sight which I have just tran- 
 scribed, Jonson lets fall hints of dreamy abstracted ^ 
 niood_s, more suited to the poet of the ' Orlando Furioso ' 
 than to the playwright of ' Volpone/ For example : ' He 
 hath consumed a whole night iu lying looking to his 
 great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, 
 Romans and Carthaginians, fight in his imagination.' ^ 
 These freaks of fancy must in part be ascribed doubtless 
 to constitutional humours acting on a saturnine and 
 brooding intellect. Yet it would not be impossible, I 
 think, to regard Jonson's genius a s orjoinally of the ^ 
 ro mantic order^. overlaid and diverted from its spon- 
 taneous bias by aT scholar's education, and by dojLnite 
 theories of the poet's task, deliberately adopted and 
 tenacio usly adhered to in iniddle life^ In the sequel of 
 this chapter I may perhaps be able to adduce arguments 
 in support of this view. 
 
 It was probably in order to support his family that 
 Jonson now sought work at the London theatres. His 
 own accounts of the beginning of his literary life show 
 that he had . to struggle with considerable difficulties. 
 The prologue to the ' Sad Shepherd,' written perhaps 
 in 1637, opens with these lines : — 
 
 He that hatli feasted jqvl. these forty years, 
 And fitted fables for your finer ears, 
 Although at first he could not hit the bore. 
 
 It does not appear that the playwright's occupation 
 was ever much to Jonson's taste, for when he had aban- 
 doned writing for the stage in 1616, only hard necessity 
 forced him to resume it at a later date. He told Drum- 
 mond ^ that the half of lllfe comedies were not in print,' 
 and that he had cleared but 200?. by all his labours for 
 
• 8 Ben J on son 
 
 the public theatre. Unlike Shakespeare, he failed to 
 become partner in one of the chief companies. Owing 
 to this circumstance, more than to any other, he never 
 succeeded in making a modest fortune by his work. 
 j I He was, indeed, too disdainful to accept the conditions 
 of his profession, and too stubborn in the conception he 
 had formed of the poet's function to bend with pliant 
 ease to the exigen cies of the drama as it then existed. 
 He used the theatre as a makeshift in his want of 
 money, and wrote plays to vent his satire on society an d 
 huma n foibles. _ 
 
 We do not know for certain how Jonson was em- 
 ployed for the stage during the six years which elapsed 
 between the date of his marriage and the appearance of 
 ' Every Man in his Humour.' Yet it may be conjectured 
 that, like Shakespeare, he began by mending old plays. 
 It is also probable that he acted. An untrustworthy 
 tradition asserts that he played the part of Hieronymo 
 in the ' Spanish Tragedy/ while strfUing the country 
 with a vagabond troop. It is not, however, likely that 
 the character of Hieronymo would have been assigned 
 to him. Jonson was a big unwieldy fellow ; Hieronymo 
 in Kyd's play insists upon his insignificant stature, and, 
 since he was a favourite stage personage, no company 
 could have given his part to the stoutest and tallest of 
 their number. Jonson was, however, connected in a very 
 curious and important way with the ' Spanish Tragedy,' 
 as I shall ere long have occasion to relate. If he 
 served his apprenticeship as actor as well as playwright, 
 this was probably at the Paris Garden theatre, for 
 Marston sneered at him as ' Jack of Paris Garden.' 
 It will be necessary at this point to introduce a 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 9 
 
 brief sketch of the English drama antecedent to 1598, 
 at which date Jonson first challenged public censure 
 with a comedy distinguished by his own peculiar style. 
 Without some retrospective survey it would be difficult ^ 
 for those who have not made a special study of the sub- 
 ject to understand Jonson's attitude toward the art of his 
 age. Miracle Plays, founded on the sacred history and 
 doctrine of the Church, had been popular in England 
 during the Middle Ages. Among us, more than else- 
 where in Europe, they assumed the comprehensive form 
 of cycles, embracing in a series of actions the whole 
 drama of humanity, from the Creation down to Dooms- 
 day. In course of time minor episodes were detached 
 from these colossal schemes, and treated with rude 
 pathos or coarse humour as the case might be. Thus 
 the germs of tragedy and comedy were implanted in the 
 English mind before the new learning of the Renais- 
 sance had suggested subtle problems as to the true 
 theory of dramatic art. A further step in the evolutioir~> 
 of our national theatre from the shapeless material of ( 
 the Mi];:acle Plays may be observed in those Moralities, ^ 
 or M oral Play s, which, as their name implies, brought / 
 abstract vices and virtues undef"the form of persons 
 on the stage. They were fashionable throughout the 
 reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., and held their 
 own long after the secular drama had been established. 
 Dull and wooden as were the allegories in these pieces, 
 it was impossible to make such characters as Youth, 
 Good Counsel, the Devil, Hypocrisy, Abominable Living, 
 and so forth, walk and talk together on the stage under 
 the guise of men and women, without developing dia- 
 logue, introducing incident, and marking character. 
 
10 Ben J on son 
 
 ? Thus the Moral Play led by imperceptible degrees to 
 I the Interlude, which completed the disengagement of 
 the drama from religious and didactic aims. Inter- 
 ! ludes, regarded as a special type of early histrionic 
 I art, brought real people, distinguished by differences of 
 ; nature, interests, and callings, into some common action. 
 From them to the Farce and Comedy proper there was 
 but one step to take. Comedy naturally developed 
 itself earlier than tragedy out of the material of the 
 sacred and moral drama. The tragic elements were 
 too august to be lightly handled, nor did they lend 
 themselves to separate treatment, whereas comic inci- 
 dents, suggested by the scene of the Nativity or by 
 the allegory of Youth seduced by Wantonness, could be 
 easily detached and made subjects for humorous ex- 
 pansion. Tragedy, however, although at a slower pace, 
 followed the same path. I have already observed that 
 the cyclical Miracle Plays broke up into episodes. Such 
 pieces as ' Godly Queen Esther,' ' King Darius,' ' The 
 Conversion of St. Paul,' exhibited the same style of 
 handling as the Miracle proper. But they had the 
 merit of confining the dramatic interest to one action, 
 and of allowing a certain degree of character-drawing. 
 They also concentrated attention on the story, dealing 
 in a merely perfunctory way with its lessons of edifica- 
 tion. Thus the English people were prepared for that 
 indiscriminate use of histories, fables, novels, narratives 
 of every kind, which eventually determined the character 
 of our Shakespearian drama. Before Eenaissance in- 
 fluences touched our shores the public had developed for 
 itself both comedy and tragedy, in a rude and ill-deter- 
 mined fashion, it is true, but in such a way as to render 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship Ii 
 
 tlie higlily complex style of our greatest playwrights 
 not only possible but inevitable. 
 
 Just at this point the nascent English drama was 
 threatened with a serious danger. Together with the 
 new learning of the classical revival, came the enthusiasm 
 for Italian culture. Critics like Sir Philip Sidney, poets 
 like Lord Buckhurst, by precept and by practice tried 
 to check the growth of that rank literature which filled 
 the theatres of London, as they thought, with weeds. 
 They cont ended that the nr> ly (\v^Mn^. wor thy of a g reat 
 people in an enlightened age was one modelled upon 
 the jjatin manner o f Seneca, as this had bee n adapted 
 t p the stage^f Italy. Consequently they began t o 
 deride the medleys of farce and bloodshed, pathos and 
 l)uttoonery. The interminable histori es and perplexed 
 "fables, which d elip^hted vulgar audiences, in their stead^ 
 they penned c eremonious tragedies, with due regard for 
 tiie unities and strict obser vance of decorum. These 
 were played with applause before the Court and learned 
 UOLeries. But lEe nation could not be deluded into ex- 
 
 changing the new dramatic form evolve d from the ir own ^ 
 gmiua, for the Hryflnd 1if(Rlpss iTnjtn.tinTi of a. tormgn fl.rf. 
 removed by thre e_degr££a- fa)m natu g^e^ 
 
 'The new dramatic form which I have just mentioned 
 deserves now to be styled the JRomantic, as opposed 
 to the Classical, Drama. A succession of good writers, 
 beginning with Edwards and Whetstone, followed by 
 Greene, Peele, Nash, Lodge, Yarington, Kyd, Lyly, 
 and many authors of anonymous plays, developed its 
 various branches. They gave specific character to the 
 History Play, Domestic Tragedy, the Tragedy of Blood, 
 the Pastoral Play, the Masque and Allegoiy, Comedy 
 
l^ Ben JonsoM 
 
 of several kinds, Farce, Extravaganza, Burlesque and 
 Satire. ..Being men of education, standing midway 
 between the people and the cultivated classes, these play- 
 wrights adopted so much of form and handling from 
 the classical school as gave regularity of proportion to 
 the formerly amorphous romantic play. They did not 
 attempt to alter its distinctive qualities. The inter- 
 changeability of pathos and humour, the indifference 
 to unities of time and place, the rapid succession of 
 stirring incidents, the sacrifice of every other element 
 to action on the stage, still remained the striking fea- 
 tures of English drama. But they studied unity of 
 subject, fixed the number of the acts at five, employed 
 rhymed iambic verse instead of the jingling rhythms 
 of their predecessors, and sought to create characters 
 which should be worthy of the accomplished actors 
 who were now competing for public favour. 
 
 Foremost among these founders of Elizabethan 
 drama towers Marlowe. His brilliant period of brief 
 activity secured the future of romantic art, rendering 
 it impossible that any change of taste should supersede 
 it with the pseudo-classic manner of Italy or France. 
 After 1587, when the first part of ' Tamburlaine' was 
 given to the world, blank verse became the regular 
 dramatic metre of the public stage. 
 
 It had already been employed in Court by dramas of 
 the scholastic type, but Marlowe made it popular. He 
 also showed playwrights how it could be handled with 
 a flexibility, a resonance, and a variety of cadence un- 
 known to the timid versifiers of the classic school. At 
 the same time that he fixed and improved the metre of 
 the serious drama, Marlowe advanced his art, in all that 
 
Birth and Apprenticlship 13 
 
 concerns treatment of subject, study of character, and 
 poetical sublimity, far beyond the point which had been 
 reached by Greene or Peele. When Marlowe died in 
 1593, he had given six tragedies to the English stage, 
 one of which, ^ Edward II.,' is not at all inferior to the 
 work of Shakespeare's younger age. Shakespeare him- 
 self came probably to London in 1585. One of his 
 earliest extant plays, ' Love's Labour Lost,' was written 1 
 before 1590. Jonson, as we have seen, began to work/ 
 for the theatres after 1592, and in 1598 produced the/ 
 first comedy which bears his special stamp of style. He 
 therefore shared almost equally with Shakespeare in 
 the powerful influences of Marlowe's somewhat elder 
 art. Like Shakespeare, he had to mend imperfect scenes, 
 to furnish additions for plays which were becoming 
 stale, to improve faulty verses, and, what was even more 
 important, to take his part in representations on the 
 stage. All the plays with which the two leaders of the \ 
 English drama had to deal in these years of their 1 
 apprenticeship were romantic. All bore the mark to r 
 some degree of Marlowe's manner. Shakespeare con- 
 tented himself with bringing the romantic style to the 
 very height of perfection in ^ Othello,' ^ King Lear,' and 
 ' The Winter's Tale.' Jonson, on the contrary, swerved 
 aside from that tradition. It is, indeed, true that even ^ 
 his most regular plays are influenced by the romantic ^' 
 spirit of the age. Yet he strove to strike out for him- 
 se lf a new method, which should adhere more closely to \ , / 
 classical models, and exemplify classical rules mor e 
 nicely^ than that of his predecessor Marlowe or thatj) f 
 Jlli^JiromparRhlf^ friVnd ^^f^ f'^I^O^ y-worker Shake speare. 
 To ^ large exteiit he succeeded • and his best comedies 
 
14 Ben J on son 
 
 form a dramatic species which has no analogue in Eliza- 
 bethan literature. 
 
 The material resources of the stage in England were 
 developed in the same homely and spontaneous fashion 
 as its art. While Palladio was building a stately Eoman 
 theatre at Vicenza for the representation of lifeless 
 dramas in the style of Seneca, rough wooden sheds erected 
 in suburban fields, or scaffoldings run up in yards of 
 London hostelries, formed the first cradle of the Muse of 
 Shakespeare and of Jonson. Little by little theatres, 
 properly so called, came into existence, while bear-pits 
 and such places of popular entertainment were adapted 
 to the needs of acting companies. Even the two finest 
 of these theatres, the Globe and Fortune, were rude 
 wooden edifices, only partially roofed in. The stage, on 
 which the play was shown, projected into the pit or 
 yard, where spectators stood together on bare ground. 
 For those who could afford such luxuries, boxes were 
 provided round this open central space ; and men of 
 fashion might purchase the use of stools upon the stage 
 by payment of an extra fee. The actors were thus 
 brought into closest contact with the audience; and 
 scenery may be said to have been almost wholly wanting. 
 Hitherto I have described what were known as public 
 theatres. The so-called private houses differed from 
 them in being roofed over, smaller, rather more select 
 in company, and somewhat better furnished. Perform- 
 ances took place usually at three P.M. All female parts 
 were acted by boys. The same men exercised both arts 
 of play-writing and play-acting, and very frequently' 
 owned some share in the general profits of the theatre. 
 It was thus that the whole business of the drama in 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 15 
 
 I London came into the hands of rival companies. These, 
 from being numerous and variable in the earlier period 
 of its history, had at the epoch I shall have to treat of 
 been absorbed into two permanent and powerful antago- 
 nistic bodies. They were severally known as the Lord 
 Chamberlain's and the Lord Admiral's men. Shake- 
 speare and Burbage ht^aded the former company ; Hen- 
 si owe, the capitalist, and Alleyne, the actor, led the 
 latter. The headquarters of the one were the Globe 
 and Blackfriars. The Fortune and various smaller 
 houses controlled by Henslowe employed the other troop. 
 The curious diary kept by Henslowe shows that in 
 1597 Jonson was working regularly for this manager. 
 Nothing, however, is known to have survived from this 
 period of his authorship. That he must have adopted 
 the dominant romantic style seems tolerably certain ; 
 and that he was a master of that style is proved by 
 the additions to the ' Spanish Tragedy,' produced by him 
 so late as 1601-1602. Competent judges and critics of 
 high excellence have protested against the ascription 
 of these intensely dramatic and powerfully imaginative 
 scenes — ^ the very salt of the old play,' as Charles Lamb 
 called them — to Jonson's pen. Yet no arguments have 
 been adduced to disprove the plain evidence of Jonson's 
 authorship afforded by Henslowe's diary. He probably 
 created not merely that impassioned picture of a 
 father crazed and maddened by his son's murder, but 
 also much else fantastically terrible in the romantic 
 style, before settling down to his distinctive manner. 
 We know that he collaborated with Dekker on a 
 domestic tragedy called ' Page of Plymouth.' This 
 is unfortunately lost. Else it had certainly been one 
 
V 
 
 1 6 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 of the most valuable documents for studying tlie deve- 
 lopment of Jonson's genius. A further proof that 
 Jonson long dallied with the purely romantic muse is 
 furnished by one of the earliest, if not actually the first, of 
 his extant comedies, ^ The Case is Altered.' This play 
 stands apart from all the rest of Jonson's work ; and has 
 singular interest owing to the indecision between the 
 romantic and the classic methods which it exhibits. It 
 is, in fact, a comedy of the fanciful Elizabethan species, 
 soinewhat in the tone of Middleton, founded upon the 
 plots of the 'Captivi' and the ^ Aulularia.' The 
 characters of Rachel, Chamont, Camillo, and Count Fer- 
 neze are such as Fletcher might have, outlined ; though 
 their portraits are filled in with something of Jonsonian 
 hardness. Juniper, the cobbler, who is ' an eyesore to 
 everybody by the mispronunciation of epigrams,' is a 
 fairly clever first cousin of Dogberry, and grandsire of 
 Mrs. Malaprop. But the methodical way in which his 
 oddities are exhibited, already forecasts Jonson's me- 
 chanical employment of humours on the stage. The 
 personal satire of Anthony Munday in ' Antonio Bal- 
 ladino,' and the general satire upon London playgoers, 
 anticipate those asperities of criticism which embittered 
 the dramatist's middle life. Altogether, after reading 
 ' The Case is Altered,' we are inclined to regret that 
 Jonson did not bring to perfection the species which he 
 here essayed, combining delicate poetry aud graceful 
 sentiment with firmly constructed plot and careful 
 character-drawing, instead of devoting himself exclu- 
 sively to the harder and more prosaic manner of his 
 maturity. 
 
 I have already stated that, so far as we know, 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship ly 
 
 Jonson was at no time beneficially connected with any 
 of the players' companies as shareholder. He derived 
 his ]Day for piece-work from Henslowe ; and in Septem- 
 ber 1598 an event happened which, for a time at any 
 rate, deprived him of this employment. One of the 
 actors in Henslowe's company, named Gabriel Spencer, 
 challenged him to a duel in Hogsden Fields. Jonson 
 killed his man ; and when he related the incident to 
 Drummond, he mentioned that Spencer's sword was ten 
 inches longer than his own. A letter from Henslowe 
 supplies us with the adversary's name; and after that 
 of Benjamin Jonson adds ^ bricklayer.' 
 
 Thus far I had written, npon the evidence furnished 
 by Jonson's conversations with Drummond and Hen- 
 slowe's letter, when a document of great importance, 
 bearing upon the duel, was brought to light. ^ We owe 
 it to Mr. John Cordy JeafFreson's researches in the 
 Sessions Files, or Middlesex Sessions Eolls, for the 
 period of Edward VI. 's, Mary's, and Elizabeth's reigns. 
 It throws a light so curious, and in some respects so 
 unexpected, on the incident, that I shall introduce it in 
 this place. From it we learn not only th at Jonson was 
 tried at the Old Baile y for homicide, but also that he 
 w^as convictea on his ow n confession ; that he pleaded 
 his clergy to escape capital punishment for felony ; and 
 that he was dis missed with the customary penalty of a 
 brand upon the thumb of his left hand and the forfeit 
 of his goo ds and chattels^ The original document, 
 which is written in Latin, c isists of the indictment and 
 the Clerk of the Peace's mei .orandum. The former is 
 here printed in roman type, the latter in italics ; and 
 ' Athena'um, March 6, 1886. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 Ben JoNso^ 
 
 the English version communicated by the discoverer of 
 the paper has been adopted. 
 
 He confesses the indictment, asks for the hook, reads like a 
 clerk, is marked with the letter T, and is delivered ac- 
 cording to the statute, <Scc. 
 
 Middlesex : — The jurors for the Lady the Queen present, 
 that Benjamin Johnson, late of London, j^eoman, on the 
 22nd day of September, in the fortieth year of the reign of 
 our Lady Elizabeth by God's grace Queen of England, 
 France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., with force 
 and arms, &c., made an attack against and upon a certain 
 Gabriel Spencer, being in God's and the said Lady the 
 Queen's peace, at Shordiche in the aforesaid county of 
 Middlesex, in the Fields there, and with a certain sword of 
 iron and steel called a Kapiour, of the price of three shil- 
 lings, which he then and there had and held drawn in his 
 right liand, feloniously and wilfully beat and struck the 
 same Gabriel, giving then and there to the same Gabriel 
 Spencer with the aforesaid sword a mortal wound of the 
 depth of six inches and of the breadth of one inch, in and 
 upon the right side of the same Gabriel, of which mortal 
 blow the same Gabriel Spencer at Shordiche aforesaid, in the 
 aforesaid county, in the aforesaid Fields, then and there died 
 instantly. And thus the aforesaid jurors say upon their 
 oath, that the aforesaid Benjamin Johnson, at Shorediche 
 aforesaid, in the aforesaid county of Middlesex, and in the 
 aforesaid Fields, in the year and day aforesaid, feloniously 
 and wilfully killed and slew the aforesaid Gabriel Spencer, 
 against the peace of the said Lady the Queen, &c. 
 
 In his account of the duel Jonson asserted that he 
 tad been ' appealed to the fields.' It will be observed 
 that the indictment; founded on his public confession. 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 19 
 
 is somewhat at variance with this statement. Spencer 
 there appears to have been ' in G od's and the Queen's 
 peace/ and Jonson's mortal attack upon him takes the 
 semblance of an unprovoked or unsolicited encounter. 
 Yet, in justice to the poet, it must be remembered that 
 the terms of the indictment are not incompatible with a 
 previous challenge. That Jonson was by no means 
 ashamed of his part in the adventure^ is /proved ^by the 
 fact of his narrating it, twenty years after its occurrence, 
 to Drummond, at Hawthornden. It is also noteworthy 
 that none of the literary antagonists who strove to slur 
 his character in satire and drama described him as a 
 murderer. Singularly enough, they did not even allude 
 to the felon's brand, or Tyburn T, upon his thumb. A 
 circumstance so notorious in the theatrical world as this 
 must assuredly have been, could not have escaped the 
 memory of men like Marston and Dekker. We may 
 therefore draw the inference from their silence, no less 
 than from Jonson's own free speech about the matter, 
 that in some way unknown to us, notwithstanding his 
 conviction for felonious homicide, it redounded to his 
 credit rather than otherwise. At the same time, the 
 record fully confirms his subsequent assertion that he 
 was ' almost at the gallows ' ; while the danger he then 
 ran explains the curious fact of his conversion to Catho- 
 licism under the sharp and pressing dread of death. 
 If we seek to pry still further into the obscurer details 
 of the incident, we may resume the admissions he made 
 in 1619 to Drummond. ^ In the time of his close im- 
 prisonment, under Queen Elizabeth, his judges could 
 get nothing of him to all their demands but Aye and 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Bnisr JonsoM 
 
 No. They placed two damned villains to catch advan- 
 tage of him with him; but he was advertised by his 
 keeper.' This looks as though an attempt had been 
 made to convict him of an unfair assault upon a man 
 who had not challenged him to duel. Failing proof of 
 this, although the indictment was worded in his dis- 
 •^ favour, he escaped the gallows. What the real facts of 
 the encounter were cannot now be discovered. We only 
 know that the author of ' Every Man in his Humour/ 
 a few weeks before that comedy raised him to a first 
 rank among the playwrights of his age, had to save his 
 neck by reading from a book in order to prove his 
 clerkship, and that he left Newgate branded with the 
 letter T. It is notorious that this branding was either 
 a serious affair or a formal ceremony, according to the 
 bad or good will of the gaoler. Perhaps the friendly 
 keeper, who warned him of the spies, took care that he 
 should not go forth to the world marked for life with 
 an ignominious stigma. 
 
 As I have already hinted, Jonson was converted to 
 the Popish belief during this imprisonment. He told 
 Drummond that he had then been visited by a priest, from 
 whom he ' took his religion by trust,' and that he after- 
 wards remained twelve years in that persuasion. What 
 caused his return to Protestantism does not appear. But 
 no one who has entered into intelligent sympathy with 
 his character will believe that he was swayed by any of 
 those worldly motives which may have had their weight 
 with Dryden in his changes of faith. Drummond relates 
 a curious detail about his re-conversion. ' After he was 
 reconciled with the Church, and left off to be a recusant, 
 at his first Communion, in token of true reconciliation, 
 
Birth and Apprenticeship 21 
 
 lie drank out all the full cup of wine.' This anecdote is 
 so characteristic of the man and of the times that I have 
 quoted it, although, to modern minds, the spirit of the 
 robust convert savours less of devout troth-pledging 
 than of ribaldry. ^ 
 
22 Ben J on son 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD OF MAXHOOD. 
 
 Jonson's duel with Gabriel Spencer concludes tlie first 
 chapter of his life. The same incident, by cutting him 
 adrift from Henslowe, and forcing him to seek support 
 elsewhere, determined the next stage of his literary 
 career. This begins with the production of 'Every 
 Man in his Humour,' at the close of 1598, and ends 
 with his temporary withdrawal from the theatre in 
 1616. During this second broad period, Jonson deve- 
 loped his dramatic style, and produced all the master- 
 pieces on which his fame now rests. Professionally, he 
 was attached to no one company. "We find him writing 
 in turn for the Chamberlain's men, for the Children of 
 the Chapel Royal, for the Admiral's men, for the Chil- 
 dren of her Majesty's Revels, for the Lady Elizabeth's 
 servants ; but most frequently of all, for the Chamber- 
 lain's men, or, as they came to be called, the King's 
 men — that is to say, for Shakespeare's company. 
 
 I may here pause to consider the effect of Jonson's 
 early training on his genius. Of all the playwrights 
 who were his contemporaries, he was the onl y born 
 Londoner. If we except the brief episode of his soldier- 
 ae*Low Countries, he had hardly quitted the 
 
First Period of Manhood 23 
 
 purlieus of the Tower and Westminster. His time, as 
 a boy^ passed between severe studies at school and per^ 
 anibulations of the Cit y streets^ Though the country 
 at that period neighboured so closely on the capital 
 that an active lad might escape into the fields between 
 school-hours, yet_the dominant influences of Jonso^.'s 
 growing years were far from rural. Tjown-bred and 
 Ibred to scholarship, he underwent influences very 
 different from those which shaped the mind of Shake- 
 
 speafe m his home at Stratford. We. ought not to 
 insist too crudely on this contrast. Temperame nt must ( 
 in all cases be reckoned more powerful than education ^ ( 
 and it may be remembered that Keats was a cockney. 
 Yet no fair critic will contend that the brilliant parallel 
 drawn by Mr. Swinburne between ' Bartholomew Fair ' 
 and ' The Merry Wives of Windsor ' — ' the purely 
 farcical masterpieces of the town-bred schoolboy and the 
 country lad ' — is overstrained. Jonson, exploring the, 
 classics with Camden for his guide in the heyday of the 
 Sifglish Eenaissance, formed an ideal of art different 
 from that of his great comr ade,^ who learned ^ small 
 L atin and less G r eek^ under the ferule of some village 
 Holofernes. Hours of le isure passed at Smithfield, _ o r 
 among the wherries of the Thames, developed gensibili- 
 ties a nd p owers of observation in Jonson alien to those 
 which expanded in the soul of Shakespeare upon the 
 banks of Avon, or in the glades of Charlcote. 
 
 We have good right to maintain that Jonson's first 
 real start in his playwright's craft was given him by 
 Shakespeare. Henslowe cast him adrift after Septem- 
 ber 1^98. Before the end of that year, ' Every Man in 
 his HuiVour ' had been put upon the stage by the Clinm- 
 
24 Ben Jonson 
 
 berlain's men. Old tradition affirms that Shakespearo 
 induced his company to buy and represent the play. It 
 is certain that he acted in it. Nothing, therefore, fits 
 the facts so well as this tradition, which may conse- 
 quently be accepted as authentic. Shakespeare was 
 Jonson's elder by nine years. He was now in full pos- 
 session of the public, having already produced some of 
 the best work in his first manner, and risen to a post of 
 influence and emolument in the company which used 
 the Curtain, the Globe, and the Blackfriars. He had 
 no reason to be jealous of Jonson, or to fear him as a 
 literary rival. His interests as a shareholder in the 
 theatres he worked for. made him rather eager to secure 
 the first-fruits of rising genius for his troop. We can 
 see nothing strange in Shakespeare's welcoming so 
 robust a recruit as Jonson. Yet, if one should deign to 
 remember the nonsense vented by purblind critics at the 
 end of the last century touching Jonson's animosity 
 against Shakespeare, it is pleasant to be able to believe 
 that their intimacy began by an act of kindness and of 
 business-like discernment on the latter 's part, 
 
 I shall take this occasion to express my firm convic- 
 tion that Jonson harboured no envy, malignity, or 
 hostile feeling of any kind for Shakespeare. The two 
 poets differed in their method as playwrights. Jonson 
 was not the man to acknowledge that Shakespeare's 
 method was superior to his own ; nor did the opinion of 
 cultivated people in their times tend to this conclusion. 
 He therefore felt himself at liberty to criticise a drama- 
 tist, whom now we place in all essential points above 
 him. But when we examine his critique of Shake- 
 speare, what3 do we find ? The ejithiisiastic panegyric 
 
/ 
 
 First Period of Manhood ^5 
 
 whicli introduces Heminge and Condell's folio of Shake- 
 speare's plays, and which is reproduced in Jonson's 
 ' Underwoods/ proves that though his ideal of art dif- 
 fered from that of Shakespeare^ though he rated himself 
 liighly on attainments which the nobler poet lacked, yet 
 he hailed in his great comrade a tragic and a comic 
 dramatist, born ' not of an age but for all time,' who 
 might compete with ^ all that insolent Greece or haughty 
 Rome sent fgrth,' and with all that had been furnished 
 from their ashes by the feebler poets of a colder 
 clime. In his ' Discoveries,' those ' last drops from 
 Jonson's quill,' as they have been quaintly styled, he 
 censured Shakespeare in very moderate terms for 
 unpruned luxuriance and careless control over his own 
 powers of wit and eloquence. Who will now contend 
 that Jonson was not justified in this criticism ? Yet he 
 immediately added: ^I loved the man, and do honour 
 his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He 
 was indeed honest,^ and of an open and full nature ; had 
 an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expres- 
 sions ; wherein he flowed with that facility, that some- 
 times it was necessary he should be stopped : Snfjiam- 
 inandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius.' If we 
 remember that Jonson said of himself to Drummond^ 
 that ^ of all styles he loved most to be named HonesL ' 
 It will appear tliat he meant in the passagfe I have just 
 quoted to ya y the hiofhest tribute to Shakespeare as a 
 man. "^Ancl could any poet say more of a brother poet's 
 gemus than is expressed in those apostrophes, the most 
 impassioned Jonson ever penned ? — ' Sweet Swan ot 
 Avon ! ' ' Soul of the age ! ' ' Thou star of poets ! ' 
 
 It was under Shak^spe^re'g auspices, and with ' Every 
 
26 Ben Jonson 
 
 ]\Ian in liis Humour/ then, that Jonson made Ms first 
 decisive mark upon the public stage of London. This 
 is the earliest comedy, which he acknowledged ; for ' The 
 Case is Altered ' was not included in his own folio edition 
 of plays. The facts are noticeable. As the title of the 
 comedy indicates, Jonson now entered upon his peculiar 
 field of liumours. It is our business to understand what 
 was the common meaning of this phrase in his time, 
 and how he thought fit to employ it. At the date 
 when he was writing, humo ur was on everybody's lip § 
 to denote whim, oddity, conceited turn of thoug h^,^jjr^ 
 special partiality in any person. We may remember the 
 fatiguing use which Nym makes of it in Shakespeare's 
 ' Merry Wives of Windsor ' : ' He was gotten in drink : 
 is not the humour conceited ? ' ' The good humour is to 
 steal at a minute's rest.' ^ The anchor is deep : will that 
 humour pass ? ' ^ The humour rises \ it is good : humour 
 me the angels.' ' I will discuss the humour of this love 
 to Page.' Lucky instinct made Jonson choose a word so 
 much in vogue to designate the kind of comedy he 
 aimed at. It helped to bring his play into notice, and 
 it also defined the region of his art. In the prologue to 
 ' Every Man in his Humour ' he tells the audience that 
 it is the proper end of the comedian — 
 
 To sport with human follies, not with crimes. 
 
 Here he seems to have imagined that by ^ humour ' the 
 public would understand ' human folly,' as differenced 
 from mere afffectation on the one hand, and from crime 
 on the other. Soon, however, he felt the necessity of 
 explaining more precisely his own interpretation of the 
 leading phrase. This he did in the induction to ^ Every 
 
First Period of Manhood 27 
 
 Man out of his Humour.' The passage throws so much 
 light upon Jonson's conception of character that I shall 
 transcribe it : — 
 
 In every human body, 
 The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood, 
 By reason that they flow continually 
 In some one part, and are not contment, 
 Receive the name of humours. Now thus far 
 It may, by metaphor, apply itself 
 Unto the general disposition : 
 As when some one peculiar quality 
 Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw 
 All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, 
 In his confluctions, all to run one way, 
 This may be truly said to be a humour. 
 
 It appears from these lines that Jonson's first conception 
 of humour as a master element in character was con- 
 nected with the medieval hypothesis of four fluid tem- 
 peraments. He believed that ^ choler, melancholy, 
 phlegm, and blood ' governed all classes of men in several 
 degrees ; and upon this theory he built up a scheme of 
 human foibles and proclivities, which only differs from 
 Pope's scheme of the ^ Ruling Passion ' in so far as it is 
 a little more physical and less metaphysical than the 
 nicely expressed doctrine of the ' Essay on Man.' That 
 he took humour in its literal sense of a controlling 
 quality in the vital fluids appears from Cob's vulgar 
 caricature of the phrase : ' Nay, I have my rheum.' 
 Nym would have said, ^ Nay, I have my humour.' He 
 also sought to bring the public back to a right notion 
 of its value. The word had become a mere slang term 
 for any eccentricity : — 
 
 Daily to see how the poor innocent word 
 Is racked and tortured ! 
 
28 Ben J on son 
 
 The wKoIe web of his comedy was therefore woven 
 on the warp of humour apprehended as the service paid 
 by imperfect, and consequently comic, characters to 
 their physical temperament. Toward the close of his 
 career Jonson returned to the same topic. In the 
 induction to ' The Magnetic Lady ' we read : ' The 
 author beginning his studies of this kind with " Every 
 Man in his Humour ; " and after, ^' Every Mali out of 
 his Humour ; " and since, continuing in all his plays, 
 especially those of the comic thread, whereof the '^ New 
 Inn " was the last, some recent humours still, or manners 
 of men, that went along with the times.' This suffi- 
 ciently proves that Jonson conceived humour, which he 
 first apprehended in the narrow sense of personal tem- 
 perament, and thence translated to the wider sphere of 
 social manners, to be the proper medium for the comic 
 playwright. Dryden summed up his position in one 
 paragraph : ^ Among the English, by humour is meant 
 some extravagant habit, passion or affection, particular 
 to some one person, by the oddness of which he is im- 
 mediately distinguished from the rest of men ; which, 
 being lively and naturally represented, most frequently 
 begets that malicious pleasure in the audience which is 
 testified by laughter ; as all things which are deviations 
 from custom are ever the aptest to produce it. The 
 description of these humours, drawn from the knowledge 
 and observation of particular persons, was the peculiar 
 genius and talent of Ben Jonson.' 
 
 The success of 'Every Man in his Humour' will 
 surprise no one who has followed the varied and yet 
 simple action of this lively comedy. It is written with 
 all Jonson's preci^Qn ancj jn bis pecuUargianner ; but 
 
First Period of Manhood 29 
 
 it lacks that rig i dity which his manner afterwa rds 
 assumed.. Though the parts of the knavish servant anrf" 
 his young master remind us of the Roman theatre, 
 Jonson has recast them in accordance with English 
 character and custom. His erudition, indeed, in this 
 play makes itself less prominently felt than in some of 
 his later masterpieces. Kitely, as the jealous husband, 
 deserves a place beside Ford in Shakespeare's ' Merry 
 Wives of Windsor.' Bobadil is a fit companion for 
 ParoUes and Bessus, and is superior in comic effect to 
 the swaggering Tucca of Jonson's ' Poetaster.' Brain- 
 worm may be regarded as a meritorious study for the far 
 more masterly portrait of Mosca in ' Volpone.' Mathew 
 and Stephen, the town and country gulls, lead that long 
 line of fools to which Sogliardo, Lafoole, Fitzdotterel. 
 Kestril, and Cokes belong. In depicting the specific 
 qualities of such simpletons, Jonson was particularly 
 happy ; and though none of them approach the humour 
 of Shallow and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, they exhibit his 
 faculty of observing and reproducing delicate shades of 
 di fference in superficial no less than in stronp^ly marked 
 personalities. 
 
 It is not my purpose to speak at length of Jonson's 
 plays while sketching his life, but rather to leave the 
 consideration of his merits as poet and dramatist for a 
 future chapter. Yet I may point out those passages 
 which throw distinct light upon his character, his con- 
 ception of the playwright's function, and his relations 
 to contemporary writers. Unlike Shakespeare, he 
 supplies material of this kind in abundance. He seems 
 to have understood and appreciated the function of the 
 Parabasis in Greek comedy, where the author addressed 
 
30 Ben J on son 
 
 tlie audience in his own person through the mouth of 
 the Chorus. Having no chorus, Jonson made full use 
 of Dedication, Prologue, Epilogue, Induction, and Dia- 
 logue between, the acts — devices whereby the poet 
 was enabled to communicate his private opinions and 
 his critical observations to the public. The first im- 
 portant manifesto of this kind is the prologue to ' Every 
 Man in his Humour.' Here Jonson, following in the 
 track of Whetstone and Sir Philip Sidney, sweepingly 
 condemns the inartistic method of the pure romantic 
 school, and proclaims his^ntention of restricting comedy 
 to her proper function of depicting the common actions 
 of men, personages suited to the mirthful stage, and 
 foibles of humanity. The play was originally brought 
 out with Italian names for the characters and consider- 
 able differences in the scenes. One passage, which 
 Jonson omitted when he recast the piece as published 
 in the first folio, so admirably expresses the lofty ideal 
 he had formed ' of poetry that I shall insert it here. 
 Lorenzo, or Young Knowell, defends the inspired art of 
 song from the slanders brought upon it by its ignorant 
 professors : — 
 
 I can refell opinion, and approve 
 The state of poesy, such as it is, 
 Blessed, eternal, and most true divine : 
 Indeed, if you will look on poesy, 
 As she appears in many, poor and lame, 
 Patch'd up in remnants and old worn-out rags, 
 Half starv'd for want of her peculiar food 
 Sacred invention ; then, I must confirm 
 Both your conceit and censure of her merit : 
 ri But view her in her glorious ornaments 
 Attired in the majesty of art. 
 Set high in spirit with the precious taste 
 
First Period of Manhood -y 3^ . 
 
 Of sweet philosophy ; and, which is most, ^-^^^ 
 
 Crown'd with the rich traditions of a soul, 
 
 That hates to have her dignity prophaned 
 
 With any relish of an earthly thought, 
 
 Oh then how proud a presence doth she bear 
 
 Then is she like herself, fit to be seen 
 
 Of none but grave and consecrated eyes. 
 
 THs theme is developed with even greater ardour 
 in the ^ Poetaster.' The situation is nearly the same. 
 Young Ovid, devoted to poetry, and persecuted by an 
 over-anxious father, bursts into an impassioned Apology 
 for his Art. 
 
 There was, in truth, no poet of the age who came^^,-- 
 near to Jonson in this deep conviction of the sacred- i 
 ness and gravity of his vocation. He was persuaded j 
 that the playwright, then too often scorned as panderer • 
 bo vulgar pleasures, had a serious function to discharge. 
 The poetry of the stage, he held, must aim not merely | - 
 at delight, but at instruction also. The suffrage of the j /^ 
 people must be conquered, not courted. Dramas must / 
 be written not to charm the popular ear, but to educate ' , 
 it. This lofty doctrine he expounded with too much 
 arrogance and self-conceit. He insy^lted the public 
 whom he strove to benefit, and raised animosity by the 
 contempt he poured on individuals. We, however, 
 who are far removed from the literary discords of those 
 times, can peruse with calmness and enjoy the manly 
 eloquence of that great dedication to the Sister Univer- 
 sities which forms the preface to ^ Volpone.' Bating 
 some personalities and blustering defiances which im- 
 pair the dignity of the oration, this high-built edifice of 
 ceremonious language deserves^ to__rank with Milton's 
 sublime periods upon the poet's priesthood, and with 
 
3^ Ben JoNsoM 
 
 Sidney's lofty vindication of tlie poet's claim to pro- 
 phecy. Unhappily, the piece, which ought to find its 
 honoured place in every anthology of English prose, 
 is both too long to quote in full, and also too closely 
 wrought to bear abstraction of its well-weighed sen- 
 tences without the risk of mutilation. Yet a few phrases 
 shall be culled, in order to define the haughty position 
 assumed by JonsonJoward_th^_Je^er_Jty of writers in. 
 his age, and the magnificent audacity with which he 
 relied on his own force to stem the tide of ruin menacinor 
 the art he reverenced. 'If men will impartially, and 
 not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a 
 poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the im- 
 possibility of any man's being the good poet without 
 being first the good man. He that is said to be able to 
 inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown 
 men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and 
 supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover 
 them to their first strength; that comes forth the 
 interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things 
 divine no less than human, a master in manners ; and 
 can alone, or with a few, effect the business of mankind : 
 this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ignorance 
 to exercise their railing rhetoric upon.' Having thus 
 vehemently and proudly sketched the function of the 
 sacred bard as teacher xjfworld-wisdom, he paints the 
 iBaser brood of poetasters-^knaves who batten upon 
 public vices, traduce private reputations, and feed like 
 flesh-flies on the carrion of vulgar applause. ' ' I choose 
 rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them 
 in so preposterous a fame.j After dwelling at length 
 upon the terms of this disdainful abjuration, he spreads 
 
First PEt^iob Of Manhood 
 
 /his wings once more for a yet more giddy fiiglit. 
 ' Wherein, if my muses be true to me, I shall raise the 
 despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out of 
 those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have 
 adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, 
 feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be 
 embraced and kissed of all the great and master-spirits 
 
 \of our world.' 
 
 I might draw a parallel between these passages and 
 the eulogy of love which Jonson put into the mouth of 
 Lovel in ' The New Inn.' Pure love and sacred poetry 
 walk hand in hand like sisters in the work of Jonson and 
 of Milton. The art of song for them resembles august 
 and honourable matrimony, * mother of lawful sweets 
 and unshamed mornings.' Many of their brother bards 
 made her a wanton, public to the lusts of a lascivious 
 court and vulgar people, reaping repentance, surfeit, and 
 such tears of shame as Dry den shed for his past errors 
 on the stage. It is, indeed, not a little curious to con- 
 trast the tone of Dryden, Jonson's next renowned suc- 
 cessor on the laureate's throne and next dictator over 
 literary London, with the grave and reverent language 
 of this elder playwright. Jonson was a Khadamanthus 
 
 ; of justice ; Dryden, a parasite of popular caprice. Jon- 
 son trampled, Dryden fawned, on public taste. While 
 Jonson wrote as we have seen of poetry, Dryden thus 
 impudently confessed his mean and servile aims : ' My;^ 
 chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live.' 
 
 * To please the people jiught to Jbe the poet's aim.' 
 
 * The humour of the people is now for comedy ; there- 
 fore, in hope to please them, I write comedies rather 
 than serious plays/ What Dryden's compliance brought 
 
 D 
 
34 Ben Jonson 
 
 liim was the bitter but superb remorse expressed in the 
 ^ Ode on Mrs. Anne Killigrew/ the sad but manly dis- 
 couragement which tinges the ' Epistle to Mr. Congreve ' 
 at its close with gloom. What Jonson gained from his 
 defiant tone of truculent yet generous self-approbation 
 will appear when we examine more closely into his 
 attitude as a dramatist during this first period of his 
 manhood. 
 
 Jonson had formed a noble ideal of th e poet, con- 
 scious of his high vocation ; and he was right In judging 
 that the large majority of contemporary playwrights, 
 scribblers for cheaply earned small gains upon the 
 public stage, were unworthy of the name of poet, ^et 
 he was incapable of maintaining^ the dignity of the 
 , poetic art without too loudly asserting his own supe - 
 riority. He ideutified the sacred bard with his^ Qwn 
 person, posed before the world as Apollo's high priest, 
 and presumed upon his erudition to affect the lordly 
 airs of an authentic Aristarchus. The three massive 
 comedies which he brought out in tolerably quick suc- 
 cession after 1598 — ' Every Man out of his Humour ' in 
 1599, ^Cynthia's Revels' in 1600, and 'The Poetaster' 
 in 1601 — breathe a spirit o f vainp-lory and a fierc e 
 disdai n forl'ellov v-wOI'l^^rg'm the drarga , which exposed 
 liim to savage reprisals. These plays were styled by 
 him '' Comical Satires.' He indulged in them that 
 genius for crude a,nd also cruel caricature which may 
 be observed in milder form in ' The Case is Altered.' 
 Not only were the follies of the Court and town freely 
 castigated with touches which probably wrung the 
 withers of now forgotten jades; but living men, 
 his professional comrades and social equals, were also 
 
First Period of Manhood 35 
 
 ridiculed. Henslowe, whose pay he took, with whom he 
 quarrelled and made peace again by turns, is odiously 
 portrayed as a slave-merchant, under whose protection 
 the morals of play-acting boys were not safe. Marston, 
 the disciple who had borrowed from him a pedantic 
 strain of turgid blank verse, and Dekker, with whom 
 he had collaborated in dramatic journey-work, are 
 insulted by sarcasms, now almost utterly devoid of 
 pungency, but at the moment exquisitely irritating. 
 What made this waspish attack upon his neighbours 
 more insufferable, and also exposed it more helplessly 
 to retaliation, was the swagg erin g attitude assumed by 
 the self-dubbed arbiter of taste. Howevei' we may 
 respect Jonson s sterling qualities as man and poet, we 
 cannot read the prologue and epilogue to ' Cynthia's 
 Revels ' without resenting its strain of self-laudation. ^ 
 The three characters, used by him as masks in the three 
 ' Comical Satires,' namely, xisper, Crites, Horace, make 
 us justly angry. We cannot stomach the writer who 
 thus dared to praise and puff himself. Let us hear 
 each of them speak. Asper says :— 
 
 My soul 
 
 Was never ground into such oily colours, 
 
 To flatter vice, and daub iniquity : 
 
 But with an armed and resolved hand 
 
 I'll strip the ragged follies of the time 
 
 Naked as at their birth 1 
 
 And with a whip of steel 
 
 Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs. 
 
 T fear no mood stamped in a private brow, 
 
 When I am pleased to unmask a public vice. 
 
 I fear no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab, 
 
 Should I detect their hateful luxuries. 
 
 Ohoj jam satis ! Asper runs on for yet another score of 
 
36 '.:•■ 'Ben joNsoi^ 
 
 lines. But we have had enough of him. Let him 
 stand down, and call Crites into the witness-box. Vir- 
 tue, the Divine Arete, introduces Crites, and describes 
 him thus : — 
 
 Lo, here the man, celestial Delia, 
 Who (like a circle bounded in itself) 
 Contains as much as man in fullness may. 
 Lo, here the man, who not of usual -ea**lr, ■ 
 But of that nobler and more -fl^cious mould 
 Which Phoebus self doth temper, is composed. 
 
 Enough of Crites. After this panegyric, we do not 
 need his long-winded orations and self-laudatory criti- 
 cisms. Horace appears before our court after a like 
 fashion, ushered in by Virgil. Horace has rivals, 
 detractors, contemporary poets, who ought not to pre- 
 sume to hold a candle to him. So Jonson makes Virgil 
 trim the balance thus : — 
 
 If they should confidently praise their works, 
 In them it would appear inflation ; 
 Which in a full and well-digested man 
 Cannot receive that foul abusive name, 
 But the fair title of erection. 
 
 To put it plainly: Jonson maintained that he had 
 liberty and licence to commend himself and abuse his 
 comrades ; but if they commended themselves, this was 
 inflation ; or if they abused him, this was detraction .,^_ 
 He placed himself in an impossible position. ■ Not 
 without reason was he arraigned for ^ self-love, ar ro- 
 gancy, im pudence, and railing,' as also for ^filching b y 
 tra nslation.^ J -l'he last count of the indictment against 
 Tonson willTiave to be treated separately. It is enough 
 now to confine attention to those points which illustrato 
 the man's aggressive and egotistic personality. 
 
fl UMJVERSn T a 
 
 First Period 0F^§i^^!9^^^^^ 
 
 37 
 
 These pretensions in the playwright who had but 
 recently risen from low station into the clear light of 
 fame, excited violent hostility. Jonson was attacked 
 by Marston in his ^ Satires ' and the ' Scourge of Vil- 
 lainy ' (1598), probably under the names of Tubrio, 
 Torquatus, and Jack of Paris Garden. He told Drum- 
 mond that ' he had many quarrels with Marston, beat 
 him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poet- 
 aster on him. The beginning of them were that Mar- 
 ston represented him on the stage, in his youth given 
 to venery.' If we are right in identifying Marston's 
 Tubrio with Jonson, the charge is sufficiently attested ; 
 for Tubrio is a very loathsome character, and one that 
 justly called a drubbing down upon its author's shoulders 
 from the supposed original. But, on the whole, it 
 would appear that Jonson was the first to open fire upon 
 the stage against Marston. Some critics, to whom this 
 literary squabble is interesting, have identified the Clove 
 of ' Every Man out of his Humour ' with Marston ; 
 some, and these perhaps with better reason, have 
 detected him in Carlo Buffone of that comedy. It is 
 tolerably certain that both Marston and Dekker felt 
 themselves lampooned in Hedon and An aides of ' Cyn- 
 thia's Eevels.' Upon this they burst into open warfare. 
 Jonson was caricatured in Marston's ' Jack .Drum's 
 Entertainment ' (1600) ; and the two poets together 
 were meditating ^ Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of 
 the Humorous Poet,' when Jonson unmasked the heavy 
 guns of his 'Poetaster' (1601), rendering both to the 
 best of his ability ridiculous in the characters of Cris- 
 pinus and Demetrius. 
 
 The match between Jonson and his antagonists was 
 
38 Ben J on son 
 
 unequal. They liad to be contented witli ill-drawn 
 caricatures and spiteful innuendoes, describing Jonson as 
 ^ a mere sponge, nothing but humours and observation ; ' 
 or girding at him for ^ his impudence in commending 
 his own things, and for his translating.' He, on the 
 other hand, devoted fifteen weeks of serious study to 
 the preparation of a comedy which should not only crush 
 his opponents by sheer weight, but should also display 
 the qualities of an original work of art. Nothing like 
 the ' Poetaster ' had yet appeared upon the English 
 stage ; and no one but Jonson then possessed the 
 learning and dramatic skill which were necessary for its 
 production. In the ' Apologetical Dialogue ' appended 
 to this piece he describes the circumstances of its com- 
 position : — 
 
 Three years 
 They did provoke me with their petulant styles 
 On ever}'' stage ; and I at last unwilling, 
 ( But weary, I confess, of so much trouble, 
 
 Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em ; 
 And therefore chose Augustus Caesar's times, 
 When wit and arts were at their height in Rome ; 
 To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest 
 ' Of those great master-spirits, did not want 
 Detractors then or practisers against them. 
 
 The design was well conceived and vigorously exe- 
 cuted ; for J onson felt at hom e among the poet s of the 
 Ro man Court, and never trod more surely than w hen 
 following the steps of some illustrious predecessor whom 
 lie venerated. The play has three strains of interest 
 skilfully intertwined. The one consists of the romance 
 of Ovid's life, his obstinate pursuit of poetry, his love 
 for Julia, and his banishment from Rome. The second in- 
 
First Period of Manhood 39 
 
 troduces us to tlie fashionable society of fcHe capital, where 
 Gallus, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, and their mistresses 
 enjoy the sweets of culture and flirtation. Into this 
 circle Crispinus intrudes — an object for mirth, a magpie 
 among singing birds. The third, which forms the gist 
 of the comedy in its satiric aspect, develops the con- 
 spiracy of Crispinus and Demetrius against Horace, and 
 his arraignment of them before the Court of Augustus, 
 Virgil, and the Roman wits in conclave. It is with the 
 last of these three motives that we are at present con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Crispinus, in whom Marston stands manifest, is a 
 Dad poet, using the most hideous jargon, and striving 
 by all manner of disgraceful means to be received 
 among the great. The liveliest scene of the play is one 
 which Jonson has closely imitated from Horace. We find 
 the lyrist in his favourite haunt upon the Via Sacra, plan- 
 ning an ode to Mecaenas. Crispinus sidles up to him, 
 wearies him with importunity, and sticks like a burr 
 in spite of broad hints and palpable insults. At last 
 Horace is relieved by bailiffs, who arrest the poetaster 
 for debt. Meanwhile the key-note to the character of 
 Marston has been struck. Demetrius is described by a 
 player in words which were but too applicable to the 
 needy author of ' The Honest Whore.' ' His doublet's 
 a little decayed ; he is otherwise a very simple, honest 
 fellow, sir, one Dem^etrius, a dresser of plays about the 
 town here; we have hired him to abuse Horace, and 
 bring him in, in a play, with all his gallants.' These 
 are the pair whom Horace arraigns before Cassar on the 
 charge of ' taxing him falsely of self-love, arrogancy, 
 impudence, railing, and filching by translation.' 
 
40 Ben Jonson 
 
 Augustus is discovered seated on his throne. Around 
 him are grouped MecaBnas, Gallus, Tibullus, and Horace. 
 Ovid has been banished to the Euxine, and his seat is 
 empty. Virgil is momently expected from Campania. 
 While waiting for him, the prince and his Court discuss 
 the lofty place of poetry in a well-ordered State. Cassar 
 pronounces poetry to be-^ 
 
 Of all the faculties of earth 
 The most abstract and perfect ; if she be 
 True-born and nursed with all the sciences. 
 She can so mould Rome and her monuments 
 Within the liquid marble of her lines, 
 That they shall stand fresh and miraculous, 
 Even when they mix with innovating dust ; 
 In her sweet streams shall our brave Eoman spirits 
 Chase and swim after death, with their choice deeds 
 Shining on their white shoulders. 
 
 At length a messenger arrives, and says that Virgil 
 is at hand. Caesar turns to the poets at his side, and 
 asks their opinion of ' Eome's honour.' Horace, Tibul- 
 lus, and Gallus give their verdict in well-weighed pas- 
 sages of eulogy. It is probable that by Virgil Jonson 
 intended some dramatic poet of his day ; and, on the 
 whole, his description suits none better than Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 At this point Virgil enters, takes the chair set for 
 him at Caesar's right hand, and begins to read from his 
 fourth ^neid, a part of which Jonson has translated 
 in the stiff and literal manner he affected. He has not 
 gone far before Crispinus and Demetrius, attended by 
 the braggadocio Captain Tucca, are ushered in with 
 libels upon Horace. One of these is a striking parody 
 gf Marston's satire, the other a piece of jingling 
 
First Period of Manhood 41 
 
 doggerel. The Augustan poets form a court, and acquit 
 Horace triumphantly of the charges brought against 
 him. Demetrius is forced to confess that he was only 
 envious of the greater poet's fame and better company. 
 Crispinus has a dose of hellebore administered, which 
 makes him vomit up his crude and stilted jphrases. 
 The passage, humiliating enough to Marston, has a 
 certain Eabelaisian humour. We are spared none of 
 the disgusting details of sickness, and the ugly-sound- 
 ing words come up with comic clenches. The curious 
 thing, however, is that many words which Jonson made 
 his detractor spue forth, such as ^ retrograde, reciprocal, 
 defunct, spurious, clumsy, strenuous,' are now in common 
 use ; while he himself employed equally cacophonous 
 and now quite obsolete expressions. ' Tartarous, re- 
 percussive, arride, salt (from saltus, a leap), copy (from 
 copia, abundance),' for example, have well-nigh perished 
 with the breath that uttered them. 
 
 The ' Poetaster ' failed to extinguish Marston and 
 Dekker. In the same year, 1601, they untrussed their 
 censor in ^ Satiromastix.' But it brought a hornets' 
 nest about the poet's ears. Lawyers took umbrage at 
 what Ovid said about them, and threatened Jonson with 
 an action. Soldiers fancied that Tucca's buffooneries 
 were meant to insult their dignity. Playgoers and 
 playwrights, already ridiculed by Jonson in preceding 
 comedies, raised a shriek at the still more savage 
 onslaught of this drama. Finally, the whole profession 
 of actors and stage-managers felt themselves mortally 
 wounded by the loathsome caricature of Histrio (Hen- 
 slowe), and by the parody of players in the declamation 
 of Tucc£t's two pages, Jonson found it necessary to 
 
42 Ben Jonson 
 
 defend himself in an Apology, which, however, under 
 his touch became a new declaration of war. Assuming . 
 the person of Horace, he had sought to pose as a long- 
 suffering man, not easily moved to wrath, merciful to \ 
 his foes, indulgent to the foibles of the weak, capable 
 of speaking the truth without flattery to sovereigns, 
 dealing full measure of praise to his literary peers, and 
 finally ^ the worst accuser under heaven.' He now at- 
 tempted to vindicate his style of satire : — ■ 
 
 I never writ that piece 
 More innocent or empty of offence. 
 Some salt it had, but neither tooth nor gall. 
 I used no name. My books have still been taught 
 To spare the persons and to speak the vices. 
 
 The lawyers he pacified with compliments. To the 
 soldiers he repeated lines from an epigram which he 
 had written : — 
 
 I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love 
 
 Your great profession, which I once did prove j 
 
 And did not shame it with my actions then, 
 
 No more than I dare now do with my pen. 
 
 The players were assured that he had been discri- 
 minating in his satire of their least worthy members. 
 The poets were threatened with what he could do if he 
 chose : — 
 
 They know I dare 
 To spurn or baffle them ; or squirt their eyes 
 With ink or urine ; or I could do worse. 
 Armed with Archilochus' fury, write Iambics, 
 Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves ; 
 Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats 
 In drumming tunes. 
 
 For a so-called ' Apologetical Dialogue,' this and 
 
First Period of Manhood 43 
 
 three dozen or so more lines of equally vitriolic railing 
 was pretty good. The invective ended : — 
 
 But I leave the monsters 
 To their own fate. And, since the Comic Mu 
 Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try 
 If Tragedy have a more kind aspect. 
 
 Jonson kept this resolution, and produced no comedy 
 again until 1605. 
 
 Meanvv^hile, in order to conclude the history of this 
 literary squabble, we are surprised to find Marston con- 
 tributing at the end of 1601, together with Jonson, 
 Chapman, and Shakespeare, to the 'Phoenix and the 
 Turtle.' The last word Jonson had spoken on him was 
 fchat he was : — 
 
 Improbior satiram scribente cinaedo. 
 
 In 1604 he dedicated his revised comedy, ' The Mal- 
 content,' to Jonson in a stately Latin inscription ; and 
 early in 1605, when he and Chapman were thrown into 
 prison for some reflections on the Scots in ' Eastward 
 Ho,' Jonson joined them. The incident is so curious 
 that it shall here be related in Jonson's own words to 
 Drummond, although its insertion breaks the proper 
 chronological narration of his life. ' He was delated 
 by Sir James Murray to the king for writing something 
 against the Scots in a play called '' Eastward Ho," and 
 voluntarily imprisoned himself with Chapman and Mar- 
 ston, who had written it amongst them. The report 
 was that they should then have had their ears cut an«j^ 
 noses. After their delivery he banqueted all his friend&i, 
 there was Camden, Selden, and others ; at the midst >n 
 the feast his old mother drank to him, and shew hii^er 
 
44 Ben Jonson 
 
 paper whicli slie had (if the sentence had taken execution) 
 to have mixed in the prison among his drink, which was 
 full of lusty strong poison, and that she was no churl, 
 she told, she intended first to have drunk of it herself.' 
 I have occupied too much time, perhaps, with the 
 history of Jonson's literary disputes. It had, however, 
 much importance for me in the attempt to bring his 
 character before my readers, and to show in what pro- 
 portions he combined a lofty ideal of his calling as a 
 poet with overweening arrogance and an ill-habit o f 
 satirising individuals. The essential noblenes s of the 
 man is evidenced by the tale, just trans cribed, of hi s 
 volunta ry imprisonment ; an a in course of time Jbe 
 Jseems to have been universally accepted^j jth fl,H-43i^ 
 faults of crustiness and self-conceit, on the solid gr ound 
 of sterling merits. At any rate, there is no doubt that 
 y he soon became literary dictator and leader of jovial 
 ' society in London. Here he ruled an undisputed and 
 beloved monarch of the wits. 
 
 Returning from this excursion to the facts of Jonson's 
 biography, I may conclude the present chapter by sum- 
 marising the most important events between the years 
 1601 and 1616. It is probable that during the first 
 five of these years Jonson was living with Lord Aubigny, 
 planning new forms of dramatic art and prosecuting his 
 studies in the classics. To this epoch we may refer his 
 translation of the ' Ars Poetica,' which still survives : 
 and his elaborate commentary, which perished in the 
 urning of his books. He finally broke with the Ad- 
 iral's Men and joined the King's Company in 1602. 
 ^>xt year, his first tragedy, ' Sejanus,' was put upon 
 stage, Shakespeare acted in it ; and tradition holds 
 
First Period of Manhood 45 
 
 tliat Shakespeare enrictied the acting copy of the play 
 with passages from his own pen. When Jonson had it 
 printed in 1604, he gave the following warning to the 
 reader in a preface : ' This book in all numbers is not 
 the same with that which was acted on the public stage ; 
 wherein a second pen had good share ; in place of which 
 I have rather chosen to put weaker and no doubt less 
 pleasing of mine own than to defraud so happy a genius 
 of his right by my loathed usurpation.' Those who 
 would fain believe that Shakespeare collaborated with 
 Jonson in the stage-copy may find some confirmation 
 of their opinion in the phrase ' so happy a genius.' 
 What most struck contemporaries in Shakespeare seems 
 to have been his felicity. Webster, for example, con- 
 trasts ' the right happy and copious industry of Master 
 Shakespeare' with Hhe laboured and understanding 
 works of Master Jonson.' Heywood in his ' Hierarchy 
 of Angels ' couples them together in four lines : — 
 
 Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill 
 Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will ; 
 And famous Jonson, though his learned pen 
 Be dipped in Castaly, is still but Ben. 
 
 In ' Sejanus,' as we have it, there is plenty of Ben's 
 labour, learning, and understanding. Will's right happy 
 vein of mellifluous enchantment, if it ever existed there, 
 has perhaps been lost, through the chief author's mas- 
 culine resolve to claim no man's honours by loathed 
 usurpation. The tragedy brought him into trouble. 
 He had beaten one of Lord Northampton's servants^ 
 and that nobleman, taking up his lacquey's quarrel, 
 called Jonson before the Council to answer for treason 
 and popery. This indictment must have been rather 
 
46 Ben J on son 
 
 captious than really malicious ; for Jonson does not 
 seem to have been seriously compromised. He stuck 
 to his religion, however, until 1610 ; when he abjured 
 popery, and reconciled himself with true toper's zeal (as 
 we have seen) *to the reformed Church of England. 
 
 The accession of James I. to the English throne in 
 1603 opened new spheres of patronage and fresh fields 
 of literary activity for Jonson. I shall show, in another 
 '^hapter, when I come to treat more closely of his social 
 life, that he had already made friends with members of 
 the aristocracy ._ This is apparent in the controversy 
 with Marston and Dekker, both of whom are repre- 
 sented as jealous of his noble acquaintances. He also 
 occupied a distinguished place in the higher Bohemian 
 company of the capital. On these foundations he was 
 able to build up close relations with the Court, and to 
 cement them by James's and the Queen's partiality for 
 theatrical entertainments. The period of his masques 
 and of his laureateship now opens. On June 25, 1603, 
 we find him presenting ' The Satyr ' at Althorpe before 
 the Queen and Prince Henry. * On August 1 he dedi- 
 cated ' Pancharis ' to James. On March 15, 1604, he 
 collaborated with his old foe Dekker in the 'Enter- 
 tainment,' presented to the King on passing to his 
 Coronation. On March 19 he wrote a panegyric upon 
 the King's reception of the Houses. On May 1 he 
 showed 'The Pirates 'to their Majesties at Sir William 
 Cornwallis's residence in Highgate. On Twelfth Night 
 of that year the Queen's masque of ' Blackness,' written 
 by Jonson and put upon the stage by Inigo Jones, was 
 performed at Whitehall. These dates sufiice to prove 
 with what energy Jonson cast himself into the special 
 
First Period of Manhood 47 
 
 office of Court poet. He had tried the public ; obtained 
 a sudden and a singular success. His own presumption 
 changed that success into one of scandal rather than 
 esteem. From the comic stage he flung off in disdainful 
 anger, wooed tragedy, and reaped somewhat arid laurels 
 in that field. But the man, meanwhile, had gained the 
 sympathy of England's gentlefolk; and when James 
 came, a splendid opportunity for the display of his 
 learned genius was afforded him, of which he was noi 
 slack to avail himself. 
 
 This while, however, Jonson did not neglect the 
 public stage. I will here omit to mention the masques 
 and entertainments he provided with untiring pen for 
 courtly weddings, royal receptions, and Whitehall fes- 
 tivals. The name of them is legion ; and in their proper 
 place they shall be reckoned. But the great work, the 
 work by which his fame must live, was still in these 
 years given to the people. In 1605 'Volpone' was{ 
 acted at the Globe. In 1609 ' The Silent Woman 'Was/ 
 performed by the Children of her Majesty's Kevels. Ini 
 1610 'The Alchemist' was put upon the stage by the 
 King's Men. In 1611 'Catiline' was acted by the 
 same company. In 1614 ' Bartholomew Fair,' of all 
 Jonson's plays the most genial and most true to his 
 London cradle, was presented by the Lady Elizabeth's 
 Men at the Hope Theatre. In 1616 'The Devil is an 
 Ass,' one of his declining comedies, saw the light under 
 the auspices of the King's Men. 
 
 For those who have studied our dramatic literature, 
 the mere recital of titles and dates in the foregoing 
 paragraph has a grave importance. They show that 
 the enduring work of Jonson, his master-work, was 
 
43 Ben J on son 
 
 finished between 1605 and 1614. The decadence is 
 already visible in 1616. This is the year which I have 
 chosen as the term of the second period in his bio- 
 graphy. It only remains for me now to gather up two 
 fragments from the annals of his life in this short 
 section. The first to mention is his preparation of a 
 folio edition of his works, which bears the date of 1616. 
 More careful than Shakespeare, possibly because he 
 stood apart from trade-transactions in the theatres, he 
 planned sl jprima editio of all the things which he judged 
 life-worthy from his penj and gave it to the world in 
 that year. The second point to notice is that he was 
 sent in 1612, or 1613, by Sir W. Kaleigh as governor 
 to his son, into France. Jonson worked for Ealeigh 
 in the capacity of secretary when Kaleigh was penning 
 his ' History of the World ' in the Tower. While con- 
 versing with Drummond at Hawthornden, Jonson gave 
 a hint of the services which he and others had paid 
 to that great compilation. ' The best wits of England 
 were employed for making his History. Ben, himself, . 
 had written a piece to him of the Punic war, which he 
 altered and set in his book.' Be this as it may, Ealeigh 
 conceived so high a notion of Jonson as a man that he 
 sent him to France with his heir in the quality of tutor. 
 Of that journey Jonson thought fit to confide to Drum- 
 mond certain comic details, which cannot here be 
 omitted. ' This youth (young Ealeigh) being knavishly 
 inclined, among other pastimes, caused him to be 
 drunken and dead drunk, so that he knew not where 
 he was ; thereafter laid him on a car, which he made 
 to be drawn by pioneers through the streets, at every 
 corner showing his governor stretched out, and telling 
 
First Period of Manhood 49 
 
 them, tlaat was a more lively image of the Crucifix than 
 any they had : at which sport young Raleigh's mother 
 delighted much (saying, his father young was so in- 
 clined), though the Father abhorred it.' Pardon must, 
 peradventure, be craved for introducing this unseemly 
 picture of Ben Jonson and his pupil, the lad Raleigh, in 
 the streets of Paris. Yet it gives so vivid a notion of 
 Englishmen as they then were, and of Englishmen as 
 they now are (mutatis mutandis) in foreign parts, that I 
 cannot deny myself the satisfaction of the quotation. I 
 feel that it will not hurt Jonson; for the next two 
 chapters shall display him in the very blaze of glory 
 as a dramatist whom no contemporary touched in his 
 own line of art. 
 
so Ben Jonson 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 jonson's dramatic style. 
 
 Those who have made a special study of Ben Jonson 
 will agree, l-tbiiife, in judging that his fame must 
 ultimately rest upon four comedies — ' Volpone/ ' The 
 Alchemist/ ' The Silenb Woman/ and ^ Bartholomew 
 Fair.' If a fifth be added to this number, they will 
 unanimously vote for ' Every Man in his Humour.' 
 Should such critics differ, the points at issue WtlT 
 probably concern the order of these plays in merit, and 
 the question whether ' Every Man in his Humour ' is 
 not superior to ' The Silent Woman.' At the point we 
 have reached in Jonson's biography, I propose to pause 
 and analyse these four plays in detail. This appears tp 
 me the best way of introducing Jonson in his character 
 of playwright to the modern public; even though the 
 minute dissection of comedies and the criticism of 
 characters must involve of necessity some tedious pas- 
 sages. But before proceeding to examine the plays 
 themselves in chronological order, I shall preface this 
 inquiry with remarks on Jonson's style in general. 
 
 When our author in his ' Poetaster ' made Dekker 
 twit him with being ' a mere sponge, nothing ,but 
 humours ana observation,' when Marston in the same 
 play taxed him for ^filching by translation/ Jonson 
 
Jonson's Dramatic Style 51 
 
 struck the key-note of his own dramatic style. What 
 first strikes us in studying one of his plays is the 
 fe xtraordinary combination of accurately imitated ntaa^ 
 ners with voluminous eruditionTT The common people 
 of Elizahethan London, frequenters of the aisles of St. 
 Paul's, danglers about the theatres, haunters of taverns 
 and worse places of amijsement, sharpers and their 
 dupes, actors and their cronies, bad poets and cowardly 
 captains, country gentlemen and Puritans from Amster- 
 dam, vulgar city •knights, poor squires, spendthrift ^ 
 heirs, madams who wear acres in pounced velvet on\ 
 their backs, miserly old men, pedlars, bear-leaders, \ 
 water-carriers, Thames watermen , all the motlej; _crowd \ 
 of street and fair, and market-place and river, jost le \ 
 togethe r, each w ith well- seized peculiari ties, lik e th^ 
 puppets o f a marione tte show. ^ The fund of humou ^gjs 
 inexh austible ; the observation with which they have 
 Tbeen caught and made fit subjects for the comic muse 
 is penetrative. But they are set for us^n_a quaint 
 framework of elabora te learning. All ^he classics have 
 ^^e n ransacked to poin t their foi bles and exhibit thei r 
 absur dities. The literature of the Renaissance, Eras- 
 mus and Rabelais, the literature of the Middle Ages, 
 books on sports and hunting, books on alchemy, books on 
 natural history, books on Rosicrucian mysticism, furnish 
 unexpected illustrations of the commonest, most vulgar 
 incidents. Beneath the cumbersome panoply of close 
 translations from Greek and Latin authors, ponderous 
 quotations and barbarous jargon out of dusty libraries, 
 these puppets of the moment skip and jump and pl^y 
 their pranks v/ith strange mechanic nimbleness. I This ^ 
 combination of the pithiest realism with encyclopaedic 
 
 E 2 
 
$2 Ben JoNSON 
 
 erudition is the first thing to notice about Jonson ; and 
 for modern readers it forms a serious obstacle to the 
 enjoyment of his art. We have to learn, as it ^Yere, a 
 new language before we can enter into the spirit of his 
 comedy/} 
 
 It has been well said that his dramas are like solidly 
 built houses from which the scaffolding has not been 
 removed. We recognise the skill of their construction 
 and the substantial strength of the edifice; but we 
 never fail to be too conscious of the means employed 
 for a desired result. Admirably as the plots of his best 
 pieces are put together, so admirably that they have 
 wrung enthusiastic applause from brother craftsmen, 
 yet they strike us as Titanic timber-work. Jonson 
 piqued himself on niaking his own plots, not drama- 
 tising a novel or a history, as was the fashion of that day. 
 Consequently, his plays are all of one piece : the whole 
 and the parts of each bespeak the' man from whose 
 strong brain they issued. Without predecessor and 
 without legitimate successor, he stands alone, colossal, 
 iron-jointed, the Behemoth of the drama. 
 
 j Jons on's style is vig oroiis, rnbnstly T ^nglish^ jarely 
 
 conSescending to the graces of melodious diction. Ye t 
 
 - when we analyse his language, we shall find that it 
 
 is frequentlv a cento of tr anslations from the classics. 
 
 . This wholesale and indiscriminate translation^ is 
 
 ^la ^ged with admirable freedom.^ Jie held the prose 
 
 J \vriters and poet^of antiquity in solution in his spacious 
 
 memory. He did not need to 3ovetail "or weld" his 
 
 borrowings into one another ; but rather, having fused 
 
 them in his own mind, poured them plastically forth 
 
 into the mould of thought. Therefore, unless we 
 
 Ui< 
 
J ON son's Dramatic Styl^. 53 
 
 happen to recognise the originals on whom he has been 
 drawing, we shall fancy that he is speaking from his 
 own stores. This kind of looting from classical trea- 
 suries of wit and wisdom was accounted no robbery 
 in that age 5 and Jonson's panegyrists praised him as 
 a conqueror who spoiled the empires of the past like — 
 Alexander. ' The greatest man of the last age, Ben 
 Jonson,' says Dryden, ' was willing to give place to the 
 classics in all things : he was not only a professed 
 imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the 
 others; you track him everywhere in their snow. If 
 Horace, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal 
 had their own from him, there are few serious thoughts /^ 
 which are new in him. But he has done his robberies >^t^ 
 so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by i 
 any law. He invade ^authors like a monarch ; and whatj ..^^ 
 ;;;gould be the ft in other poets is only victo^ in him/ ^ i<:: y ^ 
 rJnother general point to notice is that, though a \^^ 
 carelul^observer and minute recorder. Jonson rarely 
 touch ed more than the outside of character . Notj3ene- ^ 
 tratm^with the cl airvoyance of imagi nation intott ie rjl^ 
 groundwork of personality^ but constructing indiv iduals ' .. 
 Trom what appears of them up on the surface^he was tQ O 
 a pt to prese nt one glaring qua lity to th e^ excLusionj^ 
 all others!! Thus his^men and women are the incarna- 
 tions of abstract properties rather than living human 
 beings. We obtain B^^ clear conception of them, and 
 remember each apart from his neighbour. But the 
 rigid maintenance of their master-passion, the strict 
 definition of their leading humour, gives them an air of 
 mechanism. In this respect the feeblest of the romantic 
 * Malone's Prose WorUs of Dryden^ vol. iii. pp. 51, 103. 
 
) 
 
 54 -Sen Jons on 
 
 dramatists excelled him. W ^le Jonson made masks ^ 
 the d espised Dek^er and Hey wood created soul s. Their 
 persons move before us with the reality of life; we 
 become familiar with them as entire men and women^ 
 The critical distinction here indicated is so im- 
 portant in its bearings on Jonson's relation to the drama 
 of his day that I must take leave to enlarge on it. 
 The comedy of character and manners, which was 
 derived from antique models, brought^tjges rather than 
 individuals into play. Its dramatis personce were the 
 jealous man, the avaricious man, the misanthrope, the 
 wanton woman ; who are always jealous, always avari- 
 cious, always misanthropical, always wanton. Romantic 
 art, whether tragic or comic, the English art which 
 rebelled against classical precedent and gave Shakespeare 
 to the world, has never pursued this course. It aims 
 at the creation_of_personalities, in whom such qualities, 
 though predominant and determinative of the dramatic 
 action, shall yet be blended with a multiplicity of other 
 moral motives, as they usually are in life. We find thia 
 tendency even in the allegories of the Moral Plays, 
 where men like Hick Scorner, women like Delilah, 
 speedily supplant the personified abstractions of Juventus 
 or Abominable Living. When the romantic style ob- 
 tained its victory in England, the licences of time and 
 place invqlved in the dramatisation of a novel favoured 
 this truer and more vital character-drawing. It enabled 
 great artists to exhibit the development of a quality 
 which shall tyrannise over the whole nature of the man. 
 Lin Othello we witness the gro wth _o f_jealousy, in 
 [acbeth the growth ofambition, in Timon the growth, 
 of misanthropy, inHDoriolanus the g^ro wth of pr ide, in 
 
JoNSON^s Dramatic Style SS 
 
 Antony the ^r o.wtli of amorous dotage, to such a degree 
 of predominance that their destinies are irretrievably 
 determined by the mastery which one moral element 
 has gained over the whole complex of their nature. T6 
 use German phrases, the romantic sphere of art is das 
 Werdende, not das Bestimmte : c haracter in process of 
 form a tion, iio t^fixedjyp^s. It is Just here that Jonson qr 
 diverged most radically from the spirit of the English ' 
 
 drama in his*"~"ag^: He starts -wit±:^lAaf&^ set,^^^*'^'^^^ 
 
 formedT^uU^ defiTlM'-'' a master passion in complete 
 empire ;_J'he man absorbed in his specific humour. 1£is 
 he unfolds with inexhaustible variety and brilliant wit 
 before our eyes. He creates as many situations and 
 occasions as he can for its display. B ut it never alters . 
 The strict logic of his powerful understanding, his grasp 
 of common circumstance, the immense resources of his 
 thought and language, enabled him to flash rays of 
 light on each facet of the chosen humour: Yet we 
 always know what to expect in every conceivable situa- 
 tion where his persons shall be placed. Asper is sure 
 to utter a censure ; Macilente, a reflection on the un- 
 merited good fortune of his neighbours; Sir Epicure 
 Mammon disappoints us if he opens his mouth without 
 indulging in some gorgeous dream of far-fetched luxury, 
 or some vast speculation on his future wealth ; Morose 
 must always shut his ears from noise, and bawl out ffi 
 tranquillity. ,An^the persons of Jonson's comedies are 
 thus li ke masqueraders . with whom it is a point of 
 honour to maintain a certain assumed character; and 
 the index to their maker's notion of their duties niay beT 
 aptly studied in his list of persons prefixed to ' Everjtj 
 Man out of his • Humour.' I have already remarked' 
 
S6 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 \ that tlie romantic licence as to time and place favoured 
 ; the Shakespearian grasp of character in evolution. 
 j Macbeth could not grow from a bluff general into a 
 world-wearied tyrant, Timon from a generous spend- 
 \ thrift into a cynical man-hater, Antony from a bold 
 / politician into a woman's plaything, in a single day. 
 1; Given but t wenty-four hours /For the dramatic action, 
 and fixed_type^_of_character, which do not grow, but 
 are analysed, becom^vinevitable. .ISTow Jonson was so 
 far a classic by culture and instinclTTEat he adhered to 
 the unities'Yjlnd comedy, in which he principally dealt, 
 has ever 'observed them. 'i^His mechanical handling of 
 character belonged, therefore, in a measure to his ideal 
 of art. J Still this consideration will not suffice to 
 excuse Him altogether. He fails in so far as, he^does not 
 analyse the type presented, as Moliere does, but is con- 
 tented with displaying and illustrating its outer form. 
 
 It is possible that the woodenness which fatigues the 
 reader of all but Jonson's five best comedies may not 
 have struck spectators of the same plays on the stage. 
 . Perpetual movement, bright costume, and the vivacity 
 ^ of actors can touch a stiff mechanic thing with liveliness. 
 None of Jonson's pieces suffer from de ficiency of business ; 
 and his personages are so sharply defined that they offer 
 opportunities to able players. Regarded as forms to be 
 filled with the actor's own breath of life and individuality, 
 even these mechanic puppets may have moved mirth. 
 
 Lest I should overstate the case against Jonson 
 for mechanical hardness of delineation, I ought to re- 
 mark that this defect is closely allied to one of his 
 , chi^f qualities. No playwright of 'that age, if we 
 j except Shakespeare, had so eminent a power of charac- 
 
Jonson's Dramatic Style 57 
 
 terisation. The truth of this will be apparent in the 
 next chapter, where I propose to examine his four 
 greatest comedies. It is mainly in the minor person- 
 ages of his drama that the author s method tends to 
 rigidity. We are too much aware of his intention, 
 and of the means he uses to attain certain effects. 
 To borrow a phrase from painting, there is a want of 
 at mospher e in his elaborated pictures. And here, since 
 no better opportunity will present itself, I may intro- 
 duce what I have to say about his two tragedies, ' the 
 flat sanity and smoke-dried sobriety' of which have 
 been alluded to by Mr. Swinburne. 'Sejanus' and 
 * Catiline ' are Roman history done into robust blank 
 verse — Tacitus, Cicero, and Sallust not always bettered 
 by translation. Coleridge wished that we had more of 
 these ponderous studies. He must surely have forgotten 
 the tedium of the minor characters ; the long solilo- ^' 
 quies ; the interminable orations ; the heavy choruses 
 in Seneca's manner. And yet these plays are disjifl>l 
 guished by two eminent qualities : sustained dignity 
 of, language, and trenchant charadier^3rawmgr"in 
 ' Sejanus,' both Tiberius~and his favourite are portrayed 
 with masterly force. A tyrant advancing to his ends 
 by dissimulation, and a vulgar upstart calling down 
 upon his head the vengeance of the gods by arrogant 
 self-confidence, could not be more vigorously contrasted. 
 The moral atmosphere of imperial Eome; clogged with 
 suspicion and heavy with dread, as 
 
 when Jove 
 Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison 
 In the sick air, 
 
 weighs upon us while we thread the laboriously deve- 
 
58 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 loped intricacies of the plot. That ' Sejanus ' could not 
 have been a good acting play is certain ; and the same 
 may be said about ' Catiline/ which its author pre- 
 ferred, and I think rightly. This tragedy well repays 
 careful perusal, however. It compels our interest and 
 our admiration by its rugged Roman strength. The 
 first act, which is wholly devoted to the conspirators, 
 might be quoted as a magnificent study in the sombre 
 manner of a literary Salvator Eosa. Wily and plausible 
 Catiline sets off the vain and superstitious Lentulus; 
 vehement Cethegus, blinded by his blood-lust, finds a 
 foil in the twice-dyed traitor Curius ; cautious Caesar 
 presents a striking contrast to lukewarm, egotistical 
 Antonius. Cicero, always over-voluble of speech, yet 
 dignified by patriotism and rendered amiable by a kind 
 of personal grace, shines with benign radiance by 
 the side of downright, hot-headed Cato, and vindic- 
 tive Catulus. The two female characters are no less 
 effectively presented. Fulvia, a voluptuous Roman 
 wanton of Messalina's type ; Sempronia, who dabbles in 
 politics, reads Greek, and thinks herself the match of 
 Cicero in eloquence, of Caesar in statecraft. Both are 
 treacherous : Sempronia to the State, Fulvia to the con- 
 spiracy. From these two tragedies passages of great 
 poetic beauty, noble images, and weighty maxims might 
 be culled. Jonson made no idle boast when he called 
 attention to his ' height of elocution ' and to the ' full- 
 ness and frequency of sentence,' in which, with Milton, 
 he recognised ' the offices of a tragic writer.' 
 
 "When we inquire into the causes which breed satiety 
 in the readers of Jonson's plays, we shall find that a 
 fataHnability to stop at the right;>^ome^t is a princi- 
 
JoNSON^s Dramatic Style X 59 
 
 pal. He never knew when his audience might fairly 
 be supposed to have enough of the substantial diet set 
 before them ; but went on heaping period on period, 
 and turning a brace of thoughts in a score of fashions. 
 Whether the character on w^hich he is engaged be 
 Horace or Tucca matters little. He employs the same 
 labour in developing his protagonists and his supernu- 
 meraries. Nor does he spare rhetoric when dealing with 
 repulsive themes. It has, therefore, well been said of 
 him that 'his tenaciousness of what is grand and lofty 
 is more praiseworthy than his delight in what is low 
 and disagreeable.' But we have no right to assert that he 
 took pleasure in the vulgar for its own sake. If he had 
 that on hand, he worked it out as fully as the nobler 
 elements of art. All the authors of the English Renais- 
 sance erred on the side of redundancy. But while 
 Shakespeare and Fletcher were carried away by a luxu- 
 riant fancy, Jonson yielded to prodigious memory and 
 a scholar's conscientiousness. He tells us that he wrote 
 in prose first, and then versified. This probably accounts 
 for the long-winded paragraphs of frigidly expanded 
 oratory which surfeit our attention. Like a mole, as 
 it has been well put, he burro w^ed into his material, 
 and threw up the soil upon the surface. If, then, he 
 chanced on rich and generous veins, his readers had the 
 benefit ; no substance is more marrowy or charged with 
 mental stuff. If not, he still performed the delver's toil, 
 turning the last clod of a clayey earth with satisfaction 
 to himself.^ 
 
 I have touched upon his vast and indiscriminate 
 
 * For example, the interlude of the parasites, and the scene of 
 the mountebank, in * Volpone.' 
 
/6a ■ ^EN JONSOM 
 
 Ig^rrngr— In the employment of tliis lie neglected 
 V tEe Greelc rule of ' Nothing overmucli/ no less than in 
 his ;rhetorical expansion of given themes. We gasp, 
 astounded at the wealth of erudition he possessed. 
 Not only the choicer authors oTlLritiquity, on whom a 
 humanistic education is built up ; but the sophists, 
 compilers, grammarians, and historical epitomists of the 
 decadence — men like Athenseus, Libanius, Philostratus, 
 the writers of Augustan histories, scholiasts, Strabo, 
 Photius — obey his bidding. The fragments of Greek 
 tragic and comic poets, then embedded in the prose of 
 obscure essayists ; the fragments of Ennius and Luci- 
 lius ; the fragments of -^olic lyrists and Ionian sages ; 
 the fragments of Roman inscriptions, imperfectly distri- 
 buted through treatises of dull Italian scholars : all had 
 been appropriated by his indefatigable industry. Not a 
 jot or tittle of this curious learning does he spare us in 
 his comedies. The same is true of even more recondite 
 subjects. Subtle delivers exact lectures upon alchemy. 
 The ^Masque of Queens' supplies an encyclopaedia of 
 witchcraft. The foresters of masque and pastoral ex- 
 pound venery. In one laborious scene he teaches the 
 science of cosmetics; in. another the mysteries of the 
 Rosicrucian order. // He cannot call upon Arcadian 
 nymphs to scatter 'flowers without reciting a list of 
 twenty-seven species, in which the pride of Elizabethan 
 /liorticulture seems to be epitomised. This determination 
 J^ to be exhaustive belonged to some essentially scientific 
 quality of Jonson's mind. Order, classification, rule, 
 measure, governed his conception of the literary builder's 
 art; and he was not satisfied unless he had accumulated 
 on each given point the whole mass of its learning ; yet 
 
JoNSON^s Dramatic Style .61, 
 
 his robust slioulde^s were scarcely burdened with the 
 weight they bor^l'^ Like Atlas, he supported a world 
 of knowledge. But, all the while, he moved beneath ly^ 
 that load with no more effort than war-elephants who 
 carry garrisons upon their backs./ It is the mark of 
 insolently virile intellects to sustain the bulk of erudi- 
 tion with facility, and to sport beneath a camel's pack 
 in wantonness. Lord Macaulay, in his comparatively 
 smaller way, came near to Jonson ; but no one who has 
 not read and re-read ' Volpone ' or ' The Alchemist ' has 
 formed a true conception of elephantine sprightliness. 
 
 Jonson paid the penalty of these extraordinary 
 qualities. It follows from what I have said of his work 
 that he put nothing into his plays which patient criticism 
 may not extract: /the wand of the enchanter has not 
 passed over them/fThere is no music which we hear but^ 
 shall not capture ; no aerial hues that elude description ; 
 no ' scent of violets hidden in the grass ' ; no ' light that 
 never was on sea or land ' ; no ^ casements opening on 
 the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn.' TJoese- 
 higher gifts of p oetry , with which Shakespeare — 
 * nature's child' — was so richl y en dowed, are almost 
 absolutely wanting in Ben Jonson. frerhaps the names 
 of Earine and Aeglamour in th'S^'^Sad Shepherd,' and a 
 few of this shepherd's speeches, have just a touch of the 
 enchantment. On its rare occurrence in Jonson's 
 masques and lyrics I shall dwell when my argument 
 brings me to that part of the inquiry. 
 
 In Jonson's qualities of style we discern the same 
 robust virtues and the same limitations. For his prose 
 I must confess a deep and reverent partiality. Its 
 ujassive periods are moulded with a force anticipating 
 
62 \ Ben Jonson 
 
 Milton at his best ; and at times he sparkles into 
 epigrams and fiery fits of passion, emitted in single 
 sentences, beyond which it were impossible for our 
 speech to travel.' Sis blank verse is always manly, 
 always individual ; — unlike that of any of his contempo- 
 raries; — but grace, subtlety, emotion,., suggestiveness, 
 are wanting,~sacrificed to scholarly solidity and even 
 strength. I cannot but think that it suffered greatly 
 from the poet's habit of converting prose into verse, 
 whereby the thews of prose were wasted on a tolerable 
 mediocrity of metre. It never falls very low ; but it 
 rarely rises to imaginative or impassioned heights. It"" 
 is rough-hewn with the sinews of a Cyclops ; but no 
 Praxitelean finish has been bestowed upon this brawny 
 chisel-work; no Ariel of the spirit has blown the poet's 
 feeling into the fine stuff of thought, to float and shine 
 with permanent or passing iridescence : such exquisite 
 tenuity of verse, in shorb, as we rejoice in when we find 
 
 \ / it in the work of men like Fletcher or like humble 
 j\ Dekker. It^wantsJ[ightness and the charm of chance. 
 / Indeed, when we compare Ben Jonson's blank verse 
 
 / style with that of the least of his contemporaries, we 
 seem to be contemplating a sound substantial edifice 
 of the Palladian manner — the front of Whitehall for 
 example. Whereas Massinger reminds us of the in- 
 tricacies of Sansovino, Shakespeare of Goiihic aisles or 
 heaven's cathedral, Fletclier of the sylvan architecture 
 of wild green-wooc[s7j]gi:d of glittering Corinthian 
 colonnades, Webster of vaulted crypts, Heywood of 
 homely manor-houses on our English country-side, 
 Marlowe of masoned clouds, and Marston, in his better 
 moments, of the fragmentary vigour of a Roman ruin. 
 
\ 
 
 Jonson's Dramatic Style 63 
 
 Jonson's art of translation, so highly prized by him, 
 so envied by his rivals, was of a like texture ; fabric, 
 not of fancy or imagination, but of understanding. - It ^ 
 would be easy to cite examples. They may be culled in 
 both his tragedies by handfuls ; but I would not call 
 him to the bar of criticism there. I prefer to go further 
 afield, and invite my readers to study the lines from 
 the fourth ^neid which he placed on Virgil's lips in the 
 ^ Poetaster ' (act v. sc. 1) ; or to indicate ,the version 
 from a passage of Catullus on the cropped flower in his 
 'Barriers.' These show that the exquisite sensibility 
 to perfume in an antique author's style failed Jonson. 
 And yet, when I have said so much, I must face round, 
 and add that lyric visitings were not unfrequent to his 
 muse. In other words, he was at times felicitous. He 
 found for a fragment of Sappho, 
 
 ?ipos ^77e\os lfi€p6<pa}vos ai^Swi/, 
 
 this phrase : — 
 
 The dear good angel of the spring, 
 The nightingale. 
 
 \| 
 
 He turned a score of scattered sentences from the proseN 
 of Philostratus into that deathless song, ' Drink to me 
 only with thine eyes.' Like many poets whom the^ 
 muses love, Jonson uttered his best things by accident, 
 and what weighed heavily upon his genius was the fixed 
 idea that scholarship and sturdy labour could supply/^ 
 the place of inspiration. • 
 
 Before concluding these remarks upon the general 
 features of Jonson's dramatic style, I must point out 
 the fact that he failed to create a single female character 
 of excellence, We do not expect from him an Imogen, a 
 
 7^ 
 
64 Ben Jonson 
 
 Ducliess of Malfi, or even an Aspasia. Sucli women 
 belong essentially to tlie romantic species, and it is 
 only in ' The Case is Altered ' and ' The New Inn ' that 
 Jonson tried to assume the tone of romantic art. Yet 
 it might have been thought that he would have pro- 
 duced something in the same kind as Dame Quickly. 
 
 I This, however, is not the case. With the exception of 
 
 / Widow Purecraft and her daughter, in ' Bartholomew 
 
 i I Fair,' and Mrs. Fitz Dottrel in ' The Devil is an Ass,' 
 
 ^f^and Lady Frampul in ^ The New Inn,' all Jonson's 
 
 I women are mere pieces of machinery — more wooden 
 
 vthan his men. 
 
 This defect is remarkable, because he possessed one 
 virtue which was rare in that century, and which 
 showed a delicacy of feeling that ought to have made 
 him appreciative of feminine excellence. His plays, 
 though often coarse and nasty, are never licentious. - To 
 the public, tasta^ for ^filthy jests he refused to pander, 
 nor would he allow his art to palliaIe~immorality by 
 adding the charm of pathos, wit, or poetic beauty to 
 vice. Indeed, he treated wickedness of every kind so 
 sternly that even his best plays fail to win our sympathy 
 from the utter atrocity of their characters and the 
 nakedness with which Jonson has unmasked them. 
 Eallam says justly of ' Volpone ' that ' five of the prin- 
 cipal characters are wicked beyond any retribution that 
 comedy can dispense ; ' while Coleridge remarks that 
 the extreme badness of the personages destroys the 
 interest of this stupendous playlf The spectacle of .their 
 unmitigated evil presented t(5^^ur gaze affects us much 
 in the same way as the perusal of a treatise on ethics. 
 Instead of regarding these monsters as men with passions 
 
JoNsoN^s Dramatic Style 65 
 
 like OUT own, we recognise the abstractions which a 
 powerful rhetorician has gifted with mechanical vitality. 
 At the end of this inquiry into the general jcharac- 
 teristics of Jonson's style, it will be useful to survey 
 the whole course of his develo pment j ls a playwright, 
 and to classify the various species of his dramas which 
 have survived. The first period of his activity was 
 occupied in romantic journey-work. Of the fruits of 
 these earliest labours, if we except ' The Case is 
 Altered,' we possess nothing. To ascribe the fragment 
 of ' Mortimer ' to that epoch* of his life would be dan- 
 gerous, in the absence of any direct evidence ; though 
 it may be mentioned that a play bearing that title was' 
 being acted in 1602. The additions to ' The Spanish 
 Tragedy ' were written three years after he had formed 
 his own peculiar style. ' Every Man in his Humour ' 
 (1598) marks the emergence of this original manner, 
 formed upon observation of contemporary life and exact 
 study of the ancients. It also opens the cycle of 
 his comedies of humours, which he closed, in his old 
 age, with ^ The Magnetic Lady.' But after arriving at 
 self-consciousness, and creating his own art in this 
 epoch-making play, Jonson swerved aside and aban- 
 doned the comic drama, properly so called, for what he 
 termed comical satire, in 'Every Man out of his 
 Humour' and 'Cynthia's Eevels' (1599 and 1600). 
 Thes6 two pieces are rather puppet-shows of character, 
 affording scope for satirical caricatures, analytical de- 
 scriptions of contemporary affectations, humorous dia- 
 logues, and witty personificatioils oT'abstract qualities, 
 than comedies. They cannot properly be said to have 
 ^n action or a plot. The one reminds us of a morality, 
 
Ids') Ben Jonson 
 
 the other of a masque. We notice, moreover, that ihe 
 influence of the Latin drama is now exchanged for thati 
 of the ^ Plutus ' of Aristophanes, which henceforth ex- 
 ercised a somewhat baneful power over Jonson's method. 
 The tendency to general and personal satire, which had 
 already been perceptible in ' The Case is Altered,' was- 
 now freely indulged. The playwright, posing as an^ 
 Aristarchus and a Juvenal, made bitter enemies, not 
 dnly among men of letters, but also among players and- 
 playgoers, courtiers and soldiers. The quarrels in which 
 he became involved led to the production of tfe 
 
 -^Poetaster' (1601). fThis was no puppet-show of 
 humours, but a play, m which living characters doi^- 
 tributed by their action to the development of a plot. J 
 After the ^Poetaster,' Jonson abandoned comedy for 
 tragedy, producing ' Sejanus' (1603) in a style to soma 
 extent modelled upon that of Seneca. It was followed 
 by a second tragic play called ^ Catiline' (1611). /TOese 
 two plays achieved, and deserved, only a cold success of 
 esteem."^! But before the latter date he had resumed 
 
 :his nearned sock.' 'Volpone' (1605), 'The Silent 
 Woman' (1609), 'The Alchemist' (1610), and 'Bar- 
 tholomew Fair' (1614), followed each other within the 
 space ^of nine industrious years. rFbur true comedies, 
 excellent in plot, masterly in chaitefer-drawing, vigor- 
 ous in stylejwere added to the treasures of English 
 literature.^ The manner, which was first formed in 
 ' Every Man in his Humour,' reached its full expansion 
 in these masterpieces. On the accession of James I., 
 Jonson opened a new vein by the production of his 
 masques and entertainments. Here he found scope for 
 the lyrical faculty and capricious inventiveness which 
 
JoNsoN^s Dramatic Style 67 
 
 lurked beneath the rugged exterior of his dramatic 
 muse. But though he showed a decided preference for_ 
 this sort of composition, he did not abandon the comedy 
 of humours. 'The Devil is an Ass' (1616) may be 
 reckoned a satisfactory piece of workmanship^in the 
 manner specific to Ben Jonson.' J But ^ The Staple of 
 News ' (1625),nounded upon tEe ' Plutus ' of Aristo- 
 phanes ; "1 The New Inn ' (1629), an attempt to break 
 groundin romantic comedy too late ; ' The Magnetic 
 Lady' (1632), which closes the cycle of humours, and 
 'A Tale of a Tub' (1633), which feebly echoes the 
 Eabelaisian laughter of ^ Bartholomew Fair ' : all of these 
 five latest products of Jonson's pen deserve the hard 
 sentence which was passed on them by Dry den. They; 
 are works of his decadence. In this brief bird's-eye view 
 of his dramatic industry, it only remains to mention 
 the fragment of a tragedy called ' Mortimer,' which was 
 found among his papers after his death, and an im- 
 perfect pastoral entitled ' The Sad Shepherd.' I shall 
 have to enter at some length into questions relating to 
 the date of this pastoral. Here ^^y would be out of 
 place. It is enough to say thatfthis rustic play com- 
 bines Jonson's regularity of structure with the fancy 
 which had sported so freely in the best of his masques. 
 The prologue, as we have it, was written about 1637 In; 
 the last months of the poet's life. But it is scarcel}^ 
 credible that the still extant portion of the drama can~ 
 have been composed at that epoch. We have at any 
 rate to deplore the accident — whether of Jonson's deatlr 
 before the piece was finished, or of the carelessness' 
 with which his MSS. were handled after his decease- 
 whereby English .dramatic literature has been defrauded- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 of what would otlierwise have been its most ingenioiislj 
 constructed and firmly executed pastoral play. 
 
 After tliis summary review of Jonson's dramatic 
 works, it will be possible to arrange them in the fol- 
 lowing groups. First of all we may place the two 
 tragedies, ^ Sejanus ' and ' Catiline,' with the fragment 
 of ' Mortimer.' The masques, triumphs, entertain- 
 ments, barriers, form a second class. The unfinished 
 ' Sad Shepherd ' has to stand alone, touching the 
 masques on one side and the comedies upon the other. 
 I am inclined to place ^ The Case is Altered,' ' The New 
 Inn,' and the additions to the ' Spanish Tragedy ' in a 
 fourth group, since these illustrate Jonson's essays in 
 romantic art. ' The Silent Woman,' ' Bartholomew 
 Fair,' and ^ A Tale of a Tub ' may be described as farces. 
 To comedies of humour we can assign ' Every Man in 
 his Humour,' ' Every Man out of his Humour,' ' Cyn- . 
 thia's Revels,' ' The Devil is an Ass,' ' The Staple of 
 News,' and ' The Magnetic Lady.' It is true that these 
 plays differ much in their construction ; two following 
 the model of Aristophanic allegory, one moulding itself 
 upon the type of Latin comedy, and one borrowing . 
 suggestions from the masque. Yet all are marked by 
 the same observation of humours, as the phrase was 
 understood by Jonson. / The Poetaster,' on account of 
 its avowed satiric intention and the peculiarity of its 
 Eoman fable, must stand alone, though Jonson would 
 probably have classed it with ' Every Man out of his 
 Humour ' and ' Cynthia's Revels ' under the name of 
 comical satire. The two masterpieces of Jonson's dra- 
 matic art, 'Volpone' and ^ The Alchemist,' cannot be 
 grouped with comedies pf hijmour. ..^ ^Yolpono ' is \ 
 
J onson's Dramatic Style €9 
 
 deeplj;rcac}iing dramatic satire on Jtlie vice of covetous- 
 ness. ' The Alchemist ' is a comedy of character and 
 manners, indulging a lighter vein of satire upon human 
 foibles. In form, it leans more to the farcical type 
 than its sombre predecessor. ^-^^"^"^^ 
 
70 Sen Jonson 
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MASTERPIECES. 
 
 VOLPONE. 
 
 ' VoLPONE ' isNrio mere comedv. of humours or comical 
 satire. It is a \^inister and/ remorseless analysis of 
 avarice in its corrosive inflj^ence on human character/ 
 Nowhere else has Jonson /with so firm a touch bared 
 one master vice, absorbing and perverting all the virtues, 
 passions, and rational fi^ulties of man. ' The accursed 
 thirst for gold ' is here 'displayed as a fell tyrant, sway- 
 ing the love of kindred and of honour ; before which 
 lust, jealousy, and fear of sham^.^are forced to bow; 
 which compels an/Italian husband to^prostitute his wife, 
 an advocate to perjure himself twice in open court, a 
 gentleman to disinherit and disown his SQn, an English 
 lady to risk^/iier reputation, and all the^e dupes to 
 hazard fame and fortune blindly on a cast o% chance. 
 
 / The play takes its title from the hero, Yolpone, or 
 the ^Id Fox. He is a Venetian nobleman, childless, 
 without heirs; who, at the time when the first act 
 opens, has been feigning the last diseases of decrepitude 
 through three years, in order to delude the folk around 
 him. It amuses the subtle voluptuary to study various 
 and well-developed forms of covetousness in his friends 
 and neighbours. His palace has become the haunt of 
 
ii^ 
 
 The Masterpieces/ 71 
 
 cajptatojres, legacy-hunters, each one of wHom believes 
 that Jlis name will be found al^5^ inscribed upon Vol- 
 ^one's testament. Yet noney^^re\[uite secure and easy 
 in^^^) expectation. So long as the Fox is above 
 ground, he may always change his dispositions. There- 
 fore the birds of prey, scenting his carcass while he 
 yet lives, keep hovering about his pretended sick-bed. 
 There he lies, smeared with chalk and oils, coughing 
 and drivelling, simulating blindness, deafness, palsy. 
 From time to time they bring rich presents, regarding 
 these as good investments for the future, competing one 
 with another for Volpone's favour. But of them enough 
 has now been said. On three carefully selected speci- 
 mens of the tribe, Volt ore, Corbaccio, and Corvino 
 .(Italian for vulture, old raven, and spruce young crow), 
 the action of the drama turns ; and in my analysis of 
 the play we shall hear more about them. 
 
 Eight instinct led Jonson to lay the scene in Venice, 
 and to make his hero a Magnifico of the Eepublic. 
 He has conceived Volpone as a man in green old age, 
 sound still of constitution, enjoying the possession of 
 his senses and his intellect. Craft and extravagant 
 voluptuousness form the main-springs of his character. 
 He has grown hoary in vice, and nothing now delights 
 him more than the spectacle of human baseness. 
 Therefore he expends his more than ordinary mental 
 powers and ill-acquired knowledge of the world on \^ 
 subtle schemes for making life a comedy, and proving 
 all the men around him knaves and fools. He is avari- 
 cious but not blinded by the love of gold. Wealth he 
 values chiefly as the means for tempting and corrupting 
 others, after he has surfeited himself with every pleasure 
 
72 Ben Jon^on 
 
 it can purchase. Fantastic in his sensuality, he lives . 
 like a Koman of the Empire or an Oriental, secluded 
 from the world among his creatures — the parasite, the 
 pigmy, the eunuch, and the page. To this curious 
 company Jonson has given descriptive names — Mosca, 
 the fly- Nano, the dwarf; Castrone, the wether; 
 Androgyno, the hermaphrodite. Mosca is the Fox's 
 right hand. Without him Volpone's schemes would be 
 impracticable ; and the ruin, which comes upon him in 
 the end, is due to his habit of regarding this devil of 
 roguery as^^econd self. In Mosca Jonson paints a 
 monumental portrait of the parasite, as he may possibly 
 have existed at the worst courts in the most debased 
 epochs of civilisation. Plausible, ingenious, pliant to 
 his master's whims, loving evil for its own sake, Mosca 
 glides through the dangerous and complicated circum- 
 stances of their common plots with the suppleness and 
 quickness of a serpent. But when he sees the way to 
 ^ build up his own fortunes- on Volpone's downfall, he 
 turns round suddenly, implacably, upon his patron. 
 With the same cold cynicism which he had used against 
 Corbaccio to tickle the Fox's fancy, he now lays his fox- 
 trap. How both fall eventually into it togethep-^we 
 shall see: 
 
 I have said that Jonson obeyed a right instinct when 
 he laid the scene of this comedy in Venice. The exor- 
 bitances and eccentricities of evil he has chosen to 
 depict, would have gained but little credence if the 
 action had taken place in London. But the sensualities , 
 of Aretino, the craft of Machiavelli, the diabolical in- 
 genuity of Italian despots, lent verisimilitude to his 
 picture— Hhat most vivid picture,' in Taine's absurd 
 
Thr Masterpieces ^i 
 
 enthusiastic language, ' of the manners of the century, 
 where wicked covetousnesses display themselves in their 
 full beauty, where sensuality, cruelty, lust for gold, and 
 the impudicity of vice develop a sinister and splendid 
 poetry, worthy of some Bacchanalian piece by Titian.^ 
 -^ The key-note of the drama is struck in the first lines. ^ 
 Volpone and Mosca are discovered in a room of the 
 Venetian palace, standing before a curtain which veils 
 the treasury. Volpone speaks : — 
 
 'Good joining to the "day ; arid next, my gold I ^ (^ 
 Open the shrine, that I may se^my saint. 
 Hail the world's soul^nd mine i! More glad than is 
 The teeming earth to ^^ee the l<!nged-f or sun 
 Peep through the horn^ of the/celestial ram, 
 Api I, to view thy splendour darkening his ; 
 That lying here, amongsi my/ other hoards, 
 Shew'st like a flame hy nigh^, or like the day 
 Struck out of chaos, when ai^l darkness fled 
 Unto the centre. O thou sun of Sol, 
 But brighter than thy father, let me kiss, 
 With adoration, thee, and every relic 
 Of sacred treasure in this blessed room. 
 Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name, 
 Title that age which they would have the best ; 
 Thou being the best of things, and far transcending 
 All style of joy in children, parents, friends, 
 Or any other waking dream on earth. 
 Thy iooka when they to Venus did ascribe, 
 They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids ; 
 Such are thy beauties and our loves I Dear saint, 
 Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues, 
 That canst do naught, and yet mak'st men do all things ; 
 . The price of souls ; even hell, with thee to boot. 
 Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame, 
 Honour and all things else. Who can get thee. 
 He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise. 
 
 Critics have judged that this opening invocation to 
 
74 Ben JoNSON 
 
 tlie presiding deity of the drama rises to tragic sub- 
 imity. Tlie playwright must indeed have> had full 
 jonfidence in his power to sustain the action upon a 
 lorresponding note of passionate intensity, when he com- 
 >osed it. Nor was he mistaken ; for Yolpone'a rhetoric 
 >f adoration lives again in every word and deed of all 
 jhe characters. True to his habit of firmly expounding 
 he main situation and the leading motives of his 
 in the first scene, Jonson next makes 
 "olpone reflect with satisfaction on the acquisition of 
 is treasure : — 
 
 Yet I glory 
 Tore^in the cunning purchase of my wealth, 
 Than in the glad possession, since I gain 
 No common way. 
 
 It is not by trade, industry, agriculture, usury, hoarding, 
 that he has brought together ' the price of souls.' And 
 he can afford to spend it freely. Mosca begs for a trifle, 
 and Volpone gives him gold^^ ^ 
 
 What should I do, 
 But cocker up my genius, and live free 
 To all delights my fortune calls me to 1 
 I have no wife, no parent, child, ally, 
 To give my substance to ; but whom I make, 
 Must be my heir ; and this makes men observe me : 
 This draws new clients daily to my house, 
 Women and men of every sex and age, 
 That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels, 
 With hope that when I die (which they expect 
 Each greedy minute) it shall then return 
 Ten-fold upon them. 
 
 While he is thus soliloquising, the dwarf, page, and 
 eunuch enter, fantastically attired, and play a comic 
 
The Masterpieces 75 
 
 farce with songs to entertain him ; in the middle of 
 which show his clients begin to gather. 
 
 Fetch me my gown, 
 My furs and night-caps ; say, my couch is changing : 
 And let him entertain himself awhile 
 Without i' the gallery. Now, now my clients 
 Begin their visitation I Vulture, kite, 
 
 Kaven and gorcrow, all my birds of prey, , 
 
 That think me turning carcase, now they come ; 
 I am not for them yet I 
 
 The first to appear is Voltore, the advocate. He 
 has brought a massive piece of plate, which he thrusts 
 into Volpone's trembling hands, feebly lifted from the 
 counterpane to clutch it. Yoltore gloats over the thin 
 and quavering accents of thanks, which come, half- 
 smothered in choking coughs, from beneath the 
 bed-clothes ; and then, without taking the trouble to 
 withdraw from the sick man's chamber, he turns to 
 Mosca : — 
 
 Volt. Pray thee, hear me : 
 
 Am I inscribed his heir for certain ? 
 
 Moi. Are you ? 
 
 I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe 
 To write me in your family. All my hopes 
 Depend upon your worship : I am lost, 
 Except the rising sun do shine on me. 
 
 Volt. It shall both shine and warm thee, Mosca. 
 
 Mos, Sir, 
 
 I am a man, that hath not done your love 
 All the worst offices : here I wear your keys, 
 See all your coffers and your caskets lock'd, 
 Keep the poor inventory of your jewels. 
 Your plate and monies ; am your steward, sir, 
 Husband your goods here. 
 
 Volt, But am I sole heir ? 
 
 Mos, Without a partner,, sir ; confirm'd this morning : 
 
76 Ben Jonson 
 
 The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry 
 
 Upon the parchment. 
 Volt. Happy, happy me 1 
 
 By what good chance, sweet Mosca 1 
 Mas. Your desert, sir. 
 
 They are yet talking, when a second knock is heard 
 upon the door without. Yoltore has but just time to 
 creep away, and Volpone to jump up and kiss Mosca 
 for the excellent sport, before Corbaecio appears. The 
 Old Raven is a masterpiece of Jonson's dreadful art. 
 Deaf, worn out with the diseases of extreme old age, 
 he yet clings sordidly to the miserable shreds of life, and 
 burdens his last days with detestable crimes for the sake 
 of the gold he cannot carry with him beyond the tomb. 
 He has brought an opiate : — 
 
 3fos. He will not hear of drugs. 
 
 Corb. Whjr 1 I myself 
 
 Stood by while it w^as made, saw all the ingredients ; 
 And know, it cannot but most gently work : 
 My life for his, 'tis but to make him sleep. 
 
 VoJj?. Ay, his last sleep, if he would take it. [Aside. 
 
 The reader must remember that these scenes are 
 enacted in the presence of Volpone, who is supposed to 
 be stone-deaf and blind, but who hears and sees every- 
 thing with lynx eyes and fox's ears from behind his 
 bed-curtains. The situation lends itself to accumulated 
 touches of saturnine humour. Mosca paints a fancy 
 picture of his master's disorders — apoplexy, palsy, 
 vertigo, loathsome affections of the mucous membrane. 
 Old Corbaccio recognises and ticks off the symptoms. 
 They are familiar to himself: — 
 
 Yet I am better, ha 1 
 Excellent, excellent ! Sure I shall outlast him : 
 This makes me young again, a score of years. 
 
The Masterpieces 77 
 
 Being far more deaf than Volpone, he stumbles into 
 ludicrous mistakes of Mosca's meaning, each of which is 
 so contrived as to reveal his one absorbing preoccupa- 
 tion with the Fox's inheritance. It is only by stimu- 
 lating his jealousy of Voltore that the parasite brings 
 him to lay down a heavy bag of cash as goodwill offer- 
 ing. Then Mosca undertakes to induce Volpone to 
 execute a will in his favour ; but in order to ensure 
 success, would it not be well if Corbaccio should also 
 make a will in favour of Volpone ? So signal a mark of 
 devotion is certain to clinch the dying man's gratitude. 
 Corbaccio doubts for a moment whether he can disin- 
 herit his son ; but Mosca urges that Volpone is sure to 
 die first. That argument cannot be resisted, and 
 Corbaccio adopts the plan as though he had invented 
 
 it:— 
 
 . . Coi'h. He must pronounce me his ? 
 Mos, 'Tis true. 
 Corh. This plot 
 
 Did I think on before. 
 Mos. I do believe it. 
 Corh. Do you not believe it ? 
 Mos. Yes, sir. 
 Corh. Mine own project. 
 Mos. Which, when he hath done, sir 
 Corh. Published me his heir ? 
 Mos. And you so certain to survive him— — 
 Corh. Ay. 
 
 Mos. Being so lusty a man 
 
 Corl. 'Tis true. : 
 
 Mos. Yes, sir 
 
 Corl), I thought on that too. See how he should be 
 The very organ to express my thoughts ! 
 
 Mos. You have not only done yourself a good r- 
 
 Corh. But multiplied it on my son. 
 Mos. 'Tis right, sir. 
 CJorl). Still, m^ inventipi^. 
 
/S Ben Jonson 
 
 Corbaccio departs to execute tlie unnatural will, no 
 
 less gulled than Yoltore before him. Then, while Mosca 
 
 and his patron are performing an interlude of mutual 
 
 flattery and joy at their successful villainy, a third 
 
 harpy interrupts them. This time it is the spruce young 
 
 merchant Corvino. He is the most contemptible and 
 
 reckless of the set, swallowing any bait, committing 
 
 himself to plans for Vol pone's murder more openly thaii 
 
 Corbaccio, ready, as we shall see, to merge his ruling 
 
 passion of jealousy and to drown his honour in the 
 
 madness of his gold-lust. Corvino has brought a fine 
 
 pearl for his present. Volpone faintly murmurs Signor 
 
 Corvino ! while his fingers shut upon the jewel. This 
 
 raises Corvino's suspicion. Can he talk freely in the 
 
 bedchamber? 
 
 Corv. Does he not perceive us ? 
 
 Mas. No more than a blind harper. He knows no man, 
 
 No face of friend, nor name of any servant ; 
 
 "Who 'twas that fed him last or gave him driok. 
 
 Corvino, whom Jonson has made a gross and brutal 
 fellow in the prime of vulgar manhood, in order to con- 
 trast him with the lean greediness .of Voltore and 
 Oorbaccio's senile delirium of covetousness, now pours 
 loathsome invectives into Volpone's ears. Mosca flatters 
 this humour to the bent, heaping hideous imprecations 
 on the prostrate man. Yet, when Corvino departs, 
 Volpone's cynicism is so marble-hard that he oilly 
 applauds the gruesome comedy which should have made 
 him tremble. He leaps from his bed, tired, but satisfied 
 with his morning's imposture. 
 
 My divine Mosca I ■ , 
 Thou hast to-day outgone thyself. [KnooMiig wit/im.'] Who's 
 there? 
 
p 
 
 The Masterpieces 7g 
 
 1 will be troubled with no more. Prepare 
 Me music, dances, banquets, all delights ; 
 The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures 
 Than will Volpone. 
 
 Mosca goes out and returns with the news that 
 Lady Would-be, wife to an English knight, seeks an 
 interview. This time she must content herself \\4th 
 being Lady Cannot-be ; for Volpone will have none of 
 her, though it is hinted that she is ready to give hini 
 everything. He spends an hour more agreeably by 
 listening to Mosca's glowing description of Celia — the 
 young, beautiful, and virtuous wife of Corvino. And 
 thus the first act closes. 
 
 In this act Jonson has introduced us to the chief 
 personages of the drama. They are drawn with grim 
 precision, in bold lines, as ugly and as natural as the 
 dwarfs and monarchs of Velasquez. Also, their work 
 has been cut out for them ; and the mention of Celia 
 in the last scene prepares us for what follows in the 
 second act. 
 
 The tying and unloosing of the plot in this mis- 
 nomered comedy shall be related more briefly. Volpone, 
 obeying his humour for fantastic pleasure and extrava- 
 gant disguises, goes forth to win a sight of Celia. He 
 attires himself in the costume of a quack doctor, Mosca 
 in that of the charlatan's drudge. They set up their 
 platform under Corvino's windows. Volpone acts the 
 mountebank with such spirit that Celia is drawn to the 
 balcony, and while she takes her pastime of the crowd, 
 her husband rushes in and drags her to a back room 
 with brutar insults. The man is here revealed under 
 the violent pressure of. coarse jealousy, just at the very 
 
8o- Ben Jonson 
 
 momenfc when he will be made to sacrifice his honour to 
 his avarice. Mosca is sent to work upon his master- 
 passion ; for the sight of Celia has persuaded Yolpone 
 that she and none but she can satisfy his appetite. Cor- 
 vino then is told by Mosca that the mountebank's powders - 
 have revived the Fox, and that nothing is wanting to- 
 his -cure but the warmth of an Abishag to comfort his 
 decrepitude. The doctors and the legacy-hunters are 
 vying with each other in offering their nearest relatives. 
 
 Mos. They are all 
 
 Now striving who shall first present him ; therefore-^ 
 ..... Have you no kinswoman 1 
 Odso 1 Think, think, think, think, think, think, sir. 
 One of the doctors offered there his daughter. 
 
 Corv I will prevent him. Wretch 1 
 
 Covetous wretch ! Mosca, I have determined. 
 
 Most. How, sir ? 
 
 Corv. We'll make all sure. The party you wot of 
 Shall be mine own wife, Mosca. 
 
 After this master-stroke of villainy, we do not wonder 
 at Mosca's breaking into a soliloquy upon his superiority 
 to common city-parasites and trencher-scrapers. _ 
 
 Meanwhile the plot is now in full swing. Corvino 
 drags his outraged wife with blows and gross taunts to 
 Ybl pone's bedside. When he has withdrawn, the Fo:^ 
 throws off his mask and falls at Celia's feet : — 
 
 Nay, fly me not, 
 Nor let thy false imagination 
 That I was bed-rid make thee think I am so ; 
 Thou shalt not find it. I am now as fresh, 
 As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight 
 As when, in that so celebrated scene, 
 At recitation of our comedy, 
 For entertainment of the great Valois, 
 J acted young Antinous, 
 
The Masterpieces 8 1 
 
 This introduces a scene, in wliicli Jon son lias given 
 rein to his peculiar fancy. Every word used by Volpono 
 to ply Celia, every voluptuous image he suggests, is 
 drawn from some repository of antique conceits ; but 
 these are so fused and interwoven that they appear to 
 be the natural utterance of a hoary sybarite's desire. 
 She, who had shrunk with horror from the bed of a 
 diseased and drivelling old man, sees before her an 
 eloquent and insidious seducer. She shrieks for suc- 
 cour ; and at her cries BonQj-io , Corbaccio's son, appears 
 to rescue her. This young man had been hidden in a 
 gallery by Mosca, in order that he might be witness to 
 the act whereby his father meant to disavow and dis- 
 inherit him. The parasite, it seems, had hoped to work 
 upon his natural resentment so that he should commit 
 some act of violence — either murder Corbaccio or com- 
 - promise himself by yielding to his own fury. I shall take 
 -©icasion, later on, to criticise this motive on its artistic 
 rSipits ; for the present, it is enough to point out that 
 it brings about the first catastrophe in the drama. 
 
 Volpone stands unmasked. Bonario carries off the 
 rescued lady. And at this juncture Voltore appears^ 
 while Corbaccio comes hobbling in with his will signed 
 and attested. It looks as though the Fox were at his 
 last gasp. But Mosca rises to the occasion. He has 
 be,m wounded in the scuffle with Bonario. Now he 
 takes both victims of gold-lust in hand. Voltore is 
 persuaded that Corbaccio's will was meant to swell 
 Volpone's fortune in the lawyer's interest. Corbaccio is 
 made to believe that his son has been lurking in the 
 palace to take his father's life before it was too late 
 to save his own estate. Corvino has also to be settled; 
 
 G 
 
82 Ben Jonson 
 
 but Mosca works with ease upon the grossness of his I 
 avaricious appetite. The three legacy-hunters, hating 
 each other as they do, yet severally blinded by their 
 covetOusness, are combined into one band to extricate 
 Volpone from his difficulties. They have to swear that 
 Celia and Bonario have been guilty lovers, and that 
 each was practising against the Fox in his own palace. 
 These parts they play in open court, the one vying 
 •against the other in false-sweariig and in ventilating 
 his own shame. Lady Would-be is dragged opportunely ^ 
 into the same meshes of intrigue, and gives suspicious 
 testimony to Celia's public wantonness. Mosca drives 
 the discordant team with consummate skill and audacity. ' 
 They perjure themselves, repudiate their kindred, stamp 
 the brand of dishonour on their foreheads, labouring with 
 avidity to win Volpone and secure his fortune, in their 
 blindness, each for his own self. The fixed idea of 
 wealth to be inherited has taken hold upon their brains, 
 and, like clockwork, they strike true to the machinery 
 invented for them. 
 
 Justice is baffled for the moment. Under the 
 deluge of adroitly prepared false witness, the judges, 
 who were favourable to Bonario and Celia, admit that a 
 monstrous case has been made put against them. Vol- 
 pone, who appeared in court bed-ridden, is carried home . 
 to his palace, and there he hugs Mosca for the success 
 of their deeply laid plots. This opens the fifth act ; and 
 
 * here, in a sense, the drama is concluded. But it was 
 required by Jonson's plan that poetical justice should 
 
 V be done, and that the Fox should finally be caught. 
 The poet has heaped ignominy on the legacy-hunters. 
 But he leaves two innocent persons, Bonario and Celia, 
 
The Masterpieces S3 
 
 under unmerited disgrace. His work will not be 
 finished until Volpone and the parasite have been taken 
 in their own toils. At this juncture he calls the Ate 
 of the gods, the insolence of guilty creatures swollen. ^ 
 with their own conceit, to the aid of his languishing 
 intrigue. Volpone is so intoxicated with the triumph 
 of his craft, so contemptuous of human nature, that he 
 resolves to indulge his cynicism with a new trick. He 
 feigns death, and gives to Mosca a will in which the 
 parasite's name is inserted as sole heir. The captatores 
 scent the carcass. First comes Voltore ; then Corbaccio, 
 ^carried in a chair ; next Corvino ; lastly, Lady Would- 
 %6. Mosca receives them in the palace, allowing them 
 to dangle at his heels. He holds an inventory in his 
 hands, which he checks by items in the several apart- 
 ments. They raise a fugue of clamorous entreaties to 
 see the will, each firmly believing that his name will 
 be written there, to the exclusion of the rest. Mosca, 
 at last, flings the deed over his shoulder, and the fugue 
 becomes a chorus in unison of indignant objurgation. 
 Mosca, meanwhile, goes on with his inventory : ^ Two 
 cabinets, one of ebony, the other mother-of-pearl — I am 
 very busy ; good faith, it is a fortune thrown on me — 
 Item, one salt of onyx — not of my seeking.' One after 
 the other they pounce down upon him. But he has the 
 sting of the epigram for each. To Lady Would-be :— 
 
 Remember what your ladyship offered me, 
 To be his heir I 
 
 To Corvino :— 
 
 You are 
 A declared cuckold .... 
 Qo home, be melancholy too, or mad. 
 
 o2 
 
84 Ben Jonson 
 
 To Corbaccio : — 
 
 Are you not he, that filthy, covetous wretch, 
 AVith the three legs, that here, in hope of prey, 
 Have any time this three years snuffed about 
 AVith your most grovelling nose, and would have lured 
 Me to the poisoning of my patron, sir. 
 
 All slirink away except Voltore, who lias not yet 
 
 received his answer. He still clings wdtli the tenacity 
 
 of a rapacious bird of prey to his imagined quarry. 
 
 Mosca affects to ignore him : — 
 
 Why, who are you 1 
 What I who did send for you ? 0, cry you mercy, 
 Eeverend sir ! Good faith, I am grieved for you. 
 That any chance of mine should thus defeat 
 Your (I must needs say) most deserving travails. 
 
 At last he beats him off with insolence; but the 
 heavy-pinioned Vulture is sent flying on an errand 
 which shall break the over- strained meshes of the close 
 net woven round him. 
 
 Volpone, as usual, has witnessed this comedy of 
 thwarted passions from his hiding-place. He now con- 
 certs new schemes with Mosca for the bantering of his 
 victims, yielding yet once again to the intoxication of self- 
 conceit. Mosca is to assume the robes of a Magnifico ; 
 his master the dress of a common sheriffs officer. Thus 
 attired, they roam the streets of Venice, jeering at the 
 disappointed captatores. The game, however, has been 
 carried too far. It is the hour at w^hich Bonario and 
 Celia have to receive sentence from the judges. All the 
 actors of the drama assemble in court, led by various 
 curiosities. Then, to the surprise of every one, Voltore, 
 wiio has been _ maddened by disappointment and en* 
 
The Masterpieces 85 
 
 venomed against his rivals, declares the stratagem by 
 which the guiltless pair have been drawn to the verge 
 of ruin. Still, the intrigue is not ripe for its cata- 
 strophe. Yolpone, beginning to suspect that Mosca may 
 play him false, whispers to the advocate that he is yet 
 alive. Voltore, responding to his dominant motive, 
 upon this hint that he may still inherit, repudiates 
 what he has just delivered, and pretends that witchcraft 
 has deprived him of his reason. The judges know not 
 what course to take. The accused stand waiting for 
 their sentence. It seems as though no issue from the 
 deadlock could be found. But at this moment Mosca, 
 who has hitherto been absent, enters the court. Vol- 
 pone runs to him, as to his last resource of safety. He 
 is met with boxes on the ears : — 
 
 What busy knave is this ? . . . . 
 
 Whose drunkard is this same ? speak, some that know him . 
 
 I never saw his face. 
 
 Mosca is playing now at high stakes. Of course he 
 recognises his patron, and he offers, in asides, to com- 
 pound with him for half of Volpone's estate. But the 
 tension is too great for compromise. Fox and parasite/- 
 are equally whirled away upon the tide of the moment. 
 The judges take the dispute into their own hands, and 
 order Volpone to be whipped, that he may bear himself 
 discreetly to a gentleman in Mosca's position. Up to 
 the last, thus Jonson scourged society's adulation of ^ 
 wealth ; for here are the Venetian officers of justice 
 bending before an enriched parasite. The insult rouses 
 one hot drop of noble blood in Volpone's veins. Rather 
 than tolerate such indignity, h^ will declare all. It i^ 
 
S6 Ben [onson 
 
 only tlie affair of throwing off his disguise. This he 
 does, and in one moment the whole plot is dissolved. 
 
 I am Volpone, and this is my knave. 
 
 {Pointing to Mosca. 
 
 Nothing more remains but the vindication of the 
 innocent, and a proper apportionment of punishments 
 to the guilty. 
 
 What most excites admiration in ' Volpone ' is the 
 sustained jdgour of the action, and the ingenuity of the 
 fable. Few extant plays exhibit so closely connected 
 an intrigue. The mechanic force and versatility of 
 invention which are lavished on the framework of this 
 comedy suffice to carry the reader or spectator onward 
 to its unforeseen conclusion. Yet some objections may 
 be taken to the plot. As Dryden first pointed out, the 
 unity of action is not well preserved ; one motive being 
 exhausted at the end of act iv., ' the second forced from 
 it in act v.' The slight and meagre under-plot of Sir 
 Politick Would-be and his wife (which I have omitted 
 in my analysis, except in so far as Lady Would-be affects 
 Volpone) is superfluous and tolerably tedious. But the 
 heaviest blot upon Jonson's construction remains to be 
 noted. . He has suggested no adequate motive for 
 Mosca's introduction of Bonario into Volpone's palace, 
 at the moment when Corbaccio is coming to execute 
 his will, and Celia is being brought by her unworthy 
 husband. Bonario's presence there was necessary for 
 the conduct of the intrigue. But this circumstance 
 hangs upon so fine a thread of calculation in Mosca's 
 brain, that we must regard it as not sufficiently ac- 
 counted for. In all other respects, the use which 
 
The Masterpieces 87 
 
 Jonson has made of base passions as the cords of human 
 conduct in this drama may be looked upon as masterly ; 
 and the skill with which he has woven them into a 
 comic net of serried strength is indubitable. The 
 spectacle, alas! is too grisly. Nature rebels against it. 
 We do not easTly or willingly believe that men and 
 women are such as Jonson painted them. We rise 
 from the study of 'Yolpone/ as we do from that of 
 some of .Balzac's masterpieces, with the sense that all 
 these human reptiles, true enough in their main points 
 to life, yet over-fattened in the vast slime of the poet's 
 brain, ^represent actual humanity less than they per-r 
 sonate ideals, which the potent intellect, brooding upon 
 one vice of man's frail being, has diversified into a 
 score of splendidly imagined specimens. 
 
 ^ THE SILENT WOMAN. 
 
 P"^ I treated ' Volpone, or The Fox ' by analysis ; and 
 ^is possible that those who honour human nature may 
 resent the stringency of that method in so terrible an 
 instance. It was, however, necessary to show Jonson 
 in his strength. In dealing with 'Epicoene, or The 
 Silent Woman,' I can choose the method of description. 
 Here we breathe a lighter atmosphere. The pla}^ is 
 still more subtly woven ; the art is even more ' intense 
 and burning.' But the subject-matter is no longer 
 wickedness beyond the comic poet's lawful scope. We 
 frolic in a sphere of foibles and mirth-moving eccen- 
 tricities of humour. 
 
 ''The Silent Woman' received a splendid euloo-y 
 
88 Ben Jonson 
 
 from Dry den. ^I prefer it before all other plays, I 
 think justly, as I do its author, in judgment, above all 
 other poets/ In his ' Essay of Dramatic Poetry ' he sub- 
 mitted this comedy to close examination, praising ^ the . 
 
 V copiousness and well-knitting of the intrigue,' the skill 
 with which the characters are introduced to notice 
 before they appear upon the stage, and the continual - 
 heightening of the interest. It has for him the highest 
 value, because the unities are strictly, yet naturally, 
 observed, and the connection or liaison of scene with 
 scene is perfect. The action is complete within the space 
 of twelve hours. It takes place almost entirely in the 
 rooms of a single house ; and each incident contributes 
 to the final catastrophe. Lastly, the plot, when it has 
 reached a point, of apparently hopeless entanglement, 
 is suddenly and triumphantly unravelled by a disclosure 
 
 X which satisfies all conditions of easy denouement^ and 
 has the further merit of casting ridicule upon the false 
 pretences of the minor characters. 
 
 Like all of Jonson's works, 'The Silent Woman' 
 illustrates the constructive ability of its author rathei: 
 than the laws of artistic growth from within. We can 
 see how it has been put together. We do not watch it 
 expanding and spreading fantastic boughs like a comedy 
 of Aristophanes. Yet the architecture is so flawless 
 that the connection of each part seems to be inevitable. 
 From the interlude between acts.i. and ii. of 'The 
 Magnetic Lady,' we know that Jonson attached much 
 . value to Aristotle's rules for the formation of a comedy ; 
 and Dry den has devoted some pages of his essay to an 
 analysis of these rules, which are admirably illustrated 
 by ' The Silent Woman,' Though their terms have a 
 
The Masterpieces 89 
 
 pedantic sound for modern ears^ I sliall call attention 
 to them here, if only for the purpose of introducing my 
 readers to the sphere of ideas in which the poet moved 
 when he created this play. The Protasis, or first part 
 of a drama, sets forth the persons. The Epitasis, or 
 working up of the plot, puts the action into movement. 
 The Catastasis gives the height or full growth of the 
 play, at which point the action is perplexed, and what 
 seemed easy of achievement is deferred by obstacles. 
 The Catastrophe, or the denouement, sets all straight, 
 and brings things back to such a state as enables tbo 
 first expectations of the audience, founded upon their 
 judgment of the persons and the plot, to be satisfied 
 by the natural conclusion of the action. The divisions 
 here indicated are not merely arbitrary. Some such 
 arrangement and coherence of parts will be observed in 
 all good plays ; it is, for instance, the importance of the 
 Catastasis which makes French critics insist so strongly 
 on the claims of the Fourth Act. Nowhere is this order 
 more nicely observed than in ' The Silent Woman.' 
 
 Though so artfully constructed, ' Epicoene ' rather 
 deserves the name of a Titanic farce than of a just 
 comedy. It does not, like ' Volpone,' exhibit a ruling 
 vice, but exposes a ludicrous personal peculiarity in the 
 main actor. On Morose's .horror of noise every incident 
 is made to hinge, and the various humours of the minor 
 characters are severally related to this leading motive. 
 The satire oj the play is superficial. A conceited fop, 
 a boastful poetaster, and a Ladies' College, or Society 
 of Precieuses Kidicules, whom Jonson displays as a 
 peculiarly vulgar set of coarse and pretentious women, 
 furnish but slio^ht themes for ethical censure. Jonson'a 
 
90 Ben Jonson 
 
 objectjw'as to make us laugh. On the stage of Pande- 
 monium devils might have laughed at ' Volpone.' It is 
 difficult to imagine a human audience deriving mere 
 amusement from that spectacle of enormous wickedness. 
 But ' The Silent Woman ' stirs genial mirth in an ever 
 increasing degree ; and what may also here be added, 
 the manners and conversation of the persons in this 
 /play, especially of the young men, are both more 
 ^natural and more entertaining than is common with 
 Jonson. ' As Dryden remarked, ^ he has here described 
 the conversation of gentlemen with more gaiety, air,, 
 and freedom, than in the rest, of his comedies.' 
 
 Morose is a churlish old man of good fortune, who 
 hates his nephew, and refuses to make him any reason- 
 able allowance. His nerves are morbidly sensitive to 
 noise, and he spends his life chiefly in securing himself. 
 against this special annoyance. It is the object of 
 Dauphine, his nephew, to wring a p6rtion of the cur- 
 mudgeon's wealth from him by working on his suscepti-, 
 bility. Before we meet with Morose, we are informed 
 that he ' hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at 
 both ends that it will receive no coaches nor carts nor 
 any of these common noises.' He carries on a guerilla 
 warfare against fish-wives, chimney-sweepers, orange- 
 women, costermongers, broom-men, and other street- 
 criers. Smiths, armorers, and braziers are not suffered 
 by him to live in the same parish. ' He would have 
 hanged a pewterer's prentice, once upon a Shrove- 
 Tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest 
 were quit.' His sitting-room has double doors and 
 treble ceilings ; quilts and beds are nailed against the 
 house-door ; inside, the shutters are closed, the window- 
 
The Masterpieces 91 
 
 cracks caulked, the staircase laid with mattresses. Here 
 Morose lives by candlelight. One footman has been 
 turned away because his shoes creaked. The new 
 servant, Mute, wears list upon his soles, and communi- 
 cates with his master by dumb-show. But though 
 Morose devotes all his energies to avoiding noise, he 
 loves the sound of his own voice, and preaches inter- 
 minable sermons to his valet on the virtue of silence. 
 y All discourses but my own afflict me ; they seem harsh, 
 impertinent, irksome.' 
 
 Dryden says that Jonson studied this fantastic 
 character from a real person. Gilford has traced it to a 
 passage in Libanius. The admirable spirit with which 
 the humour is maintained makes it both natural and 
 original. Wherever he derived the hint. Morose is 
 Jonson's own. 
 
 The misanthropist has resolved to balk his nephew's v 
 expectations by marrying and getting an heir to his 
 estate. The problem is how to secure a noiseless wife ; 
 for nothing is more notorious than woman's garrulity. 
 Dauphine, becoming acquainted with his uncle's inten- 
 tion, forms a plot, which he conducts with admirable 
 skill, to catch Morose in a trap. He conceals the point 
 of it even frpm the friends and accomplices whom he 
 summons to his aid. But we, who are neither agents 
 nor spectators, may forestall the catastrophe, and declare 
 at once that Dauphine has dressed a comely page in 
 woman's clothes, and placed him in lodgings near his 
 uncle's house. Epicoene, as. the lad is called, assumes 
 silence so discreet that it only relaxes under urgent 
 necessity into whispered monosyllables. Pier fame 
 reaches Morose. After an interview, in which he is 
 
92 Ben Jonson 
 
 charmed to find that he can barely catch the few words 
 she utters, he determines to marry her ofF-hand. 
 
 When Dauphine receives intelligence of this resolve, 
 he summons his accomplices ; and these, we must 
 remember, are unconscious of his project. They obey 
 his whim, as they think, for the mere persecution of 
 Morose. Clerimont and Truewit, the companions of his 
 youth, first answer to the summons. Then come Sir 
 John Daw, the poetaster ; and Amorous La Foole, the' 
 fop. Otter, a rowdy captain and bear-leader, with his 
 notable wife, joins the gang. Three ladies collegiate — 
 Mistress Haughty, Centaure, and Dol Mavis — follow 
 scent. Dauphine is able to turn the whole kennel loose 
 upon his uncle by the fortunate circumstance that La 
 Foole has invited them to eat at Captain Otter's. It is 
 only necessary that they should transfer their company 
 to the house of Morose. And for this they have a good 
 excuse, inasmuch as Epicoene is known as a girl to all 
 of them, and she will naturally expect congratulations 
 on her wedding-day. 
 
 Dauphine has, however, no intention of allowing 
 misfortunes to fall pell-mell upon his uncle. The old 
 man must be brought by degrees to mortification. 
 Accordingly this portion of the comedy exhibits the 
 young man's skill in marshalling the troops which are 
 destined to make Morose capitulate. No sooner has 
 the wedding been completed, and the parson sent about 
 his business, than Epicoene finds her tongue. The 
 bridegroom objects that he had not bargained for his 
 wife's eloquence in the marriage contract. She cuts 
 him short : ^ What ! did you think you had married a 
 statue — one of the French puppets with the eyes turned 
 
The Masterpieces 93 
 
 v/ith a wire ? ' Then slie pours forth such a wordy 
 deluge that he relapses, groaning : ' She is my regent 
 already. I have married a Penthesilea, a Semiramis, 
 and sold my liberty to a distaff.' This is only the 
 beginning of his troubles. When the nuptial altercation 
 is at its height, Truewit enters, loudly complimenting 
 the bride and congratulating Morose. Sir John Daw, 
 with four of the ladiea, next makes his appearance; and 
 the dialogue becomes an orchestral symphony in seven 
 pronounced parts. Not- one of the vocal instruments 
 plays ' piano,' for each of the unwelcome visitors has 
 taken his cue from Dauphin e. Epicoene receives them 
 all with boisterous cordiality ; while Morose is fain to 
 sit apart, drawing a treble nightcap over his forehead 
 and stopping both his ears. The guests ply him in his 
 corner, shake him by the elbow, complain there are 
 no gloves, no bride-cake, no music, no masque. While 
 they are rating him for meanness and rusticity, Clerimont 
 arrives to remedy the bridegroom's negligence with a 
 variety of bands, which strike up all together. La Foole 
 and his attendants, at the same time, pass across the 
 stage rattling knives and forks, and carrying a banquet 
 for the wedding company. They are closely followed 
 by Captain Otter, with his bull and bear and horse, and 
 their accompanying drums and fifes. The dissonance 
 gathers in complexity and volume. Fiddles squeak, 
 trumpets bray, beasts begin to growl. The women 
 scream and giggle in one corner \ in another, Captain 
 Otter organises a drinking-bout, stamping on the floor, 
 and bellowing to his boon companions 'Niino est hlhendiim, 
 mine jpede lihero pidsanda telhis ! Morose can only 
 groan out lamentable 'Ohs' and 'Ahs,' his feeble 
 
94 ^ Ben Jonson 
 
 execrations being drowned in the infernal hubbub round 
 him. At last he runs away and hides ; but the uproar 
 swells to a climax. Mrs. Otter quarrels with her 
 husband; the howls of conjugal battle rise above the 
 clatter of contending voices and the piercing music of the 
 trump and fife. This ' crescendo ' is suddenly cut short 
 by the maddened Morose descending from his lurking- 
 place, and scattering the tormentors with a drawn sword. 
 
 They only part to recombine. But, in the lucid 
 interval of dearly purchased quiet, Morose is driven to 
 seek sympathy from Dauphine. While he is pouring 
 forth his woes into that perfidious ear, Epicoene rushes 
 in and overwhelms him with inquiries about his health. 
 It is of no use to answer that he is quite well. She 
 pursues him with solicitous endearments: his staring 
 eyes, his pallid cheeks — what do they mean? Then 
 the chorus bursts on his devoted head. Every known 
 malady is suggested, and the most preposterous remedies 
 are recommended. After a prolonged altercation over his 
 stunned person, all agree in prescribing a continuous 
 course of reading aloud. This charms Epicoene. What 
 could be more fitting than that a devoted wife should 
 read her afflicted husband to rest ? Morose feebly 
 remonstrates, and begs to be allowed to sleep at least in 
 peace. But no, his bride must be his bedfellow ; and 
 he now hears, with despair, for the first time, that she 
 talks volubly in her sleep, and snores like a porpoise. 
 
 In his anguish he bethinks him of divorce. Rushing 
 from his house, he goes in search of counsel. But long 
 retirement has rendered him so helpless that he returns 
 bewildered by the jargon of the law courts. Dauphine 
 seems to be his only mainstay ; and Dauphine under- 
 
The Masterpieces 95 
 
 , takes to procure learned doctors, ecclesiastical and civil, 
 who shall meet and advise at his own house. Two of 
 the conspirators are accordingly disguised in legal robes 
 and primed with Latin terms. They retire with Morose 
 into a chamber apart, and confer upon the proper con- 
 duct of his divorce case. Their pedantic glosses, pre- 
 ambles, long-winded definitions, distinctions, and loud 
 professional skirmishings are so wrought as to bring 
 Morose to the verge of delirium. After many ineffectual 
 
 . attempts to find an adequate reason for putting away his 
 wife, he is forced to plead his own incapacity. But at 
 this moment of expected deliverance, Epicoene breaks 
 in with all her company, screaming against the plot on 
 foot against her rights, and vowing she will keep her 
 spouse in spite of every defect. Morose scores nothing 
 therefore by his ignominious admission. Meanwhile, 
 Dauphine, by threats and cajolements, has induced Sir 
 John Daw and La Foole severally to tax Epicoene with 
 the granting of improper favours to them in past weeks 
 of intimacy. The hopes of Morose are now again lifted 
 high. Epicoene, for her part, shrieks hysterically ; and 
 all the women gather round her with sympathetic 
 ululations. Then the lawyer raises his voice above the 
 storm, and declares that, since Epicoene has not been 
 faithless to her husband after marriage, there is no 
 ground for divorce upon the plea of previous unchastity. 
 Thus every chance of freedom from his bondage is cut off 
 from the unhappy bridegroom. After the discreditable 
 confession which he has falsely made, ^nd the proof of 
 immorality upon his wife's part, he is left wedded to a 
 termagant for life. 
 
 That the knot should be cut appears impossible. 
 
• g6 Ben Jonson 
 
 Only two of tlie persons concerned in' tlie action, 
 • Dauphine and Epicoene, know tlie real state of the 
 case. The rest are enjoying this bear-baifcing of the 
 miserable bridegroom ; when Dauphine comes forward 
 and swears to free his uncle, if he will allow him five 
 hundred pounds a year and secure him the reversion 
 of his estate. Morose, like a drowning man, catches 
 greedily at the plank held out to him. Before witnesses 
 he consents to his nephew's terms. Dauphine has 
 V^ nothing more to do than to reveal the sex of Epicoene. 
 ^ Morose fades away from us, infinitely relieved, to nurse 
 his outraged sense of hearing. La Foole and Daw are 
 covered with contempt for their pretensions to the 
 favours of the girl who is now shown to be a strapping 
 lad. The rest of the company retire hugely gratified 
 by so b.urlesque a termination to so comical an enter- 
 tainment. Not less contented are the spectators or the 
 readers of this colossal farce; and the curtain falk 
 upon a general satisfaction. 
 
 In a theatre of Jonson's period, the catastrophe 
 must have afforded special amusement to the audience. 
 Boys, as we well know, then played female parts. It 
 was consequently pleasant to see a real boy acting the 
 role of a boy who is disguised as a woman, and finally 
 proved to be a boy in theatrical fact, which, both in 
 travesty and earnest, he had all the time been truly. 
 Such complications of the sexes on the stage, as might 
 be amply proved from the Elizabethan drama, whetted 
 the curiosity of play-goers ; and here Jonson gave them 
 a tangled knot to untie. ' 
 
 Yet Drummond, probably upon Jonson's information, 
 relates that, ' When his play of a ^^ Silent Woman" was 
 
Thi^ Masterpieces 97 
 
 first acted, ttere was found verses after on the stage 
 against liim, concluding that that play was well named 
 the silent woman, there was never one man to say 
 P] audit e to it.' 
 
 THE ALCHEMIST. / ^ 
 
 In ' The Alchemist ' we return from the region of 
 broad farce to that of social satire. Yet the satire of this 
 comedy is not so biting as that of ' Volpone.' Imposture 
 and folly, instead of crime and heartlessness, are here at- 
 tacked ; and the plot has a burlesque termination, more 
 pleasing than the almost tragic end of ' The Fox.' 
 
 Alchemy in Jonson's day was not a mere relic of 
 antiquarian iionsense. It befooled the people still ; and, 
 in spite of royal edicts^ could with difficulty be eradi- 
 cated from their superstitious veneration. Those who 
 are acquaijited with the history of the Venetian Braga- 
 dino (about 1600) know to what an incredible extent 
 courts and princes lent their weight to this delusion. 
 Yet at the close of the sixteenth century it had lost 
 its scientific or quasi-scientific aspect, and had become 
 allied to the gross knaveries of sharpers, coney-catchers, 
 quack-doctors, and horoscope-casters. Alchemy, there- 
 fore, like knight-errantry, now exposed itself to comic 
 ridicule \ and Jonson attempted to do for it what Cer- 
 vantes in ' Don Quixote ' had already done for the decayed 
 forms of chivalrous enthusiasm. He was thoroughly 
 acquainted with the books of the alchemists ; and it 
 appears that, at some period of his life, he had himself 
 practised in fun upon the credulity of the public, 
 
98 Ben Jonson 
 
 reliearsing, as it were, the scenes wliicli afterwards lie 
 invented for Subtle. As Drummond reports, ' He with 
 the consent of a friend cozened a lady, with whom he 
 had made an appointment, to meet an old astrologer in 
 the suburbs, which she kept ; and it was himself dis- 
 guised in a long gown and a white beard, at the light of 
 dim burning candles, up in a little cabinet reached unto 
 by a ladder.' 
 
 In order to make this subject worthy of high comedy, 
 it was needful to elevate the Alchemist into a type of 
 all practisers by fraud on human folly. And herein 
 Jonson succeeded. His hero Subtle, and the confede- 
 rates Face and Doll, personify the scientific charlatan 
 and solemn knave, with his indispensable accomplices, 
 who will continue to flourish so long as nature is 
 mysterious and mankind is gullible. In our age we find 
 the breed plentifully represented by spiritualists, clair- 
 voyants, theosophists, and thought-readers. Jonson, 
 therefore, attained the object of comic satire. While 
 exposing a contemporary phase of imposture and its 
 corresponding credulity, he painted a picture which, 
 deducting purely local colouring, remains true to the 
 permanent facts of human roguery and weakness. And 
 this he did by dwelling . on the passions of Subtle's 
 dupes. He shows how the desire to become suddenly 
 rich, blending with hypocrisy, lust, stolid stupidity, 
 vulgar craft, and mean ambition, bring the Puritan, the 
 city knight, the grocer, the lawyer's clerk, and the little 
 country squireen severally into the sharper's clutches. ' 
 
 The action of ' The Alchemist ' is very simple. 
 Master Lovewit, a widower, has left his town-house in 
 the charge of a servant; Jeremy Face, and travelled into 
 
The Masterpieces. 99 
 
 the country for a change of scene. Face, in his master's 
 absence, comes across a cheating rascal and his female 
 accomplice, named Subtle and Doll. Subtle is a really 
 clever rogue, and Doll a passably handsome wench. 
 But they happen at this moment to be down upon their 
 luck. Forming acquaintance with this pair and per- 
 ceiving them to be kindred spirits, the caretaker of 
 Master Lovewit's mansion suggests that they shall all 
 three inhabit its empty rooms, and live upon their wits 
 by gulling the public. This proposal exactly suits the 
 out-at-elbow brace of sharpers; and when th e pla^ f 
 o pens, we fin d the confederated ensconced in Lovewit' s 
 LgncLon hous e. Subtle'has to act the part of charlatan, 
 alchemist, astrologer, quack-doctor, chiromantist, meto- 
 poscopist, and what not. Face takes upon himself a 
 double office. Inside the house, he is Subtle's under- 
 strapper, familiar, bellows-blower, drug-preparer, varlet, 
 Ulen-Spiegel. Outside, he assumes the character of 
 one of those dubious captains, who then infested 
 taverns, ordinaries, play-houses, and the aisles of St. 
 Paul's, on the beat for simpletons to fleece. In his 
 latter capacity he brings dupes to Subtle, and in his 
 former he helps Subtle to empty their pockets. Doll, 
 meanwhile, stays at home, in readiness to make herself 
 an enticing gentlewoman in distress, a flaunting mis- 
 tress of the demi-^nonde^ a queen of the fairies, or a 
 maiden medium, as chance may require. Each taking 
 a tolerably equal part in the imposture, they, agree to 
 share equally, working for a common purse and dividing 
 its contents between thenu^^,.-^-'^ 
 
 A variety of silly creatures fall into the snares of 
 
 thi s vutuous tri oi Dapper^ tne lawyers clerk, w£o 
 ■ - h2 
 
lOo ^ Ben JoNSON 
 
 wa nts a ^ fly.^ or familiar spirit, to make liim win upo n 
 tlie turf and gain at games of hazard . Abel Drngger, 
 the tobacconist and grocer, who believ^es his shop will 
 prosper, if he can purchase planetary symbols for its 
 timbers. yTribulation Wholesome and Ananias, two 
 Puritans of Amsterrdam, who traffic with the powers of 
 darkness in the interests of their conventicle. Kastril, 
 a country gentleman, ambitious of flying high in town, 
 and winning for his widowed sister. Dame Pliant, an 
 aristocratic second husband. These are the small fry 
 who swarm round Subtle. But he also has a big carp 
 by the gills. This is Sir Epicure Mammon, already 
 rich enough, but inflated with visions of wealth beyond 
 the dreams of avarice. At Mammon's heels hangs a 
 candid friend, named Surly, far too familiar with this 
 world's ways to let himself be duped. Surly is a prac- 
 tised gamester ; and his cunning, set against that of 
 the impostors, throws their schemes into confusion. At 
 the height of the imbroglio, caused by Surly's inter- 
 ference, Lovewit returns to London. Face makes terms 
 with him at first sight. The rogues and dupes are sent 
 about their business. Lovewit wins Dame Pliant and 
 her fortune ; and the rascally servant is pardoned for 
 the mirth afforded .to his wit-loving master. 
 
 The first scene o^^ens on Subtle and Face quarrelling 
 like pickpockets. Modern readers of a popular book 
 can hardly be expected to stomach their realistically 
 coarse abuse. Otherwise, I would gladly have tran- 
 scribed at length this altercation, which proves beyond 
 doubt Jonson's power of painting in strong colours 
 from the vulgar model. Hogarth's picture of the Pake 
 in the French surgeon's con,sulting-room is not more 
 
The Masterpieces ioi 
 
 bluiltly triithfLil; and when Doll bursts iii; to rr.te both 
 
 soundly, and remind them that there , is. horonr even 
 
 among thieves, her Newgate slang completes: ^jhe feithful 
 
 transcript from low life : — 
 
 'Sdcatli, you abominable pair of stinkard?, 
 
 Leave off your barking, and grow one again, 
 
 Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats. 
 
 I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal, 
 
 For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both. 
 
 Have you together cozened all this while. 
 
 And all the world, and shall it now be said 
 
 You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves ? 
 
 The reconciliation of Subtle with Face, following sud- 
 denly upon their quarrel, is no less naturally presented : 
 
 Sub. I'll conform myself. 
 
 J)ol. Will you, sir 1 do so then, and quickly ! Swear. 
 Sill). What should I swear 1 
 ' Dol. To leave your faction, sir, 
 
 And labour kindly in the common work. 
 Sal). Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside. 
 
 I only used those speeches as a spur 
 
 To him. 
 Dol. . I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we 1 
 
 Face. 'Slid, prove to-day, who shall shark best. 
 Sill). Agreed. 
 
 J)ol. Yes, and work close and friendly. 
 
 Sub. 'Slight, the knot 
 
 Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me. 
 
 By the firm touches of this opening scene we have the 
 three rogues set before us in their worthlessness. 
 
 A knock at the house-door interrupts them ; and 
 the dupes begin to put in their appearance. The first 
 is Dapper. Subtle has time to don his. cap and velvet 
 gown. Face receives the clerk, and acts a comedy \Vith 
 his confederate, persuading him with great apparent 
 
102 Ben Jonson 
 
 difficulty to--a>3eept four angels as a fee. Dapper is a 
 betting-man ©f the same kind as those clerks who now 
 I'isk tkeir' salaries, and at times their master's money, on 
 small turf transactions. Subtle pretends to see some- 
 thing extraordinary in the fool's face, and takes the 
 captain aside : — 
 
 ^Suh. Why, sir ^.Offering to ivlds^jer Face. 
 
 Face. No whispering. 
 
 Suh. Fore heaven, you not apprehend the loss 
 
 You do yourself in this. 
 Face, Wherein ? for what ? 
 Stib. Marry, to be so importunate for one, 
 
 That, when he has it, will undo you all : 
 
 He'll win up all the money in the town. 
 Face. How? 
 Suh. Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester, 
 
 As they do crackers in a puppet-play. 
 
 If I do give him a familiar. 
 
 Give you him all you play for ; never set him : 
 
 For he will have it. 
 Face. You are mistaken, doctor. 
 
 Why, he does ask one but for cups arid horses, 
 
 A rifling fly ; none of your great familiars. 
 Bap. Yes, captain, I would have it for all games. 
 
 Thus Dapper, who has been allowed to overhear their 
 whispering, is cozened into paying down his uttermost 
 farthing for a spirit which shall make him master of the 
 company he plays with. He resolves at once to leave 
 the law, and puts himself blindly in the hands of the 
 wheedling rascals. 
 
 On the heels of Dapper comes another gull, the 
 tobacconist Drugger. He invokes necromancy for in- 
 structions where to make his door, where to ]3ut up his 
 shelves, and which to use for pots, and which for boxes. 
 Face warrants him for an honest fellow : — 
 
The Masterpieces 103 
 
 Doctor, do you hear ? 
 This is my friend, Abel, an honest fellow ; 
 He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not 
 Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil. 
 Nor washes it in muscadel or grains, 
 Nor buries it in gravel, under ground, 
 Wrapp'd up in greasy leather, or piss'd clouts : 
 But keeps it in fine lily pots, that, open'd, 
 Smell like conserve of roses or French beans. 
 He has his maple block, his silver tongs, 
 Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper : 
 A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith. 
 
 Subtle angles for him as he did for Dapper. He pre- 
 tends by metoposcopy to discern wonderful signs of 
 good luck in his forehead, and by chiromancy reads 
 future greatness in his finger nails. The first act is 
 occupied with these minor characters, both of whom 
 play their part in the development of the plot, and serve 
 meanwhile to prepare us for the real hero of the piece. 
 This is Sir Epicure Mammon, whose loud, coarse, strident 
 voice is heard when the curtain rises for the second act. 
 He and his friend Surly have just entered the sharper's 
 lodging : — 
 
 Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore 
 
 In Novo Orbe ; here's the rich Peru : 
 
 And there within, sir, are the golden mines. 
 
 Great Solomon's Ophir ! he was sailing to 
 
 Three years, but we have reached it in ten months. 
 
 This is the day, wherein, to all my friends, 
 
 I will pronounce the happy word. Be EICH ; 
 
 This day you shall be spectatissimi. 
 
 After drawing money from the knight on various pre- 
 tences of making experiments in the transmutation of 
 metals, Surfy^has felt himself compelled at last to pro- 
 mise the projection of the philosopher's stone for this 
 
104 ' ^EN Jons ON 
 
 day. He and Face count meanwliile on Mammon's 
 grosser nature for putting him oif with a failure. As 
 his name denotes, the greedy monster is no less a slave 
 to his sensual appetites than to his thirst for money ; 
 and here lies the secret of their plot to cozen him. 
 
 1 Mammon is the twin-brother of Tamburlaine in his 
 extravagant conceits. Compact of lust and avarice, he 
 revels in the wildest dreams of luxury and wealth ; vows 
 that he will buy up all the mines of Cornwall and 
 transmute their lead and copper into gold; that the 
 voluptuous pictures which 
 
 Tiberius took 
 From Elephantis, and dull Aretine 
 But coldly imitated, 
 
 shall burn upon his palace walls ; that the feasts and 
 sports of insolent Kome shall be repeated in his revel- 
 ries ; that he will lie on beds blown up with air and 
 clothe himself in robes of cobweb texture. With the 
 strength of the elixir of eternal youth, he will rival 
 Hercules in feats of brawny sensuality. London shall 
 be freed from plague by daily distribution of the pre- 
 cious draught. Waxing intoxicate with his own visions 
 of a bestial joy, he swears he will have none but virtuous 
 wives for mistresses, fathers for go-betweens, divines for 
 parasites, the burghers of the city for fools, the Don 
 Juans of the Court for eunuchs. His wealth shall pur- 
 chase every delicacy that the most preposterous fancy 
 can devise to sate the palate : — 
 
 My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, 
 Dishes of agate set in gold and studded 
 With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies. 
 The tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels, 
 Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl, 
 
The Masterpieces 105 . 
 
 Apicitis' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy : 
 
 And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, 
 
 Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 
 
 My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, 
 
 Knots, godwits, lampreys : I myself will have 
 
 The beards of barbels served, instead of sallads ; 
 
 Oil'd mushrooms ; and the swelling unctuous paps 
 
 Of a fat pregnant sov.% newly cut off, 
 
 Brest with an exquisite and poignant sauce ; 
 
 For which, I'll say unto my cook, There's gold. 
 
 Go forth, and be a hnight. 
 
 Charles Lamb observes with justice : ' If there be no 
 one image which rises to the height of the sublime, yet /^ 
 the confluence and assemblage of them all produces an 
 effect equal to the grandest poetry.' It was in such a 
 character as this of Mammon's that the fervour of 
 Jonson's genius, fusing the varied substances of learning 
 into burnished Corinthian brass, displayed itself to best 
 advantage. He piled Pelion upon Ossa of accumulated 
 details ; marshalled cloud after cloud across the sky of 
 fancy, till the whole range of vision was canopied and 
 rendered gorgeous by superincumbent masses of glowing 
 imagery. It is of little moment to demur that Mam- 
 mon's day-dreams are incongruous with his quality of a 
 City knight, and that half of what he says is borrowed 
 from the Augustan Histories. Jonson was depicting a 
 hyperbolical character 7 /and it served his purpose to 
 gather the vices and luxuries of all nations into one 
 delirious vision. Sir Epicure Mammon exhibits in his 
 rhetoric the calenture of a brain inflamed by the expecta- 
 tion of absolutely illimitable power over nature. His 
 fever is fed by all the items of sensuality which he has 
 gathered from commerce with men and books. Not a 
 single jot or tittle of the monstrous cornpound lies 
 
io6 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 beyond tlie reach of one who holds the magic stone and 
 quaffs the goblet of perpetual youth. The exorbitance 
 of Mammon's fancy sinks into nothing when compared 
 with the extravagance of the idea by which it was 
 excited. And yet we know that this idea possessed 
 thousands in Renaissance Europe. Riches and the long 
 years of a toilsome life had been lavished in every 
 capital on the mad quest. Bold spirits, after finding 
 despair among the cinders of their furnace and the dust 
 of their alembics, had spread adventurous sails for 
 El Dorado. Mammon, in his lunes, merely rose to the 
 height of the insanity, which men of feebler covetous- 
 ness narrowed to the probabilities of common life. 
 Dapper wanted " a fly/' to cheat at horse-races. 
 Drugger asked for astrological symbols, to improve his 
 trade. The elders of Amsterdam^^ wh oao' ai pquaintftijjg e^ 
 we havo yot to "naftke, were for buying up tongs and 
 shovels to transmute, and were meditating some small 
 revolution in. the English Church — ^not grasping the 
 conception that, if they really held the stone and the 
 elixir, they might purchase counties or continents, 
 change the laws of society, and deal at pleasure with 
 the foundations of human nature^J Surly interrupts his 
 friend in the full flow of eloquence : — 
 
 Sitr. And do you think to have the stone with this ? 
 
 Mam. No, I do think t'have all this with the stone. 
 
 Sur, Why, I have heard, he must be homo frugif 
 A pious, holy, and religious m?.n, 
 One free from mortal sin, a very virgin. 
 
 Ma7n. That makes it, sir ; he is so : but I buy it ; 
 
 My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch, 
 A notable, superstitious, good soul, 
 Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald, 
 With prayer and fasting for it ; and^ sir, let him 
 
The Masterpieces 107 
 
 Do, it alone, for me, still. Here lie comes* 
 Not a profane word afore him : 'tis poison. 
 
 This introduces Subtle in his character of sanctimonious 
 devotee to philanthropic science. Maddened by his 
 own imaginatioUj Mammon had omitted to reflect how 
 unlikely it was that a sage who could perform the 
 miracles he momently expected, would work for so arro- 
 gant, insolent, and crassly ignorant a brute as himself. 
 The affectation of holiness, unselfishness, and purity 
 was the backdoor by which impostors of Subtle's type 
 secured their retreat. They knew that the Mammons 
 of this world came to them with lust and greed in their 
 souls ; but they overlooked this, and impressed on their 
 neophytes the absolute necessity of a clean heart and 
 a disinterested spirit. At the same time they took care 
 to throw temptation in their way ; and Doll Common 
 was the vulgar trap in which our Alchemist caught Sir 
 Epicure. The dupe meanwhile fondly fancied that if he 
 kept his secret lust concealed until the projection was 
 accomplished, all would go well. Subtle is at pains 
 to warn Mammon. Scarcely have they exchanged good 
 morrow than he reads him this lecture : — 
 
 Son, I doubt 
 Tou are covetous, that thus you meet your time 
 In the just point : prevent your day at morning. 
 This argues something, worthy of a fear 
 Of importune and carnal appetite. 
 Take heed you do not cause the blessing leave you, 
 AVith your ungovern'd haste. I should be sorry 
 To see my labours, now even at perfection, 
 Got by long watching and large patience. 
 Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed them. 
 Which (heaven I call to witness, with yourself. 
 To whom I have pour'd my thoughts) in all my ends. 
 
io8 Ben Jonson 
 
 Have look'd no way, but unto public good, 
 To pious uses, and dear charity, 
 Now grown a prodigy with men. Wherein 
 If you, my son, should now prevaricate, 
 And, to your own particular lusts employ 
 So great and catholic a bliss, be sure 
 A curse will follow, yea, and overtake 
 Your subtle and most secret ways. 
 
 Mammon lyingly replies : — 
 
 I assure you, 
 I shall employ it all in pious uses, 
 Founding of colleges and grammar schools, 
 Marrying young virgins, building hospitals, 
 And now and then a church. 
 
 The Alchemist, who is aware that Face has established 
 an intrigue between Doll and the knight, can now con- 
 fidently appoint a solemn hour when the great work 
 shall be accomplished. Mammon departs, and returns 
 true to the hour of his appointment, but with the guilt 
 of his flirtation with Doll upon his conscience. A crash 
 is heard ; crucibles fly into the air ; Subtle swoons, and, 
 waking from his trance, inveighs so solemnly against 
 the lust which frustrated his watchings, labours, and 
 pious intentions, that Mammon has humbly to beg 
 pardon of the man who hoaxed him. 
 
 Apart from the characters of Subtle, Face, and 
 Mammon, the chief interest of this play centres in 
 Jonson's treatment of the Puritans. He was the 
 avowed foe of their hypocrisy, the remorseless satirist 
 of their inurbane manners, and the witty caricaturist of 
 their canting phraseology. The two who figure in ' The 
 Alchemist ' are powerfully etched with sharp burin 
 strokes, deeply bitten into the copper-plate. Tribula- 
 
The Masterpieces 109 
 
 tibn Wliolesome and Ananias, this pair of worthies, 
 form together a gross compendium of ignorance, super- 
 stition, coarse spiritual covetousness, intolerance, men- 
 dacity, and reptile casuistry. It would be painful, but 
 for the artist's light of comic humour shed upon the 
 loathsome objects of his satire, to approach them. 
 Whether Jonson was fair to the Puritans, as he had 
 learned to know them, is a problem now beyond dispute. 
 Yet, when I consider that it is not altogether difficult to 
 find a match for these personages in contemporary life, 
 I am inclined to give my vote in favour of Jonson's 
 veracity. 
 
 Tribulation plays the part of general referee and 
 divine instructor to his sect. He is withal their am- 
 bassador, man of business, and 'very zealous pastor.' 
 Ananias is younger, more fervid, more pugnacious, more 
 crassly stupid and intransigeant, more profoundly ill- 
 educated and incapable of mundane courtesies. Whole- 
 some argues with this deacon upon the need of using 
 Subtle in order to procure money for the godly cause. 
 
 The whelp whines answer :— 
 
 In pure zeal 
 I do not like the man ; he is a heathen 
 And speaks the language of Canaan truly. 
 
 W^holesome admits that Subtle is a profane person ; but 
 Ananias takes him up intemperately : — 
 
 He bears 
 The visible mark of the beast in his forehead ;• 
 And for his stone, it is a work of darkness, 
 And with philosophy blinds the eyes of men. 
 
 The fact is that Ananias, with the acute nose of a 
 hound, has smelt the fox in Subtle. Wholesome, who 
 has more sophisticated instincts, plies his younger 
 
no Ben JoNSON 
 
 brother with true Puritan Jesuistry. Is there not an 
 art, he says, for making good come out of evil, for using 
 impure means to propagate and fundamentally establish 
 a holy cause ? Ananias, touched in his major passion 
 of covetousness, now declares that he has never been 
 so edified before ; and the two elders enter the 
 Alchemist's sanctuary. Subtle receives Wholesome 
 without superfluous ceremony, but his coldness turns 
 to indignation at the sight of Ananias. In him he 
 recognises an enemy of stubborn mettle, who has to be 
 brow-beaten and subdued. The astuteness with which 
 he alternately snubs the priggishness of Ananias, and 
 plays upon his avarice, deserves all commendation. 
 First he unfolds before his dupes a scheme of temporal 
 and spiritual aggrandisement w^hich absorbs them both, 
 until the zeal of Ananias is offended by the mention of 
 a bell : ' Bells are profane ; a tune may be religious.' 
 Again, when the word tradition is dropped, it rouses the 
 conscientious scruples of the deacon : ' I hate traditions ; 
 I do not trust them.' Subtle and Face ply him with 
 alchemistic jargon. Ananias snuffles out: ^I under- 
 stand no heathen language, truly.' This makes Subtle 
 mad: — 
 
 Heathen I you knipper-doling I Is Ars Sacra, 
 Or chrysopcEia, or spagyria, 
 Or the pamphysic or panarchic knowledge, 
 A heathen language ? 
 
 ' Heathen Greek, I take it/ persists Ananias ; ^ all's 
 heathen but the Hebrew.' 
 
The Masterpieces hi 
 
 BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 
 
 ^ Bartholomew Fair ' is a^r^ farce, conceived in tTie 
 spirit of rollicking mirth, and executed with colossal 
 energy. It is no satire eithe? of manners or of in- 
 dividuals, but a broad Dutch painting of the humours of 
 a London Carnival, such as only a man bred from boy- 
 hood to the town could have xDroduced. The personages 
 are admirably studied and grouped together with con- 
 summate insight into dramatic effect. The proctor, with 
 his pretty wife and puritanical mother-in-law ; the sleek 
 minister from Banbury, who woos the widow; the 
 squire from Harrow, and his watchful attendant ; the 
 justice of the peace, for ever blundering in his pre- 
 posterous disguises ; the ginger-bread women and toy- 
 shop people ; the greasy cook, who sells roast pig and 
 carries on more questionable business; the bailiffs, 
 watchmen, sharpers, and bullies, who abound in every 
 booth ; the puppet-show, the ballad singer, the mad- 
 man, and the miscellaneous crowd of costermongers, 
 porters, pickpockets, and passengers, compose one varied 
 ever-moving kaleidoscope of human beings. 
 
 We are introduced into this motley crowd by a 
 device which: enables the playwright to contrast the 
 coarse diversions of Smithfield with the cantkig 
 squeamishness of the vulgar Puritans, who supply his 
 scenes with their most lively humours. Dame Pure- 
 craft's daughter, Win-the-fight, married to doltish John 
 Littlewit the proctor, is in an interesting situation, and 
 manifests caprices pardonable in her state of health. 
 
ii2 Ben JonsoN 
 
 She lias conceived an irresistible longing to eat roast 
 pig at Bartholomew Fair. This, like the wrath of 
 Achilles in the Iliad, is the motive-passion of the 
 comedy. , Roast pigf at home will not content her... The 
 vpi^ on wh i ch her heart i^ f^f^ "^npit hp ri^^^^'^j ^"d Pgj en 
 in a boot [i ^nt Smithfield . A matron like Dame Pure^ 
 craft found herself thus placed in a position involving 
 casuistry. On the one hand she dared not contradict 
 her daughter's longings, however unreasonable they 
 might be, and however unlawful this particular longing 
 was according to her creed. She attempts at first the 
 way of admonition and discouragement : — 
 
 Look up, sweet Win-the-figlit, and suffer not the enemy to enter 
 you at this door ; remember that your education has been with the 
 purest. What polluted one was it that named first the unclean 
 beast, pig, to you, child 1 
 
 When Mrs. Little wit has reluctantly admitted how 
 
 the longing came upon her, Dame Purecraft resumes 
 
 her godly exhortations : — 
 
 O, resist it, Win-the-fight I It^is the tempter, the wicked 
 tempter, you may know it by the fleshly motion of the pig ; be 
 strong against it and its foul temptations, in these assaults, whereby 
 it broacheth flesh and blood, as it were on the weaker side ; and 
 pray against its carnal provocations ; good child, sweet child, pray. 
 
 §uch pleading is, however, all to no purpose. Jdig. 
 .Littlewit is resolved to eat pig in a bootji . or to ruin 
 the hopes of her husband's posterity. In this difficulty 
 her mother bethinks her of the godly man from Banbury, 
 Brother Zeal-of-t he-land Busy, who is sure to be equal 
 to the problem : — 
 
 What shall we do ? Call our zealous brother Busy hither, for 
 Lis faithful fortification in this charge of the adversary. Child, 
 my dear child, you shall eat pig ; be comforted, my sweet child. 
 
The Masterpieces 113 
 
 At this point the audience are pretty well informed 
 that Dame Purecraft herself has no insurmountable ob- 
 jection to pig in the abstract. But Win-the-fight will 
 not ratify a bargain on these terms. Her longing is for 
 pig at Smithfield ; so she answers : — 
 
 Mrs. Lit. : Ay, but in the Fair, mother ! 
 
 Ptire. : I mean in the Fair, if it can be any way made or found 
 lawful. 
 
 Meanwhile, Zeal-of-the-land Busy, one of the most 
 unctuous creations of a comic poet's brain, has been 
 discovered in the pantry, comforting himself with a 
 glass of malmsey and a cub of cold turkey-pie. The 
 pious man appears, wiping his lips, and is immediately 
 appealed to by the widow : — 
 
 O, brother Busy ! your help here, to edify and raise us up in -a 
 scruple ; my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease 
 of women, called a longing to eat pig. 
 
 Mr. Littlewit, who has no less longing for Smithfield 
 than his spouse, here puts in a word : — 
 Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig ; and in the Fair. 
 
 His mother-in-law takes him up : 
 
 And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a 
 widow of the sanctified assembl}-, or a widow's daughter, may 
 commit the act without offence to the weaker sisters. 
 
 Thus appealed to, the answer of the Eabbi, delivered 
 doubtless in a rich baritone snuffle, is highly edifying, 
 but hardly satisfactory to the persons concerned. Zeal- 
 of-the-land has no objection to the eating of roast 
 pig in itself. He sticks at the place where it must be 
 eaten : — 
 
 Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, 
 or appetite, incident to women ; and as it is carnal and incident, it 
 
 I 
 
114 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 is natural, very natural. Now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is 
 liOiiiishing and may be longed for, and so consequently eaten ; it 
 may be eaten ; very exceedingly well eaten : but in the Fair, and 
 as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten; for the very calling it a 
 Eartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you 
 make the Fair no better than one of the high-places. This, I taka 
 it, is the state of the question: a high-place. 
 
 True to lier name, Win-the-figlit persists in lier deter- 
 mination ; and Dame Purecraft is forced to consult 
 the oracle once more for casuistical easements : — 
 
 Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lav»ful as 
 you can. 
 
 This time, the oracle itself is smitten with the savoury 
 temptation of pig at the Fair. He then replies with the 
 same fulsome reiteration of phrases which marks the 
 canting hypocrite : — 
 
 Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction, 
 subject, and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a 
 foul face ; but that face may have a veil put over it, and be 
 shadowed as it were ; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in 
 a booth, the tents of the wicked : the place is not much, not very 
 much, we may be religious in the midst of the profane, so it be 
 eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness ; not 
 gorged in with gluttony or greediness, there's the fear : for should 
 she go there, as taking pride in the place, or delight in the 
 unclean dressing, to feed the vanity of the eye, or lust of the 
 palate, it were not well, it were not fit, it were abominable, and r.ot 
 good. 
 
 Having delivered himself of this convenient sophistry, 
 Brother Busy invokes the spirit of zeal, and rhapsodises 
 as follows : — 
 
 In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat 
 exceedingly, and prophesy. There may be a good use made of it 
 too now I think on't. By the public eating of swine's flesh, to 
 
The. Masterpieces i i 5 
 
 profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof tlie brethren 
 stand taxed. I will therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly. 
 
 It was Jonsoii's invariable practice to introduce the 
 main personages of liis drama in tlie first act, and to 
 set forth, the leading comic motive with such clearness 
 that the future conduct of the plot should involve no 
 difficulties for the understanding. We are therefore 
 now prepared, upon the opening of the second act, to 
 find ourselves among the booths of Bartholomew Fair ; 
 and here we witness a series of diverting incidents in 
 the expectation of soon returning to the company of 
 our Puritan friends. This expectation is not frustrated; 
 for in due time, though we have to wait for them until 
 the first scene of the third act. Dame Purecraft and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Littlewit, led by Rabbi Busy, are seen 
 advancing with set faces through the booths : — 
 
 Busy : So, walk on in the middle way, foreright, turn neither 
 to the right hand nor to the left ; let not your eyes be drawn aside 
 with vanity, nor your ears with noises. 
 
 The toy-sellers and apple-women gather round them ; 
 but the pious man continues his nasal exhortation : — 
 
 Look not toward them, hearken not ; the place is Smithfield, oi 
 the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets; the 
 wares are the wares of devils, and the whole Fair is the shop of 
 Satan. They are hooks and baits, very baits, that are hung out on 
 every side to catch you, and to hold you as it were by the gills and 
 by the nostrils, as the fisher doth. Therefore you must not look 
 nor tm:n toward them. The heathen man could stop his ears with 
 wax against the harlot of the sea; do you the like with your 
 fingers against the bells of the beast. 
 
 But their object at the Fair is to eat pig; and how 
 are they to find it if they do not use their eyes ? The 
 
ii6 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 proctor, who is a weak brother, takes this vieWj and 
 stands stock still before Ursula's booth : — 
 
 Lit. : \_Gazing at the insGription,'] This is fine verily ! Here 
 
 BE THE BEST PIGS; AND SHE DOES BOAST THEM AS WELL AS 
 
 EVER SHE DID, the pig's head says 1 
 
 Pure.: Son, were you not warned of the vanity of the eye? 
 Have you forgot the wholesome admonition so soon ? 
 
 Lit. : Good mother, how shall we find a pig, if we do not look 
 about for 't ? Will it run off o' the spit into our mouths, think jou^ 
 as in Lubber land, and cr}^ wee wee? 
 
 Busy's casuistry is equal to the occasion. II0 Jiacl 
 warned his flock to close their ears and shut their eyes 5 
 but another sense might lead them no less surely to tb^ 
 object of their quest. 
 
 Bxmj : No, but your mother, religiously- wise, conceiveth it may 
 offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which 
 I think it doth here in this place, — huh, huh — yes, it doth. [7/e 
 scents after it like a Jiound.'] And it were a sin of obstinacy, great 
 obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the 
 good titillation of the famelic sense, which is the smell. Therefore 
 be bold — huh, huh, huh — follow the scent : enter the tents of thq 
 unclean, for once, and satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frai^ 
 wife be satisfied ; your zealous mother and my suffering self wiU 
 also be satisfied. 
 
 To this admirable exposition he adds the further 
 casuistical reflection, that 'we scape so^much of the 
 other vanities by our early entering ' ; and Dame Pure-, 
 craft assents : ' It is an edifying consideration.' Mrs., 
 Littlewit grumbles : ' This is scurvy, that we must, 
 come to the Fair, and not look on 't.' However, tha 
 whole party enters Ursula's booth; and the voice of the 
 Kabbi is heard within its curtains, sonorously declaim-, 
 ing : ' A pig prepare presently, let a pig be prepared 
 to us/ There we leave him fpr ^wjiile to the gratifica-r 
 
Thji Masterpieces 117 
 
 tlon of his sanctified appetite. The plot calls our atten- 
 tion to other persons of the comedy. These I must 
 omit, being unable to set so miscellaneous a crowd of 
 characters adequately before my readers, and wishing to 
 concentrate attention upon Jonson's full-length portrait 
 of the Puritan minister. 
 
 When Busy has eaten to his heart's content, and 
 drunk no little too it may be guessed, he sallies forth, 
 inspired with zeal against the profanities of the Fair : — 
 
 Thou art the seat of the beast, Smithfield, and I will leave 
 thee I Idolatry peepeth out on every side of thee. 
 
 His eyes light upon a toyshop, and the toy-man presses 
 ' rattles, drums, babies ' on his devout attention : — 
 
 Peace, with thy apocryphal wares, thou profane publican ; thy 
 bells, thy dragons, and thy Tobie's dogs. Thy hobby-horse is an 
 idol, a very idol, a fierce and rank idol ; and thou, the Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, the proud Nebuchadnezzar of the Fair, that sett'st it up for 
 children to fall down to and worship. 
 
 The toy-man thrusts a drum into his face :— 
 
 It is the broken belly of the beast, and thy bellows there are his 
 lungs, and these pipes are his throat, those feathers are of his tail, 
 and thy rattles the gnashing of his teeth. 
 
 Would he like gingerbread perhaps ? 
 
 The provender that pricks him up. Hence with thy basket of 
 popery, thy nest of images, and whole legend of ginger-work. 
 
 Dame Purecraft, seeing that he is about to fall upon the 
 gingerbread basket and send it flying in the fervour of 
 his indignation, attempts to calm him down with ' Good 
 brother Zeal ' ; but he will hear no reason : — 
 
 Hinder me not, woman ! I was moved in spirit to be here this 
 day, in this Fair, this wicked and foul Fair ; and fitter may it be 
 
1 1 8 Ben J on son 
 
 called a Foul than a Fair ; to protest against the abuses of it, the 
 foul abuses of it, in regard of the afflicted saints, that are troubled, 
 ,very much troubled, exceedingly troubled, with the opening of the 
 merchandize of Babylon again, and the peeping of popery upon the 
 stalls here, here, in the high-places. See yon not Goldylocks, the 
 purple strumpet there, in her yellow gown and green sleeves ? the 
 profane pipes ? the tinkling timbrels ? A shop of relicks I 
 
 \_Attem/pts to seize the toys.'] 
 
 Then, having lashed himself into a fury, he bears down 
 ' upon the gingerbread : — 
 
 And this idolatrous grove of images, this flasket of idols, which 
 I will pull down [overthroivs the gingerhread haslief] in my zeal, and 
 glory to be thus exercised. 
 
 The ensuing commotion brings a brace of watchmen on 
 the scene, who take hold of Busy, and carry him off to 
 the stocks, saying they will stop his noise : — 
 
 Thou canst not ; 'tis a sanctified noise : 1 will make a loud and 
 most strong noise, till I have daunted the profane enemy. And for 
 this cause I will thrust myself into the stocks, upon the pikes of the 
 land. 
 
 We next behold him in the stocks, roaring and testify- 
 ing, but displaying withal that obstinate courage and 
 unconcern for what the world might think which gave 
 force to the Puritans in the succeeding age. When a 
 bystander jeeringly asks what he is, he answers : — 
 
 One that rejoiceth in his affliction, and sitteth here to prophesy 
 the destruction of fairs and May-games, wakes and Whitson-ales, 
 and doth sigh and groan for the reformation of these abuses. 
 
 We may wonder whether Jonson, when he put these 
 words into the mouth of Busy, surmised the probability 
 of his prophecy being shortly realised in dismal fact 
 throughout England. A fellow-prisoner, the unfortu- 
 .nate justice of the peace, Adam Overdo, quotes stoical 
 
The Masterpieces 119 
 
 phrases from Horace and Persius to keep his courage 
 up. The Rabbi overhears him, and delivers a cutting 
 rebuke : — 
 
 Friend, I will leave to communicate my spirit with you, if I hear 
 an}^ more of those superstitious relics, those lists of Latin, the very 
 rags of Kome, and patches of Popery. 
 
 With his wonted skill in throwing side lights .upDn all 
 points of arfavourite character, Jonson here exhibits the 
 Huritan dislike of culture and the ^ross ignorance of 
 the sect. But when Dame Purecraft comes up, and 
 condoles with him on his misfortune, the valiant spirit 
 of the martyr (as stout in tragic as it here appears in 
 comic difficulty) breaks forth : — 
 
 Peace, religious sister, it is my calling ; comfort yourself an 
 extraordinary calling, and done for my better standing, my surer 
 standing, hereafter. 
 
 Notwithstanding this enthusiasm, he is glad enough to 
 escape when the stocks are opened by accident. His 
 Quixotic zeal soon plunges him into other comical ad- 
 ventures. A farcical puppet-show on the pathetic story 
 of Hero and Leander, which might serve as an excellent 
 illustration of English mock-heroic parody, if we had 
 space to dwell on it, is being acted in a booth. The 
 dialogue, of the lowest description, is moving briskly, 
 when a sudden snort and trampling announces the 
 advent of the Rabbi : — 
 
 Down with Dagon ! down with Dagon I 'tis I ; I will no longer 
 endure your profanations. I will remove Dagon there, I say, that 
 idol, that heathenish idol, that remains, as I may say, a beam, a very 
 beam — not a beam of the sun, nor a beam of the moon, nor a beam 
 of a balance, neither a house-beam, nor a weaver's beam, but a beam 
 in the eye, in the eye of the brethren ; a very great beam, an 
 
120 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 exceeding great beam ; such as are your stage-players, rimers, and 
 morrice-dancers, who have walked hand in hand, in contempt of the 
 brethren and the cause j and been borne out by instruments of no 
 mean countenance. 
 
 His zeal overvaults itself, and leaves him out of breath ; 
 whereupon the showman quietly observes : — 
 Sir, 1 present nothing but what is licensed by authority. 
 
 This sets Busy off again upon the word licence : — 
 
 Busy : Thou art all licence, even licentiousness itself, Shimei. 
 
 Leath : I have the Master of the Eevels' hand for 't, sir. 
 
 Bus?/ : The Master of the Rebels' hand thou hast, Satan's I hold 
 thy peace, thy scurrilitj^, shut up thy mouth, thy profession is damn- 
 able, and in pleading for it thou dost plead for Baal. I have long 
 opened my mouth wide, and gaped ; I have gaped as the oyster for 
 the tide, after thy destruction : but cannot compass it by suit or dis- 
 pute ; so that I look for a bickering, ere long, and then a battle. 
 
 Eventually, Eabbi Zeal-of-the-land is drawn into a 
 controversy upon theatrical ethics with the showman, 
 which gives Jonson an opportunity for marshalling the 
 arguments advanced by Puritans against play-acting. 
 His own counter-arguments he puts into the mouth of 
 Busy's antagonist, who in the end confutes and silences 
 the man of Banbury. 
 
 Such is the best portrait of a Puritan which remains 
 for us upon the pages of our dramatists. After study- 
 ing its powerful outlines, we feel the truth of Gilford's 
 observation : ' All this proves how profoundly Jonson 
 had entered into the views and expectations of this tur- 
 bulent and aspiring race.' Whether he is right in 
 adding : ' Had his royal master understood them hall 
 so well, long years of calamity and disgrace might have 
 been averted,' is open to more doubt. It was not 
 Charles' misconception of the Puritans which moved 
 
The MASTERpmcES 121 
 
 John Hampden and Pym to their resistance of royal 
 tyranny. Yet the fact remains that the playwright, 
 while caricaturing the fanatics who subsequently formed 
 the Rump Parliament, panted them in their day of 
 comparative obscurity just as they afterwards displayed 
 themselves in the day of their triumph. 
 
122 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MASQUES AT COURT AND LYllICS. 
 
 The Masque in England was a dramatic species, occupy- 
 ing a middle place between the Pageant and the Play.^ 
 It combined dancing and music with lyric poetry and 
 declamation, and was distinguished above all things by 
 magnificence of scenery. The persons who performed 
 a masque had only to be noble in appearance, richly 
 dressed, and dignified in movement. Little demand 
 was made upon their histrionic talent. They were but 
 animated puppets in the hands of artists who devised 
 the piece : the poet who chose the subject and wrote 
 the book of words ; the mechanist, who prepared the 
 architectural surroundings, shifted the scenes, and 
 planned the complicated engines requisite for bringing 
 cars upon the stage or lowering a goddess from the 
 heavens ; the scene-painter ; the milliner ; the leader of 
 the band ; the teacher of the ballet. The performers 
 played their parts sufficiently, provided their costumes 
 were splendid and their carriage stately. Therefore the 
 
 ' For further details concerning the masque, I may refer to 
 chapter ix. of my Shalispere^s Predecessors. I must also point 
 out that I have drawn largely on that chapter, and have frequently 
 borrowed from it textually in the composition of this sketch. I 
 found it impossible to cast what I had to say upon the subject in 
 quite a fresh form. 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 123 
 
 masque became a favourite amusement with wealthy ama- 
 teurs and courtiers aiming at effect. Since it implied 
 a large expenditure on dresses, scenery, candlelight, and 
 music, it was an indulgence which only the rich could 
 afford. We are thus prepared to understand why the 
 masque was a special branch of Court-parade, in which 
 royal personages and the queens of fashion trod the 
 dais of Greenwich or Whitehall on festival occasions. 
 The principal actors posed upon this private stage as 
 Olympian deities or personifications of the Virtues, 
 surrounded by a crowd of ballet-dancers, singers, lutists, 
 and buffoons. 
 
 The masque was imported into England from Italy. 
 TVe first hear of it in the year 1512-13, when 
 Henry VIII. and eleven of his nobles appeared ' dis- 
 guised ' after this new fashion. During the reigns of 
 the Tudors it continued to be a comparatively simple 
 pageant ; nor do we possess literary records of masques 
 composed by eminent writers in this period. The ac- 
 cession of James I. marked an epoch in its development. 
 This king and his son were both of them partial to such 
 entertainments, and willing to spend. freely on them. 
 The average cost of a masque at Court may be reckoned 
 at about 1,400L, which, considering the value of money 
 at that time, represents a large sum. Great noble- 
 men, corporations, and the City of London, not un- 
 frequently indulged their sovereign's taste by present- 
 ing still more costly entertainments. On one occasion, 
 when the Inns of Court displayed Shirley's ' Triumph 
 -of Peace,' their total expenditure is said to have been 
 -2O,O00L 
 
 It was part of the poet's duty to prepare for publi- 
 
124 ^ Ben JomoM 
 
 cation a detailed account of tlie show ; describing tli6 
 scenes, costumes, and dances ; introducing the libretto 
 he had written for the actors, and paying compliments 
 to his collaborators. The names of the performers, if 
 they were royal or noble, appeared in their proper 
 placQs ; and the little book was prized as a souvenir by 
 those who had assisted at so august a pageant. To this 
 custom of printing the description of Court masques 
 we owe the preservation of more than thirty pieces by 
 Ben Jonson, not to mention those of other distinguished 
 poets among his contemporaries. 
 
 Jonson threw his whole spirit into the work. His 
 masques iSre not only infinitely varied, witty, tasteful, 
 and ingeriTous, but vast erudition is exhibited in the 
 notes with which he has enriched themTj Conscious of 
 the sterling stuff of these compositions, he chafed at 
 the precedence in popular esteem which was naturally 
 given to the architect on such occasions. ' He thought 
 that the poet, whose invention was the soul of such 
 splendid trifles, deserved the lion's share of fame. And 
 certainly, were it not for Jonson's lyrics, we should 
 pay them slight attention now. Those far more superb 
 pageants of Florence and of Venice, because they lacked 
 a sacred bard, are forgotten. While, therefore, he was 
 careful to assign what he considered their due share of 
 credit to his several collaborators, he always reserved 
 for himself the chief honours of the piece. His lofty 
 introduction to the ' Hymenaei ' opens thus : ' It is a 
 noble and just advantage that the things subjected to 
 understanding have of those which are objected to sense ; 
 that the one sort are but momentary, and merely taking ; 
 the other impressing and lasting ; else the glory of tnese 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 125 
 
 solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out, in 
 the beholders' eyes. So short-lived are the bodies of all 
 things, in comparison of their souls.' 
 
 Inigo Jones, the disciple of Palladio and builder of 
 Whitehall, was the architect who provided the mechanism 
 needed for bodying forth the poet's fancy to the eye. 
 He was no less imperious in self-esteem than Jonson, 
 and by no means relished this assignment of the merely 
 transient portion of the masques to him. Other authors, 
 Daniel and Chapman, had paid him better respect, 
 placed his name first upon the title-page, and acknow- 
 ledged in their prefaces that his art excelled the poet's 
 in importance. Jonson indeed was right. He might 
 well expect the suffrage of posterity, when all the 
 torches of Whitehall should be extinguished, the royal 
 actors dead and buried, the groves and cars and temples 
 of the mechanician turned to dust. But he had better 
 not have proclaimed this so haughtily, for he made a 
 deadly enemy. Though they worked together for many 
 years, the discord between these two irascible artists 
 grew ever more intense. We shall see that in the 
 darkest days of Jonson's life, when he stood most in 
 need of friendship and goodwill, Jones contrived to do 
 him a bad turn at Court. 
 
 The masque, as I have said, was generally presented 
 by royal or noble personages. On their performances 
 the architect lavished his costliest inventions. But 
 this magnificence required a foil. An Antimasque was 
 consequently furnished; and for this, some grotesque 
 or comic motive had to be selected. Actors from the 
 public theatres were hired to play the antimasque. 
 We accordingly find that while the masque assumes 
 
x/ 
 
 126 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 the form of a triumph or ballet, the antimasque is 
 more strictly dramatic. In the antimasque, Hecate 
 led the revels of witches round her cauldron. In the 
 masque, queens attended Anne of Denmark on chariots 
 of gold and jewels; lutes and viols sounded; Prince 
 Henry and Duke Charles stepped the high measures of 
 the galliard. To combine the contrasted motives of the 
 masque and antimasque into one coherent scheme was 
 the poet's pride ; and it is just here that Jonson showed 
 his mastery. It may be parenthetically noticed that the 
 antithesis which I have indicated survives in the Italian 
 hallo and the English pantomime of the present day. 
 
 "We can now turn to the consideration of Ben 
 Jonson's masques in detail . Their very names reveal 
 their strangeness and'variety. There is a Masque of 
 Blackness, answered by a Masque of Beauty; a Welsh 
 Masque, and an Irish Masque ; a Masque of Queens, 
 and a Masque of Owls ; a Masque of Christmas, and a 
 Masque of Lethe ; a Masque of Augurs and a Masque of 
 Time. ir^TFone moment the poet's fancy brings back the 
 Golden*^e ; at another explores the Fortunate Isles or 
 the world discovered in the moon ; now camps with 
 gipsies on the heath, now sports with satyrs and shep- 
 herds, now leads the dances of the fairies, and now dons 
 the pomp and panoply of war.^ 
 
 In the perusal, strippecTof their ^apparelling,' as 
 Jonson styled the apparatus of the scene, these compo- 
 sitions make severe demands on the imagination. It 
 is, however, possible to read them still with pleasure ; 
 especially if the student brings a scholar's memoiy to 
 the task. He will wonder at the fulness and extent of 
 learning jemployed on these fantastic toys, no less than 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 127 
 
 at the poet's spriglitliness beneath that ponderous load. 
 Jonson's faculty for alchemising erudition into, poetry ^ 
 is admirably displayed in the Antimasque of Witches 
 to the Masque of Queens. ^ Macbeth ' suggested the 
 motive, and classical literature supplied the details. 
 But the motive is treated in so masterly a style, and the 
 details are applied with such artistic freedom, that we 
 rise from the perusal of those wild incantation scenes - 
 with a sense of the author's command of weird and 
 ghastly imagery. In like manner the Latin lore em- 
 ployed in the hymeneal processions of the Masque of 
 Hymen and in the sacerdotal pomp of the Masque of 
 Augurs has been so well assimilated that we might fancy 
 ourselves to be gazing on some triumph like that of 
 Julius Caesar by Mantegna at Hampton Court. Greek 
 idyllic verse is laid under contribution for ' The Hue and 
 Cry after Cupid ; ' the Attic comedians suggest scenes 
 in ^ Neptune's Triumph.' 
 
 Jonsonwas not unconscious that his masques might 
 prove somewhat tedious to the general public. In the 
 introduction to his ^ Hymenaei ' he observes : ' And 
 howsoever some may squeamishly cry out that all en- 
 deavour of learning and sharpness in these transitory 
 devices, especially where it steps beyond their little or 
 (let me not wrong them) no brain at all, is superfluous ; 
 I am contented these fastidious stomachs should leave 
 my full tables, and enjoy at home their clean empty 
 trenchers, fittest for such airy tastes ; where perhaps a 
 few Italian herbs, picked up and mad^ into a sallad, 
 may find sweeter acceptance than all the most nourish- 
 ing and sound meats of the world.' But no one with a 
 true literary sense will fail to be rewarded by a cursory 
 
128 . Ben JoNsoN 
 
 perusal of those lyrics, whiclij like their author's prose, 
 so often remind us of Milton's style. 
 
 It is not very easy to detach representative passages 
 from Jonson's masques. The opening of the piece he 
 wrote to celebi'ate the nuptials of Lord Haddington and_ 
 Lady Elizabeth Ratcliffe may, however, be chosen for 
 ' V/' its delicate and sprightly fancy. Yenus has come down 
 from heaven, attended by the Graces, in search of her 
 runaway boy Oupid. None knows where the wanton 
 little god is hidden. His mother turns to the ladies of 
 the Court assembled in the hall before her. Perhaps 
 the truant is hidden in their laps or nestling in their 
 bosoms. She bids the Graces cry him. This they do 
 in nine stanzas, each singing in turn. 
 
 X/^ Beauties, have ye seen this toy, 
 
 ^^ . Called Love, a little boy, 
 
 Almost naked, wanton, blind ; 
 Cruel now, and then as kind ? 
 If he be amongst ye, say I 
 He is Venus' runaway. 
 
 So the one voice sings; and a second takes up the 
 melody : — 
 
 He hath marks about him plenty : 
 You shall know him among twenty. 
 All his body is a fire, 
 And his breath a flame entire, 
 That being shot like lightning' in, 
 Wounds the heart but not the skin. 
 
 A third chimes in : — 
 
 Trust him not ; his words, though sweet, 
 
 Seldom with his heart do meet. 
 
 All his practice is deceit ; 
 
 Every gift it is a bait ; 
 
 Not a kiss but poison bears ; 
 
 And most treason in his tears, 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics [ 129 
 
 This entertainment fclosed with an epithalamium, in 
 skilfully constructed and sonorous stanzas, which, how- 
 ever, fall short of Spenser's sublimity and Herrick's 
 rapture upon similar occasions. 
 
 Turning the leaves of these old libretti, we not un- 
 frequently light on verses of great purity and sweetness. 
 Here is a stanza from ' The Fortunate Isles ' : — 
 The winds are sweet, and gently blow ; 
 But Zephyrus no breath they know, 
 The father of the flowers : 
 By him the virgin violets live, 
 And every plant doth odours give 
 
 As fresh as are the hours. J 
 
 Here again is one from * Pan's Anniversary ' : — 
 Drop, drop your violets I Change your hues, 
 Now red, now pale, as lovers use I 
 And in your death go out as well 
 As when you lived, unto the smeU I 
 That from your odour, all may say : 
 This is the shepherd's holiday ! 
 
 In the ^ Masque of Beauty ' a graver note is sounded : — 
 So Beauty on the waters stood. 
 When Love had severed earth from flood I 
 So when he parted air from fire 
 Ho did with concord all inspire I 
 And then a motion he them taught. 
 That elder than himself was thought ; 
 Which thought was, yet, the child of earth. 
 For Love is older than his birth. 
 
 It will be noticed in these quotations that Jonson's 
 lyric style is not exactly what we call Elizabethan — 
 Shakespeare and Fletcher being uppermost in our minds 
 when we use that phrase. It rather suggests the 
 manner of more recent poets — of Milton, of Dryden, 
 ^ven of Wordsworth. 
 
 '^ 
 
(l 
 
 L 
 
 130 Ben JoNSON 
 
 Some of Jonson's masques have a histoncal inter^^ 
 which should not be neglected. For the festival of 
 Henry's inauguration as Prince of Wales^ he composed 
 an entertainment on the past glories of Plantagenets 
 and Tudors, summoning the heroes of the Crusades, of 
 Cressy, of Agincourt, and of the Armada, to be present 
 at the reception of this young knight into chivalry. 
 Henry proved himself not unworthy of the Laureate's 
 compliments. Upon the morrow of the masque he 
 held the lists together with his chosen champions 
 against an equal number of assailants. It was reckoned 
 that he gave and took thirty-two pushes of the pike, 
 and some three hundred and sixty sword-strokes in that 
 tourney. On the evening following the barriers, as they 
 then were called, the Prince appeared in the character 
 of Oberon among his court of fairies. They danced until 
 the night was spent, when Phosphor, rising, bade them 
 haste to bed : — 
 
 To rest, to rest ! The herald of the day. 
 Bright Phosphorus, commands you hence. Away I 
 The moon is pale and spent ; and winged night 
 Makes headlong haste to fly the morning's sight, 
 Who now is rising from her blushing wars, 
 And with her rosy hand puts back the stars : 
 Of which myself the last, her harbinger, 
 But stay to warn you, that you not defer 
 Your parting longer ! Then do I give way. 
 As Night hath done, and so must you, to Day. 
 
 Little did poet and Court then dream that this Prince 
 of Wales, the hope and darling of the nation, should so 
 soon, like young Marcellus, be taken from them in his 
 prime of manhood. 
 
 And the boy-prince Charles, then Duke of York, 
 who danced among the fairies in his brother's train, 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 131 
 
 did no seer discern the even darker mist of doom 
 
 wreathed round his forehead? Those Whitehall 
 
 masques were followed by a very different kind of 
 
 pageant, when he stepped forth to the scaffold from 
 
 the Banqueting Hall in 1649. 
 
 He nothing common did or mean 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 
 But with his keener eye 
 
 The axe's edge did try ; 
 Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, 
 To vindicate his helpless right ; 
 
 But bowed his comely head 
 
 Down as upon a bed. 
 
 Truly a sad fate was reserved for many of those royal 
 and noble actors in the New Year and Shrovetide revels 
 of King James's Court : — for the luckless Lady Arabella 
 Stuart, innocent victim of unhappy love and political 
 jealousy, who died raving mad, a prisoner in the Tower, 
 in 1615 — for Lady Frances Howard, wedded in her 
 fourteenth year to the young Earl of Essex, of whom 
 Jonson sang in his marriage hymns : — 
 
 And wildest Cupid waking hovers 
 With adoration 'twixt the lovers. 
 
 She lived to seek a disgraceful divorce, to make an 
 infamous second marriage, to be tried for Overbury's 
 murder, and to end her days in obloquy. Her boy- 
 bridegroom was destined to lead the armies of the Par- 
 liament against his king, and to sink at last eclipsed by 
 Cromwell's greatness. 
 
 With the advance of years, the tragic irony of these 
 masques at Court deepens. The last great entertain- 
 ment of this kind, of which we possess detailed informa- 
 tion, was presented by Charles and Henrietta Maria at 
 
132 Ben JoNSON 
 
 Sbrovetifle in 1640. The usual sums of money were ex- 
 pended , and we have the right to assume that the pageant 
 lacked none of its customary splendour. The hall, as usual, 
 was crowded with stately men and charming women, ex- 
 changing compliments beneath the torches, dancing their 
 brawls and galliards, as though there were no Hampden, 
 Pym, and Cromwell in existence. Those brilliant and 
 bejewelled cavaliers, innocent as yet of civil strife, un- 
 stained with fratricidal slaughter, were soon indeed to 
 part, with anger in their breasts, and everlasting fare- 
 well on their lips, for adverse camps. While we gaze 
 in fancy on them and the ladies at their side, that voice 
 which De Quincey heard in vision thrills our ears : 
 ^ These are English ladies from the unhappy times of 
 Charles I. These are the wives and daughters of those 
 who met in peace, and sat at the same tables, and were 
 allied by marriage or by blood ; and yet, after a certain 
 day in August, 1642, .never smiled upon each other 
 again, nor met but on the field of battle ; and at Mars- 
 ton Moor, at Newbury, or at Naseby, cut asunder all 
 ties of love by the cruel sabre, and washed away in 
 blood the memory of ancient friendship.' 
 
 The transition from Jonson's comedies and masques to 
 his lyrics and occasional pieces can easily be made. The 
 plays yield a sufficient number of songs. The collections 
 of minor poems, published by him under the titles of ' The 
 Eorest^' ' Under woodsL^nd 'Epigrams,' furnish abundant 
 matter for investigation. Only a few of these scattered 
 compositions are generally known. Among them, one 
 is on everybody's lips ; for its rarely felicitous language 
 has been married to a beautiful old melody. ' Drink 
 to me only with thine eyes ' was a favourite of its author, 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 133 
 
 if we may trust Drummond. And yet it so nappens 
 that this airy and apparently spontaneous effusion 
 illustrates what his detractors meant when they accused ( 
 Jonson of ' filching by translation/ and lacking ' fire { 
 not kindled heretofore by others' pains.' The song, in 1 
 truthj is almost literally transmuted into rhyme and 
 metre from scattered phrases in the prose of a Greek 
 sophist.^ Philostratiis , to cite one passage, wrote a little 
 epistle, or hillet-doux, to accompany a gift of roses. 
 Eendered into English word for word, the composition 
 runs thus : ' I have sent thee a wreath of roses, not 
 honouring thee (though this also), but rather giving to 
 the roses themselves this favour, that they should not 
 wither/ In Jonson's verse the paragraph becomes : — 
 
 I sent thee late a rosy wreath, 
 
 Not so much honouring thee 
 As giving it a hope that there 
 
 It could not withered be. 
 
 In another passage Philostratus had written : ' If you 
 will do your friend a favour, send back what remains 
 of the flowers, no longer breathing of roses onl}^, but of 
 yourself also.' The alchemy of Jonson's fancy touches 
 this conceit to gold : — 
 
 But thou thereon didst only breathe, 
 
 And sent'st it back to me : 
 Since when it grows and smells, I sv/ear, 
 
 Not of itself but thee. 
 
 In thi^ act of lyric transmutation something has indeed 
 been lost. There is a delicate shade of meaning in the 
 original which w^e miss when the poet concentrates 
 
 ' I may refer those who are curious in such matters to a letter 
 written by me to the Academy, December 6, 1884. 
 
N" 
 
 1 34 Ben Jonson 
 
 attention on the wreath, and not on the roses them- 
 selves. The repetition of it is less suggestive than that 
 of iliem would have been. But to dwell upon this point 
 'were ungrateful; for the fact remains that Jonson, 
 holding the Love-Letters of Philostratus in free solu - 
 tio n in his memory , poured such fragments forth as 
 suited the inspiration of a genial moment into the 
 lastic mould of one perfectly cadenced stanza. His 
 friend, T. Carew, might well console him for the accusa- 
 tion of filching by translation, when, looking at work 
 like this, he wrote : — 
 
 Nor think it theft if the rich spoils, so torn 
 From conquered authors, be as trophies worn. 
 
 Another felicitous translation, this time from the Latin 
 verses of a French humanist, Jean Bonnefons, has 
 also found a permanent place in English anthologies. 
 ' Still to be neat, still to be dressed,' was the model for 
 several of Herrick's terse and highly polished pieces.^ 
 Indeed, it may be said to have originated a species of 
 lyrical composition unknown in literature before the 
 age of Jonson, or but faintly indicated in Lyly's songs, 
 which found much favour with writers of the seven- 
 y|teenth century. He was not always so happy. What 
 his..geniusjnthis kind seems_to_have required was a n 
 original, like the prose of Philostratus or the elegiacs of 
 Bonnefons, whi ch should su ggesLf^ncies and stimulate 
 invention^ Coming into competition with a Hawless 
 
 \ masterpiece of poetry, he mistook his powers, and too 
 often debased gold into inferior metal. This I feel to 
 be the case with the free version of ' Vivamus, mea 
 
 * It occurs in The Silent Woman, 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 135 
 
 Lesbia/ part of which occurs in ' Volpone ' and the rest 
 in 'The Forest.' Still, some excellent touches may 
 even here be pointed out. For the incomparable lines 
 of Catullus : — 
 
 Soles occidere et redire possunt ; 
 
 Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, 
 
 Nox est perpetua una dormienda : 
 
 Jonson has found these very passable equivalents : — 
 
 Suns that set may rise again ; 
 But if once we lose this light, 
 'Tis with us perpetual night. 
 
 The enumeration of the kisses leads him away into a 
 pretty ad libitum improvisation : — 
 
 Add a thousand and so more ; 
 
 Till you equal with the store 
 
 All the grass that Kumney yields, 
 
 Or the sands in Chelsea fields, 
 
 Or the drops in silver Thames, 
 
 Or the stars that gild his streams 
 
 In the silent summer nights 
 
 When youths ply their stol'n delights; 
 
 That the curious may not know 
 
 How to tell them as they flow, 
 
 And the envious, when they find ^ 
 
 What their number is, be pined. 
 
 Passing to songs which are not translations, three 
 of considerable beauty can be cited from ' Cynthia's 
 Bevels.' One of these, addressed to the goddess of the 
 night, ' Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,' is so 
 popular that it calls for no further notice here. Another, 
 named ' The Kiss,' should be transcribed, seeing that 
 it is not so well known. In occasional felicity of terse 
 phrasing, as also in a certain imperfection of rhyme and 
 
'v. 
 
 1 36 Ben Jonso]^ 9jt^ ^trv^ Vv MM^ 
 
 rliytlim, it illustrates Jonsoni qualities and shortcomings 
 as a song- writer : — 
 
 0, that joy so soon should waste 1 
 
 Or so sweet a bliss 
 
 As a kiss 
 Might not for ever last 1 
 So sugared, so melting, so soft, so delicious 1 
 The dew that lies on roses 
 When the dawn herself discloses. 
 
 Is not so precious. 
 O rather than I would it smother. 
 Were I to taste such another, 
 
 It should be mj- wishing 
 
 That I might die with kissing. 
 
 Had the ore been smelted, and the metal fused through- 
 out these lines into the liquid purity of : — 
 
 The dew that lies on roses 
 \^ When the dawn herself discloses : 
 
 we should in this lyric have possessed a jewel. M^re 
 
 excellent in workma nship, yet demanding part-song or 
 
 madrigal music to bring out its beauty, is Echo's lament 
 
 for Narcissus in the same play : — 
 
 Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears : 
 
 Yet slower, yet ; faintty, gentle springs : 
 List to the l^eavy part the music bears, 
 
 Woe weeps 6ut her division when she sings. 
 Droop herbs and flowers, 
 Fall grief in showers, 
 Our beauties are not ours j 
 O, I could still. 
 Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, 
 
 Drop, drop, drop, drop, 
 Since nature's pride is now a withered daffodil. 
 
 In longer lyric flights Jonson seldom sustained his 
 inspiration at a high level. I He fell short of Spenser's 
 
v- 
 
 Masques At Court and Lyrics is;* 
 
 heavenly music and Herrick's Baccliic ecstasy. Yet 
 his odes and nuiptial hymns contain passages of fine 
 _^nomic po etry. {.)ne stanza from tne ' Ucle to tfie 
 Immortal Memory of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Gary 
 (Lord Falkland) and Sir Henry Morison/ is familiar to 
 readers of the ' Glplden Treasury/ where it appears as a 
 separate piece, beginning ^ It is not growing like a 
 ..tree.' I will select another from the epithalamium for 
 Master Jerome Weston and the Lady Frances Stuart : — 
 
 The ignoble never lived ; they were awhile 
 Like swine or other cattle here on earth : 
 Their names are not recorded on the file 
 
 Of life, that fall so ; Christians know their birth 
 Alone ; and such a race 
 
 We pray may grace ^ / 
 
 Your fruitful spreading vine, q-H^^^uil^-'*'^^ ♦ 
 
 But dare not ask our wish in language fescennme. 
 
 Here, as so often happens, Jonson starts with lines that 
 have the clarion-thrill of true poetic utterance. But 
 his wings droop, and while the thought is maintained 
 upon a vigorous and manly note, he allows the_ expres- 
 sion to sink into commonplace or quaintness. 
 
 Of elegies and memorial verses we possess abun- 
 dance from the pen of Jonson. The epitaph on the 
 Countess of Pembroke, ' Underneath this sable hearse/ 
 is known by heart and lives upon the lips of everybody. 
 There is nothing of this kind in the collection of his 
 poems to rival it. Yet thoughts of sterling value 
 and unexpected sweetnesses of phrase might be culled 
 from these compositions; as, for example, a melodious 
 couplet in the threnody on Lady Venetia Digby : — 
 
 Dare I, profane, so irreligious be, 
 
 To greet or grieve her soft euthanasy ! . 
 
13^ Ben JoNsoN 
 
 I would, however, prefer to transcribe one little piece 
 of an earlier date, which displays Jo nson in a v gry^ 
 a miable light . He wrote the lines in question upon 
 the occasion of Salathiel Pavy's death, a Child of Queen 
 Elizabeth's Chapel, who had acted parts in his ' Cyn- 
 thia's Kevels ' and ' The Poetaster.' It will be noticed 
 that, though the boy was only just in his fourteenth 
 year, the poet praises him for special skill in representing 
 old men on the stage : — 
 
 Weep with me all you that read 
 
 This little story ; 
 And know, for whom a tear you shed, 
 
 Death's self is sorry. 
 *Twas a child that so did thrive 
 
 In grace and feature 
 As heaven and nature seemed to strive 
 
 Which owned the creature. 
 Years he numbered scarce thirteen 
 
 When fates turned cruel : 
 Yet three filled zodiacs had he been 
 
 The stage's jewel ; 
 And did act, what now we moan, 
 
 Old men so duly ; 
 As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one, 
 
 He played so truly. 
 So, by error, to his fate 
 
 They all consented ; 
 But, viewing him since, alas, too late, 
 
 They have repented, 
 And have sought to give new birth. 
 
 In baths to steep him ; 
 But, being much too good for earth. 
 
 Heaven vows to keep him. 
 
 While dwelling on the graver qualities of Jonson's 
 lyric muse, I wish to call attention to a poem of eight 
 stanzas, detached from its context and printed by Gifford 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 139 
 
 in tlie [ Underwoods.' ^ Though imperfect in execution, 
 
 this delicate and subtle address to some person, too 
 
 much beloved to be called merely friend, and yet not 
 
 passionately sought, discovers a strain of poetic feeling 
 
 more nearly allied to that of Lovelace than to any 
 
 other writer's. If it be really Jonson's, it deserves to 
 
 be here, in part at least, presented. I therefore give 
 
 four verses : — 
 
 I neither love, nor yet am free ; 
 
 For though the flame I find 
 Be not intense in the degree, 
 
 'Tis of the purest kind. 
 
 It little wants of love but pain ; 
 
 Your beauty takes my sense ; 
 And lest you should that price disdain, 
 
 My thoughts too feel the influence. 
 
 'Tis not a passion's first access. 
 
 Ready to multiply ; 
 But like love's calmest state it is 
 
 Possessed with victory. 
 
 It is like love to truth reduced, 
 
 All the false values gone, 
 Which were created and induced 
 
 By fond imagination. 
 
 The violation of metre in the second and fourth of these 
 stanzas raises a doubt whether we possess the correct 
 text, or whether indeed the thing be Jonson's. 
 
 I have left to the last a collection of complimentary 
 verses entitled ^ A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric 
 Pieces.' When they were composed is doubtful. The 
 
 * Gifford styles it * An Elegy,' and prints it as No. XL. of Under- 
 woods, remarking that he had taken it from the last pages of the 
 folio of 1641, where it appears joined on to A Hew Year's Gift to 
 King Charles. This folio had, of course, not Jonson's supervision. 
 
fuo- 
 
 Ben Jonson 
 
 poet says that he has reached the age of fifty, in the 
 first lines of the dedication ; and this would give them 
 the date of 1623-4. But as a part of one lyric was 
 introduced into ' The Devil is an Ass/ some portion of 
 the Lieder-Kreis (to use a convenient German phrase) 
 must have been written as early as 1616. It is probable 
 that they were indited upon several occasions, and put 
 together with a view to publication in 1623. That 
 Jon son set a high value on them appears from his having 
 recited a few lines from the series to Drummond in 
 1618. Drummond, writing them down from memory, 
 got them wrong ; but here is the passage which the 
 author thought worthy to be placed beside ' Drink to 
 me only with thine eyes ' : — 
 
 For Love's sake, kiss me once again ; 
 I long, and should not beg in vain. 
 Here's none to spy, or see ; 
 
 Why do you doubt or stay ? 
 I'll taste as lightly as the bee, 
 That doth but touch his flower and flies away. 
 
 It was to the last two lines of this stanza that Jon son 
 
 called his Scotch friend's particular attention. This 
 
 poem is not, however, that which modern readers would 
 
 single out from the garland of Charis. The following 
 
 rather deserves selection, since it displays rarer qualities 
 
 both of fancy a nd of rhythmical invention : — 
 
 See the chariot at hand here of Love, 
 Wherein my lady rideth 1 
 ^ Each that draws is a swan or a dove, 
 
 And well the car Love guideth. . I 
 
 As she goes, all hearts do duty 
 Unto her beauty ; 
 And, enamoured, do wish, so they might 
 But enjoy such a sight, 
 
Masques at Court and Lyrics 141 
 
 That they still were to run by her side, 
 Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. 
 
 Do but look on her eyes, they do light 
 
 All that Love's world compriseth 1 
 Do but look on her hair, it is bright 
 
 As Love's star when it riseth ! 
 Do but mark, her forehead's smoother 
 
 Than words that soothe her 1 
 ' And from her arched brows, such a grace 
 Sheds itself through the face, 
 As alone there triumphs to the life 
 All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. ' 
 
 Have you seen but a bright lily grow. 
 Before rude hands have touched it ? 
 Have you marked but the fall o' the snow 
 
 Before the soil hath smutched it 1 
 Have you felt the wool of beaver ? 
 Or swan's down ever ? 
 Or have smelt o' the bud o* the brier ? 
 Or the nard in the fire 1 
 Or have tasted the bag of the bee 1 
 so white I so soft I so sweet is she I 
 
 From the poems to Charis I might also have selected 
 another, headed with this quaint title : ' Her_Man de- 
 scribed by her own Dictamen.' It yields a very pleasant 
 picture of what Jonson conceived a truly desirable young 
 Englishman of his epoch, both in mental and physical 
 parts, to be ; and it is written in short rhyming couplets 
 with something of the grace of Fletcher. 
 
 In the foregoing paragraphs I have attempted to 
 make an exhaustive enumeration of the songs and lyrical 
 pieces which deserve perpetual recollection amid the 
 considerable mass of such work by Jonson. It will be 
 observed that the list is by no means a long one ; and 
 yet rigorous criticism would have curtailed it by three 
 
142 Ben J on son kh^ ^^ ^""^ 
 
 or perhaps four of tlie poems I have cited. iThe fact 
 is that, when compared with Shakespeare, qt" <^v^ti -yyjfh 
 Fletcher, Jon son did not shine in purely lyric compos i- 
 tion, lie may be said to have "prqduced five pieces^ in 
 their kind admirab le. These are ^ Drink to me only 
 with thine eyes;': t Queen and Huntress,' ^Still to be 
 neat,' f' Underneath this sable hearse,' and^ ^ See the 
 chariot at handJj To add a sixth of equal excellence to 
 the number would, I think, after long and scrupulous 
 consideration of his writings, be impossible. (Still the 
 five which, upon careful sifting, I now indicate as 
 ^Jonson's masterpieces in purely lyric composition, have 
 a quality which i s definite and individu al. No one be - 
 fore him wrote pieces of the sort so terse, so marke d by 
 dominant intellig ence, so aptly fitted for their purpo se . 
 If the haunting evanescent exquisiteness of Shake- 
 speare's song is absent, we have not the right to demand 
 this from a singer of so different a mould. For Jonson's 
 fame it is quite enough to point out that these , rather 
 than Shak espeare's lyrics, struck the key- note of th e 
 ^ventee nth century. We find, even in Milton's supreme 
 handling of studied lyric verse, at least as much of 
 Jonson as of Shakespeare or of Fletche^ 
 
143 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD OF MANHOOD. 
 
 Resuming the thread of Jonson's biography, we may 
 view the decade which elapsed between 1616 and 1626 
 as the third main period in his life. The year 1616 
 was marked, as I have already said, by the publication 
 of the first folio of his collected works. It also witnessed 
 the representation of his comedy ' The Devil is an Ass,' 
 by the King's Men at Blackfriars. This play cannot 
 be reckoned one of Jonson's masterpieces ; though it 
 counts an excellently outlined coxcomb, Fitzdottrell, 
 among its dramatis personaD, and perhaps the only in- 
 teresting female character he ever drew, in that cox- 
 comb's wife. How far it was successful on the stage 
 at the time of its first representation we do not know. 
 But there is some reason to suspect that it failed to 
 please ; for Jonson wholly ceased writing for the theatres 
 between this date and the year 1625, when want and 
 illne^, forced him once more to court the public. 
 
 : That Jonson never loved the playwright's calling is 
 certain. He seems to have felt himself born to rebuke 
 vice and folly;^^^ and since society refused to be scourged 
 with patience and submission, he withdrew in dudgeon 
 from the irksome task of writing scenes to amuse its 
 
'144 ^ Ben Jonson 
 
 idleness. In an ode to himself, printed in the ^ Under- 
 woods/ we read this stanza : — 
 
 And since our dainty age 
 Cannot endure reproof, 
 Make not thyself a page 
 To that strumpet the stage, 
 But sing high and aloof, 
 Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof. 
 
 It should be remarked that the last two lines of this ode 
 are borrowed from the close of the ^ Apologetical Dia- 
 logue ' appended to the ' Poetaster.' The little poem 
 may, therefore, have been written about the time when 
 Jonson first resolved to abandon comedy and try the 
 less congenial sphere of tragedy. But the tone of the 
 whole piece corresponds so exactly with that of the far 
 nobler Ode to Himself, which was written in 1629 upon 
 ,-.. 5, .'the failure of his / New Inn,' thafc we have a right to 
 ' VI accept its sentiments as habitual to the poet through 
 ' all periods of his life. Of that haughty and indignant 
 burst of lyric inspiration, the last sparkle of glowing 
 fire struck from its author's genius by rage, I shall have 
 to speak at length in the concluding chapter of his life. 
 It is enough now to notice that between ' The Devil is 
 an Ass' (1616) and ^The Staple of News' (1625) we 
 possess no dramatic work from his hand. 
 
 During this interval, however, his pen was not idle. 
 The accession of James to the English throne had 
 opened a new sphere of social and literary activity to 
 Jonson. His ^ learned sock ' was well fitted to entertain 
 a monarch who piqued himself equally upon his erudition 
 and his statecraft. Nor was the grossness of the poet's 
 muse disagreeable to his royal master's taste. But with 
 his love for learning James combined an almost childish 
 
Second Period of Manhood 145 
 
 passion for spectacles and pageants. His consort, Anne 
 of Denmark, shared this delight in costly shows. We 
 have already seen in the preceding chapter how 
 splendid were those entertainments at Whitehall, and 
 how industriously Jonson laboured to gratify the whim 
 of his patron. When James went on progress to the 
 houses of his nobles, Jonson was in request to furnish 
 forth sylvan interludes or complimentary addresses. 
 The exercise of these talents brought him into close 
 connection with the aristocracy ; and there is reason to 
 believe that he made more money by his masques than 
 by his comedies. 
 
 In other respects Jonson was a man after the King's 
 heart. He entertained a profound respect for the 
 princely dignity, and formed a conception of sove- 
 reigns which closely corresponded to the ideal James had 
 set before him. Some sentences, extracted from his 
 commonplace-book of ' Discoveries,' may here be quoted 
 in illustration of his high monarchical opinions : — 
 
 After God, nothing is to be loved of man like the prince : he 
 violates nature that doth it not with his whole heart. For when he 
 hath put on the care of the public good and common safety, I am a 
 wretch and put off man if I do not reverence and honour him in 
 whose charge all things divine and human are placed. 
 
 Wise is rather the attribute of a prince than learned or good. 
 The learned man profits others rather than himself ; the good man 
 rather himself than others ; but the prince commands others and 
 doth himself. 
 
 A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes. All his govern- 
 ment is groping. In sovereignty it is a most hax^py thing not to be 
 compelled ; but so it is the most miserable not to be counselled. 
 And how can he be counselled that cannot see to read the best 
 counsellors, which are books, for they neither flatter us nor hide from 
 us ? He may hear, you will say ; but how shall he always be sure 
 to hear true ? or be counselled the best things, not the sweetest? 
 
 L 
 
T46 Ben Jons on 
 
 The King appointed Jonson Laureate, with a pension 
 of 100 marks a year. He is also said to have wished 
 to dub him knight, an honour which the poet declined. 
 In the Shrovetide revels at Whitehall Jonson took his 
 part together with the royal family upon the stage. 
 He seems to have enjoyed the privilege of their fami- 
 liarity, and to have preserved his native candour in 
 their presence. As Drummond reports : ' He said to 
 the king, his master (^.e. tutor) M. G. Buchanan had 
 corrupted his ear when young, and learned him to sing 
 verses when he should have read them.^ This w^as frank 
 speech to a royal pedant ! ' He said to Prince Charles 
 of Inigo Jones, that when he wanted to express the 
 greatest villain in the world, he would call him an 
 Inigo.' Considering the credit of the architect at Court, 
 this was plain-speaking with a vengeance ! 
 
 To mention all the noble men and women with 
 whom Jonson lived on terms of honoured friendship, at 
 whose country seats he spent a portion of the year, and 
 who sought his society in London, would be tedious. 
 Lord Clarendon puts the matter briefly : ' his conver- 
 sation was very good, and with men of most note.' The 
 minor poems in his ' Epigrams,' ' Forest,' and ' Under- 
 woods ' contain verses addressed to Lord Salisbury, 
 Lord Mounteagle, Sir Henry Cary, Lord Suffolk, Lord 
 Ellesmere, the Countesses of Bedford and Rutland, Sir 
 Horace Vere, Sir John Eatcliffe, Lord Pembroke, Lady 
 Mary Wroth, the Countess of Montgomery, Sir Edward 
 Herbert, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Sir Henry ISTevil, 
 Sir Thomas Overbury, Lord Aubigny, Sir William 
 Sidney, Lord Dorset, Lord Burleigh, Sir Edward Coke, 
 Lord Bacon,' Lord Delaware, Lord Newcastle, Lord 
 
Second Period op Manhood i^y 
 
 Somerset^ the Lady Venetia Digby, the Marchioness of 
 Winton, and many others whom it would be irksome 
 to enumerate. The number of these patrons is less 
 remarkable than the evidence of manly freedom which 
 Jonson used in conversing with them. Though he pre- 
 served those terms of courtesy which were due to rank, 
 lie never forgot his own dignity. To Lady Kutland, 
 the daughter of Sir Philip Sidney^ he sent a copy of 
 verses beginning thus : — 
 
 That poets are far rarer births than kings, 
 
 Your noblest father proved. 
 
 Very seldom can he have been made to feel his in- 
 feriority as a man of letters in this titled company. 
 The only hint he gives of such treatment seems meant 
 to ridicule the man who took advantage of his rank. 
 * Ben one day being at table with my Lady Rutland, 
 her husband coming in accused her that she kept table 
 to poets, of which she wrote a letter to him [Jonson], 
 which he answered. My Lord intercepted the letter, 
 but never challenged him.' The Sidneys and the Her- 
 berts appear to have been most generous in their kind- 
 ness. Lord Pembroke sent him every first day of the 
 year 20L to buy books. At Penshurst he was un- 
 doubtedly a frequent guest, as the delightful poem on 
 Sir Philip Sidney's birthplace, in ' The Forest,' abun- 
 dantly proves.^ - It was not only with the great, how- 
 ever, that Jonson lived on terms of intimacy. Pie kept 
 company with the best poets, wits, and men of learning. 
 Selden, Camden, Bacon, Donne, Beaumont, Sylvester, 
 Alleyn, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Drayton, Chapman, all 
 remain embalmed in verses which only the familiarity 
 
 1 The Forest, 1^0, ii. 
 
 1.2 
 
148 Ben JonsoM 
 
 of affectionate friendsliip can have inspired. The lines 
 
 to Francis Beaumont^ often as they have been quoted, 
 
 are too representative of Jonson's cordial relations to 
 
 his brother bards to be here omitted : — 
 
 How do I love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse, 
 That unto me dost such religion use I 
 How do I fear myself, that am not worth 
 The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth ! 
 At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st ; 
 And giving largely to me, more thou tak'st. 
 What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves ? 
 What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives ? 
 When even there, where most thou praisest me, 
 jjt^ -Oj/^ For writing better, I must envy thee. 
 
 Alleyn, the actor, he compares to Eoscius; Donne he 
 calls ' the delight of Phoebus and each Muse ' ; ' my 
 loved ' Alfonso Ferrabosco is complimented in delicate 
 strains upon the soothing sweetness of his music ; Selden 
 receives the most triumphant eulogy which verse can 
 give:— 
 
 Nothing but the round 
 Large clasp of nature such a wit can bound. 
 Monarch of letters ! 'mongst thy titles shown 
 Of others' honours, thus enjoy thy own I 
 
 Bacon's birth to greatness is no less felicitously 
 
 touched : — 
 
 The destined heir 
 In his soft cradle to his father's chair ; 
 AVhose even thread the Fates spin round and full 
 Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.^ 
 
 But it would be easy to fill many pages with quota- 
 tions, proving the largeness and the sincerity of 
 
 * Compare the passages / on Bacon as a writer and a man in the 
 DUcoxerics. 
 
Second Period of Manhood , 149 
 
 V,.-- '- 
 
 Jon son's admiration for liis illustrious contemporaries. 
 Before such a mass of testimony the idle calumny that 
 he was jealous of Shakespeare sinks to nothing ; and the 
 immortal panegyric, written for the folio of 1623, stands 
 out clear in its candour, when we read it by the light 
 of less enthusiastic verses upon men of minor merit. 
 
 It will be noted, both in his compliments to folk of 
 rank and in his eulogies on men of arts and letters, 
 that Jonson never adopts the tone of servile adulation 
 or of undiscriminating praise. He exercises a sound 
 understanding in each case, selecting what is specific in 
 the subject of his verse, and making just criticism 
 subserve the purposes of commendation. Thus, when 
 Buch superlatives break forth, as to Qa^mden : — 
 
 Most reverend head, to whom I owe 
 All that I am in arts, all that I know I// 
 
 to Shakespeare, ' Shine forth, thou star of poets ! ' to 
 Selden, ' Monarch of letters ! ' to Beaumont, ' How do 
 I love thee and thy muse ! ' we have a right to believe 
 that the heart itself is speaking its own language. 
 
 How genial Jonson was in his familiar discourse with 
 friends may be gathered from the neat ^ Invitation to 
 Supper ' which he partially borrowed from an epigram of 
 Martial, adapting it to English manners.^ The mention 
 of these verses brings me to consider another, and not less 
 famous, aspect of Ben Jonson's private life — I mean his 
 frequenting of the London taverns, and his genial dicta- 
 torship over wits and gallants at their merry meetings. 
 In discussing this topic we must not forget that, in an 
 age when clubs did not exist, the tavern bore a higher 
 
 ' EpigraviSi No. ci, 
 
150 . Ben JoNSON 
 
 reputation than its name now implies. It corresponded 
 to the coffee-house of Dryden's and Pope's epoch, and 
 fulfilled a purpose to which no institution of the present 
 day in England exactly answers. The tavern differed 
 frdm the private club, inasmuch as its door stood open 
 to all the world; and yet its holiest of holies, the 
 sanctuary of such great folk as Chapman and Jonson, 
 was only accessible by aspirants to literary society upon 
 invitation. It was at once exclusive of the common 
 vulgar, and democratic for all who could contribute 
 something to the intellectual fund. Lords, poets, men 
 pf learning, actors, fashionable fribblerSj and wine- 
 drawers met together on a common basis of intense life 
 there. Eegarded from this point of view, the Eliza- 
 bethan London tavern, as a social institution of peculiar 
 efficiency, drew its origin from wandering students of 
 the Middle Ages. Their chief poet sang : — 
 
 Meum est propositum 
 In taberna mori. 
 
 ^ It is my intention,' said the arch-bard of those early 
 humanists and rollicking Bohemians, ^ to die in a 
 tavern; for there, as to the brightest spot on earth, 
 the angels will descend, and cry in chorus. May God 
 be gracious to this toper.' The age wasone attuned to 
 wine, rather than to chocolate and coffee— those later 
 growths of modern civilisation. And the tavern had the 
 defect of its quality. It encouraged an excess in liquors, 
 frorcLwhich, among many others, Jonson suffered. The 
 inheritors of his position and renown, the heroes of 
 Button's in a later century, in addition to their wine, 
 drank aromatic juices ihfused from the leaf, the berry, and 
 
Second Period of Manhood 151 
 
 the nut. He filled beakers of topaz-coloured Canary, and 
 quaffed tliem in the company of Selden, Shakespeare, 
 Beaumont, Herrick, and less famous folk of rank and 
 fashion. 
 
 Sir Walter Ealeigh is said to have founded the club 
 which flourished at the Mermaid in Bread Street on 
 Cheapside. This was the place where Jonson held his 
 earliest revels. Here the best men of the epoch 
 gathered round him ; and of their meetings we have a 
 fit memorial in Beaumont's verse : — 
 
 Methinks the little wit I had is lost 
 
 Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest 
 
 Held up at tennis, which men do the best 
 
 With the best gamesters. What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
 
 As if- that every one from whence they came 
 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest. 
 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 
 Of his dull life ; then when there hath been thrown 
 
 Wit able enough to justify the town 
 
 For three days past — wit that might warrant be 
 
 For the whole city to talk foolishly 
 
 Till that were cancelled — and when that was gone, 
 
 We left an air behind us, which alone 
 
 Was able to make the two next companies 
 
 (Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise. 
 
 These gatherings, so enthusiastically celebrated by 
 Beaumont, even to the point of literary incohereuce, 
 recall the grave and well-weighed words of Fuller : 
 ' Mauy were the wit-combats between Shakespeare and 
 Ben Jonson. I behold them like a Spanish great 
 galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, 
 like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid 
 but slow in his performances 3^ Shakespeare, like the 
 
152 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 latter, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn 
 with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all 
 winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.' It is 
 no wonder that, pondering upon the honeyed lines of 
 Beaumont and the buoyant sentences of Fuller, Keats 
 should have indited, with eager heart and watering 
 mouth, those lines upon the Mermaid Tavern, over 
 which Hhe sweet witty soul' of the Elizabethan age 
 has passed ! 
 
 The Mermaid was not the only or the last of taverns 
 frequented by Eare Ben. Herrick, in one of his most 
 genial lyrics, gives a list of several others : — - 
 
 Ah Ben 
 Say how, or when 
 
 Shall we thy guests 
 Meet at those lyric feasts, 
 
 Made at the Sun, 
 The I)og, the Triple Tan? 
 
 Where we such clusters had 
 As made us nobly wild, not mad ; 
 And yet each venie of thine 
 Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine. 
 
 My Ben 
 Or come again ; 
 
 Or send to us 
 Thy wit's great over-plus : 
 
 But teach us yet 
 Wisely to husband it ; 
 
 Lest we that talent spend, 
 And having once brought to an end 
 
 That precious stock, the store 
 Of such a wit, the world should have no more. 
 
 Thus it would seem that Jonson frequented more 
 taverns than the Mermaid. Herrick mentions the Sun, 
 the Dog, the Triple Tun. Their names, in fact, were 
 
Second Period of Manhood 153 
 
 legion. But the most truly Jonsonian of ,all these 
 places remains to be spoken of. This was the Old 
 Devil Tavern at Temple Bar. Here, in his ripe years, 
 he lorded it over the society of wits. Here was found 
 the famous Apollo room, where his club held its sittings, 
 and for which he wrote Convivial Laws, engraven in 
 gold letters upon black marble above the chimney-piece. 
 These laws, composed in terse Latin, are much to the 
 point, and cannot well be translated into English : — ^ 
 
 Idiota, insulsus, tristis, turpis, abesto ; 
 Eruditi, urbani, hilares, honesti, adsciscuntor ; 
 Nee lectae foeminae repudiantor. 
 
 Convivae nee muti nee loquaees sunto. 
 
 Fidicen, nisi aceersitus, non venito. 
 
 Insipida poemata nulla reeitantor. 
 
 Versus scribere nullus cogitor. 
 
 Lapitharum more seyphis pugnare, vitrea collidere, 
 
 Fenestras exeudere, supellectilem dilacerare, nefas csto. 
 
 Foeus perennis esto. 
 
 * I must, however, attempt a version of those spceimens which 
 have been given above : — 
 
 Let the dullard, the ass, the sad-faced, the lewd fellow, keep away ; 
 The learned, urbane, merry, good fellows, be welcome ; 
 Nor let choice women be excluded. 
 
 The guests should be neither dumb nor garrulous. 
 
 No tiddler, except on invitation, shall attend. 
 
 No tasteless poems shall be read. 
 
 No one shall be forced to write verses. 
 
 To throw cups, break glasses, smash windows, 
 
 Tear the furniture to pieces, shall be counted for a crime. 
 
 The fire upon the hearth must always burn, 
 
154 , Ben JoNsoN 
 
 The name of tlie good Boniface who kept this tavern in 
 the clays of Jonson — Simon Wadloe, or old Sim, or old 
 Sir Simon the King — deserves to be commemorated. 
 Here, too, would be the place to quote some vigorous 
 lines written by Jon son's disciple, Shackerley Marmion, 
 in his comedy ' A Fine Companion.' Since they de- 
 scribe Jonson's presidency of the Apollo club, they form 
 a proper pendant to the verses already extracted from 
 Beaumont's poem on the Mermaid. Careless, a young 
 gallant, comes upon the stage drunk, and meets 
 Aemilia, to whom, at the end of the play, he gives his 
 hand : — 
 
 Car. Save yon, fair lady. 
 
 Aem. Save you, Master Careless. 
 
 Car. Will you hear me speak anywise sentences? 
 I am now as discreet in my conceit 
 As the seven Sophies of Greece, I am full 
 Of oracles, I am come from Apollo ; 
 Would he' had lent me his tripos to stand upon, 
 For my two legs can hardly carry me. 
 
 Aem. Whence come you ? from Apollo 1 
 
 Car. From the heaven 
 
 Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god 
 Drinks sack, and keeps his Bacchanalias, 
 And has his incense and his altars smoking, 
 And speaks in sparkling prophecies: thence do I come I 
 My brains perfumed with the rich Indian vapour. 
 And heightened with conceits, from tempting beauties. 
 From dainty music and poetic strains, 
 From bowls of nectar and ambrosiac dishes, 
 From witty varlets, fine companions, 
 And from a mighty continent of pleasure. 
 Sails thy brave Careless. 
 
 There were not wanting evil tongues who pretended 
 that Jonson's inspiration flowed from Mermaid and 
 
Second Period of Manhood 155 
 
 Apollo fountains. But these were riglitly spurned by 
 his true devotees. Jasper Mayne writes : — 
 
 Scorn then their censures who gave out thy wit- 
 As long upon a comedy did sit 
 As elephants bring 1 orth ; and that thy blots 
 And mendings took more time than Fortune-plots : 
 That such thy drought was, and so great thy thirst, 
 That all thy plays were drawn at the IMermaid first ; 
 That the King's yearly butt wrote, and his wine 
 Hath more right tlian thou to thy Catiline. 
 
 The gentle Falkland, in his Eclogue on the memory of 
 Jonson, has painted the recourse of wits to that Phcebean 
 chamber of the Devil in sweet numbers : — 
 
 To him how daily flocked, what reverence gave, 
 All that had \yit or would be thought to have. 
 Or hope to gain, and in so large a store 
 That to his ashes they can pay no more. 
 Except those few who censuring thought not so 
 But aimed at glory from so great a foe ; 
 How the wise too did with mere wits agree, ' 
 As Pembroke, Portland, and grave Aubigny, 
 Nor thought the rigidest senator a shame 
 To contribute to so deserved a fame. 
 
 The student of English culture in its two great phases 
 of Elizabeth and Anne may pause to consider how fre- 
 quently the word ' wit' occurs in the former, and how it 
 is as frequently replaced by ' sense ' in the latter period. 
 It was in these convivial meetings that men of 
 letters, emulous of reputation, ' sealed themselves of the 
 tribe of Ben.' Field, Brome, Cartwright, Marmion, 
 RandolpEr~among playwrights ; Bishop Morley, Lord 
 Falkland, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Henry Morison, and 
 Sir John Suckling among men of station; Herrick, 
 Rutter, and Howell among writers, sought this 
 
IS^ Ben JoNSON 
 
 honour. Jonson called them his sons, and they were 
 proud of the title. In his ^Underwoods ' he printed 
 an epistle ' to one that asked to be sealed of the tribe 
 of Ben,' drawing the jDortrait of those who answered to 
 his conception of manhood : — 
 
 So short you read my character, and theirs 
 
 I would call mine ; to winch not manj'^ stairs 
 
 Are asked to climb. First give me faith, who know 
 
 Myself a little. I will take you so, 
 
 As you have wTit yourself. Now stand, and then, 
 
 Sir, you are sealed of the Tribe of Ben. 
 
 So many points of close resemblance between Ben 
 Jonson and Samuel Johnson, as regards mind, person, 
 character, and habits, present themselves unsought, that 
 it would argue affectation to ignore them. Both were 
 confirmed Londoners ; both felt the .town to be their 
 element. Both were huge, unwieldy, unhealthy men. 
 Both possessed vast memories and mighty erudition, 
 and were of, a stamp to have been eminent in many 
 branches of human activity if circumstance had not 
 made them authors. Both, as characters, were greater 
 and more influential even than as men of letters. Both, 
 as it happens, made short journeys into France and 
 Scotland ; and each found in a Scotchman his biographer. 
 Here, however, a notable distinction has to be drawn. 
 No one, I presume, is ignorant how specially fortunate 
 was Samuel Johnson in having James Boswell, of 
 Auchinleck, Esq., for his biographer. Could Boswell's 
 ' Life of Johnson ' be expunged from English literature, 
 the world would be poorer by the loss of one of the 
 small number of books fit to live for ever. This can- 
 not be said about the Notes of Jonson's Conversations 
 
Second PskioD op Manhood 1S7 
 
 recorded by William Drummond of Hawthornden. They 
 are meagre and perhaps, to some extent, unsympathetic. 
 They only relate what passed in talk during Jonson's 
 short visit to Hawthornden, and they reveal no special 
 insight into his character. Yet, such as they are, pos- 
 terity has to be very grateful to Drummond for this 
 gift. Without his notes we should command far less > 
 knowledge of Jonson's opinions, temperament, and ex- 
 periences than we now possess. Slight therefore as the 
 record is, the students of his life and genius find it in- 
 valuable. But they should always be careful to correct 
 these jottings of his table-talk by comparing them with 
 his own ' Discoveries.' A correct estimate of his cha- 
 racter can be best formed upon this method. 
 
 It was in the summer of 1618 that Jonson conceived 
 and executed the project of walking on foot to Edin- 
 burgh. Pedestrian excursions were not altogether un- 
 fashionable in that age. Tom Coryat, the eccentric 
 traveller of Odcome, had trudged on the hard hoof over 
 Europe and part of Asia, bequeathing to the world 
 those amusing ' Crudities ' which won the ridicule of 
 his contemporaries and have since formed the delight 
 of antiquarian readers. Almost at the same time as 
 Jonson, Taylor, the dogget-el water-poet, performed his 
 once famous ' Penniless Journey ' on foot to Scotland. 
 They came together at Leith in September, when 
 Jonson gave his fellow-tramp ' a piece of gold of two 
 and twenty shillings to drink his health in England.' 
 Touching his own journey, he told Drummond an 
 amusing anecdote : 'At his hither coming. Sir Francis 
 Bacon said to him, He loved not to see Poesy go on 
 other feet than poetical Dactylus and Spondaeus.' At 
 
158 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 what time lie made Drummond's acquaintance is not 
 certain. We may probably assume that they first met 
 in Edinburgh toward the end of 1618, and that the 
 visit to Hawthornden took place early in 1619. About 
 January 27 Jonson set oif again from Leith on his 
 homeward journey. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that Jonson's visit to 
 Scotland was in any way occasioned by a desire to see 
 William Drummond. He believed Annandale to be 
 the cradle of his ancestry, and King James may have 
 whetted the Laureate's curiosity to become personally ac- 
 quainted with his country-folk. Drummond himself cut 
 a considerable figure among the minor poets of his day. 
 He could write English with tolerable purity, but with 
 something of the stifihess which betrays the use of a 
 half-foreign language. He took Italian versifiers for 
 his models, and composed some meditative sonnets dis- 
 tinguished for sweetness and a genuine love of nature. 
 Well-born and well-educated both by reading and by 
 foreign travel, he owned one of the most picturesque 
 seats in the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh — 
 a grey-stone house, perched upon rocks, commanding a 
 romantic, richly-wooded glen. In his time he had played 
 the courtier, composing an elegy upon the death of 
 Prince Henry (' Tears on the Death of Moeliades'), and 
 a complimentary poem on the visit made by James in 
 1617 to Scotland Q Forth Feasting'). A scholar-poet 
 of Drummond's stamp was naturally eager to gain the 
 friendship of the Scotch king's Laureate, one who 
 ranked at this date as the foremost man of fine letters 
 in England. 
 
 Jonson, in his usual free and easy way, was liberal of 
 candid criticism to his new friend. ' His censure of my 
 
Second Period of Manhood 159 
 
 verses was: That tliey were all good, especially my 
 Epitaph of the Prince, save that they smellecl too much 
 of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the time ; 
 for a child (says he) may write after the fashion of tlie 
 Greeks and Latin verses in running ; yet that he wished, 
 to please the King, that piece of Forth Feasting had 
 been his own.' Drummond piqued himself on polished 
 imitations of complex Italian rhyming stanzas. Jonson 
 told him that he detested all rhymes except couplets, 
 ' and that cross rhymes and stanzas (because the pur- 
 pose would lead him beyond eight lines to conclude) 
 were all forced.' He also passed a severe judgment on 
 the grand Spenserian stanza, and ' cursed Petrarch for 
 redacting verses to sonnets ; which he said were like 
 that tyrant's bed, where some who were too short were 
 racked, others too long cut short.' These criticisms, 
 together with slashing observations on Italian and 
 French poets, which roused Drummond to the side- 
 remark that ' All this was to no purpose, for he [Jonson] 
 neither doth understand French nor Italians,' were 
 hardly calculated to secure the perfect sympathy of an 
 Italianated brother-poet. That thin thread of bitter 
 feeling, which may certainly be traced in Drummond's 
 notes, is therefore sufficiently accounted for. The men 
 were of a different temperament and diverse breeding. 
 Yet it would be absurd, as Gifford and others have done, 
 to detect ill-feeling and deliberate malice in a series of 
 useful jottings, drawn up with the obvious intention of 
 preserving a great man's sayings, and with no view to 
 their publication.^ 
 
 * The conversations were first printed in extenso in 1842, for the 
 Shakespeare Society, from a MS. belonging to the Edinburgh 
 Faculty of Advocates. 
 
i6o Ben JoNsoN 
 
 I shall take tliis opportunity of drawing upon tlie 
 conversations for details illustrative of Jonson's views 
 on matters not immediately connected witli his bio- 
 graphy. It must be remembered that his bent of mind 
 was nothing if not critical, and that he spoke liberally 
 what he thought, upon the spur of the moment. This 
 will account for some of tlie hard blows he dealt to his 
 contemporaries. ' He esteemeth John Donne the first 
 poet in the world in some things : his verses of the Lost 
 Chain he hath by heart ; and that passage of the Calm, 
 '' That dust and feathers do not stir, all was so quiet." 
 Affirmeth Donne to have written all his best pieces ere 
 he was 25 years old.' ' That Donne's Anniversary was 
 profane and full of blasphemies.' ' That Donne, for not 
 keeping of accent, deserved hanging.' ' That Donne 
 himself, for not being understood, w^ould perish.' ' That 
 Shakespeare wanted art.' ' Sir Edward Wotton's verses 
 of a Happy Life he hath by heart.' ' That Sir John Har- 
 ington's Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst.' 
 ' That Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and 
 his own verses.' ^ That Southwell was hanged ; yet so 
 he had written that piece of his, the Burning Babe, he 
 w^ould have been content to destroy many of his.' ' That 
 Sir W. Raleigh esteemed more of fame than conscience. 
 The best wits of England were employed for making 
 his history.' ^ Marston wrote his father-in-law's preach- 
 ings and his father-in-law his Comedies.' ^ ' Shake- 
 speare, in a play, brought in a number of men saying 
 they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is no 
 sea near by some 100 miles.' 
 
 ^ The fatlier-in-law, William Wilkes, was a parson. This epi- 
 gram therefore kills two birds with one stone. 
 
OF 
 
 Second Period of^ 
 
 Such are among the most notable of Jonson's dicta 
 on the poets of his day ; and posterity, on points where 
 we can check him, will not find much to traverse or 
 arraign upon the score of spite. In Jonson's sense of 
 the word, Shakespeare certainly wanted art ; and there 
 is no doubt that Bohemia has no sea-coast. More valid 
 exception may perhaps be taken to what he spoke about 
 himself. And yet, when these casual remarks are put 
 together, we shall acknowledge that he had formed a 
 just estimate of his own talents. ^ He was better versed, 
 "and^ew more in Greek and Latin, than all the poets in 
 England, and quintessence their brains.' ' He dissuaded 
 me from poetry, for that she had beggared him, when 
 he might have been a rich lawyer, physician, or mer- 
 chant.' ^ Of all styles he loved most to be named 
 Honest, and hath of that one hundred letters so naming 
 him.' ' In his merry humour he was wont to name 
 himself The Poet.' ' He would not flatter though he 
 saw Death.' ^ He never esteemed a man for the name 
 of a lord/ On the other hand, he was frank enough 
 in telling stories against himself; as, for instance, how 
 ' a gentleman drank him drowsy ' upon one occasion ; 
 and there are several anecdotes concerning his relations 
 to the fair sex which do not bear repetition. That he 
 agreed with the minister who taught his flock to pray 
 God for ' a gude conceit of our sels,' appears from advice 
 given to Drummond : ' He said to me that I was too 
 good and simple, and that oft a man's modesty made a 
 fool of his wit.' 
 
 After minuting the notes of Jonson's Conversations, 
 Drummond sat down and wrote these general impres- 
 sions of his guest : ' He is a great lover and praiser of 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Ben JoNSON 
 
 liiinself ; \a contemner and scorner of others ; given 
 rather to lose a friend than a jest ; jealous of every 
 word and action of those about Jiim (especially after 
 drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth) ; 
 a dissembler of ill parts which reign in him, a bragger 
 of some good that he wanteth ; thinketh nothing well 
 but what either he himself or some of his fi'iends and 
 countrymen hath said or done ; he is passionately kind 
 and angry ; careless either to gain or keep ; vindicative, 
 but, if he be well answered, at himself. 
 
 'For any religion, as being versed in both. In- . 
 terpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. 
 Oppressed with fantasy, which hath ever mastered \m~ 
 reason, a general disease in many Poets. His inven- 
 tions are smooth and easy ; but above all he excelleth 
 in a Translation.' 
 
 No one possessed of' any sense of humour will fail 
 to appreciate the circumstances under which these 
 paragraphs were penned, or to recognise the real linea- 
 ments of Eare Ben in the perplexed portrait drawn of 
 iiim by his fatigued host. After spending some days 
 in a country house alone with its master, few men 
 would care to have their characters sketched by him 
 upon the moTning after their departure. The situation 
 is one unfavourable to impartial and judicial summing- 
 up. And here was a precise, highly-cultivated, gentle- 
 manly Scotsman, who had been entertaining the dictator 
 of London taverns and the would-be censor of his age. 
 Jonson's frailties had certainly made themselves suffi- 
 ciently manifest. His boisterous self-assertion, his broad 
 criticism, his bragging independence, his wine-bibbing 
 propensities, his heat of temper and rough indifference' 
 
- ' Second Period of Manhood ^ 163 
 
 to^jopinion, his huge, ungainly personality puffed up 
 with a Titanic consciousness of strength, wer0 sufficient 
 to overpower the ceremonious and compassed Scotch 
 laird. Drummond, we may be sure, was not sorry on 
 January 19, 1619, when he dated this review of Jonson's 
 character, to be rid of the great man's company. And 
 yet we feel throughout his notes that he was interested 
 in Jonson, and respectful of his judgment. The total 
 result seems to me more favourable than might have 
 been expected. For those who can bear to look dis- 
 passionately upon both Jonson and his host, and who 
 can make reasonable allowances for the conditions under 
 which the latter drew up his recollections, the sketch 
 will have the value of a bad photograph. Considering 
 what our information regarding departed men of 
 eminence for the most part really is, this may be ac- 
 cepted with thanksgiving. A merciless photograph is 
 better than a flattering oil picture by Lawrence. 
 
 At any rate, Jonson parted from his host in no 
 ungenial humour. He promised to send Drummond, 
 'if he died by the way, his papers of this country, 
 hewn as they were,' that is to say, his rough notes pn 
 Scotland. Drummond, upon his part, undertook to 
 forward him ' Descriptions of Edinburgh, Borrow 
 Lawes, and of the Lomond.' It appears from the 
 * Conversations ' that Jonson contemplated two literary 
 monuments of his Scotch journey. ' He hath intention 
 to write a fisher or pastoral play, and set the stage of 
 it in the Lomond Lake.' Also, ' he is to write his foot- 
 pilgrimage hither, and to call it a Discovery.' This 
 explains the promised interchange of papers. But the 
 piscatory drama and the history of the pedestrian 
 
 - m2 
 
164 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 journey are both wanting. The latter, as a pendant to 
 Samuel Johnson's ' Tour in the Hebrides,' would have 
 been of the highest interest. It perished in the con- 
 flagration of his library. The former we can spare with 
 greater equanimity ; for of Jonson's poetry we possess 
 a sufficient quantity, and the loss of this play is less to 
 be regretted than that of his earliest dramatic work. 
 It is not impossible that a rough draft of the Loch 
 Lomond pastoral was also burned. 
 
 At some date before 1625, and subsequently to his 
 return from Scotland, Jonson wrote a copy of verses, 
 entitled ' An Execration upon Vulcan.' It commemo- 
 rates the burning of his books and MSS. by accident. 
 There is no doubt that he had collected a fine library of 
 classical, medieval, and more recent European literature, 
 Selden, in his ' Titles of Honour,' pays a particular 
 compliment to its extent and choice variety. Having 
 occasion to consult the scholiasts on Euripides' ' Orestes,' 
 'I went,' he says, 'for this purpose, to see it in the 
 well-furnished library of my beloved friend, that singular 
 poet. Master Ben Jonson, whose special worth in litera- 
 ture, accurate judgment and performance, known only 
 to that few which are truly able to know him, hath had 
 from me, ever since I began to learn, an increasing 
 admiration.' Of his stores, selected with the taste of 
 an accomplished scholar, Jonson was abundantly liberal 
 t o students. D'Israeli, in his * Quarrels of Authors,' 
 bears testimony to the number of gift-books inscribed 
 by Jonson, which were current in his day : ' No poet 
 has left behind him, in MS., so many testimonies of 
 personal fondness as Jonson, by inscriptions and ad- 
 dresses in the copies of his works which he preseuted 
 
S ECO YD Period of Manhood 165 
 
 to Ills friends. Of these I have seen more than one, 
 fervent and impressive.' Gifford adds : ' I am fully 
 warranted in saying that more valuable books given to 
 individuals by Jonson are yet to be met with, than by 
 any person of that age. Scores of them have fallen 
 under my own inspection, and I have heard of abun- 
 dance of others.' In the first volume of his edition of 
 ' Jonson's Works' (London, 1816), Gifford facsimiled 
 an autograph dedication by Jonson of a copy of Persius 
 to his friend John Kowe. It runs as follows : ^ ' D : 
 Joanni Howe Amico Probatissimo Hunc Amorem et 
 Delicias suas Satiricorum do3tissimum Persium cum 
 doctissimo commentario sacravit Ben : Jonsonius et 
 L.M.D.D. ISTec. prior est mihi parens Amico.' 
 
 Such, then, was the collection of printed books, 
 chosen by Jonson and shared by his friends, which 
 perished by fire at some uncertain date between 1619 
 and 1625. The poet bore the misfortune with a stoical 
 equanimity that reminds us of his namesake Samuel. 
 He indulged his humour in bantering the God of 
 Flames upon the banquet which might have justified 
 that gluttonous invasion : — 
 
 Had I wrote treason here, or heresy, 
 Imposture, witchcraft, charms, or blasphemy ; 
 I had deserved then thy consuming looks — 
 Perhaps to have been burned with my books. 
 
 Had a feast been spread for Vulcan composed of Tnl- 
 muds, Korans, Acta Sanctorum, Gesta Romanorum, 
 
 ' * To John Rowe, his most proved friend Ben Jonson devotes 
 this his darling aAd delight, Persius, of satirists the most learned, 
 together with a most learned commentary, and gives the trifling 
 present ag a gift. For mo, a parent takes not rank before a friend.* 
 
1 66 Ben JoNSON 
 
 Merlin's Propliecies, and Mysteries of tlie Eosy Cross, 
 Ben would not have grumbled. But no : tlie Fire-king 
 fed upon good, wholesome, humanistic diet, and took 
 his dessert from the ripe fruits of the poet's brain : — 
 
 I dare not say a body, but some parts 
 
 There were of search and mastery in the arts ; 
 
 All the old Venusine, in poetry, 
 
 And lighted by the Stagyrite, could spy, 
 
 Was there made English; with a grammar too, 
 
 To teach some that their nurses could not do, 
 
 The purity of language ; and, among 
 
 The rest, my journey into Scotland sung, 
 
 With all the adventures : three boots, not afraid 
 
 To speak the fate of the Sicilian maid 
 
 To their own ladies ; and in storj^ there 
 
 Of our fifth Henry, eight of his nine year; 
 
 Wherein was oil, beside the succours spent. 
 
 Which noble Carew, Cotton, Selden lent ; 
 
 And twice twelve years' stored-up humanity. 
 
 With humbler gleanings in divinity, 
 
 After the fathers and those wiser guides 
 
 Whom faction had not drawn to study sides. 
 
 In other words, what the world lost of Jonson's MSS. 
 in this conflagration were : (1) his exposition of the 
 ' Ars Poetica ' of Horace and the ' Poetics ' of Aristotle ; 
 (2) an English Grammar ; (3) the narrative in verse of 
 his Scotch journey; (4) three books upon the tale of 
 Proserpine in verse ; (5) a nearly-finished history of the 
 reign of Henry Y. ; (6) the collections of twenty-four 
 years devoted to classical and theological studies. Two 
 fragments from the~WTeck: were • saved— a sketch of the 
 English Grammar, and a version of the ' Ars Poetica.' 
 The parts we" should have valued most — namely, the 
 Scotch Journey, the Tale of Proserpine, and the mis- 
 cellaneous notes on humane letters ^nd divinity, have 
 
Second Period of Manhood 167 
 
 utterly perished. How valuable the commonplace books 
 or miscellanies may have been is apparent from those 
 fragments,, printed in the folio of 1641, which we still 
 possess under the title of ' Explorata, or Discoveries.' • 
 
 I have not much to add upon this period of Jon son's 
 life. In 1619 he went on a visit to Oxford, and was 
 'actually' admitted M.A. of the University in full 
 Convocation. The degree had previously been con- 
 ferred on him. But now he enjoyed a personal triumph. 
 In 1621 he obtained the reversion of the office of 
 Master of the Revels. This was granted to him by 
 King James, after the expiration of the lives of Sir G. 
 Buc and Sir J. Astley. But he did not live to enjoy it. 
 In 1623 he produced that vigorous, warm-hearted poem, 
 'To the Memory of my beloved Master William Shake- 
 speare,' which has more than once been quoted in these 
 pages. Through all these years he worked at Court 
 masques, varying much in poetic inspiration, but show- 
 ing no signs of nervous failure. At length, in 1625, 
 he once again essayed a venture on the public stage. 
 ' The Staple of News ' was acted by the King's Men, 
 probably in the winter. 
 
 This comedy belongs to the group, styled compre- 
 hensively by Dryden ' his dotages.' It is not certain at 
 what exact point in Jonson's career Dryden conceived 
 his mental decadence to have begun, though I do not 
 remember his citing any play later than ' Bartholomew 
 Fair ' with enthusiasm. Most critics will agree that 
 ' The Staple of News,' ' The New Inn,' ' The Magnetic 
 Lady,' and ' The Tale of a Tub ' deserve the name of 
 ' dotages,' if this is to be applied to any of Jonson's 
 productions; but while admitting the inferiority of 
 
i68 Ben JoNSON 
 
 ^ The Devil is an Ass ' to the masterpieces of its author's 
 maturity, they will probably exempt that play from so 
 contemptuous a verdict. 
 
 In ' The Devil is an Ass ' and ' The Staple of News 
 Jonson directs his ^satire against City speculators and 
 bubble companies. The people of that time seem to 
 have been peculiarly gullible by ingenious schemers, 
 who rested on the favour of monopolists at Court. 
 Meercraft, in the former comedy, is the prince of j)ro- 
 jectors, as they were then called. He bustles about the 
 town with an accomplice, carrying a sack like an at- 
 torney's bag. This contains a bundle of prospectuses 
 in MS., neatly endorsed, and so varied as to suit all 
 tastes in turn. Meeting with a man of small capital, 
 he produces some of the least magnificent of these 
 projects — a scheme for making gloves of dogskin, or 
 for improving bottled ale and saving six per cent, 
 upon the corks, or else for distilling wine from raisins 
 at a thumping profit. One dupe is tempted with a 
 project for economising toothpicks, another with a 
 proposed office for arranging disputes and establishing 
 the laws of duel. Lady Tailbush has embarked her 
 fortune in an undertaking to organise cosmetics on new 
 and larger principles. Fitzdottrel, a Norfolk squire, is 
 ready to sink the purchase-money of his estates in a 
 speculation for recovering the fens. Meercraft plays 
 upon this coxcomb's vanity by promising him the title 
 of Duke of Drownland. Able rogue as he is, the pro- 
 jector possesses keen insight into character, and adapts 
 his schemes to the foibles of his customers. Flust,ered 
 with self-importance, jet obsequious in manner, he 
 assumes the pQi^fideritial tone of ^ comriaercial magnate, 
 
Second Period of Manhood 169 
 
 The net results of all his projects have been calculated 
 to a nicety. He displays the balance-sheet of disburse- 
 ments and receipts, scaled according to plausible esti- 
 mates, and carried down to the last farthing. No 
 inquiry finds his wit at fault. When difficulties are 
 suggested, he smiles and overwhelms the wavering 
 dupe with statistics. His own insolvency, that patent 
 argument of his imposture, is explained away by im- 
 pudent rhetoric. Arrested for debt, he wheedles his 
 creditor into dropping the prosecution by a glowing de- 
 scription of his scheme for introducing forks into Eng- 
 land, the patent for which he proposes to set off against 
 his liabilities. 
 
 This character, like that of Subtle in the ^ Al- 
 chemist,' formed a very proper subject for comic satire. 
 Meercrafb is no type of transitory social humour. We 
 have plenty of such rogues among us in the City at the 
 present day, while dupes like Lady Tailbush and Fitz- 
 dottrel abound. In the under-plot of ' The Staple of 
 News ' Jonson exposed another phase of imposture 
 working upon vulgar folly, which is also not without its 
 parallel in our age. He introduces the audience to the 
 interior of an office which has been established for supply- 
 ing town and country with news.^ The company has 
 correspondents in every part of London, England, and 
 the Continent. Posts are continually arriving with 
 political, commercial, and diplomatic information. De- 
 spatches are momently issued, bearing the company's 
 signature and stamp. Customers in crowds assail its 
 
 ^ * See Epigrams No. XCII. on the avidity for news in London. 
 My friend, Mr. H. F. Brown, tells me that at Venice there existed 
 a sort of office" for the compilation Jvud distribution of news. 
 
lyq Ben Jonson 
 
 counter to buy pennyworths of the latest news. All 
 classes of intelligence are docketed ; one pigeon-hole 
 being reserved for Puritans, another for the Court, a 
 third for Roman Catholics, a fourth for the Exchange, 
 and so on. Much show is made, moreover, of distin- 
 guishing true from false, fresh from stale items. The 
 current journals, ' Mercurius Britannicus ' and ' Gallo- 
 Belgicus,' profit by this Staple, which provides them 
 with authenticated material at a fixed tariff. There will 
 in future be no need to scrape up gossip at the corners 
 of streets, to pen apocryphal pamphlets, or to stuff 
 country letters with town lies. The Staple undertakes 
 to simplify, centralise, and co-ordinate all sources oi 
 intelligence. It is a fountain fed by a thousand con- 
 duit-pipes, condensing and distributing veracious infor- 
 mation. Such is the magnificent conception of this 
 great newsmarket, presented to the public by its agents. 
 But when we read the trash which it sends forth, 
 the puffs, sensational paragraphs, and scraps of highly- 
 seasoned scandal, on which its customers expend their 
 pence, we discover that the imposing machine is a 
 m e/re bubble floating on the scum of popular c redulity, 
 If ' The Staple of News ' had been executed with 
 vigour corresponding to the excellence of this comic 
 motive, it would have ranked with the best of Jonson's 
 pieces. But, as it often happens in plays of this species, 
 only the underplot is amusing. The substance of the 
 drama consists of an allegory, studied from the ' Plutus ' 
 of Aristophanes. Lady Pecunia, half-person and half- 
 abstraction, with her attendants. Statute, Mortgage^ 
 Band, Rose-wax, and Broker, succeeds in being one of 
 the most wearisome of dramatic nondescripts. Avarice, 
 
Second Period of Manhood 171 
 
 Prodigality, and Prudence, thinly disguised under the 
 masks of the three Penny boys, weary us by their stiff 
 symbolism, without conveying new lessons in the 
 morality of wealth. 
 
 Earlier in his career Jonson might, perhaps, have 
 animated even so unpromising a plot as this, which 
 brings metaphorical personages into the sphere of 
 realism. The sheer force of his gigantic intellect and 
 will was at one time adequate to almost any task. But 
 it is clear from 'The Staple of News' that what Marston 
 called a ' heathy dryness ' had begun to sterilise his 
 brain ; and we are not astonished to find that, shortly 
 after its publication, possibly in the spring of 1626, he 
 was laid low by a stroke of paralysis. 
 
172 ^ Ben Jonson 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OLD AGE. 
 
 After middle life Joiison's liealtli seems to have 
 gradually yielded to a variety of infirmities. He was a 
 man of massive build, high stature, and, to use his own 
 phrase, ' ungainly gait.' From his parents he inherited 
 scorbutic affections, which impoverished his blood, and 
 externally displayed their effects upon his seamed and 
 swollen features. As time went on, and larger oppor- 
 tunities of indulgence offered, he succumbed more and 
 more to the seductions of the table and the wine-cup. 
 On careful scrutiny of the evidence before us, I do not 
 believe that Jonson can be justly taxed with gluttony or 
 habitual sottishness. But he led a student's sedentary 
 life, frequented the houses of the wealthy, and revelled in 
 Homeric drinking bouts. His own frank admissions, 
 the direct testimony of Drummond, and a considerable 
 mass of tolerably authentic tradition, place beyond 
 doubt the fact that hejjrank wdne to excess. His un- 
 healthy constitution craved alcoholic stimulus, and his 
 social habits made the recourse to it too easy. The 
 consequences of this ill-regulated diet became apparent, 
 and Jonson was the first, wdth customary candour, to 
 acknowledge them. AVhen he sent Drummond a por- 
 trait of himself, some humorous verses accompanied 
 
Old Age I73 
 
 tlie gift. Tlie poet feigned that his mistress had turned 
 
 a deaf ear to his suit, although his words still flowed in 
 
 liquid numbers : — 
 
 In sentence of as subtle feet, 
 
 As hath the j'oungest he 
 That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. 
 
 Then he turns to the picture and discerns the cause of 
 her disdain: — 
 
 Oh I but my conscious fears, 
 
 That fly my thoughts between, 
 
 Tell me that she hath seen 
 
 My hundreds of grey hairs, 
 
 Told seven and forty years, 
 Read so much waist as she can not embrace, 
 My mountain belly, and my rocky face. / 
 
 To the same half-humorous, half-melancholy lamenta- 
 tions over his vast girth and personal unwieldiness he 
 frequently returns in poems of occasion. Sir William 
 Burlase, the painter, had addressed him a copy of verses. 
 He replies : — 
 
 Why, though I seem of a prodigious waist, 
 
 I am not so voluminous and vast 
 
 But there are lines wherewith I might be embraced. 
 
 'Tis true, as my womb swells, so my back stoops, 
 
 And the whole lump grows round, deformed, and droops ; 
 
 But yet the Tun at Heidelberg had hoops. 
 
 Again to one, Master Squib, he communicates the fact 
 that he is going to be weighed for a wager, and that 
 he only lacks two pounds of twenty stone. He artfully 
 uses this shortcoming to beg the gift of five pieces of 
 silver which, held within his pocket, as he calculates, 
 would make the full weight up. The same quip is used 
 to a like purpose in the Epistle to my Lady Co veil : — 
 
/L 
 
 174 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 So you have gained a servant and a muse : 
 
 The first of which I fear you may refuse ; 
 
 And you may justly, being a tardy, cold, 
 
 Unprofitable chattel, fat and old, 
 
 Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach 
 
 His friends but to break chairs or crack a coach. 
 
 His weight is twenty stone within two pound ; 
 
 And that's made up as doth the purse abound. 
 
 Marry, the muse is one can tread on air. 
 
 And stroke the water, nimble, chaste and fair. ' ' 
 
 In other words, his ' too too solid flesh ' still held within 
 that ample round a sgrightly fancy and the spirit of a_ 
 high-strung poet. This consoling thought, that though 
 the body labours like a sea-logged vessel, yet the in- 
 tellectual particle, the. spark of divine inspiration, sur- 
 vives man's physical decay, sustained Jonson through 
 eleven declining years. We find it often recurring in 
 his verse during the decade upon which we are now 
 entering. 
 
 Manifold ailments weighed down his sturdy nature. 
 Palsy-stricken since 16? 6, he was later on attacked by 
 dropsy ; and toward the close of his life he seems to 
 have been well-nigh bedridden. Owing to these dis- 
 abilities he gradually lost hold upon the Court and his 
 noble patrons. James had died in 1625, more than a 
 year before the period which forms the subject of this 
 chapter. Charles Stuart, as we shall presently learn, 
 proved himself a kind master to his father's Laureate. 
 But immediately after his accession to the throne there 
 came a hard time of three or four years, during which 
 Jonson almost sank under water. Courtiers had some- 
 thing else to do than to visit a declining playwright, 
 when the policy and personal habits of their new 
 monarch and his Popish consort called for narrow 
 
Old Age 175 
 
 scrutiny. Then, too, the dictator of the Devil Tavern 
 was missed iii his old haunts; and though Jonson 
 returned to these, and burned by flashes with the fire 
 of warmer days, who knows wdiat apes and upstarts, 
 creatures moulded on his pattern, wielded spurious 
 imitations of that cloud-compelling wit while he was 
 absent ? He therefore tended toward oblivion, as 
 happens to all who live outside the world of their 
 acquaintances and equals. 
 
 It is well to notice that, during these clouded days, 
 Jonson obtained the post of Chronologer to the City of 
 London, upon the decease of Thomas Middleton. The 
 office was worth a salary of 100 nobles, and carried 
 with it certain' duties which he very imperfectly dis- 
 charged. Jonson accepted this service in September, 
 1628, regarding it apparently in the light of a sinecure. 
 Thus much I had to say upon the matter now, since it 
 will have some slight significance in the future. But 
 fche chief event of the year 1628-29 was the representa- 
 tion of a comedy called ' The New Inn.' It was put 
 upon the stage by the King's Men in January, 1629, 
 and ' in the technical language of the Green Room, was 
 completely damned, not being heard to the conclusion.' 
 
 The plot of this comedy is so extravagant as to 
 account for its failure on the stage. Lord Frampul, 
 an eccentric nobleman of wit and education, had two 
 daughters, Frances and Lsetitia, by his wife. Though 
 in reality attached to Lady Frampul, he treated her 
 with some indifference, and after the birth of his second 
 daughter showed such apparent coldness, that the good 
 lady thought he bore a grudge against her. She left 
 his house, carrying the girl Lastitiaj and roamed the 
 
176 Ben J on son 
 
 world in the disguise of an Irish gipsy. Lord Franipul, 
 conscience-stricken by this evidence of his wife's grief, 
 assumed the clothes and habits of a tinker, spent 
 several years in vagabondage, and finally settled in an 
 inn at Barnet. He christened this hostelry the Light 
 Heart. After some time his disguised wife reached the 
 Light Heart with LaBtitia, whom she passed off as a boy 
 and sold to her husband, the innkeeper. Meanwhile 
 Frances grew up, took the title of Lady Frampul, and 
 enjoyed the family estates. When the play opens, Lord 
 Frampul is still living as the innkeeper at Barnet, with 
 his own daughter Laetitia dressed as a boy and called 
 Frank, and his wife disguised as a drunken Irish- 
 woman, all under the same roof and ignorant of their 
 respective relationships. A devoted lover of Frances, the 
 younger Lady Frampul, who is called Level, has also 
 made the Light Heart his temporary place of sojourn. 
 When we have become acquainted with these personages, 
 Frances arrives at the inn, attended by two other of 
 her suitors, the Lords Latimer and Beaufort. It is 
 her whim to collect lovers around her, and to indulge 
 her humour by playing one against the other for sport. 
 She takes a fancy to the boy Frank, dresses him up as 
 a girl, and passes him off upon her company as one of 
 her maternal kinswomen. Frank is henceforth known 
 as Laetitia Sylly. In the course of the play Lord 
 Beaufort falls in love with this extremely puzzling 
 person.^ They are married in a barn, and the cata- 
 
 * When we remember that a boy played the part of Lastitia- 
 Frank- LjEtitia on the stage, the confusion is almost too bewildering 
 to disentangle. He was a boy personating a girl, disguised as a 
 boy, dressed up as a girl, married as a girl, believed after the wed* 
 
Old Age i77 
 
 strophe is brought about by the double discovery that 
 Lastitia Sylly is the boy Frank, and that the boy Frank is 
 really Lastitia Frampul. A recognition and warm recon- 
 ciliation take place between Lord and Lady Frampul, 
 and Frances accepts the hand of her servant Level. 
 
 That a young lady, believed to be a baroness in her 
 own right, should find her father established as the 
 host of a country inn, her mother disguised as a tipsy 
 Irishwoman in the same house, and her only sister 
 accepted as the host's son, while father, mother, and 
 both daughters are unaw^are of their kinship, until an 
 accident reveals the truth, is of course preposterous, 
 beyond the license of romance or comedy. Yet, having 
 admitted so much, I must record my opinion that ^J[he 
 New Inn,' in many important respects, is one o f Jonson's 
 best comedies. It ranks far above his other dotages. 
 In this play Jonson attempted something in the roman- 
 tic style, suggested probably by Fletcher's handling of 
 remote imaginative subjects.^ But he was unable to 
 
 ding to be a boy, then finally recognised as a girl — remaining all the 
 while a boy in his true person. This beats Epicoene. 
 
 ' I must touch upon a question regarding the authorship of 
 some passages in Tlie New Inn. The comic speeches of Peck, the 
 ostler, in the third act are repeated textually in Fletcher's play of 
 Love's Pilgrimage. This comedy is supposed to have been left un- 
 finished at Fletcher's death in 1625, and to have been completed by 
 Shirley. It was played before 1635, but was not printed until 1647. 
 Tlie editors of Jonson's works believe that Shirley, or whoever 
 adapted Fletcher's play for publication, borrowed the business 
 between Lazaro and Diego, which he inserted in the first act of 
 Love's Pilgi'image, from The Kcw Inn; and to this opinion I incline. 
 The other supposition, that Jonson took Peck's speeches from 
 Fletcher, is, for many reasons, highly improbable ; and, especially, 
 I may notice that in Jonson's defence of his comedy and in the 
 attacks made upon it, we find no allusion to any charge of plagi- 
 
 . N 
 
 L. 
 
178 Ben Jonson 
 
 discard the literary habits of a lifetime. His solid 
 workmanship, and the massiveness of intellectual ma- 
 terial in high-flown disquisitions and discourses witH 
 which he has interpolated scenes of broad farce, do not 
 suit the true romantic manner. The characters, more- 
 over, are defined by deep and trenchant lines, inappli- 
 cable to airy creatures of fantastic fable. 
 
 Several of these characters, however, are in them- 
 selves excellent. Lovel and the Host, for instance, 
 exhibit in their first interview a full and warm humanity 
 — the one mellow and hundorous, the other chivalrous 
 and enthusiastic. Into Level's mouth Jonson has put 
 some of the finest poetry which survives from the 
 Jacobean age of our drama. When I shall have dealt 
 with the untoward fate of the comedy, and described 
 the indignation which this roused in its author's breast, 
 I mean to resume Lovel's speeches upon love and 
 courage. At present it suffices to remark that these 
 passages of eloquent blank-verse, weighty as they are 
 with thought, breathe fervid intellectual passion — an 
 enthusiasm for spiritual beauty which we are surprised 
 to find still burning in the aged poet's brain. Charles 
 Lamb, after quoting the finest of Lovel's declamations, 
 adds : ' These and the preceding extract may serve to 
 show the poetical fancy and elegance of mind of the 
 supposed rugged old bard.' 
 
 Frances, the younger Lady Frampul, again, is 
 what Jonson has rarely attempted to pc^tray — a real 
 woman, revealing her woman's nature no less by phanta- 
 sies and waywardnesses than by high spirit and generous 
 
 arism. The theory that The New Inn was damned because the 
 plagiarism was recognised seems to me on this account untenable. 
 
Old Age 179 
 
 self-abandonment to feeling. This lady, at first so 
 reckless in her coqnetry, then so impulsive in her 
 passion, is no less admirable than her loyal golden- 
 mouthed adorer. Lord Beaufort serves as a useful foil to 
 the exalted chivalry of Lovel ; the young man yielding to 
 the humour of a sudden inclination, and fitly wedded 
 for comic purpose to Frances FrampuVs sister. All of 
 these fantastical personages strike us rather as the 
 creatures of an April poet's fancy than as the laboured 
 products of a palsy-stricken playwright's craftsmanship. 
 rTlie ISTew Inn' was printed two years after its 
 appearance, with this angry annotation on the title- 
 page : ' As it was never acted, but most negligently 
 played by some, The King's Servants ; and more 
 squeamishly beheld and censured by others. The King's 
 Subjects.' The Epilogue, written apparently for the 
 first performance, describes the poet'^ state of health in 
 moving termsji^---^ 
 
 ' / If you expect more than you had to-night, 
 
 The maker is sick and sad. But do him right ; ' 
 
 He meant to please you : for he sent things fit,' 
 
 In all the numbers both of sense and wit, 
 
 If they have not miscarried I If they have, 
 
 All that his faint and faltering tongue doth crave, 
 
 Is that you not impute it to his brain ; 
 
 That's yet unhurt, although, set round with pain, 
 
 It cannot long hold out. All strength must yield ; 
 
 Yet judgment would the last be in the field. 
 
 With a true poet. / 
 
 The last lines hint at neglect by the Court : — 
 
 And had he lived the care of king and queen, 
 ' His art in something more yet had been seen ; 
 But mayors and shrieves may yearly fill the stage : 
 A king's or poet's birth doth ask an age. 
 
 N 2 
 
i8d Ben JoNsoN 
 
 GifFord supposes that this epilogue reached the ears of 
 Charles ; yet it was not spoken on the stage in 1629 nor 
 printed till 1631. Therefore, if this really was the case, 
 the verses must have been submitted to his Majesty 
 in MS. At any rate, the King this year bestowed a 
 present of lOOZ. on Jonson, and in 1630 he raised his 
 pension to the sum of lOOZ., adding the famous annual 
 present of a tierce of Canary wine. We still possess ' the 
 Humble Petition of poor Ben to the best of monarchs, 
 masters, men. King Charles,' in which he prayed that 
 the marks granted by James might be expanded into 
 pounds. A series of short poems following close upon 
 Charles' act of liberality bespeak the poet's gratitude. 
 -"l The failure of this comedy inspired Jonson with one 
 oThis most vigorous lyric pieces. It is prefaced with a 
 few words of explanation : ' The just indignation the 
 aui h )r took at the vulgar censure of his play by some ^ 
 malicious spectators, begat this following oji@_ to himself.' 
 Omitting two stanzas which describe the decadence of 
 the drama, and the last, which compliments the King, 
 I will present the remaining half of this noble composi- 
 tion to my readers, it being in my opinion an almost 
 perfect specimen of rhetoric and rhythmical structure 
 exactly suited to a strain of vehement emotion. 
 
 Ccme, leave the loathed stage, 
 
 And the more loathsome age ; 
 Where pride and impudence, in faction knit, 
 
 Usurp the chair of wit ! 
 Indicting and arraigning every day 
 Something they call a play. 
 
 Let their fastidious, vain 
 
 Commission of the brain 
 Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn ; 
 They were not made for thee, less thou for them. 
 
Old Acn i8i 
 
 Say that thou pour'st them wheat, 
 
 And they will acorns eat ; 
 'Twere simple fury still thy sell: to waste 
 
 On such' as have no taste 1 
 To offer them a surfeit of pure bread. 
 Whose appetites are dead ! 
 
 No, give them grains their fill, 
 
 Husks, draff to drink and swill : 
 If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, 
 Envy them not, their palate's with the swine. 
 
 Leave things so prostitute. 
 
 And take the Alcaic lute ; 
 Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre ; 
 
 Warm thee by Pindar's fire : 
 And though thy nerves be shrunk,- and blocd be cold 
 Ere years have made thee old, 
 
 Strike that disdainful heat 
 
 Throughout, to their defeat, 
 As curious fools, and envious of thy strain, 
 May blushing swear no palsy's in thy brain. 
 
 The trumpet-note of defiance sounded in this poem 
 rouse3 numerous retorts from writers of the day. One 
 of these, composed by Owen Feltham in the same metre 
 as the original, was not deficient in good sense and 
 candid criticism : — 
 
 Come, leave this saucy way 
 Of baiting those that pay 
 Dear for the sight of your declining wit : 
 
 'Tis known it is not fit 
 That a sale poet, just contempt once thrown. 
 Should cry up thus his own. 
 
 • • 
 
 *Tis known you can do well. 
 
 And that you do excell 
 As a Translator. But when things require 
 
 A genius and a fire 
 N6t kindled heretofore by others' pains : — 
 
1 82 Ben JoNSoN 
 
 Next he tells Ben how flat and stupid were his ' Jug, 
 Pierce, Peck, Fly,' and all his * jests so nominal,' con- 
 demns the absurd plot of ' The New Inn,' and points 
 out the impropriety of Lovel's scholastic dissertations 
 in a play of that type. Though worded unkindly, the 
 rebuke was not wanting in justice. 
 
 Lovel, the principal male personage of ' The New 
 Inn,' deserves, as I have said above, more than a merely 
 superficial notice. He is the type of the chivalrous and 
 poetic lover, as Jonson conceived that type, modified 
 by philosophical and humanistic culture. He out-Birons 
 Biron in his raptures : — 
 
 There is no life on earth, but being in love I 
 There are no studies, no delights, no business, 
 No intercourse, or trade of sense or soul, 
 But what is love ! I was the laziest creature, 
 The most unprofitable soul of nothing, 
 The veriest drone, and slept away my life 
 Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love I 
 And now I can outwake the nightingale, 
 Out- watch an usurer, and out- walk him too ; 
 Stalk like a ghost, that haunted 'bout a treasure. 
 And all that phant'sied treasure, it is love. 
 
 Lovel has adored Frances, the younger Lady Frampul, 
 for a long time, but has forborne to express his passion 
 or to urge his suit because the son of his old sire in 
 chivalry has some pretension to her hand : — 
 
 Did you e'er know, or hear of the Lord Beaufort, 
 Who served so bravely in France 1 I was his page, 
 And ere he died, his friend : I followed him, 
 First in the wars, and in the times of peace 
 I waited on his studies ; whicii were right. 
 He had no Arthurs, nor no Kosicleers, 
 No Knights o' the Sun, nor Amadis de Gauls, 
 Primalions, Pantagruels, public nothings ; 
 
Old Age 183 
 
 But great Achilles, Agamemnon's acts, 
 
 Sage Nestor's counsels, and Ulysses' slights, 
 
 Tydides' fortitude, as Homer wrought them 
 
 In his immortal phantasy, for examples 
 
 Of the heroic virtue. 
 
 He gave me first my breeding, I acknowledge, 
 
 Then showered his bounties on me like the Hours, 
 
 That open-handed sit upon the clouds. 
 
 And press the liberality of heaven 
 
 Down to the laps of thankful men ! But then 
 
 The trust committed to me at his death, 
 
 Was above all, and left so strong a tie 
 
 On all my power as time shall not dissolve, 
 
 Till it dissolve itself and bury all — 
 
 The care of his brave heir and only son ; 
 
 Who being a virtuous, sweet, young, hopeful lord, 
 
 Hath cast his first affections on this lady. 
 
 And though I know, and may presume her such 
 
 As, out of humour, will return no love ; ' 
 
 And therefore might indifferently be made 
 
 The courting-stock for all to practise on, 
 
 As she doth practise on all us to scorn : 
 
 Yet, out of a religion to my charge, 
 
 And debt professed, I have made a self-decree, 
 
 Ne'er to express my person, though my passion 
 
 Burn me to cinders. 
 
 Chance determines that he shall have the opportunity 
 of wooing his mistress, even against his will. Lovel is 
 moping in his chamber at the inn, when Frances Prampul 
 arrives with her train of servants and suitors. At first/ 
 from motives of mere idle coquetry, she sends to bid 
 him join her party in their sports. He obeys un- 
 willingly, and is appointed by the mistress of the revels 
 to discourse on love and valour. Beaufort, the youth 
 in whose favour he has waived his rights of courtship, 
 is also present in attendance on the lady. His frank, 
 light-hearted sensuousness forms an excellent contrast 
 
184 Ben JoNSON 
 
 to Lovel's ponderous but noble dissertations. When, 
 for instance, Lovel has explained love's nature in terms 
 of Platonic mysticism, Beaufort interrupts : — 
 
 I relish not these philosophical feasts ; 
 
 Give me a banquet of sense, like that of Ovid. 
 
 But Lovel proceeds at the same high, pitch : — 
 They are the earthly, lower forms of lovers. 
 Are only taken with what strikes the senses ; 
 And love by that loose scale. Although I grant 
 We like what's fair and graceful in an object, 
 And, true, would use it in the all we tend to 
 Both of our civil and domestic deeds ; 
 In ordering of an army, in our style. 
 Apparel, gesture, building, or what not: 
 All arts and actions do affect their beauty. 
 But put the case, in travel I may meet 
 Some gorgeous structure, a brave frontispiece, 
 Shall I stay captive in the outer court, 
 Surprised with that, and not advance to know 
 Who dv/ells there and inhabiteth the housed? - 
 There is my friendship to be made, within. 
 With what can love me again : not with the walls, 
 Doors, windows, architraves, the frieze and cornice. 
 My end is lost in loving of a face, 
 An eye, lip, nose, hand, foot, or other part. 
 Whose all is but a statue, if the mind 
 Move not, which only can make the return. 
 The end of love is to have two made one , 
 
 In w411 and in affection, that the minds 
 Be first inoculated, not the bodies. 
 
 To these fine sentiments, Beaufort, lying in Laetitia's 
 
 lap, cries : — 
 
 Give me the body, if it be a good one. 
 
 Meanwhile Lovel's sober eloquence wins on Frances ; 
 
 and, as " he continues speaking, her froward temper 
 
 gradually yields to gentle affections : — 
 How am T changed ! By what alchemy 
 Of love, or language, am I thus translated ? 
 
Old Age 185 
 
 When he has delivered his oration, she exclaims : — 
 
 O speak, and speak for ever ; let mine ear 
 Ijc feasted still and filled with this banquet 1 
 No sense can ever surfeit on such truth ! 
 It is the marrow of all lovers' tenets. 
 
 Her friends cackle and gossip round her ; but she sits 
 entranced, soliloquising to herself: — 
 
 Where have I lived, in heresy, so long, 
 Out of the congregation of Love, 
 And stood irregular, by all his canons ? 
 
 What penance shall I do to be received, 
 And reconciled to the church of Love ? 
 Go on procession, barefoot, to his image. 
 And say some hundred penitential verses, 
 There, cut of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressid? 
 
 Carrying on the same strain of hyperbolical repentance, 
 she exclaims : — 
 
 Love and his mother, 
 
 I'll build them several churches, shrines, and altars, 
 
 And overhead I'll have in the glass windows 
 
 The story of this day be painted round, 
 
 For the poor laity of love to read. ' 
 
 Some of these speeches by the Lady Frarapul are uttered 
 aside ; others, overheard, procure for her a further cha- 
 racter for irony and waywardness. Least of all does 
 her lover suppose that he has been so clever as to win 
 her heart. And when in the next act he defends the 
 thesis of valour, it is with no belief in his good fortune. 
 On the second point it may be said that he declaims to 
 even better purpose : — 
 
 The things true valour's exercised about, 
 Are povert}^, restraint, captivity. 
 Banishment, loss of children, long disease ; 
 The least is death. 
 
1 86 Ben JoNSON 
 
 That man is not valiant who is merely ready to fight or 
 to die : — 
 
 The manner of it 
 
 Renders a man himself, A valiant man 
 
 Ought not to midergo, or tempt a danger, 
 
 But worthily, and by selected ways : 
 
 He undertakes with reason, not by chance. 
 
 As in the case of love, so also in that of courage, Jonson 
 sets himself to prove that reason and the intellectual 
 part of man elicit virtue from mere appetite or humour. 
 His ideal of manliness is that expressed by Caesar in 
 ^ The Poetaster ' ; his knight is one who — 
 
 Can becalm 
 All sea of humour with the marble trident 
 Of his strong spirit. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon this comedy, partly 
 because of its strangeness, but also because it exhibits 
 Jonson in a somewhat unaccustomed light. To match 
 Level's rhapsody on love we must go back to the 
 splendid declamation upon poetry in the first version of 
 ' Every Man in his Humour.' Nor, on the whole, is 
 any character in Jonson's comedies so worthy of respect 
 and beautifully toned as this one. 
 
 As years advanced, troubles gathered round Ben 
 Jonson. He had never been provident ; and now that 
 sickness and old age exhausted his mental powers, he 
 was entirely dependent on his pension and the liberality 
 of friends. In the autumn of 1631 the City of London 
 passed a resolution to the effect that his salary as 
 Chronologer should be stopped until he presented 
 * some fruits of his labour in that his place.' A letter 
 announcing their decision to his friend, the Earl of 
 
Old Age, 187 
 
 Newcastle, contains this characteristic sentence : ' Yes- 
 terday the barbarous Court of Aldermen have with- 
 drawn their chandlerly pension for verjuice and mustard, 
 33L 66*. Sc?.' The loss of this pension was soon after- 
 wards followed by another stroke of ill-fortune. At the 
 New Year's festivities of 1632, the King's masque, 
 which had been usually supplied by Jonson, was ordered 
 from Mr. Aurelian Townsend. Thus he lost the gratuity 
 of some 40L which the Court paid its poet on these 
 occasions. We know from a private letter written to 
 Sir John Puckering by a Mr. Pory that Ben Jonson 
 was 'for this time discarded by reason of the pre- 
 dominant power of his antagonist, Inigo Jones.' They 
 had long been in the habit of working together on 
 the Whitehall entertainments, Jonson providing the 
 libretto and Jones the invention of stage-machinery. 
 But the relations between the two artists were never 
 cordial. It is impossible that Jones should have for- 
 given a certain remark made by the free-spoken poet 
 to Prince Charles, nor was he the man to brook Jonson's 
 assumption of superiority in their joint undertakings. 
 It appears, however, that he waited until the Laureate 
 fell ill and out of sight, in order to take his revenge. 
 The immediate occasion of his declared hostility was 
 Jonson's publication of the masque ' Chloridia 'in 1630, 
 w^hen the names of ' the inventors Ben Jonson, Inigo 
 Jones ' appeared upon the title-page. Mr. Pory's letter 
 informs us that the architect was angry with the poet 
 ' for putting his own name before his in the title-page, 
 which Ben Jonson has made the subject of a bitter 
 satire or two against Inigo.' The satires in question 
 may still be read under the titles of ' An Expostulation 
 
1 88 Ben JoNSON 
 
 with Inigo Jones/ &c. They prove that Jonson, even 
 on a sick-bed, retained the gall and venom of his earlier 
 controversies ; but their artistic merit is small. 
 
 No department of literary history is more tedious 
 and repulsive than that which belongs to the quarrels of 
 authors and their kind. I shall, therefore, break the 
 thread of chronological development in order to have done 
 with this ignoble subject. In 1633 Jonson gave his 
 comedy ' The Tale of a Tub ' to the stage, with a savagely 
 satirical caricature of Inigo Jones under the transparent 
 pseudonym of Vitruvius Hoop. This part was cut out 
 by authority, and in the comedy as we possess it only a 
 faint trace of the satire remains. The office-book of the 
 Master of the Eevels, whose duty it was to license ]3lays 
 for acting, contains an entry to the effect that : ' Vitru- 
 vius Hoop's part [was] wholly struck out, and the motion 
 of a tub, by command from my Lord Chamberlain ; ex- 
 ceptions being taken against it by Inigo Jones, surveyor 
 of the King's Works, as a personal injury unto him.' 
 There is considerable uncertainty as to the date when 
 ^ The Tale of a Tub ' was composed. This comedy has 
 been referred to an early period of Jonson's career as 
 playwright, and has also been claimed as one of his 
 dotages. But, considering how slight its merits are, 
 the problem of its date of composition, though interest- 
 ing to the curious in style and to masters of anti- 
 quarian research, may be omitted here. No student 
 who wishes to see Jonson at his best need take the 
 pains to travel through its labyrinth of errors. Even 
 Gifford admits that ' The Tale of a Tub ' ' has no great 
 pretensions to notice,' while less indulgent critics will 
 not fail to call it an uninteresting play. All that was 
 
Old Age 189 
 
 mechanical in Jonson's plot-construction, all that was 
 awkward in his treatment of comic incident, and super- 
 ficial in his delineation of character, is exemplified in 
 this which I should still desire to regard as the latest 
 product of his enfeebled brain. 
 
 The chief event of 1632 was the representation of 
 IThe Magnetic Lady ' by the King's Men. This play 
 has a certain value in the history of Jonson's life, inas- 
 much as he declared it to be the last of his cycle of 
 comedies upon the humours. Having begun with 
 ' Every Man in his Humour ' and ' Every Man out of 
 his Humour,' he styled ' The Magnetic Lady ' by a sub- 
 title, ' The Humours Reconciled.' To note so much is 
 sufficient. No one can be now expected to take interest 
 in the plot of this spasmodically wooden comedy. It 
 exhibits, indeed, the method of the erewhile potent 
 puppet-maker, but the vein of humour is exhausted, 
 and the breath of mental life has passed from its stiff 
 personages. A certain mechanical command of theatri- 
 cal resources seems to have survived all intellectual 
 decline in Jonson's genius ; and of this faculty ' The 
 Magnetic Lady ' exhibits sufficient to make its failure 
 as a work of art well-nigh pathetic. 
 
 The destitution to which Jonson was now reduced 
 awoke the interest of many old friends, and among these 
 the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Newcastle proved him- 
 self a generous patron. We possess some letters from 
 the poet to that nobleman, one of which is touching in 
 its manly appeal for help : ' I send no borrowing epistle 
 to provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to 
 repay, nor security to engage that will be taken ; but I 
 make a most humble petition to your lordship's bounty to 
 
1 90 Ben Jonson 
 
 succour my present necessities this good time of Easter, 
 and it shall conclude all begging requests hereafter on 
 the behalf of your truest beadsman and most thankful 
 servant, B. J.' Two entertainments, in the years 1633 
 and 1634, were produced for the earl upon the occasion 
 of royal visits to Welbeck and Bolsover. It appears 
 that Charles, possibly at Lord Newcastle's request, 
 commanded the City to continue their payment of 100 
 nobles to Jonson as Chronologer in the autumn of 1634. 
 
 From this date till August 6, 1637, when Jonson 
 died, we know but little of his life and doings. A few 
 verses of occasion, including a 'New Year's Gift' to 
 King Charles upon the opening of the year 1634-5, 
 were the last fruits of his pen ; and the remaining 
 thirty-two months of his existence were probably passed 
 in the gloom of a sick bed-chamber. There is not, 
 however, any reason to suppose that he was in actual 
 need, or that the kind offices of friends were wanting. 
 The enthusiastic elegies by several authors, published 
 under the title of ' Jonsonus Yirbius,' six months after 
 his decease, prove that up to the very end he must have 
 been a living celebrity and an honoured person in his 
 generation. When I pass to consider his position of in- 
 fluence in the seventeenth century, I shall revert to these 
 encomiastic poems. The next paragraphs of this chapter 
 must be devoted to the problem of a dramatic pastoral 
 which, was found among Jonson's papers after his death. 
 
 It has been generally taken for granted that ' The 
 Sad Shepherd' was composed by Jonson in 1637 — that 
 ' is to say, a few months before his death. The assump- 
 tion rests upon a line in the prologue : — 
 
 He that hath feasted yoii these forty years : 
 
Old Age 191 
 
 which carries the author's career as playwright back to 
 its right date of 1597. Yet there are grave difficulties 
 in the way of our supposing that Jonson's ^ bed-rid 
 muse ' was capable of so vigorous an effort. This 
 pastoral, as we possess it, consists of a prologue, two 
 acts, and part of a third, together with the carefully 
 developed arguments for the first three acts, from which 
 it appears that the whole play would have been com- 
 posed of five acts. At Hawthornden he told Drummond 
 that he had ' a pastoral entitled " The May Lord,'' ' and 
 added some details regarding its personages. It is 
 tempting to conjecture that ' The May Lord ' and ' The 
 Sad Shepherd ' were one and the same play, upon the 
 alteration of which, or its completion for the stage, 
 Jonson was working when death cut short his thread. 
 Had ' The May Lord ' been finished when he went to 
 Scotland in 1618, it seems singular that he should not 
 have brought it before the public during the period of 
 his attempts to earn money late in life by play-writing. 
 Had it been destroyed together with other MSS. in the 
 burning of his library, it seems no less strange that he 
 should not have mentioned it in ' An Execration upon 
 Vulcan.' I have sometimes entertained the thought that 
 the double difficulty involved in either identifying ' The 
 Sad Shepherd ' with the completed, but now lost, ' May 
 Lord,' or in supposing ' The Sad Shepherd ' to have been 
 the product of Jonson's latest and disease-ruined old 
 age, might be explained by his habit of composing first 
 in prose. Upon this theory ' The May Lord ' would 
 have been digested throughout in prose before 1618, 
 but only versified up to the point where it now stops 
 abruptly. In 1637 the bed-ridden poet would have 
 
192 Ben Jonson 
 
 resumed his work of versification, and have begun by 
 altering a line in the prologue to suit the later date. 
 The change of title is a small matter ; and if some of 
 the names mentioned by Jonson to Drummond, as Ethra 
 and Mogibel, do not appear in ' The Sad Shepherd,' this 
 again is a trifle in comparison with the critical impos- 
 sibility of believing that a paralysed, bed-ridden poet, 
 who had been silent for two whole years, should sud- 
 denly have conceived and partly executed a masterpiece 
 worthy of his prime. The hypothesis I have advanced 
 will also serve to explain the imperfection of the piece, 
 as we possess it. Those persons into whose hands the 
 MS. fell, and who prepared it for publication, may have 
 thought it wortli while to print the versified fragment 
 so far as it went, together with the argument of the 
 first three acts, not sending the prose version of the 
 whole drama to press. This method of dealing with 
 MS. would have been natural in that age, which was 
 far less scrupulous in the discharge of literary duties 
 than ours. It might even have been justified if Jonson, 
 in his redaction of 1637, had introduced alterations of 
 names and minor details, causing the prose version 
 to disagree with the versified fragment. Of course, a 
 careful editor in our days would print bpth prose and 
 verse in exienso ; but such accuracy was by no means in 
 the manner of the Jacobean period. 
 
 Whatever opinion may be formed upon this ques- 
 tion of its . composition, all will agree that ' The Sad 
 Shepherd' illustrates Jonson's qualities at their best. 
 It is distinguished by powerful brain-work in the 
 weaving of the plot, by sharply-indented character- 
 ^elineationj^ and by learning, judiciouslyj if somewhat 
 
Old Age X93 
 
 ponderously, "applied. But there is more tlian that to 
 notrce. What Gifford styles a ' bright and sunny ray ' 
 of poetry, genuine though thin, pervades it. The choice 
 of the names ^glamour and Earine for the rustic hero 
 and heroine was happy. The latter gives a grace to 
 every verse in which we find it : — 
 
 But she, 
 As chaste as was her name, Earine, 
 Died undeflowered. 
 
 Notice, too, how it introduces harmony into the discord 
 
 of her lover's sorrow : — 
 
 Earine, 
 Who had her very being and her name 
 With the first knots or buddings of the spring, 
 Born with the primrose or the violet 
 Or earliest roses blown. 
 
 I need hardly remind my readers that, in Greek, Earine 
 means the maiden of the spring. Jonson, if I am 
 right, borrowed this name from one of Martial's epi- 
 grams. The opening lines of the pastoral, in which the 
 Sad Shepherd tracks his mistress by the flowers which 
 sprang upon her footsteps, have the same charm of 
 vernal melody : — 
 
 Here was she wont to go I and herei and here I 
 
 Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow : 
 
 The world may find the spring by following her ; 
 
 For other print her airy steps ne'er left. 
 
 Her treading would not bend a blade of grass. 
 
 Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk I 
 
 But like the soft west wind she shot along, 
 
 And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, 
 
 As she had sowed them with her amorous foot. 
 
 But with these quotations we have rifled nearly all the 
 honey of the - pastoral romance. It is to be regretted 
 
 
 
194 Ben JoNSON 
 
 that such beauties should be mingled with bad taste 
 
 and pedantry. ^glamour draws a picture of the 
 
 drowned Earine's corpse cast up by the waves, ' tainted 
 
 as themselves, all pale and bloodless.' Then he declares 
 
 that he will — 
 
 Make them mad 
 To see how I will hug it in mine arms 1 
 And hang upon her looks, dwell on her eyes, 
 Feed round about her lips, and eat her kisses. 
 Suck oft her drowned flesh I 
 
 Surely a shrimp or a lobster might express its passion 
 after this wise ! So much for the lapses into bad taste. 
 For the pedantry, we have only to listen to an old 
 shepherd of Sherwood discoursing familiarly of — ■ 
 
 What they call 
 The lovers' scriptures, Heliodores or Tatii, 
 Longi, Eustathii, Prodromi. 
 
 A couple at least of these names would puzzle an Ire- 
 land or Craven scholar. 
 
 Such blemishes might have been passed over had 
 not critics like GifFord and Hallam chosen to praise 
 * The Sad Shepherd ' for its propriety. The latter 
 prefers it to Fletcher's ' Faithful Shepherdess/ It is, 
 indeed, true that the plot is far more regular, well-knit, 
 and varied than that of Fletcher's pastoral. Terms of 
 venery and allusions to rural toils and sports are intro- 
 duced with careful realism, and it is probable that the 
 play would act wq\\, Sone of these qualifications are 
 to be found in ' The Faithful Shepherdess,' which is as 
 lamely constructed, as devoid of actual rusticity, and 
 as dreamy as can well be. Bi;it what words can be 
 found to express the superiority of Fletcher's poetry 
 
Old Age 195 
 
 or to describe tlie stupidity of the critic wlio does 
 not discern it? From beginning to end of that en- 
 chanted romance our ears are charmed with jyrical-^ 
 music of matchless facility , and our minds delighted 
 with si tuations of visionary beauty. It must be 
 conceded that Fl etche r blurred the imaginative purity 
 of his conception liy fmilfs r.f J^n^ and some ab- 
 solutely ofiensiye passages. Yet these can be de- 
 tached from a scheme so loosely put together, and the 
 sylvan poetry remains, worthy almost to be ranked 
 with the divine melodies of Tasso's ' Aminta.' Granting 
 that both Fletcher's and Jonson's pastorals will not 
 stand the test of reality, it is surely better to wander 
 with the former in the glades of Arcady than with 
 Jonson in a theatrical Sherwood Forest. 
 
 Great interest was excited by the death of Jonson i 
 Society felt that with him the last of the heroic genera- 
 tion, of those whom Dryden subsequently called ' the 
 giant race before the flood,' had passed away. Verses 
 were poured upon his grave, and a sum of money was 
 collected for the purpose of erecting to his memory a 
 stately tomb. The troubles of the rebellion intervened 
 to check this design, and Jonson's monument is the 
 plain slab in Westminster Abbey, on which Sir John 
 Young, of Great Milton, caused the words ^ rare Ben 
 Jonson ! ' to be engraved.^ From the collection of com- 
 mendatory poems compiled by Gilford and the book of 
 elegies called ' Jonsonus Virbius,' selections might be 
 made which prove beyond all doubt the high esteem of 
 his contemporaries. Poets, scholars, and men of fashion 
 
 ^ The famous * rare Ben Jonson ' is said to have been first uttered 
 after the appearance of Bartholoview Fair, ' 
 
 o 2 
 
196 Ben JoNsoN 
 
 vied in praise; nor was it merely admiration for tte 
 playwright, but love of the man too, which prompted 
 such lines as those of Shirley, Cleveland, Beaumont, 
 Fletcher, Selden, Chapman, Waller, Donne, Field, 
 Marston, Cartwright, Marmion, May, Herrick, Ford, 
 Lord Buckhurst, Falkland, and a host of lesser bards. 
 They are all set to one strain, and combine to celebrate 
 * the king of poets,' ' the English Horace,' ' immortal 
 Ben,' ' thrice honoured father,' 'best of English poets,' 
 ' him who can never be forgotten.' It was the age of 
 compliments ; but these verses bear notes of genuine 
 sympathy and real friendship, which are rare in the 
 eulogistic lucubrations of the day. The panegyrists do 
 not always hit the right mark, as when they laud Jonson's 
 ^ noble thefts, successful piracies,' hinting that the Greek 
 and Latin muses were honoured by his depredations. 
 But there are better things to be found embedded 
 in the mass of more uncritical encomiums, and of 
 these I will select a few examples. Shirley, who has 
 been unreasonably represented as a foe of Jonson, 
 writes : — 
 
 But he is dead : time, envious of that bliss 
 Which we possessed in that great brain of his, 
 By putting out this light, hath darkened all 
 The sphere of Poesy, and we let fall 
 At best unworthy elegies on his hearse. 
 
 Beaumont contrasts his studied drama with the ephe- 
 meral products of the popular stage : — 
 
 h But thou hast squared thy rules by what is good. 
 And art three ages yet from understood ; 
 And I daresay in it there lies much wit , 
 Lost till the readers can grow up to it. / / 
 
 Waller opens his memorial poem with two felicitously 
 
Old Age i97 
 
 felt but obscul'ely worded couplets on tlie nature of 
 Jonson's world-embracing comedy : — v 
 
 Mirror of poets, mirror of our age ! / 
 
 Wliich, her whole face beholdyag on thy stage, / 
 
 Pleased and displeased with her own faults, endures 
 A remedj^ like those whom music cures. 
 
 The best and ripest, however, are Herrick's verses oSa 
 the decadence of the drama : — 
 
 After the rare arch-poet Jonson died, 
 
 The sock grew loathsome, and the buskin's pride, 
 
 Together with the stage's glory, stood 
 
 Each like a poor and pitied widowhood. 
 
 The cirque profaned was ; and all postures racked : 
 
 For men did strut and stride and stare, not act. 
 
 Then temper flew from words ; and men did squeak, 
 
 Look red, and blow and bluster, but not speak. 
 
 No holy rage or frantic fires did stir. 
 
 Or flash about the spacious theatre. 
 
 No clap of hands, or shout, or praises-proof 
 
 Did crack the play-house sides or cleave her roof. 
 
 Artless the scene was ; and that monstrous sin 
 
 Of deep and arrant ignorance came in ; 
 
 Such ignorance as theirs was, who once hissed 
 
 At thy unequalled play, the Alchemist : 
 
 Oh fie upon them I Lastly too, all wit 
 
 In utter darkness did, and still will sit ; 
 
 Sleeping the luckless age out, till that she 
 
 Her resurrection has again with thee. 
 
 With these quotations I must leave a theme, the ful- 
 ness of which renders its adequate treatment in a book 
 of this dimension impossible. It remains to be observed 
 that while the other greatest poets of the age founded no 
 acknowledged school, Jonson's ^ sons ' or pupils carried 
 on the traditions of his art with considerable success. 
 Marmion, Randolph, Brome, and Curtwright were no 
 
198 BfN JONSON 
 
 inconsiderable inheritors of his dramatic style. Herrick 
 developed, with even a larger share of lyric inspiration, 
 the suggestions of his lighter muse. fFinally, those who 
 have most deeply studied Jonson am most Truly felt 
 ^ his power, will hesitate the longest before pronouncing 
 a decisive judgment on the place he occupies among 
 /the foremost poets of our literature?) fOne thing, how- 
 ever, can be considered as certain in any estimate which 
 we may form. His throne is not with the Olympians 
 / but wi^h the Titans ; not with those who share the 
 / divine gifts of creative imagination and inevitable 
 , \ instinct, but with those who compel our admiration by 
 / their untiring energy and giant strength of intellectual 
 " ^ muscle. What we most marvel at in his writings, is 
 the prodigious brain-work of the man, the stuff of 
 constant and inexhaustible cerebration they contaiu. 
 Moreover, we shall not be far wrong in saying that, of 
 all the English poets of the past, he alone, with Milton 
 and Gray, deserves the name of a great and widely 
 \ learned scholar. | 
 
 •^ 
 
INDEX. 
 
 BACON 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 148, 157 
 
 Beaumont, Francis, Jonson's 
 epistle to, 148 ; his poem on 
 the Mermaid, 151; lines on 
 Jonson's art, 196 
 
 Boswell, Alexander, 156 
 
 Camden, William, 3, 6, 43, 149 
 Coryat, Tom, 157 
 Cotton, Sir Eobert, 6 
 
 Dekkek, Thomas, satirised by 
 Jonson, 37, 39 ; helps Marston 
 to write ' Satiromastix,' 41 
 
 Donne, 148, 160 
 
 Drama in England, sketch of 
 its development before 1598, 
 9-14 
 
 Drummond, William, of Haw- 
 thornden, 158 ; Jonson's visit 
 to him, 158, 159 ; his notes 
 of Jonson's conversations, 
 157, 162, 163; his summary 
 of Jonson's character, 161, 
 162 ; extracts from the con- 
 versations, 159-161 ; refer- 
 ences to the conversations, 
 passim. 
 
 JONSON 
 
 Falkland, Lord, lines on 
 Jonson's companj^ of wits, 
 155 
 
 Ferrabosco, Alfonso, 148 
 
 Fletcher, his < Love's Pilgrim- 
 age,* 177 ; his * Faithful 
 Shepherdess,' 195 ; his lyrics, 
 142; his romantic style, 177 
 
 Fuller, quoted, 4, 151 
 
 Henslowe, manager of the 
 Fortune theatre, 15 ; his 
 diary, ib. ; satirised by Jon- 
 son, 35, 41 
 
 Herrick, lines to Jonson's 
 memory, 152 ; on the de- 
 cline of the stage, 197 
 
 Humour, the sense in which 
 this word is used by Jonson, 
 26-28 
 
 Jones, Inigo, 146 ; collaborates 
 with Jonson in the production 
 of Court masques, 125 ; his 
 hostility against Jonson, 187 
 
 Jonson, Benjamin, his birth, 1 
 probable Border ancestry, 2 
 educated at Westminster, 8 
 
200 
 
 Ben Jonson 
 
 works under his step-father, a 
 master-mason, 4; campaign 
 in Low Countries, 5 ; marries 
 about the year 1592, 5 ; 
 death and apparition of his 
 eldest son, C ; begins writing 
 for the theatre, 7 ; works for 
 Henslowe, 15 ; duel with 
 Gabriel Spencer, 17; im- 
 prisonment and conviction 
 for felony, 18-20 ; conver- 
 sion to Catholicism and re- 
 conversion, 20; comparison 
 of Jonson with Shakespeare, 
 13, ?^^,21),45, 48, 54,61, 142, 
 151; Shakespeare helps to 
 bring out * Every Man in his 
 Humour,' 24; Jonson's feel- 
 ing for Shakespeare, 25, 149, 
 . 161 ; his conception of poetry, 
 30-32 ; comparison with Dry- 
 den, 33, 34; his arrogance 
 and self-esteem, 34-37; ten- 
 dency toward personal satire, 
 16, 37, 41, 188 ; quarrels with 
 Marston and Dekker, 37-43 ; 
 their reconciliation, 43 ; Jon- 
 son's voluntary imprisonment 
 for * Eastward Ho,' 43, 44 ; 
 his residence with Lord 
 Aubigny, 44 ; Shakespeare 
 acts a part in * Sejanus,' 45 ; 
 short imprisonment at Lord 
 Northampton's instance, 45 ; 
 accession of James L, 46 ; 
 works for Sir W. Raleigh in 
 the Tower, 48 ; goes as tutor 
 to Raleigh's son to Paris 
 (1613), 48, 49 ; his disinclina- 
 tion for play-writing, 7, 143; 
 
 JONSON 
 
 his gains by the playwright's 
 craft, 7 ; James I. becomes 
 Jonson's patron, 145; Jon- 
 son's ideal of a prince, 145 ; 
 pension and laureateship, 
 146 ; Jonson's independent 
 character, 146, 147 ; his 
 intimacy with noble folk 
 and men of ability, 146- 
 148; his presidency of the 
 wits in London, 149-156; 
 taverns frequented by Jon- 
 son, 150 ; * The Mermaid,* 
 151; *The Sun,' * The Dog,' 
 * The Triple Tun,' 152 ; * The 
 Devil,' 153; * The Apollo 
 Room,' 153 ; Jonson's con- 
 vivial laws, 153; the tribe 
 of Ben and Jonson's literary 
 sons, 155, 156; comparison 
 of Ben Jonson and Samuel 
 Johnson, 156, 157 ; Jonson's 
 journey into Scotland (1618), 
 157; stays with Drummond 
 at Hawthornden, 158; con- 
 flagration of Jonson's library, 
 164; books and manuscripts 
 lost by this accident, 165- 
 167 ; admittef^ \M.A. at Ox- 
 ford (1610)1 iC7; obtains 
 reversion of the office of 
 Master of the Revels (1621), 
 167 ; paralysis, perhaps in 
 1626, 171 ; Jonson's personal 
 habits and unwieldy size, 
 172-174 ; his bad health in 
 later life, 174 ; his position 
 at Court after accession of 
 Charles I., 174 ; obtains post 
 of Chronologer to the City 
 
Index 
 
 201 
 
 JONSON 
 
 of London (1628), 175, 186, 
 190 ; quarrel with Inigo 
 Jones, 187-189 ; comparative 
 indigence of the bed-ridden 
 poet, 189, 190 ; Jonson's 
 death, 195 ; opinion of con- 
 temporaries, 195-197 
 Jonson, his writings. Additions 
 to Spanish tragedy, 15; 
 tragedy called ' Page of Ply- 
 mouth,* ib. ; * The Case is 
 Altered,' 16; * Every Man 
 in his Humour' (1598), 
 29 ; * Every Man out of 
 his Humour' (1599), 34:; 
 ♦Cynthia's Revels' (1600), 34, 
 135, 136; *The Poetaster' 
 (1601), 34, 38-41 ; translates 
 and comments on the *Ars 
 Poetica ' of Horace, 44 ; 
 *Sejanus' (1603), 45, 57; 
 begins to write masques for 
 the Court of James I., 46 ; 
 
 * Yolpone' (1605), 47, 59, 64, 
 70-87, 135 j^ ^ TJie l^ile'nt' 
 Woman' (1609), 47, 57-97, 
 134; * The Alchemist '(1610), 
 47, 97-110; *Catihne' (1611), 
 47, 57, 58 : * Bartholomew 
 Fai^'(16U;, -^ 64,111-121; 
 
 * The Devil is an Ass ' (1616), 
 47, 64, 143,^168, 169; criti- 
 cism of Jonson's dramatic 
 style, 50-69 ; his close obser- 
 vation of manners, 51 ; his 
 wide and deep erudition, 
 51-53; abstract types of 
 character, 53-56 ; laborious 
 brain- work, 58-61 ; his prose, 
 61; blank verse, ^2\ his 
 
 MARLOWE 
 
 qualities as a translator, 63, 
 133 ; analysis of the develop- 
 ment of his dramatic genius, 
 65-69 ; his masques at Court, 
 124-132 ; Jonson's lyrics, 
 133-142; epithalamia, 137; 
 elegies and epitaphs, 137-139; 
 The * Celebration of Charis,' 
 139-141 ; Jonson as a critic 
 of poetry, 159-160 ; his design 
 of writing a history of his 
 Scotch journey and a pis- 
 catory drama, 163; th' 
 * Execration upon Vulc 
 164 ; poem * To the M ory 
 of my beloved \ ^ster, 
 William Shakespeare' (1623), 
 167; *The Staple of News' 
 (1625), 167, 169-171; what 
 Dryden meant by Jonson's 
 dotages, 1 67, 168 ; * The ?^ew 
 Inn ' (1629), 175-179, 182- 
 186 ; its total failure on the 
 stage, 179-182; the * Ode to 
 Himself,' 180 ; * The Tale of 
 a Tub' (1633), 188; 'The 
 Magnetic Lady ' (1632), 189 ; 
 *The Sad Shepherd,' 190; 
 problem of the date of its 
 composition, 191, 192; the 
 quality of this pastoral, 192- 
 194 ; comparison with * The 
 Faithful Shepherdess * of 
 Fletcher, 194, 195 
 Jonsonus Virbius, Collection of 
 poems on Jonson's death, 195 
 
 Maelowe, Christopher, esta- 
 blishes- the Romantic drama 
 in England, 13 
 
202 
 
 Ben Jonson 
 
 MARMION 
 
 Marmion, Schackerley, his 
 lines on the Apollo Club, 15-1 
 
 Marston, Jonson's opinion of, in 
 later life, 160 ; satirised by 
 Jonson, 39 ; collaborates with 
 Jonson in * Eastward Ho,' 
 and dedicates * Malcontent * 
 to him, 43 
 
 Masques, definition of the 
 species, 122; when intro- 
 duced from Italy into 
 England, 123; cost of pro- 
 ducing them, 123 ; Jonson's 
 collaboration with Inigo 
 Jones, 124, 125 ; the anti- 
 masque, 125 ; historical in- 
 terest of the masques at 
 Whitehall, 130-132 
 
 Mayne, Jasper, lines on Jonson, 
 155 
 
 Newcastle, Earl of, Jonson's 
 letters to him, 189 
 
 Pembroke, Earl 
 Countess of, 137 
 
 Philostratus, how 
 Jonson, 133 
 
 of, 
 
 147; 
 used by 
 
 Raleigh, Sir W., Jonson's 
 
 opinion of, 48, 160 
 Rutland, Countess of, 147 
 
 Selden, John, 43, 148 ; his 
 account of Jonson's library, 
 164 
 
 Shakespeare, William, begins 
 
 by mending old plays, 8 ; 
 conforms to the romantic 
 style of drama, 13 ; his edu- 
 cation at Stratford compared 
 ^with that of Jonson in 
 •London, 23 ; his connection 
 with ' Every Man in hi-? 
 Humour ' and ' Sejanus,' 24, 
 45 ; his style compared with 
 Jonson's, 29, 45, 48, 54, 61, 
 142, 151 ; Jonson's feeling 
 for him, 25, 149, 160 
 
 Shirley, his possible co-opera- 
 tion in Fletcher's ' Love's 
 Pilgrimage,' 177, note ; lines 
 on Jonson's memory, 196 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, condemns 
 the romantic drama, 1 1 ; 
 eulogised by Jonson, 147 
 
 Southwell, Jonson's opinion of, 
 160 
 
 Taylor, John, the water-poet, 
 
 157 
 Theatres in London, 14, 15 ; 
 
 various dramatic companies, 
 
 22 
 
 Wadloe, Simon, 154 
 Waller, his lines on Jonson's 
 
 memory, 197 
 Wotton, Sir Edward, Jonson's 
 
 opinion of, 160 
 
 Young, Sir John, erects the 
 slab in Westminster Abbey 
 to Jonson's memory, 195 '. 
 
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