BEN JONSON: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIESGeneral Editor: B.C.Southam

The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures inliterature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer,enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writer’s work andits place within a literary tradition.

The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism tofragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary material, such asletters and diaries.

Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order todemonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writer’s death.

BEN JONSON

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Edited byD H.CRAIG

London and New York

First Published in 1990

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection ofthousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

Compilation, introduction, notes and index © 1990 D H.Craig

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form orby any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including

photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permissionin writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0-203-19451-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-19454-3 (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-13417-X (Print Edition)

General Editor’s Preface

The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near-contemporaries isevidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a greatdeal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the development of criticalattitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments in letters,journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes and literary thought of individualreaders of the period. Evidence of this kind helps us to understand the writer’s historicalsituation, the nature of his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures.

The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this earlycriticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed nineteenth-and twentieth-century writers, there exists an enormous body of material; and in thesecases the volume editors have made a selection of the most important views, significantfor their intrinsic critical worth or for their representative quality—perhaps evenregistering incomprehension!

For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer andthe historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writer’s lifetime, inorder to show the inception and growth of critical views which were initially slow toappear.

In each volume the documents are headed by an introduction, discussing the materialassembled and relating the early stages of the author’s reception to what we have come toidentify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make available much material whichwould otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern reader will bethereby helped towards an informed understanding of the ways in which literature hasbeen read and judged.

B.C.S.

Contents

PREFACE xiii

NOTE xv

ABBREVIATIONS xvi

INTRODUCTION 1

1 JOHN WEEVER, Marston and Jonson, 1599 29

2 BEN JONSON, Every Man out of his Humour, 1599 31

3 BEN JONSON, prologue to Cynthia’s Revels, 1600 37

4 JOHN WEEVER, Jonson as humorist, 1601 39

5 NICHOLAS BRETON on the satirical fashion, 1601 41

6 BEN JONSON, Poetaster, 1601 43

7 THOMAS DEKKER, Horace untrussed, 1601–2 51

8 CHARLES FITZGEFFREY on Jonson, 1601 67

9 Cambridge views on the War of the Theatres, 1601–2 69

10 HENRY CHETTLE, Jonson’s steel pen, 1603 71

11 SAMUEL DANIEL attacks the learned masque, 1604 73

12 THOMAS DEKKER on Jonson’s pedantry, 1604 75

13 JOHN MARSTON, tribute to Jonson, 1604 77

14 SIR EDWARD HERBERT on Jonson’s Horace, 1604 79

15 Jonson as laureate, 1605 81

16 On Sejanus, 1605 83

17 JOHN MARSTON glances at Sejanus, 1606 89

18 BEN JONSON on his masques, 1606 91

19 On Volpone, 1605–7 93

20 BEN JONSON, more principles for the masque, 1609 99

21 Jonson’s comedy malicious and factious, 1610 101

22 BEN JONSON, prologue to The Alchemist, 1610 103

23 On Catiline, 1611 105

24 JOHN SELDEN on Jonson’s scholarship, 1614 109

25 BEN JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, 1614 111

26 On Jonson’s epigrams, 1615 113

27 WILLIAM FENNOR on the reception of Sejanus, 1616 115

28 ROBERT ANTON, Jonson among the melancholic creators, 1616 117

29 From The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, 1616 119

30 WILLIAM DRUMMOND, Jonson’s character, 1619 123

31 INIGO JONES, attack on Jonson, 1619 or later 125

32 EDMUND BOLTON on Jonson’s language, 1621 127

33 GEORGE CHAPMAN, expostulation with Jonson, 1623 or later 129

34 BEN JONSON on The Staple of News, 1626 135

35 NICHOLAS OLDISWORTH on Jonson, 1629 137

36 Controversy over The New Inn, 1629–31 139

37 FALKLAND on Jonson as the dispenser of fame, 1631 or earlier 151

38 LEONARD DIGGES, Shakespeare’s plays more popular than Jonson’s,(?) 1632

155

39 THOMAS RANDOLPH on the power of Jonson’s verses, 1632 or later 159

40 BEN JONSON, The Magnetic Lady, 1632 161

41 ALEXANDER GILL, attack on The Magnetic Lady, 1633 165

42 JAMES HOWELL, letters to Jonson, 1632–5 167

43 SIR JOHN SUCKLING, caricature of Jonson, 1637 or earlier 169

44 BEN JONSON, prologue to The Sad Shepherd, 1637 or earlier 171

45 SIR JOHN SUCKLING, Jonson’s arrogance, 1637 173

46 JAMES SHIRLEY on Jonson and The Alchemist, between 1637 and 1640 175

47 NEWCASTLE, tribute to Jonson, 1637 or later 177

48 GEORGE STUTVILE, Jonson as tutor, 1637 or later 179

49 Tributes from Jonsonus Virbius, 1638 181

vii

50 GEORGE DANIEL, elegy on Jonson, 1638 207

51 JOHN BENSON, dedication of Jonson’s Poems, 1640 209

52 On Jonson’s translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica, 1640 211

53 JAMES SHIRLEY on Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson, 1642 215

54 WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT on Jonson’s love-scenes, 1647 217

55 ROBERT HERRICK, tributes to Jonson, 1648 219

56 EDMUND GAYTON, Jonson the scholar’s playwright, 1654 221

57 On reviving Jonson at the Restoration, 1660 223

58 SAMUEL PEPYS on performances of Epicoene and Bartholomew Fair,1661

225

59 The Play of the Puritan, 1661 227

60 MARGARET CAVENDISH on Jonson’s plays, 1662 229

61 THOMAS FULLER, portrait of Jonson, 1662 231

62 RICHARD FLECKNOE, Jonson’s part in the history of the Englishstage, 1664

233

63 SAMUEL PEPYS on performances of Epicoene and Bartholomew Fair,1664–5

235

64 SAINT-EVREMOND, Jonson central to a French view of Englishcomedy, 1666–7

237

65 SAMUEL BUTLER on Jonson and Shakespeare, 1667–9 241

66 SAMUEL PEPYS reads Every Man in his Humour, sees Epicoene, 1667 243

67 JOHN DRYDEN’S Essay, 1667 245

68 JOHN DRYDEN makes Shakespeare monarch over Fletcher and Jonson,1667

255

69 JOHN DRYDEN, Jonson’s borrowings, 1668 257

70 THOMAS SHADWELL on Jonson’s humour comedy, 1668 259

71 JOHN DRYDEN cites Jonson in the controversy over rhymed drama,1668

261

72 SAMUEL PEPYS on Bartholomew Fair, Epicoene, Catiline, and TheAlchemist, 1668–9

263

73 CLARENDON on Jonson’s talents and achievements, 1668–70 267

74 CHARLES SACKVILLE, epilogue to an Every Man in his Humour revival,1670

269

viii

75 RICHARD FLECKNOE answers Dryden on Jonson, 1670–1 271

76 JOHN DRYDEN explains his view of Jonson, 1671 273

77 THOMAS SHADWELL defends his estimate of Jonson, 1670–1 277

78 EDWARD HOWARD on Jonson, 1671 281

79 EDWARD HOWARD on Jonson’s imaginary creations, 1671 285

80 EDWARD RAVENSCROFT, Jonson the model for didactic comedy,1671

287

81 On Jonson and Shakespeare, 1672 289

82 JOHN DRYDEN on the faults of predecessors like Jonson, 1672 291

83 APHRA BEHN on Shakespeare and Jonson, 1673 297

84 EDWARD HOWARD, Jonson unparalleled among ancient or modernauthors, 1673

299

85 EDWARD PHILLIPS on Jonson’s achievements, 1675 301

86 JOHN DRYDEN, Jonson distinguished from Shadwell, 1676 303

87 JOHN OLDHAM on Jonson, 1678 305

88 JOHN DRYDEN, low farce in Volpone, 1683 315

89 EDWARD HOWARD on Jonson’s allegory and on a statue of Jonson,1689

317

90 GERALD LANGBAINE, notes on Jonson, 1691 319

91 THOMAS RYMER on Catiline, 1692 325

92 NAHUM TATE, farce in Jonson, 1693 329

93 JOHN DRYDEN, Jonson and Fletcher matched at last, 1694 331

94 BEAT LOUIS de MURALT on Jonson and Molière, 1694 333

95 WILLIAM WOTTON on Jonson’s Grammar, 1694, 1697 335

96 JOHN DENNIS and WILLIAM CONGREVE on Jonson’s comedy,1695

337

97 JEREMY COLLIER on Jonson as a model playwright, 1698 343

98 WILLIAM CONGREVE and JEREMY COLLIER on profanity inBartholomew Fair, 1698

347

99 WILLIAM BURNABY, Jonson a model for the comedy of charactersand action, 1701

349

100 JOHN DENNIS on Jonson’s comedy, 1702 351

101 Jonson discussed in a critical dialogue on the theatre, 1702 353

ix

102 Jonson returns from the shades to castigate Thomas Baker, 1704 355

103 SAMUEL COBB, Jonson’s notable thefts and successful piracies, 1707 357

104 RICHARD STEELE on Jonson, 1709 359

105 NICHOLAS ROWE, Jonson’s evil eye on Shakespeare, 1709 361

106 CHARLES GILDON on Jonson, 1710 363

107 RICHARD STEELE on Jonson’s plays as description and instruction,1712

365

108 JOHN DENNIS, Jonson no guide to Shakespeare for tragedy, 1712 367

109 LEWIS THEOBALD as ‘Benjamin Johnson’, 1715 369

110 JOHN DENNIS on suggestibility in The Alchemist, 1718 371

111 JOHN DENNIS, Jonson invoked against Steele, 1720 373

112 CHARLES GILDON, Jonson the master of comedy, 1721 375

113 JOHN DENNIS, Jonson the authority for the comedy of ridicule, 1722 377

114 ALEXANDER POPE on the relations between Shakespeare and Jonson,1725

379

115 ALEXANDER POPE, observations on Jonson, (?) 1728, 1733 or 1734 381

116 Shakespeare and the actors defended against Pope and Jonson, 1729 383

117 WILLIAM LEVIN, Shakespeare and Jonson a lesson to their successors,1731

385

118 Jonson’s comedy obsolete, 1732 387

119 A proper reaction to Volpone, 1733 389

120 WILLIAM WARBURTON and LEWIS THEOBALD On Jonson, 1734 393

121 ALEXANDER POPE on Jonson’s inflated popular reputation, 1737 395

122 ALGERNON SIDNEY on Catiline, 1739 397

123 HENRY FIELDING on Jonson, 1740, 1742 401

124 CORBYN MORRIS, humours in Shakespeare and Jonson, 1744 405

125 DAVID GARRICK, the acting of Drugger and Macbeth, 1744 409

126 SARAH FIELDING, David Simple hears a critic on Shakespeare andJonson, 1744

411

127 WILLIAM GUTHRIE, Jonson the Poussin of drama, 1747 413

128 Unsigned review of La Place’s Catiline, 1747 415

129 SAMUEL JOHNSON, Shakespeare and Jonson, 1747 419

x

130 CHARLES MACKLIN, a forged pamphlet on Jonson, 1748 421

131 EDMUND BURKE, Jonson and true comedy, 1748 425

132 JOHN UPTON on Jonson, 1749 427

133 RICHARD HURD, on Catiline and on Shakespeare versus Jonson, 1749 431

134 THOMAS SEWARD on Jonson, Shakespeare, and Beaumont andFletcher, 1750

433

135 WILLIAM GUTHRIE, Jonson and human nature, 1750 435

136 Garrick’s Every Man in his Humour revival, 1751 437

137 FRANCIS GENTLEMAN, Sejanus, 1751 441

138 BONNELL THORNTON, review of Epicoene, 1752 443

139 THEOPHILUS CIBBER and ROBERT SHIELLS, summary criticism ofJonson, 1753

445

140 RICHARD HURD, Every Man out of his Humour, The Alchemist, Volpone,1753–7

447

141 ARTHUR MURPHY, essays in The Gray’s Inn Journal, 1754–86 451

142 DAVID HUME, Jonson’s rude art, 1754 453

143 SARAH FIELDING and JANE COLLIER, Jonson’s envy of Shakespeare, 1754

455

144 PETER WHALLEY’S edition of Jonson, 1756 459

145 RICHARD HURD, Jonson’s imitations, 1757 473

146 ARTHUR MURPHY, articles in The London Chronicle, 1757 477

147 THOMAS WILKES on Jonson and on Jonson actors of the day, 1759 481

148 EDWARD YOUNG, Jonson and the load of learning, 1759 483

149 CHARLES CHURCHILL, Jonson’s judgement, 1761 485

150 Garrick as Abel Drugger, 1762 487

151 HORACE WALPOLE on Jonson, 1762–76 489

152 SAMUEL ROGERS, Shakespeare and Jonson, 1763 491

153 DAVID ERSKINE BAKER On Jonson, 1764 493

154 HEINRICH WILHELM von GERSTENBERG on Jonson, 1765 497

155 JOHN BROWN, Bartholomew Fair revised, 1765 499

156 EDWARD CAPELL, Jonson’s borrowings, 1766 501

157 Jonson strong without passion, 1767 505

xi

158 JAMES BEATTIE, Jonson’s misuse of learning, 1769 507

159 ELIZABETH MONTAGUE, Jonson and Shakespeare, 1769, 1770 509

160 FRANCIS GENTLEMAN, Jonson a bad writer, 1770 511

161 CHARLES JENNER, Sir Charles Beville at The Alchemist, 1770 513

162 FRANCIS GENTLEMAN’S The Tobacconist, 1770–1 517

163 GEORGE COLMAN’S revival of Volpone, 1771 521

164 Doubts on Jonson and the old dramatists, 1772 525

165 Shakespeare and Jonson compared, 1772 529

166 GEORGE STEEVENS on Jonson, 1773–8 531

167 LORD CAMDEN, on reading Jonson, 1774 533

168 FRANCIS GENTLEMAN, notes on Jonson’s ode to Shakespeare, 1774 535

169 DAVID GARRICK on confidence tricks in The Alchemist, 1774 537

170 GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG, Garrick’s Abel Drugger, 1775 539

171 GEORGE COLMAN’S Epicoene, 1776 541

172 Kitely preferred to Ford, 1778 547

173 THOMAS DAVIES on Jonson revivals, 1780 549

174 B.WALWYN, Falstaff and Bobadil, 1782 551

175 COLMAN’S Volpone revived, 1783 555

176 THOMAS DAVIES, observations on Jonson, 1783–4 559

177 GEORGE COLMAN, Jonson’s intentions in The Sad Shepherd, 1784 567

178 RICHARD CUMBERLAND on Jonson, 1786–8 569

179 HENRY SAMPSON WOODFALL, JUN., Jonson’s vain contentionwith Shakespeare, 1788

575

180 PHILIP NEVE on Jonson, 1789 577

181 LUDWIG TIECK on Shakespeare and Jonson, 1794 579

182 NATHAN DRAKE, Jonson’s inferior genius, 1798 583

BIBLIOGRAPHY 585

INDEX 599

xii

Preface

This collection aims to include the most significant critical responses to Jonson that havesurvived from his own time and from the period up to 1800. In choosing what to reprintfrom the vast amount of material available I have concentrated on passages that pursue aline of argument or express a particular enthusiasm or dislike, and have generally passedover those that merely sum up the poet’s current reputation. Discussions of Jonson whichwere clearer when given with their context seemed especially appropriate; others, whichwere obviously important, yet could be adequately quoted in a phrase or a sentence,appear in the Introduction. The selections are more generous in the earlier periods, fromwhich I have reprinted some fragmentary materials and some not unequivocally referringto Jonson. However, I have omitted items, like elements of some of the plays in thePoetomachia of early in the seventeenth century, which show Jonson’s influence ratherthan give a critical perspective on his work; and I have drawn the line at documents whichretail literary gossip apparently at second hand, and in no coherent form, such as thereferences to Jonson in Hemminge’s poem from the early 1630s (see William Hemminge’sElegy on Randolph’s Finger, ed. G.C.Moore-Smith (Stratford 1923), pp. 12, 17–18).

I have made constant use of the edition of Jonson’s works by C.H.Herford and P. andE.Simpson, Ben Jonson (1925–52). Their collections of responses to Jonson’s work onstage in volume ix, and of documents comprising his ‘Literary Record’ in volume xi, havemade the work for this collection much easier. The seventeenth-century allusionsto Jonson printed in J.F.Bradley and J.Q.Adams (eds), The Jonson Allusion-Book (1922),and in volume ii of G.E.Bentley, Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the SeventeenthCentury Compared (1945) have also simplified the task greatly.

I am grateful to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, for permission topublish No. 26 from Canterbury Cathedral Literary Manuscript DIO; to the BodleianLibrary, for permission to publish Nos 33, 36(g), 41, and 48 from MS Ashmole 38, No.35 from MS Don. C. 24, and No. 73 from MS Clarendon 123; to the British Library, forpermission to publish No. 31 from Harley MS 6057, Nos 36(f) and 37 from Harley MS4955, and No. 50 from Additional MS 19255; to the Public Record Office, for permissionto publish No. 36(e) from the Domestic State Papers, Charles I clv, no. 79, 1629; to theOxford University Press, for permission to publish No. 30 from Ben Jonson, ed.C.H.Herford and P. and E. Simpson (1925–52), 11 vols, No. 43 from The Works of SirJohn Suckling: The Plays, ed. L.A.Beaurline (1971), No. 65 from Samuel Butler, ProseObservations, ed. Hugh de Quehen (1979), No. 115 from Joseph Spence, Observations,Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men: Collected from Conversation, ed. James M.Osborn

(1966), 2 vols, and No. 170 from Lichtenberg’s Visits to England, trans. Margaret L.Mareand W.H.Quarrell (1938); to the Harvard University Press for permission to publish No.169 from The Letters of David Garrick, ed. David M. Little, George M.Kahrl, and Phoebe deK.Wilson (1963), 3 vols, and to Unwin Hyman Limited, for permission to publish Nos58, 63, 66, and 72 from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and WilliamMatthews (1970–83), 11 vols.

Translations from Latin and Greek were generously supplied by my colleagues DrRhona Beare, Dr Bernie Curran, Associate Professor Michael Ewans, and ProfessorGodfrey Tanner; I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Dr Curran. I am indebted for mostuseful correspondence to Dr Nicole Bonvalet-Mallet, of the University of Alberta, to MrsE.M.Coleman of the Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and to Dr Bryan Ward-Perkins of the Library at Holkham Hall, Norfolk. Professor Ian Donaldson shared generouslyhis expert knowledge of Jonson’s older critics; Professor Anne Barton offered manyuseful leads, and Dr G.W. Nicholls allowed me to consult his thesis on ‘Aspects of StageProductions of Ben Jonson, 1660–76’ (St David’s College, Lampeter 1972). DrC.S.Chubb kindly undertook a number of researches for me in the British Library.

An Outside Studies Programme from the University of Newcastle, a grant from theAustralian Research Grants Scheme, and a period at the Humanities Research Centre atAustralian National University gave the time and the opportunities for travel needed forthe project. In my own department, Professor D.L.Frost first asked me to collaborate onwork on this volume, then when other matters demanded his time invited me to take itover altogether. As heads of department in the life of the project, both he and ProfessorJ.F.Burrows gave me every material support possible. Our secretary, Mrs P.M.Hill, hasgiven invaluable assistance throughout.

I owe a particular debt to my parents for their acute and patient suggestions forimprovements in the work in its final stages. My wife, my daughter, and latterly myyounger son, have allowed me to be absent in the near and far places where the work wasdone.

I am deeply grateful to all these individuals and institutions for their help with thisbook; I remain responsible for its errors and shortcomings.

Three recent books, each with a great deal to say about topics central to this volume,and especially about Jonson’s campaign of self-promotion, his public career, and hisrelationship with Shakespeare, reached me after the submission of my manuscript and thustoo late to take account of here: Timothy Murray’s Theatrical Legitimation: Allegories ofGenius in Seventeenth-Century England and France (New York and Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress 1987), Russ McDonald’s Shakespeare and Jonson/Jonson and Shakespeare, and GeorgeE.Rowe’s Distinguishing Jonson: Imitation, Rivalry, and the Direction of a Dramatic Career (bothpublished by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 1988). Together theysuggest that a reconsideration of Jonson’s achievement through a study of his earlyreception is already well under way.

xiv

Note

The texts of the documents are from the first printed edition, and the place of publicationis London, unless otherwise stated. The use of ‘u’ and ‘v’ has been regularizedthroughout, as has that of ‘i’ and ‘j’, with the exception of proper names in a Latincontext. Contractions apart from ampersands have generally been expanded, and dieresesomitted. Otherwise spelling and punctuation is uncorrected.

Quotations from Jonson have been identified; for this purpose I have used for the plays,the prose, and the masques Ben Jonson, ed. C.H.Herford and P. and E.Simpson, (Oxford1925–52), 11 vols, and for the poems, the edition by Ian Donaldson, Poems (Oxford1975). References to Shakespeare are to The Tudor Shakespeare, ed. P.Alexander (1951).References to the works of other authors are to Oxford Standard Authors editions, unlessotherwise stated. Translations from classical authors are (where possible) from Loebeditions, sometimes amended slightly.

Details of performances between 1660 and 1800 are from The London Stage 1660–1800, ed. William van Lennep, Emmett L. Avery, Arthur H.Scouten, George WinchesterStone, Jr, and Charles Beecher Hogan (Carbondale, Ill. 1965–8), 5 Parts in 11 vols.Biographical details are mostly from The Dictionary of National Biography (1908–9), 22vols.

Longer omissions in the texts of the documents are indicated by three asterisks. Footnotesin the original text, where included, are indicated by an asterisk, a dagger, and so on. Thenumbered footnotes are the editor’s.

Abbreviations

JONSON’S WORKS

Alch. The AlchemistBF Bartholomew FairCat. CatilineConv. Dr. Conversations with William Drummond of HawthorndenD. is A. The Devil is an AssDisc. Timber, or DiscoveriesEMI Every Man in his Humour (1616 version)EMO Every Man out of his HumourEpig. EpigramsHym. HymenaeiPoet. PoetasterQueens The Masque of QueensS. of N. The Staple of NewsSongs Songs and Poems from the Plays and Masques (in Jonson, Poems, ed. Ian

Donaldson (Oxford 1975))SW Epicoene, or The Silent WomanUnd. The UnderwoodU.V. Ungathered VerseVolp. Volpone

OTHER WORKS

H & S Ben Jonson, ed. C.H.Herford and P. and E. Simpson (Oxford 1925–52),11 vols.

LS The London Stage 1660–1800, ed. William van Lennep, EmmettL.Avery, Arthur H. Scouten, George Winchester Stone, Jr, andCharles Beecher Hogan (Carbondale, Ill. 1965–8), 5 Parts in 11 vols.

OED The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford 1933), 12 vols.

Introduction

I

Jonson’s rise to the heights of literary reputation in his own time was extraordinary, andso was his fall from grace a century later. He set out to establish for the first time inEngland a literary canon, and to install himself at its centre. The system was to be basedon the principles of scholarly industry, careful construction, observance of the rules, andthe imitation of the ancients. By extraordinary efforts of self-promotion, as well as by aseries of innovative and carefully finished works, he succeeded, and by the middle of hiscareer his authority in literary matters was widely recognized. At his death in 1637 he wascelebrated as the founder and chief representative of an English literary culture fit to rivalthat of the ancients.

Remarkably, something like this authority was maintained through the seventeenthcentury; but in the eighteenth century his works were dislodged from their position at thecentre of the canon to become a cautionary tale, a striking illustration of a misjudgedapproach to creative effort. The causes of this dramatic change lie partly in shifts in values.Jonson had identified himself so firmly with the neo-classic principles of labour andcritical judgement that when those principles lost favour, he was left stranded on the highground he had himself chosen. But complicating the story was the fact of Shakespeare.However successful in persuading others of the overwhelming importance of his ownwork and his own artistic principles, Jonson was himself acutely aware of Shakespeare as agreat rival and as a powerful instance of a different set of artistic principles from his own.As Jonson’s domination over the official literary scene lessened after his death,Shakespeare (who had died in 1616) emerged, first as the natural opposite to Jonson inapproaches to composition, his native wit contrasted with Jonson’s learning, his casualinspiration compared with Jonson’s art of calculation and exactness. Then in theeighteenth century an increasing sympathy for that native wit and inspiration, coupledwith the movement to elevate Shakespeare, pushed Jonson into an irretrievable inferiority.To lower Jonson was to raise Shakespeare; armed with the evidence (and with variouslegends) of Jonson’s enmity towards Shakespeare, Jonson’s attackers fixed an image ofJonson’s character as malignantly envious, and denounced his works as laboured and dull.Jonson’s supporters early in the next century rescued his character from the moreextreme fictions, but were hardly able to revive interest in his works. In the nineteenthcentury reviewers mostly contented themselves with assuring readers that there really

was little reason to labour through Jonson’s works, except to discover the occasionalcharming lyric.

A great deal has been done since then to restore Jonson’s reputation, though beyondthe world of the specialist he is hardly less in Shakespeare’s shadow today than he was inthe nineteenth century. This fact gives the present collection of documents a specialinterest, aside from the insights the early critics have to offer on Jonson’s work. Themodern reader cannot help seeing all the writers of the English literary Renaissance froma Shakespearean perspective. Shakespeare’s works, and the principles we see as informingthose works, dominate our view of the period. But the perspective of the documentspreserved from Jonson’s own century, in particular, is quite different. They allow us tosee Jonson as the sun of a Jonsonian literary universe, as he was for his contemporaries andfor his immediate posterity; and the documents from the next century allow us to seehim, as he was viewed then, as the chief obstacle in the struggle to elevate Shakespeare asthe national poet, and thus to fashion the Shakespearean universe we all now inhabit.

II

The record of Jonson’s reception before 1600 presents no clear pattern. Francis Mereslists him among England’s leading trage-dians, though no Jonson tragedies from thisperiod survive.1 Another source (No. 1, below) also praises his tragedies, but gives toJohn Marston the title of the English Horace that Jonson later claimed for himself. OnJonsonian comedy, there is only Thomas Nashe’s passing reference to the ‘witty’ play TheCase is Altered.2 Early in the next century, however, Jonson attained a definite celebrity,and the evidence of his reception takes on a distinct pattern. Every Man in his Humour(acted 1598) and the ‘Comicall Satyre’ Every Man out of his Humour (acted 1599) arousedcontroversy. The latter play in particular was seen as part of the current wave of satiricalwritings, and attacked as excessive, vicious, and disruptive.3 Nicholas Breton in No. 5, forinstance, depicts Jonson as pursuing an impossible, arrogant quest for reform in the plays.Most importantly, from Jonson’s point of view, they were noticed as strikingly new. Hehad by this time gained a reputation as a creator of characters, but his plays were also seenas entering into a dangerously direct relationship to real life. He was accused of putting‘humours’ from real life onto the stage, and of satirizing his contemporaries in hischaracters. This last charge had brought him to the attention of the authorities as early as1597, when he was investigated by the Privy Council for his part in the play The Isle ofDogs.4 Jonson’s answer, made in the prologue to Every Man out of his Humour, and in the‘apologeticall Dialogue’ given at the end of Poetaster (No. 6(c)), was to deny that therewas any personal satire in his plays, quoting the classical formula that true comedy attacksvices but spares individuals.

The response to the humours comedies was soon caught up in what Dekker called the‘Poetomachia’ —the wider quarrel between Jonson on one side and Marston and Dekkeron the other which was acted out in a number of satirical plays in the early years of thecentury.5 In the Conversations reported by Drummond, Jonson says his disagreement withMarston had begun when Marston ‘represented him in the stage’.6 In the ‘apologeticallDialogue’ of 1601 Jonson says the attacks on him have been continuing for three years,which gives some reason for thinking that the earliest suggested Marston caricature ofJonson, Chrisoganus in Histrio-Mastix (1599), is the one Jonson is referring to. Against this

2 BEN JONSON

chronology for the quarrel is Dekker’s reference in the ‘Address to the World’ prefixedto Satiromastix (No. 7(a), 1601–2) to the quarrels having begun ‘recently’.

The Poetomachia is represented in this collection by Satiromastix and by Jonson’s ownPoetaster, they offer the clearest perspectives on the dispute about Jonson’s literary claims.The other plays of this time which have been identified as including attacks on Jonson aremore ambiguous. Chrisoganus in Histrio-Mastix, for instance, is clearly an admirablefigure, and a reference to ‘Ramnusias whippe’ connects him to W.Kinsayder, Marston’sown railing satirist figure, who appears at the beginning of The Scourge of Villainie bearingthe same device.7 Like Lampatho Doria in Marston’s What You Will (1601) —Lampatho isactually called a ‘don Kinsayder’– Chrisoganus is better seen as a variant on the scholar-hero(named variously Asper, Crites, Macilente, and Horace) who was Jonson’s contributionto the composite figure of the contemporary satirist. The explicitly satirized BrabantSignior of Marston’s Jacke Drums Entertainment (1600), on the other hand, is a characterwho cannot be exclusively a caricature of Jonson-he is wealthy bourgeois with no literaryaspirations—though the fact that he is a collector of acquaintances with humours, and anarrogant detractor of contemporary poets, suggests he may reflect something of thecontemporary response to Jonson.

In Poetaster Jonson presents himself as the Roman poet Horace, and has Virgil defendHorace-Jonson by declaring that, for all his carping critics, he will never really sufferdebasement because he possesses ‘a true, and perfect merit’. This quality is an idealproperty of the spirit rather than one measured by literary achievement. It is a talismanfor an exclusive group of poets against their critics and it creates a charmed circle aroundthem. In the play the Emperor Augustus, who had asked Horace and others to give theirjudgements on Virgil, sets his seal on the circle by acknowledging that in recognizingVirgil’s merit they have proved their own (5.1.139–41). Jonson’s implication is that hehas discovered the true literary values, and by that discovery has attained ‘a true, andperfect merit’, has qualified himself as a classic artist and even as a literary dictator. It is asif authority has been created not by artistic achievement but by judgement, enacted incritical pronouncements and in plays like Poetaster. There was a circular argument at theheart of the theory: the merit of the classic poet cannot be challenged because goodjudgement consists precisely in recognizing that same merit.8 This circularity is clearest inPoetaster and in other statements from Jonson’s early career, since they came at a timewhen his achievements—the early comedies and tragedies, the humours plays, Cynthia’sRevels, and Poetaster itself—could scarcely form the basis for his authority.

Thomas Dekker presents his own version of Horace-Jonson in his play Satiromastix (No.7, acted 1601). He is not the noble-minded injured poet of Poetaster but a spiteful satiristwho lashes out at friends and patrons as well as at foes. He claims his motive is the love ofvirtue but really he is driven by pride and scorn. The argument that Horace-Jonson’scritics are only blind or envious is specifically answered: they are angry not for thesereasons but because they will not accept being pilloried in his writings when they see he ismade of the same clay as themselves, and when they know the source of the learning heparades to disguise his sordid materials. What right, anyway, does he have to call himselfHorace? The name is usurped: Jonson is a counterfeit, a ‘selfe-creating Horace’. Like one ofJonson’s own characters presented with a confidence trick, Dekker declares that he willnot be gulled by Jonson’s self-serving theory of the classic poet.

Satiromastix was aimed at dismantling the theory that Jonson was erecting aroundhimself; to Dekker it seemed that it was nothing more than shameless self-promotion. YetSatiromastix is itself a tribute to Jonson’s success, in that it registers discomfort at the

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arrival of a new phenomenon; and Jonson himself had answers for its objections, which hehad already given in Poetaster. To the accusation that he was commending himself, therewas his merit; to the accusation that he used translated material in his plays, there was theancient tradition that translating was as meritorious as writing afresh; and to theaccusation that his denunciations were too harsh, there was the retort that asperity is to beexpected in a satirist.

In the context of an English stage generally perceived as unworthy of serious attention,fed by makeshift, sensational, or merely trifling plays, the figure of the classic poet thatJonson constructed for himself could be seen as innovator and as reformer. His rigorouslyconstructed plays, his well-differentiated characters, the dense and carefully weighedlanguage he gave them, all supported the idea that his was a learned drama which wouldbring some standards at last to the theatre of his day. He constructed a theory in theprefaces, prologues, and epilogues which accompanied the plays, and within the plays inchoruses and in his poet-characters, that put his own style of composition at the centre ofthe literary system. The prologue to Cynthia’s Revels (No. 3) contains the chief elements ofhis campaign: Jonson the self-styled classic poet appeals to the judgement of the fewrather than to the applause of the multitude; he underlines his claims to originality; and heinvokes the neo-classical slogans of ‘words above action’, ‘matter above words’.

In the rest of the first decade of the seventeenth century, Jonson’s terminology andJonson’s estimate of himself came to be widely accepted. In the poems commendingVolpone appended to the published version of the play his supporters make the widest ofclaims for his achievements. Edmund Bolton puts them in a European perspective,imagining that those who do not know English grieve because they cannot read Jonson(No. 19(c)). John Donne takes up the paradox of Jonson as a living classic, declaring thatJonson’s works are born ancient (No. 19(d)).

A change appears about this time in Jonson’s presentation of himself as a classic artist.In the early part of his career, when he was establishing himself as a writer of humourscomedies and as the English Horace, his emphasis is positive, stressing the reforming andinnovative aspects of his drama. In 1605, in his Volpone prologue (No. 19(a)), Jonsondefines his allegiance to classicism negatively, as an act of opposition to contemporarypopular culture. Jonson takes pride in refusing to give the audience the vulgarentertainment it wants; its distaste for his offerings is itself a guarantee of quality. Thefailure of Sejanus on stage in 1605 was the key event in this development: it came to be asignal instance of the poor discrimination of the popular audience and a trigger forindignation at the rejection of a great poet. Chapman’s poem on Sejanus (No. 16(b))makes Jonson a brave adventurer on the stormy sea of the multitude; Edmund Bolton (No.16(f)) angrily denies that there is any significance in the audience’s rejection of the play.Jonson was becoming celebrated for his theatrical failures: in 1611 Catiline also suffered atthe hands of the audience; Francis Beaumont, acknowledging the fact, suggested posterityas the play’s proper audience (No. 23 (c)). John Webster, in his preface to The White Devil—without mentioning Sejanus or Catiline—adopts Jonson’s terms for the classical play indefending his own decision not to make his play on the Jonsonian model. He cites as awell-known truth the incapacity of the multitude to appreciate plays of this kind.9

By about 1609, however, Jonson had achieved a fame beyond the noisy world of thestage. Loyal patrons among the nobility and well-paid employment as masque-writer tothe court gave him a measure of independence from the public theatre. Jonson wasinterested in the tradition of the poet laureate, as John Selden noted (No. 24, headnote);he was called by the title as early as 1605 (No. 15), though the office of laureate was

4 BEN JONSON

created after his time.10 From 1612 the record is of a steady stream of writersacknowledging Jonson’s canonical status, talking confidently already of an appreciativeposterity. ‘Ages shall pay’ their tribute of praise, George Lucy says in 1612, ‘yet still mustowe’. For Robert Burton in a note to the 1624 Anatomy of Melancholy Jonson is the ‘Arch-Poet’.11 Hostile critics in this period were pretty well silenced, though there wereprotests from the enemies Jonson had made, like Inigo Jones, whose poem on Jonson from1619 (No. 31) expresses a strong distaste for Jonson’s public personality.

In 1629 Jonson’s romantic comedy The New Inn failed on stage; Jonson circulated an ‘Odeto Himself’ (No. 36(b)) declaring angrily that the play was simply too good for itsaudience. The ‘Ode’ caused a controversy as heated as the one over Poetaster. If in themiddle period (from 1604 to the end of the 1620s) a consensus acknowledged Jonson asthe academic pillar of the English state—too pedantic for some tastes, but with theachievement hardly ever questioned—the period from 1629 to Jonson’s death was one ofa strong divergence of opinion. For his defenders, the New Inn débâcle and Jonson’s angrydefence of the play in his ‘Ode to Himself’ changed nothing: Jonson was a monument, acolossus, and already immortal (No. 35, from 1629, even urges him to die to perfect hisachievement). For his supporters he was, in James Shirley’s words, ‘our acknowledg’dMaster’.12

But the intemperate tone of Jonson’s ‘Ode’ brought his opponents out into the open, orat least into the historical record. They attacked Jonson’s presumption that his worksmust all bear equally the stamp of greatness. And once the merit of one of the works ofthe classic poet was called into question, his defence against the charge of boastfulness wasweakened. In the 1630s, as at the beginning of the century, there were those who wereprepared to say that the emperor had no clothes. For Owen Felltham in No. 36(d) Jonsonis simply ridiculous as a self-praiser; to Felltham it is not so obvious that The New Inn isbetter than the Pericles Jonson had so angrily dismissed in his ‘Ode’. Some of Jonson’scritics, like the anonymous author of No. 36(g), were even prepared to doubt Jonson’sjudgement. Sir John Suckling declares that he cannot see Jonson’s vaunted merit—hefinds him obscure, his artistic choices arbitrary—and it follows that Jonson’s self-promotion must be only presumption (No. 43).

Suckling was an admirer of Shakespeare as well as a sceptic about the merits of Jonson,but he does not (as it happens) put the two authors together in a comparison. Butelsewhere Jonson and Shakespeare begin to appear together, by themselves or in a shortlist of other dramatists, in the 1630s. In these lists, as G.E.Bentley points out, Jonson isoften distinguished for his classical virtues— learning, accuracy—but there is no ‘clearconsensus’, in Bentley’s phrase, in the reasons for Shakespeare being singled out.13 Itseems, then, that it was not common in Jonson’s lifetime to contrast him systematicallywith Shakespeare.

However, there were some pioneers. Milton’s reference in ‘On Shakespeare. 1630’ tothe ‘slow-endeavoring art’ shamed by Shakespeare’s ‘easy numbers’ may allude to Jonson.Certainly in ‘L’Allegro’ (1632) Milton is among the earliest to pair the two playwrights asthe representatives of art and nature (‘If Jonson’s learned sock be on, /Or sweetestShakespeare, Fancy’s child/ Warble his woodnotes wild’). Leonard Digges’s poem onShakespeare’s popularity in the theatre as against the lean pickings from Jonsonperformances (No. 38) seems to have been written for the 1632 Shakespeare Folio; if so,Digges is the first committed partisan we know of for Shakespeare against Jonson.

The reaction immediately after Jonson’s death in 1637 was to reaffirm the literaryauthority which had been questioned in the years after 1629. To Henry Coventry, one of

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the elegists in the volume of verses marking Jonson’s death, Father Ben’s opponents werenothing less than ‘Parricides in verse’. The volume appeared in 1638, with the title JonsonusVirbius (the reference is to Diana’s follower Hippolytus, renamed Virbius after he wasrevived by Aesculapius). No English writer since Sidney had been honoured in this way; tomark Shakespeare’s death in 1616 there had been, so far as we know, only the elegy byWilliam Basse.14 It is in reading Jonsonus Virbius that the difference between aShakespearean and a Jonsonian universe is clearest: indeed, to the modern reader, thechief reward offered by this undistinguished collection of hyper bole and stock metaphoris the revelation of something like an alternative literary history, an English literaryRenaissance without Shakespeare. According to the elegists, it is Jonson who has broughtEnglish culture, and the English language, from obscurity and crudity to one that canmatch the culture of the ancients. They are divided as to whether the death of Jonsonmeans the death of poetry, or will allow the survival of a literature living off his legacy, butthey are unanimous in allowing him no rivals at the pinnacle of achievement in Englishliterature.

Even allowing for the exaggeration inseparable from tributes of this kind, the collectionindicates a strikingly unfamiliar perspective on the literary achievements of the period.Jonson is praised in the very terms we are used to hearing applied to Shakespeare’s worksand influence. Edmund Waller, for instance, pictures Jonson as an elusive, proteanwriter, disappearing from view as he creates different characters and in different genres(No. 49(f)). Richard West says in his elegy that in the future foreigners will throng toEngland to hear the English speak the tongue of Jonson (No. 49(1)). To these readers, theghost of Sylla from Catiline and Carlo Buffone from Every Man out of his Humour areapparently as familiar as Hamlet and Falstaff are to later generations. When Shakespeareappears here, it is often to be disparaged: one of the elegists wonders scornfully ifJonson’s critics will list among his faults his command of Latin, which ‘your Shakespeare’could scarcely understand (No. 49(n)). Shakespeare and Beaumont may be entertaining,but it is Jonson who is worthy of study (No. 49(1)). Jonsonus Virbius is a signalconfirmation of Jonson’s lifelong campaign on his own behalf. He had constructed thePantheon the elegies describe, and had (against some strenuous opposition) put his ownbust in the central niche; he had created a canon and simultaneously canonized his ownwork, to become a classic in his own lifetime.

III

Jonson criticism in the period from his death to the end of the seventeenth century isdominated by John Dryden. Dryden’s interest in Jonson was close and lifelong: his firstreference to Jonson is in the prologue to The Wild Gallant of 1663, and his last in theprologue to Fables Ancient and Modern, which appeared in 1700, the year of his death. Hewrote the most important critical treatment of Jonson in the period—Jonson is theEnglish dramatist singled out for extended analysis in his Essay of Dramatique Poesie of 1667—and the frequency of Dryden’s references suggest that Jonson was never far from hismind. Dryden was the leader in a debate on the merits of Jonson which continued into the1690s. When others in the period wrote on Jonson it was very often to answer Dryden’scriticisms: Shadwell is the obvious example, but the same is true of Richard Flecknoe,Edward Howard, and Gerald Langbaine. Dryden’s response to Jonson was complicated,and it varied according to the issue at hand: his great predecessor was at times an obstacle,

6 BEN JONSON

at others a useful ally. In defending English drama against the French, for instance,Jonson’s prestige was an asset; in making room for the drama of his own day, however,Dryden was impelled to qualify his praise for Jonson and for the other dramatists of theera before the Civil War in a way that seemed to Jonson’s supporters to be heresy.

Jonson’s achievement had been to establish an organized and official set of valuesamong the privileged opinion-makers of English culture. After his death that set of values—together with the doctrine of Jonson as a classic poet—remained largely coherent andavailable to those who wished to berate the fripperies and follies of the contemporarystage. In the hands of someone like Jeremy Collier right at the end of the century (No.97) it was a standard to flourish against the absurdities and immorality even of thelegitimate theatre of the day. For the Jonson supporters, the group Aphra Behn in No. 83labels a ‘sect’, Jonson’s prestige was intact with no qualification and no limitation: in JohnOldham’s eulogy (No. 87) his achievement is still vast beyond comprehension, stillunquestionably a classic for all time.

In the period immediately following his death in 1637, Jonson most often appears as avisitor from the Shades. Jonson as departed spirit and Jonson as satirist, literary reformer,and judge made an irresistible combination. One of the writers of the time picturesJonson in the Shades with the ancient poets quaking at the prospect of his judgement onthem (No. 52(a)); another has him starting a fight in Elysium by declaring himself the bestof the English poets.15 He is also depicted returning to this world to put fear into thehearts of his successors on the English stage, warning audiences not to repeat the mistakesof the past by condemning his plays (No. 74) or by encouraging farces and other triflingstage diversions.16

Some of the individual acts of defiance and rhetorical flourishes Jonson had made in thecharacter of the classic poet lived on into this period, too. They were taken up and variedfor the writers’ own purposes. Jonson had called his folio volume of plays and poems hisWorkes, thus suggesting they belonged with the writings of the divines and of the ancients.He was the first English dramatist to make this claim: the gesture was hotly debated in hisown time, and it provided a formula which appealed to later writers. On the one hand,‘works’ contrasted to ‘plays’ suggested high art as against mere stage entertainment.Suckling has Jonson use it in this way in ‘A Session of the Poets’ (No. 45). On the otherhand, ‘work’ versus ‘play’ was used to suggest laborious effort in creation as opposed tomasterful ease.17

The epilogue to Poetaster had declared of its play, ‘By (–) ’tis good, and if you lik’t, youmay.’ There were references to this challenge by Jonson’s contemporaries, and more fromhis successors: a written version is actually fed to a character in Lewis Sharpe’s play TheNoble Stranger (1640), as a quick (and, as it proves, successful) way of producing ‘aconfident Poeticall wit’. Elsewhere Jonson’s challenge is cited with varying emphasis, asan example of confidence admirable or enviable in a poet.18

References like these demonstrate the posthumous vitality of Jonson’s persona as classicpoet. He continued to be the outstanding instance of the unashamed, self-appointedliterary dictator. But in this period Jonson had also very often to take his place in a groupof writers—most often with Shakespeare and Fletcher or Beaumont and Fletcher, as the‘Triumvirate of wit’.19 Comparison was the habit of the age; in discussing one writer,critics frequently turned to another or to several others to balance complementary talentsand achievements against each other. Asked to give an opinion on Jonson in Dryden’sEssay (Of Dramatique Poesie, 1667, No. 67), Neander says he must first deal withShakespeare and Fletcher, Jonson’s ‘rivalls in Poesie’. Most of the summary comparisons

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between the triumvirate, like Richard Flecknoe’s in No. 62, gave Fletcher Wit,Shakespeare Nature, and Jonson Art and Judgement.

The terms of the comparison between Shakespeare and Jonson in particular—Natureversus Art, native genius versus learning—had earlier given Jonson’s side the preference.Samuel Butler, writing his prose observations late in the 1660s, makes Jonson an exampleof how enduring things are achieved by the reliable means of art, while Shakespeare’sexample shows how the chancy inspirations of nature, though easier, in fact produce lesslasting results (No. 65). But there are signs of an alternative view: Thomas Fuller in No.61 pictures Jonson as a slow, high-built Spanish galleon, Shakespeare as a mobile Englishman-of-war. Shakespeare is here the true native, anticipating the shift in the next centuryby which Jonson was to lose his position as the centrepiece of a proudly English classicismto a still more aboriginal Shakespeare. Aphra Behn introduces a variation on theconventional opposition of learned Jonson to natural Shakespeare by declaring that her ownwomanly lack of learning may be an advantage in a playwright. ‘We all well know’, shesays in a 1673 preface (No. 83), that Shakespeare’s works have pleased the public betterthan Jonson’s, though Shakespeare was the less learned of the two.

In this period Jonson’s own comments on Shakespeare are not the inflammatorymaterial they later became. Edward Howard in an essay of 1673 mentions with calmapproval Jonson’s wish that Shakespeare had blotted out more lines.20 There arereferences, though, to severe remarks mixed with the praise in the ‘Ode’ to the memoryof Shakespeare, to be expected from the ‘magisterial’ Jonson.21 Dryden compared the‘Ode’ to Rochester’s description of Buckhurst as ‘The best good Man, with the worstnatur’d Muse’ —a description Dryden calls an ‘Insolent, Sparing, and InvidiousPanegyrick’.22 Dryden had been indignant, too, about Jonson’s severity on Shakespeare forbreaking the unity of place in his plays.23

As in most other topics of Jonson criticism, it is Dryden in this period who has themost telling comments to make on the comparison between Jonson and Shakespeare. Inhis 1667 Essay he is even-handed—Shakespeare is the English Homer, and Jonson hasequal honours as the English Virgil—though Dryden declares his personal preference forShakespeare. Later in 1667 Dryden was more outspoken: in his prologue to the revivedTempest (No. 68) the copiously original Shakespeare is unequivocally monarch over theindustrious but derivative Jonson. Dryden pictures the latter creeping below the vastbranching tree of Shakespeare gathering what fallen fruits he can.

It is Jonson, however, who has pride of place in Dryden’s Essay as the representative ofthe old English drama. Epicoene is singled out as ‘the pattern of a perfect Play’, and itstechnical artistry is analysed in an extended set-piece. Dryden discusses not only whereJonson has observed the unities, and where he has failed to do so—Catiline, for instance,breaks the unity of place, and Volpone the unity of action—but also such details as Jonson’sskilful liaison des scènes, his keeping one or more characters on stage after a scene to link itto the next.24 Dryden declares Jonson to be the equal of the French in regularity, andtheir superior in variety. Jonson’s energetic thoroughness as an artist, the measured care ofhis composition, offer powerful assistance in establishing the claims of English dramaagainst its French rival. At exactly this period (1666–7) a Frenchman, Saint-Evremond,was conceding the point, declaring Jonson’s deeply considered, loosely unified comedy amodel for the French (No. 64). Yet in another context, that of the ancient Englishtradition versus the new, Jonson’s prestige is an obstacle to Dryden. Here he focuses onhumours comedy to suggest that its limitations allow room for improvement, as shown bythe witty comedy of his own day.

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Dryden’s attitude to Jonson throughout his career is informed by his sense of history.He knows, first of all, that writers belong to their times: to survive, after all, they have toplease their immediate audiences. It may be, he argues, that this fact offers an opportunity;if wit and language are now more refined than in the times of the old dramatists, the dramamay be correspondingly improved (No. 82(b)). But Dryden is also acutely aware of hissituation in literary history as following a great generation of poets, a generation especiallydistinct because of the gap of the Commonwealth years. The triumvirate, he says in theEssay, is ‘honour’d, and almost ador’d by us, as they deserve’; but they leave for thepresent a wasted inheritance; their special advantage was to come first, and they havetaken the freshness from almost every humour, every character, every plot. Only thescantiness of their drama in rhymed verse leaves an opportunity for the present generationto excel them in that form.

Early in his career Dryden seemed sanguine about the possibility of equalling orbettering these predecessors; in the 1690s, however, he writes resignedly of ‘theseInferiour Times’.25 Whatever improvements there may have been in the art ofversification, ‘in the Drama we have not arriv’d to the pitch of Shakespear and BenJohnson’.26 Only Congreve’s arrival on the scene gives hope that Fletcher, Jonson, andShakespeare— ‘the Gyant Race, before the Flood’ —have been matched at last (No. 93).

Here Dryden mentions Shakespeare and Fletcher as well as Jonson; but it was Jonsonthat Dryden had singled out in the Essay as the chief representative of his predecessors inthe great age of English drama, and it was Jonson in particular that supporters of the pre-Restoration poets were prompted to defend. Dryden qualifies his praise of Jonsoncarefully in the Essay—he says, for example, that ‘One cannot say he wanted wit, butrather that he was frugal of it’;27 to some in the period this was scandalously irreverent.As the controversy continued, Dryden became progres-sively more outspoken onJonson’s shortcomings.28 He pursued other objections: in a prologue from 1667 (No. 68)Jonson is a plagiarist, even if a lordly one; in a 1672 epilogue Dryden argues that Jonson’shumours comedy suited his times, but the times were ‘coarse’ and the comedy was ‘low’(No. 82(b)). Defending his epilogue in No. 82(c), he argues that language has becomemore accurate since Jonson’s day, so that the solecisms he lists in Catiline and Every Man outof his Humour would not be tolerated now.

Nevertheless, Dryden refused to accept the accusation that he was a doctrinaire‘Detractor’ from his poetic predecessors,29 and it is worth remembering that in othercontexts he could invoke Jonson as a precedent. Involved in a controversy with ElkanahSettle in 1674, he cites Jonson’s chastising of Dekker in Poetaster as a model for his attackon his opponent.30 Settle was enraged to find him ‘strutting, and impudently comparinghimself to Ben Johnson’.31 Dryden was determined not to be a Jonson idolater—thereshould be no ‘ipse dixit’ in poetry, any more than in philosophy (No. 76) —and as a resultwas branded an iconoclast by the party for the old poets. He resisted the label, protestedthat he revered his predecessors and in particular declared that ‘I know I honour BenJohnson more than my little Critiques, because without vanity I may own, I understand himbetter’.32 He accused his opponents of leaping to the old poets’ defence not out ofgenuine admiration for them but as a means of belittling the writers of the present and establishing their own domination: ‘By a seeming veneration to our Fathers, they wou’dthrust out us their Lawful Issue, and Govern us themselves, under a specious pretence ofReformation.’33

For his enemies, however, Dryden could only be regarded as a backslider in the cult ofJonson; the indignation at his lukewarm praise lasted throughout the century. Richard

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Flecknoe in 1671 asserted, against Dryden, that the old poets would be equally pre-eminent if they wrote in the present (No. 75); Rochester in 1675 or 1676 protested thatDryden ‘find[s] ev’n Johnson dull’.34 In 1691 Langbaine was still defending Jonson,Shakespeare and Fletcher from Dryden’s charges (No. 90(a)).

Thomas Shadwell was the loudest in declaring himself of the Jonson party. ForShadwell, Jonson is the one dramatist all others should imitate; it was insolence in Drydento think that humours comedy could be written without wit, that wit in comedy is all tobe found in witty repartee (No. 70). Shadwell invokes Jonson’s authority incessantly.Even when he writes an entertainment with spectacle, dancing, and music, like Psyche, hedisarms criticism of what is clearly a departure from Jonsonian standards by saying thatafter all he would rather have written one scene of a comedy like Jonson’s than all themusical entertainments ever written.35 In 1676 he pointedly takes comfort in the fact thatthe enemies of his own humours plays also damn all Jonson’s.36

In this controversy Dryden’s superiority is not that his critical judgements seem moreaccurate than those of his opponents. The long list of the faults of Catiline in No. 82(c)now seems beside the point, and his prediction in the Essay and elsewhere that it was rhymedverse that would give his own generation the opportunity to excel the pre-Restorationpoets was not fulfilled. Rather Dryden is distinguished from his opponents by his evidentimpulse towards fairness in the assessment of a work or an author, an impulse to resist theimmediate pressures of a controversy. He begs the reader’s pardon for his criticisms ofJonson’s language, and declares his attack to be an unfortunate but necessary act of war: ‘Ilive in an age where my least faults are severely censur’d: and…I have no way left toextenuate my failings but my showing as great in those whom we admire’ (No. 82(c)). InMac Flecknoe, his poetic satire on Shadwell (No. 86), Dryden puts to good use hisawareness that Jonson’s work, and Jonson as a literary figure, are larger than theimmediate purposes they serve for his partisans and his critics. Dryden prises fromShadwell’s grasp the very Jonson who had been Shadwell’s shield from his critics. Thepersona who speaks the poem, the much lampooned Richard Flecknoe, warns his ‘son’Shadwell against claiming any kinship with Jonson, whose qualities of ‘Nature’, ‘Art’,‘Wit or Learning’ have no place in Shadwell’s work or Flecknoe’s family.37

If Shadwell was the loudest in declaring his discipleship of Jonson, Edward Howard wasthe Jonson supporter most aware that he was in ‘a party on the side of our former poets’.The phrase is from his preface to The Womens Conquest (No. 78), which he suggests is hisown ‘Essay on dramatique poesy’. It turns to Jonson at almost every stage of thediscussion, for precept or example. He answers Dryden’s argument on ‘low’ drama,arguing that servants and maids are admissible in comedy if—as in The Alchemist—they are‘essential characters’. Where Dryden in his Essay wishes to suggest that humour charactersare simply observed from real life—that there was a real original for the characterMorose, for instance—Howard argues for ‘morose’ characters as ‘extravagancies’,instances of justifiable poetic licence (No. 79).38

Howard calls the Jonson supporters a ‘party’, and Aphra Behn had called them a ‘sect’,in her view sustained more by affectation than by genuine enjoyment (No. 83). For all theobjections of Dryden and others, there were those in the second half of the seventeenthcentury for whom Jonson remained absolutely central to the literary system. For ThomasBerney in 1652 Jonson was its sun;39 for Howard in 1689 other dramatists are likeplanets, ‘Rambling to find their Centre near his Sphere’ (No. 89(b)). In John Oldham’selaborate tribute, published in 1678, it seems that nothing has changed from theunbounded eulogies of Jonsonus Virbius: Jonson brought nothing less than Form to the

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Chaos of English literature, he is nature and art, and so on for thirteen leisurely stanzas(No. 87).

The evidence for the reputation of Jonson’s individual works in this period showsvariations within a broadly stable pattern. For many, like Jasper Mayne in a sermon of1647, Volpone was Jonson’s best comedy:40 for others, like Dryden, the episode of Sir Poland the tortoiseshell told against Volpone and left The Alchemist as Jonson’s supremeachievement in the form (No. 88). As Howell puts it in No. 42(a), Jonson had his poeticinspiration in varying degrees: he was ‘madder’ when he wrote The Alchemist, ‘stark mad’ when he wrote Sejanus, not so mad when he wrote the epigrams and The Magnetic Lady.All the same, Jonson was established as the greatest of English epigrammatists, as RobertHeath declared in a poem of 1650.41 Of the remaining comedies, Epicoene and BartholomewFair were especially familiar to audiences from Restoration productions. Epicoene Drydenpraises in his Essay; Pepys loved Bartholomew Fair, preferred it without its puppet show,and was shocked to see its satire of the Puritans on stage so soon after the end ofCommonwealth (Nos 58(b), 58(c), 63(a), 72(a)).

Catiline was best known for having been hissed off the stage,42 and its 1668 revivalconfirmed its reputation as a tragedy best appreciated in the study—even the elaboratecostumes and scenery of the production failed to save it, as Samuel Pepys recorded (No.72(c)).43 Sejanus fared better, since one writer reported that he was one of those thathissed it off at first, ‘yet after sate it out, not only patiantly, but with content, &admiration’;44 Fuller in 1662 says much the same thing in noting that the play took ‘not sowell at the first stroke as at the rebound’ (No. 61). Edward Phillips in 1675 is unusual infinding in the tragedies something ‘artificial and inflate’ (No. 85).

In the last decades of the seventeenth century a number of comments on Jonsonsuggest a new spirit of severity in criticism, In his Essay, Dryden had judged Jonson by neo-classical rules borrowed from the French, and in most respects he passes the test withhonour. In the 1680s and 1690s writers remark on Jonson’s infringe-ments of the rules:de Muralt in France objects to the episode of the tortoiseshell in Volpone (No. 94), asDryden had in No. 88; even Nahum Tate rejects it as ‘undiverting’ in praising Jonson asotherwise a great farceur (No. 92). For an earlier generation Jonson’s work was thetriumphant exception to the absurdities of the Elizabethan playwrights, but for ThomasRymer, writing in 1692, Jonson writes irregularly like his contemporaries, with too muchtranslation and too many interludes to please the crowd (No. 91). John Dennis in 1695objects to the ridiculing of Corbaccio in Volpone for defects he cannot help, and findsMorose in Epicoene a characterization fit only for farce (No. 96(a), 96(b)). By the end ofthe century, then, there were a number of stock objections to Jonson. Tom Brown in1688 offers a convenient summary: there is his ‘affected Style, his dull way of makingLove, his Thefts and mean Characters’.45 Most of them derived directly or indirectly fromDryden’s campaign to put Jonson into perspective, and it is to this campaign that we owethe tradition of close analysis of Jonson in the period, which added to the eulogies ofJonson as composite literary figure the consideration of specific issues, characters, andplots.

For all this, Jonson’s broad critical fortunes from his death up to the end of theseventeenth century reflect a remarkable continuing success. Judged by modernassessments of literary importance, at least, he had powerful competitors among hiscontemporaries: there was Shakespeare, most obviously, but there was also the longtradition of dramatic achievement from Marlowe to Webster. Among that group Jonson,for the seventeenth century, stood out. He had vocal admirers throughout the period; his

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 11

name was constantly invoked; his work was as central to a discussion of English comedy inthe 1690s as it had been in the 1630s. There was a Shakespeare party—Dryden was oneof its leaders—but its work was only beginning. The force of Shakespeare’s example wasin the next century to turn the terms on which Jonson had established his supremacy ontheir heads. Jonson had made himself the representative poet of deliberate art, ofunremitting labour, of judgement; and had made those qualities supreme over theircomplementaries, native genius, unfettered imagination, natural fluency. The oppositionsremained central in the next century, and Jonson became ever more fixed on his side ofthem, but a revolution—the transformation of neo-classical into pre-Romantic values—was to reverse the relative prestige of the two sides completely and so destroy (as it musthave seemed, for good) the monument that Jonson had built for himself.

IV

The materials for a history of Jonson’s reputation in the eighteenth century are sovoluminous that any account here (and any collection of documents) must be more thanusually selective. The range and quality of printed matter were themselves growing; andin a surprising variety of places, from newspapers to scholarly monographs, Jonson wasalluded to, his literary authority invoked, his example quoted; his work was annotated ineditions and essays, adapted in new versions and pillaged for stage pieces of all kinds.

From among a large group of contributors to Jonson’s reputation in the period a fewfigures stand out. The most important is not a critic but an actor, David Garrick. Byreviving Every Man in his Humour, The Alchemist, and (less successfully) Epicoene, and byappearing in the first two, he did more than anyone else to keep Jonson’s drama alive inthe century. His Kitely attracted favourable attention46 but his performances as AbelDrugger, the tobacco-shop owner of The Alchemist, were triumphs: audiences beggedGarrick as Drugger to ‘shake our sides with joy’.47 The numberless references that surviveto the part itself and to Garrick’s extraordinary range as an actor from tragic heroes to theludicrous tobacconist suggest that the role was one of the most famous of the century.48

The present collection includes Garrick’s own commentary on his acting of Drugger, andon The Alchemist, and various accounts by contemporaries of his performances in Jonsonparts.49

In the world of Jonson criticism in the eighteenth century there is no figure whodominates the debate as Dryden had in the seventeenth century. Two names might besingled out from among the advocates of Jonson, however. Both are conservatives,defenders of the traditional estimate of Jonson’s merits. John Dennis was finding faultswith Jonson’s comedies in the 1690s (in No. 96) but in the first part of the next centuryhe was the leading champion of the Jonsonian comedy of humours, first against a comedybased on wit and love (No. 100) and then against genteel and sentimental comedy (No.113). Peter Whalley is Jonson’s other great defender in the century. The view of Jonson’scharacter in the ‘Life’ prefixed to his edition of the works (No. 144, 1756) —Jonsonappears there as stern, conscious of his merits, yet capable of warm friendship—was muchquoted by the commentators who followed him. The notes in the edition point toinstances of ‘decorum’ and ‘propriety’ in the plays, to their exactness and thoughtfulness.He is also alert to passages where Jonson seemed to him to attain the sublimity for whichShakespeare and Fletcher were better known. He draws attention to Jonson’s lyric gifts,

12 BEN JONSON

answering the criticism, commonplace in the period, of his harshness in versification,50

and anticipating the revival in interest in the next century in his songs and lyrics.Two other writers in the century should be mentioned here for their closely argued

judgements on Jonson. Richard Hurd in 1753 chose examples from his plays to illustratetwo typical faults in dramatic composition: Every Man out of his Humour, Hurd says, shows‘the extravagance of building dramatic characters on abstract ideas’, and The Alchemist isbased on the ‘particular and partial’, and is therefore an ‘impure’ mixture of comedy andfarce (No. 140). The first of these illustrations was especially influential. Hurd also presentssome detailed evidence of Jonson’s imitation of ancient authors in No. 145. RichardCumberland is a second critic who offers extended argument and some carefulconclusions on Jonson’s achievement: despite a decided preference for Shakespeare as aliterary personality (Jonson, he says, is a pedant, Shakespeare ‘a gentleman who wrote athis ease’) he concludes that Bobadil in Every Man in his Humour is better conceived as abraggart character than Pistol, and Volpone the ‘nearest to perfection of any English play’(No. 178).

Of the broad trends in Jonson’s reception in the eighteenth century the clearest is asharp decline in his standing, noticeable from the 1730s onwards. Jonson suffered fromthe progressive abandonment of the neo-classical values with which he was identified andwhich he himself had championed. The fall in Jonson’s reputation also reflects a movementassociated with this shift in values: the elevation of Shakespeare to become what was called‘a kind of established Religion in Poetry’, or, less sympa-thetically, the Shakespearebigotry.51 The energy of the Shakespeare movement was such that it seems best to regardit as an important factor in itself, rather than merely a consequence of the shift from neo-classical assumptions.

In the twin struggle to establish more Romantic values, and to raise Shakespeare to anational idol, Jonson played a surprisingly prominent part. The Shakespeare enthusiastsdemanded rivalries and contests rather than any balancing of qualities: theirs was anexclusive, ideological fervour. The new atmosphere encouraged a Shakespeare hegemonyand required a clearly identifiable enemy. Jonson naturally filled this role, as the creatorof a strikingly different kind of drama from Shakespeare’s and as an energetic proponentof his own artistic system. Moreover, he was a notable critic of Shakespeare. The newmode of campaigning called for more and more evidence of Jonson’s villainy, and this wasduly supplied. No doubt his work was bound to fall somewhat in esteem as attitudeschanged in the second half of the eighteenth century. By the end of the period hispopularity may well have been confined to the scholars, as Malone suggested when hedeclared that Jonson ‘stalked on the stilts of an artificial reputation’.52 Yet, as the result ofthe entanglement of his critical fortunes with Shakespeare’s, the enthusiasts for the latterexerted themselves to dismiss altogether Jonson’s claims to literary importance.

The documents from the early part of the eighteenth century show that Jonson’sstanding was then largely intact. There was general agreement that Jonson’s tragedieswere not suited to the theatre, however worthy of respect for their learning; but ifEnglish comedy was to be described, the name of Jonson came to mind first. CharlesGildon, sketching the shadowy beginnings of English comedy, is in no doubt that thoughThe Merry Wives of Windsor might be allowable as a comedy, and elsewhere there are‘excellent Humours scatter’d about’, Jonson was the first ‘that ever gave us one entireComedy’ (No. 106(a), 1710). In Gildon’s essay within the covers of Nicholas Rowe’sedition of Shakespeare, published in the same year, he declares him superior to Jonson insprightly comic dialogue, but names Jonson as the best pattern for comedy (No. 106(b)).

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 13

Treating comedy in his Complete Art of Poetry of 1718, Gildon mentions among the Englishwriters only Jonson and Thomas Randolph, ‘one of the adopted sons of the famous BenJonson’.53

A division of the spoils was common: Dennis declared that Shakespeare was supreme inEnglish tragedy as Jonson was in English comedy; in the 1740s, Garrick reinforced thesymmetry by providing a famous Lear and Macbeth in Shakespearean tragedy to contrastwith his Abel Drugger in a Jonsonian comedy.54 Jonson’s humour comedy was the officialEnglish comedy, and on the writing of proper comedies Jonson was the authority. Thosewho found fault with Jonson did so whilst acknowledging their temerity. The critic in adialogue from 1702 (No. 101) points out an improbability in Volpone, begging Jonson’spardon for his presumption; one of his listeners comments: ‘Your Example of Ben is enough to justifie this practice in some Men’s Opinion.’ Dennis, attacking Sir RichardSteele in 1720, not only cast Steele as the Sir Epicure Mammon of the London scene butrebuked him on the awful authority of Jonson for having doubted the importance of therules in writing the perfect comedy (No. 111).

At the centre of the understanding of comedy based on Jonson’s works andpronouncements was the concept of the humours. Comedy, so the theory went, teachesby exposing the ridiculous; humours are the source of the ridiculous.55 Moreover, Englishhumours were especially distinct and copious.56 Morose in Epicoene was well established asthe paradigm of a humours character; Farquhar in 1702 cites him as a prime example of‘the most unaccountable Medley of Humours’ in England.57

References to Jonson in the early part of the century take another form familiar fromthe past. He appears as a legendary figure, a man gruff but lovable, scornful of modernentertainments but a convivial soul none the less. In this form Jonson’s ‘spirit’ wasinvoked, as earlier, to rebuke the feeble diversions occupying the contemporary stage (No.102). In 1715 Lewis Theobald chose the nom de plume of ‘Benjamin Johnson’, descendantof the playwright, for his paper The Censor, in which he presents himself as a stern enemyof the social and literary abuses of the day (No. 109). Jonson notes to himself there howthe quality of his imagination depends on the kind and quantity of wine available; inWilliam Guthrie’s vision of 1738 he appears with his pockets stuffed with classical authorsfor adroit quotation and outjests a whole assembly of literary spirits in WestminsterAbbey.58 Jonson’s accumulated prestige was called on in all sorts of campaigns, fromDennis’s attempts to stem the advance of a debased comedy based on wit, romance, andsentiment to the resistance to the prime ministership of Sir Robert Walpole, whoacquired the satirical nicknames Volpone and (less frequently) Sejanus.59 Jonson was thegreat example of rational, moral, and not necessarily pleasing drama, as he is for Gildon in1721 (No. 112); as in the previous century, he provided a standard to be flourished byliterary, social, and political reformers.

The account of a visit to a Jonson play in No. 119, from 1733, sums up usefully theview of Jonson in this period. His work is shown comfortably installed at the centre ofEnglish comedy and English culture. In the article a certain Sir Jasper Truby is described going to the playhouse to see a comedy. Not a mere farce, nor a concoction of ‘Jest’ and‘Repartee’, but a ‘true comedy’ based on humours and character—Jonson’s Volpone. SirJasper’s reactions recapitulate familiar themes in Jonson criticism—like Dennis in No. 96(a), he does not find Corbaccio’s deafness amusing; he is prompted by the plot to wonderwhere the action will lead, as Jonson himself has Damplay wonder about the action of TheMagnetic Lady (No. 40).60 He is horrified by the villains, admiring of the blameless Celiaand Bonario, and edified by the ending of the play. These responses confirm that the

14 BEN JONSON

knight is an ‘honest man’ and a ‘Lover of Vertue’, according to the writer; Jonson’s comedyprovides a touchstone for sound feelings and honest reactions.

The middle decades of the century transformed this consensus and dislodged Jonsonfrom his central position. By the 1780s his work, and the personality which lay behind it,are more likely to be seen as peculiar and perverse. A reviewer of 1784, for instance, saysFrancis Waldron’s continuation of The Sad Shepherd, published the previous year, is wide ofthe mark because the ‘sternness and severity’ in the original inevitably clashes with ‘theoverflowing good nature of the imitator’ (No. 177). Jonson had been a representative ofthis good nature; now he is at odds with it.

The underlying reasons for Jonson’s displacement must be changes in values during theperiod. Earlier preferences for satire over celebration in comedy, for correctness overinspiration, for art over nature, for learning over originality, for judgement over feeling,were simply reversed, and with them, Jonson’s supremacy over Shakespeare. Critics fromthe 1740s on complain that far from striking chords with soundness and honesty, Jonsonfails to touch the heart.61 The notion becomes commonplace, and more trenchant as timegoes on: for David Erskine Baker in 1764 it is ‘the feelings of the heart’ Jonson fails towrite to (No. 153), for a reviewer in 1776 it is ‘the human heart’ that Jonson misseddescribing (No. 171 (e)). Almost always the commentators mention Shakespeare in thesame breath, as the dramatist who does touch the heart.

The process by which Jonson’s comedy is pushed to one side can be observed inchanging interpretations of the term ‘humour’. It had been used for an anti-socialobsession attacked in satirical comedy; it came to mean something more like a lovablecomic eccentricity. Corbyn Morris writes in 1744 of a ‘jovial and gay’ humour, brought toits highest pitch in Falstaff (No. 124). Moreover, critics express a distate for ‘humours’ ofthe old kind. In place of Jonson’s comedy of ridicule, in which mean and tiresomehumours are hunted down, Morris wants a comedy of ‘warm universal benevolence’. InNo. 143 Jonson’s ‘humour’ is treated as simply another word for ‘spite’.

These writers are reflecting that distaste for laughter and ridicule which can be tracedback to Hobbes and which Addison and Steele voice in the early part of the eighteenthcentury.62 With this distaste went a preference for sentimental comedy, comedy whichevoked feelings and presented genteel characters who provided a model for virtuousbehaviour. Fielding, writing in 1742, is fighting a rearguard action in declaring theridiculous the basis of comedy, and Jonson as its model, as well as suggesting Jonsoniancomedy as a ‘Preparative’ for readers whose tastes have been vitiated by ‘genteel comedy’(No. 123(c)). At the same time, Garrick began his revivals of Jonson on the stage,contributing in a practical way to this action. If he is the author of the letters signed ‘TheGhost of Gay’ in The Morning Post in late 1776 he was involved too in the campaign inprint for the satirical comedy of Jonson, Congreve, and Gay and against the gentility,morality, and bombast of contemporary drama.63

Despite these efforts, hostility to Jonson’s comedy, and to its humours charactersespecially, continued as the century progressed. They were condemned for beingunpleasant company and for reflecting a distorted view of human nature. For ArthurMurphy in the 1750s they are ‘disagreeably odd’,64 offering not beauty (likeShakespeare’s) but ‘deformity’ (No. 141). The writer in No. 164 (1772) shows howJonson’s satire has become a liability: Bobadil is vice personified, and in him Jonson‘debased’ the human species; Falstaff, on the other hand, is a character from Nature and adesirable companion. Thomas Davies in 1783–4 thought Jonson’s women charactersespecially disagreeable (No. 176(c)). As the century progressed, almost all the terms

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 15

which had sustained Jonson’s prestige were transformed in similar fashion. Far fromcommending Jonson for his learning, as had been the habit of countless writers, EdwardYoung declared in 1759 that Jonson ‘was very learned, as Sampson was very strong, to hisown hurt’ (No. 148). The Scottish philosopher Beattie’s version was that ‘Ben Johnson’smisfortune was, not that he knew too much, but that he could not make a proper use ofhis knowledge’ (No. 158). For Edward Capell, writing in 1766, Jonson’s imitations fromthe classical authors, once one of the standard grounds for praising him, are only a shadethe right side of plagiarism; the title of his pamphlet, significantly, is Reflections onOriginality in Authors (No. 156).

With these changes through the middle decades of the century went other shifts inattitudes to Jonson. It had been accepted as early as the Restoration that Jonson’stragedies were better enjoyed in the study than in performance. In the eighteenth centurythe comedies, too, are spoken of as better read than seen. Peter Whalley puts it down tothe allusions in his work to the customs of his own day and to the writings of the ancients,allusions which are ‘lost in the representation’.65 A reviewer in 1771 says Volpone’s lack ofincident and of ‘interest in the catastrophe’ makes it better adapted to the closet than tothe stage (No. 163(a)).

There was a great deal of Jonson performed on stage in the century, before Garrick aswell as in his time. Yet commentators often argue that it is the actors who are supportingJonson, rather than the other way around. A writer in 1772 says the plays only survive onstage because of the powers of some particular actors, and will perish with them (No. 164(a)). There were those, like Murphy in No. 146, who suggested that Garrick kept TheAlchemist alive, and (with some justification) that Drugger was as much his creation asJonson’s (Nos 150, 161). It is Garrick, not Jonson, whom Thomas Wilkes applauds forhis ‘deep knowledge of the human heart’ in Abel Drugger (No. 147). Isaac Reed in theBiographia Dramatica suggests that the ‘manners’ of Bodadil in the same play are obsoletebut the part has become through the acting of Henry Woodward ‘one of the chastest andmost pleasing pieces of acting perhaps ever exhibited’. Jonson was regarded as particularlydifficult to act: Garrick describes the extraordinary preparation needed to perform inEvery Man in his Humour in a letter of 1759.66

There were also changes in the way Jonson’s works were looked at as a whole. Jonsonmight have believed that as a classic poet and dramatist his works were all of even andsuperlative quality—his outrage at the rejection of The New Inn suggests so—but, as wehave seen, his contemporaries quickly established a hierarchy among his works, opponentssingling out the late plays as inferior, supporters like James Howell categorizing Jonson’svarious works according to how inspired Jonson had been in composing them. In theeighteenth century this process accelerated, as Jonson’s critical reputation declined. OnceShakespeare had been a byword for unevenness—his works flashes of genius alternating withstretches of garbled nonsense—while Jonson could be relied on to keep up a certain standardof correctness. Now, the positions are frequently reversed. William Warburton in 1734noted that where in Jonson’s ‘bad Pieces’ there is no trace of the author of Volpone and TheAlchemist, there is something of the ‘divine’ Shakespeare in all his works. The reasonWarburton offers is that without Art Jonson had nothing ‘to support him’, whileShakespeare, relying on Nature, never quite lost the ‘force and splendour’ of his genius(No. 120(a)). Warburton is echoed by writers later in the century, though the supportsJonson relied on are described in various ways: for Guthrie in 1747 they are the ‘stilts’ ofthe ‘close observation of nature, and strict application of study’ (No. 127); John Upton in1749 says Jonson needed ‘the guides of antiquity’ to find his way in writing (No. 132).

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As Jonson’s reputation for ‘correctness’ throughout his work waned, and his authorityas a literary dictator grew less intimidating, writers began to make free with his work foradaptations and new dramatic pieces. Dryden had thought there was ‘little to retrench oralter’ in Jonson’s works (No. 67); but by the middle of the eighteenth century that attitudehad changed, though it was still agreed that Jonson needed less adaptation thanShakespeare.67 Arthur Murphy in 1757 thought Hoadley’s The Suspicious Husband, whichhad borrowed from Every Man in his Humour, superior to Jonson’s original becauseHoadley had ‘lopped Excrescences’ in it (No. 146(c)). Francis Gentleman adaptedSejanus, with the idea of making it more dramatic—less of an exposition of history—and ademonstration of ‘moral justice’; certainly his additions give Sejanus a guilty consciencereminiscent of Macbeth’s (No. 137, 1751). Garrick trimmed Every Man in his Humour andThe Alchemist, and modernized the dialogue, deftly expanding Abel Drugger’s role in thelatter.68 Gentleman went a step further, removed ‘superfluous’ characters (as a review, No.162(b), puts it) and based an entire play on Drugger, calling it The Tobacconist. GeorgeColman produced a revised Epicoene in 1776 (No. 171) and cut the subplot from Volponefor his version of 1783. John Brown argued to Garrick that Bartholomew Fair neededrevision, since it contained great comic material but lacked ‘a plan’; his version wascompleted, but never acted (No. 155). Garrick’s success with Abel Drugger showed theway for farces based on Jonson. Gentleman’s The Coxcombs (1771) and Colman’s Ut PicturaPoesis (1789) were both based on Epicoene. Gentleman’s The Pantheonites (1773) included acharacter called Daniel Drugger—Abel’s great-grandson; Samuel Foote produced a farceon Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee scheme, called Drugger’s Jubilee (1770).

In some respects the changes in Jonson’s reputation simply follow a shift in the balancefrom one side of a traditional opposition to the other. Diverting and celebratory comedycame to be preferred to satirical comedy, untutored genius to learned artistry, and so on.But there is also a change in the terms of debate. A new spirit of partisanship is evident inthe documents, a new emphasis on an active rivalry between the principal protagonists.The traditional formula for discussing the two great playwrights side by side involved abalancing of complementary qualities, an exercise in distinguishing differences which oftenconcluded that Shakespeare and Jonson in fact could not be compared. In No. 117, from1731, William Levin analyses even-handedly Shakespeare’s ‘Excellencies’ and Jonson’s‘Perfections’, bold invention and energetic expression in Shakespeare, well-woven plotsand well-differentiated characters in Jonson.69 With the Shakespeare apologists, thisexercise in balancing is sharpened to an ideological rivalry, a life-or-death struggle inwhich only one mode of creation can survive. Horace Walpole, discussing the quarrelbetween Jonson and Inigo Jones in 1762, was in no doubt that Jonson had put himself inthe wrong by the ‘grossness’ of his language on Jones, his ‘brutal abuse’ of his opponent;Jonson’s presumption extended to making himself a rival to Shakespeare, with whom ‘hehad not the smallest pretensions to be compared’ (No. 151).

In the middle decades of the century Shakespeare not only took over Jonson’s centralposition in discussions of English literary history, he also displaced his contemporary evenin treatments of Jonson himself. A review of Volpone from 1771 (No. 163(a)) is a case inpoint: the mention of Burbage, Heminge, and Condell of the original cast of Jonson’s playleads to a lengthy account of these actors’ connections with Shakespeare. After briefcomments on the cast of the present production, the writer spends two pages on thesuperiority of Shakespeare to Jonson in the drawing of character and in all otherdepartments. Jonson is almost forgotten in what becomes a purely Shakespeareandiscourse. Lord Camden, writing to Garrick in 1774, protests at the way the reflex

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 17

comparison with Shakespeare has invaded the appreciation of Jonson, and at thecommonplace criticisms of Jonson’s ‘Art’, criticisms now threatening to sink theplaywright altogether as an uninspired pedant (No. 167). By 1798 Nathan Drake, aconvinced Shakespearean, can ‘look back in wonder’ at the time when Jonson waspreferred to Shakespeare (No. 182).

Another sign of change in the terms of literary debate is the new emphasis given to thecharacter of the writer. Ideas about Jonson’s personality had figured prominently indiscussions of his work from his own time: they were the products ultimately of his ownstrenuous self-presentation. In the early part of the eighteenth century, as has been noted,a bluff and genial Jonson appears frequently. Yet in the course of the century a newearnestness about the application of matters of personality to literary questions is evident,and a new intensity of interest in the character of Jonson as revealed in his relations withShakespeare. The idea of a ‘malignant Ben’ had begun in the early part of the century.Nicholas Rowe’s ‘Account’ of Shakespeare’s life (1710) gives the story of the relationsbetween the two writers a peculiarly potent turn. The story is told of the early Jonsonplay which had been rejected by the actors but was taken up by Shakespeare, whopersuaded the company to put it on. Jonson’s return for this kindness was a bitter envy ofhis benefactor, according to Rowe; he professed friendship but in fact cast ‘an evil Eye’upon his fellow playwright, whose genius and facility he resented (No. 105).

There were protests at the turn that the ‘rivalry’ between the two poets was taking;Pope, in the introduction to his Shakespeare edition of 1725, pooh-poohed the idea thatthe two playwrights were enemies, for the actor Betterton had told him there was nothingin the story, and declared his opinion that the whole thing was the invention of factions onbehalf of one author or the other (No. 114). Peter Whalley echoed Pope on the place ofpartisanship in accounts of the quarrel, citing ‘the honourable Testimony which Johnsonhath left of his beloved Shakespeare’.70 But once the idea was established that to attackJonson was to serve the cause of Shakespeare, commentators vied with each other tobelittle Jonson’s literary achievements, and to produce evidence of his malign characterand his active spitefulness towards his ‘rival’. The notion of Jonson’s ‘evil Eye’ onShakespeare came to prevail over all other aspects of the relationship-even over theapparently lavish praise of Shakespeare in Jonson’s ode to his memory—and was to cloudall aspects of Jonson’s reputation, allied as it was to convictions about Jonson’s personalityand about the nature of his creativity.

Richard Hurd has already been quoted for his influential analysis of Jonson’s faults as awriter of comedy. In the same work (No. 140) he connects these faults—his descent intofarce, the excessiveness of his humours characters—with his personality: ‘his nature wassevere and rigid, and this in giving a strength and manliness, gave at times too, anintemperance to his satyr. His taste for ridicule was strong but indelicate’. The sametheory is put to cruder use in Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier’s novel The Cry (No. 143,1754). In a melodramatic version of Rowe’s paragraphs on Jonson’s relations withShakespeare, Jonson is pictured as the serpent in Shakespeare’s bosom, driven by‘unconquerable envy’ to do all he could to impede his rival’s progress. Shakespeare’smajestic forbearance and Jonson’s irrepressible malice are unmistakable since their inmostsouls are revealed in their works.

The Shakespeare partisans were not satisfied with the evidence of Jonson’s envy andmalignity which survived in anecdote, let alone with what there was in the historicalrecord; a number of inventions were required. In 1748 there appeared in a newspaper aletter from the actor Charles Macklin, describing the contents of a pamphlet in his

18 BEN JONSON

possession (No. 130). The pamphlet, Macklin says, collected ‘all the Contempts andInvectives’ showered by ‘this Tyrant’ Jonson on the head of Shakespeare, too extensive to bequoted, but all, Macklin assures his readers, proving his ‘Ill-Nature and Ingratitude’ toShakespeare. Not surprisingly, no such pamphlet has ever been discovered. Nevertheless,Macklin’s letter was reprinted as a note to Jonson’s ode to his fellow playwright inGeorge Steevens’s edition of The Plays of Shakespeare. For Steevens, it showed how differentJonson’s other statements about Shakespeare were from the sentiments of the poem.Malone took over Steevens’s note in his edition of The Plays and Poems of Shakespeare (1790)but included an essay arguing that the letter was in fact an invention of Macklin’s. Havingdemolished the credibility of the pamphlet, Malone felt he had to reassure Shakespeare’sadmirers that there would remain nevertheless

abundant proofs of the gentleness, modesty, and humility, of Shakespeare; of theoverweening arrogance of old Ben; and of the ridiculous absurdity of his partizans,who for near a century set above our great dramatick poet a writer who no man isnow hardy enough to mention as even his competitor.71

The article on Jonson in The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) quotesDrummond’s Conversations with Jonson, which had not yet been published in full, as toJonson’s character. Drummond gives a colourful, often unsympathetic picture of hisvisitor, describing him as scornful, a toper, ‘passionately kind and angry’, and so on; butthis is not enough for the compiler, Robert Shiells, who interpolates the followingsentence within the inverted commas marking the quotation from Drummond: ‘In short,he was in his personal character the very reverse of Shakespear, as surly, ill-natured,proud and disagreeable, as Shakespear with ten times his merit was gentle, good-natured,easy and amiable’ (No. 139). Here, readers must have concluded, was the man’scontemporary, after having had him to stay in his house, expressing indignation at hisattitude to Shakespeare; and the interpolation stood in the record until the Conversationswere published in full in 1833. Thomas Davies, in his Dramatic Micellanies of 1783–4,offered the innovation of an inset invented scene for the Shakespeareans to gloat over, thespectacle of Jonson ‘with an assumed countenance of gaiety, and with envy in his heart’pretending to enjoy the triumph of Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 2 in the theatre.72

Jonson had of course criticized Shakespeare. In a famous passage in his Discoveries,Shakespeare’s facility in composing is considered:

I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in hiswriting (whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene,Would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I hadnot told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who choose that circumstance tocommend their friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine ownecandor, (for I lov’d the man, and do honour his memory (on this side idolatry) as muchas any.) Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellentPhantsie; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein he flow’d with thatfacility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stop’d…. (ll. 647–59)

Jonson here tries to protect his criticism of Shakespeare by a carefully constructedcontext, to ensure that posterity, unlike the players, would not think it ‘a malevolent

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 19

speech’. Needless to say, Jonson’s late-eighteenth-century posterity followed the players’view with enthusiasm; when Dr Johnson unluckily suggested in his notes to The Winter’sTale that he believed one particular word ‘should be blotted out’, a reviewer protestedthat

It seems as if the very name of Johnson was fated to cast invidious reflections on thatof Shakespeare; as if it was malignantly formed to absorb the rays diffused bysuperior lustre, and enviously to sully, with a reflected gloom, the fountain of itsown light. —This scheme of blotting-out was originally suggested by a Johnson….73

There were some grounds for the belief that Jonson harboured mixed feelings towardsShakespeare. One recent writer argues that there is a ‘touch of obsessiveness’ in Jonson’sallusions to Shakespeare, as in his references to Inigo Jones: Shakespeare contradicted allJonson stood for and was ‘an obstacle to Jonson’s proper recognition as dangerous as InigoJones and, since it was impossible to hate him, all the more frustrating’.74 Yet the ferventpartisanship of the eighteenth-century Shakespeare editors, excited by the legend ofJonson’s ‘malignity’, acted as a magnet which, when passed over Jonson’s works, formedalmost all his criticisms of unspecified current plays into a pattern pointing infallibly toShakespeare. George Steevens was perhaps outstanding among these editors for thenumber of ‘sneers’ he collected and for the bitterness of his reproaches against Jonson formaking them (No. 166). But in the notes to variorum editions like Isaac Reed’s The Plays ofWilliam Shakespeare (1785), Malone can be found labelling Jonson ‘this envious detractor’,and again warning that he was a man ‘envious, and unfriendly to our author’, and ThomasTyrwhitt shaking his head at the ‘malignant pleasure with which Jonson continued toridicule’ Shakespeare.75 Jonson’s ‘Ode’ to Shakespeare is either interpreted as bitterlyironical, or else it is conceded that Jonson must for once have ‘purged’ himself of his envy(No. 176(b)). The ‘happy genius’ who Jonson says collaborated with him on Sejanus mustbe Shakespeare, and the references to his contributions, which Jonson calls ‘so good ashare’, must be sarcasms.76

There was, in short, a good deal of propaganda produced in the course of the campaignagainst Jonson. Genuine evidence, imaginary allusions, fictions admitted to or disguised,were all pressed into service to establish the necessary myth of a gentle Shakespearetormented by a malicious rival. The forger William Henry Ireland invented a reply fromthe saintly victim: in a letter he fabricated about 1795, but never published, Shakespeare(in outrageously whimsical spelling) reproaches Jonson for his supercilious treatment ofhim: Shakespeare begs Heminge ‘to speake toe Masterre Johnsonne who hathe treateddemee mouste hawttylye’. At the close of the century, George Chalmers was busyidentifying yet another Jonson ‘sneer’ against Shakespeare —arguing that the ‘Poet-Ape’of Jonson’s Epigram 56 was in fact Shakespeare.77 By then, of course, the Shakespeareanshad well and truly carried the day. This fact in itself took some of the energy out of thecampaign against Jonson. Malone’s reluctant demolition of the Macklin pamphlet in his1790 essay showed the way to more cautious interpretations of evidence; and in the nextcentury, Jonson was cleared of the more preposterous charges against him.

In the eighteenth century, then, Jonson fell from grace. The qualities he stood for lostfavour; a handful of comedies survived on stage and kept some reputation, but his workcame to seem uninspired and, when unsupported by scholarly labours, not even well-judged or correct. The traditional comparisons with Shakespeare became harshly

20 BEN JONSON

invidious; and as Shakespeare-worship gained followers and intensity Jonson seemed ofvalue only as a sacrifice on his altar. Jonson’s fate seemed sealed: ‘There is no reviving thedead’, as Davies says of a production of Epicoene (No. 176(d)).

Among the remarkable things in this story is Jonson’s prescience about the wholematter. He had seen that posterity, like the players, might think his comment onShakespeare’s facility was ‘a malevolent speech’. By a curious irony in the drama of therelations between the two writers, Jonson’s ‘Ode’ has given to Shakespeare criticism anumber of phrases adequate to the appetite of even the extremists among the Shakespeare-protagonists. Jonson’s comments in Discoveries, already quoted, anticipate, even as theydemur at, the phenomenon of Shakespeare-idolatry. By some irresistible logic, the poet whodeclared Shakespeare ‘not of an age, but for all time’ established a formula which was notonly formidable praise of his fellow poet but, in its reversed form, neatly encapsulated thedamning conclusions that the eighteenth century arrived at about his own work: declaringhim no universal genius but of his time merely, interesting and important only tohistorians and scholars.

V

The present collection of documents ends with Nathan Drake’s essay of 1798 (No. 182).Jonson’s further critical fortunes in the nineteenth century, and beyond, can only bebriefly sketched here: proper treatment would require another volume such as this one.Certainly the beginning of the new century brought only confirmation of the success ofthe campaign against Jonson. For Charles Dibdin in A Complete History of the Stage (1800)pedantry, scurrility, and plagiarism in the work go with envy and spite in the personality:Jonson demonstrates the negative side of the cherished belief that true creativity belongswith an open-hearted, generous character. This is the Jonson of the doctrinaireShakespeareans, one whose malign character pervades all his writing. He had in Dibdin’ssummary phrase ‘a repulsive mind’.78

The Romantic critics of the period immediately following inherited the view of JonsonDibdin voices, even if they formulated it less crudely. Coleridge, the most penetrating ofthem, paid tribute to his originality but thought him something short of a genius—an‘Intellect’ only—and lamented the absence in Volpone, and in the whole of Jonson’s workssave for The Sad Shepherd, of any character ‘in whom you are morally interested’. Schlegelheld that Jonson was ‘a critical poet in the good and bad sense of the word’, a view thatwas influential throughout the century. What Jonson had put into his work, Schlegelsuggested, the critic could extract, down to the smallest detail; nothing inexpressible orindefinable was left.79 It was this ‘nameless something’, or ‘soul’, that Schlegel valuedmost highly of all. The first comments by another German Romantic, Ludwig Tieck, areearly enough to be included in this volume (No. 181). Tieck was greatly interested inJonson, but in the end saw his importance only in terms of Shakespeare, as following thefalse trail of an opposite kind of art as far as it could go and thus providing the perfect foilfor the achievement of his contemporary. Of the English Romantics, Hazlitt elaboratedthe comparisons with Shakespeare most damningly. With a show of fairness, he admittedin his Lectures on the English Comic Writers of 1819 that his dislike for Jonson might be adeficiency in his own taste: ‘There are people who cannot taste olives—and I cannotmuch relish Ben Jonson.’ But the development of his parallel of Jonson and Shakespeare

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 21

suggests something different: Jonson is the grub, Shakespeare the butterfly; his charactersare like machines. He has merit, but ‘of a repulsive and unamiable kind’.80

The appreciation of Jonson’s works was thus still bedevilled by myths from theprevious century about Jonson’s personality. A new start could only be made byanswering the charges against Jonson and rehabilitating his character. The work was begunby Octavius Gilchrist and William Godwin,81 but it was Gifford’s edition of Jonson,published in 1816, that turned the attack onto the critics of Jonson’s character sovigorously that it was soon acknowledged that an injustice had been done. Gifford alsocomplained loudly about the ‘prejudice’ against Jonson’s works, and about how little theywere known. In re-establishing an audience and a critical reputation for his subject, hewas less successful. The occasional reviewer might wish for a revival of Jonson’s drama toreform a decadent age82 (Gifford’s edition was in something of this spirit), but for most inthe nineteenth century it was no longer worth the labour of reading: Jonson was obsoleteand dispensable.83

It was, however, difficult to fit all aspects of the works into the now well-establishedpicture of an earthbound, pedantic Jonson. In particular, it was common to marvel at thesweetness and delicacy of a few of his lyrics and songs. Even Hazlitt declared one suchpiece ‘a perfect “nest of spicery’”.84 In fact, if Jonson survived at all into the Victorianperiod, it was as a lyric poet. From early in the century some poems, and even somestanzas, were praised and anthologized, while his other verse was dismissed for its ‘coarse-ness’ and ‘quaintness’.85 A ‘few beautiful lyrics’ were distinguished from the ‘tediousreading’ provided by the poetry in general.86 Tennyson found that Jonson generallyseemed to ‘move in a wide sea of glue’; but with his approval Francis Palgrave includedseveral short pieces in The Golden Treasury of 1861,87 with the result that ‘It is not growinglike a tree’ from the Cary-Morison ode, ‘Queen and huntress, chaste and fair’ fromCynthia’s Revels and ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ (The Forest, 9) became as wellknown as any lyrics in the language. The poems and the masques as a group came to beregarded as Jonson’s real achievement; his genius, it was decided, was poetic rather thandramatic; Jonson was supreme in the lyric as Shakespeare was in the drama.88

A small collection of Jonson’s verse was highlighted and praised to the skies whilealmost all the rest of his works sank out of sight. He was puzzled over as a mixture ofincompatible qualities, a writer who could not be resolved into a single identity: he was aleviathan, massive and unwieldy, yet he was also a poet of elegance and grace; rough, butcapable of ‘Ariel beauty’.89 Swinburne gave the question of Jonson’s peculiar œuvreanother twist by suggesting that his poetry had been overrated, but that a single leaf of hisprose work Discoveries was worth all the lyrics, tragedies, elegies, and epigrams puttogether.90 Nevertheless, the tradition of celebrating Jonson’s lyrics as unexpected andprecious continued: they were ‘exquisite’ like stray sunbeams in a wood, the products ofhis ‘rarer moods’.91 Perhaps the strangest episode in the nineteenth century’s fascinationwith the inconsistency of Jonson’s work was the elevation of passages which he neverclaimed as his own above all the rest of his writing. A reviewer of 1890 calls the additionsto The Spanish Tragedy ‘the one effort of his dramatic imagination (supposing it to be his)which had the power of speaking to the great human heart’.92

Jonson’s work, for the nineteenth century, was bafflingly inconsistent. All sorts ofsolutions to the problem were offered. Leigh Hunt argued that the masques showed ‘theluxuriance and volatility of his fancy’, qualities which elsewhere were thwarted anddistorted; a reviewer in 1874 suggested that what Jonson had lacked was a father andfamily life.93 The conviction that there were two incongruous Jonsons persisted into the

22 BEN JONSON

next century: in 1905 Greg called The Sad Shepherd the great achievement of ‘that otherJonson’; in 1919 G.Gregory Smith agreed: in the pastoral, as nowhere else, the playwrighthad let slip ‘the leashed spaniels of imagination’; this romantic Jonson may be ‘the bestJonson’, even if not finally the ‘true’ one.94

It was T.S.Eliot’s reviews of Smith’s book95 that signalled that interest in classic art hadrevived, an interest which made new appreciations of Jonson possible. Herford andSimpson were already at work on their edition, the first volume appearing in 1925, theeleventh and last in 1952. A vastly expanded critical effort since then has established onceagain the power and subtlety of Jonson’s best work, in his great comedies but also in hispoems, his masques, and even in his tragedies. His moral vision, his dramatic technique,and the nature of his imitation of ancient authors have been explored in turn. Morerecently writers have examined the way in which Jonson deliberately shaped his careerand have focused on his relationships with his audiences, with the powerful in his society,and with his own family.

From the vantage-point of the present—profiting from this work—much of thecomment on Jonson included in this collection seems simple-minded and repetitive. Forinstance, he was recognized from the beginning of his career as a remarkable creator ofcharacters. In his own time, he was accused of satirizing individuals in the plays, and ofreproducing real-life ‘humours’ mechanically. To commentators in the Restoration, onthe other hand, his characters sometimes appeared extravagant or improbable: Drydendefends Morose from the charge by reporting that he was based on an actual case, EdwardHoward justified the same character on the grounds of the right of the poet to create thefantastic. In the next century Hurd suggested that Jonson’s characterization was faultybecause it was based on abstractions. Writers like Whalley saw the contradiction inaccusing Jonson both of remoteness from life and of making a literal transcription of it, butwere hardly able to resolve the problem. Even Coleridge repeated the charge thatJonson’s characters were abstractions. The argument through all these commentatorsswings between accusations of excessive lifelikeness and accusations of extremeabstractness, with little sense of progress or insight. It is fixated on what was earlyestablished to be Jonson’s contribution to the drama, humours characters. Yet (as it nowseems) Jonson’s greatest achievements in characterization have nothing to do with therigid patterns the commentators describe. To take two obvious examples from Volpone,there is the hero, whose motivation is a key enigma in the play-never quite explained bythe greed for sensation he admits to-and there is Mosca, a dizzying mixture of chameleonadaptability and bottomless egotism.

Yet from a different perspective the critical work of earlier centuries remainsimportant. Because Jonson was peculiarly self-conscious about his project as a writer,because he felt his work was decisive in the making of the culture of his time, theconditions in which it originated and its immediate and longer-term reception remaincrucial for its understanding. How is the personality that forces itself on audiences’ andreaders’ attention in Jonson’s work to be reckoned with? Is his active self-promotionreprehensible, and does it reduce the power of the work? Is the personality that comesacross bluff but honest, or simply a bully? Is Jonson truly a classic poet, as he himselfargued, or was he his own worst enemy in forcing his creative energies into that mouldand in demanding appreciation in those terms? Is an alternative Jonson—anarchic, lyrical,passionate—the true one, realized in a few of his verses, in his masques, in his pastoral, oreven in the great comedies? Is it possible, perhaps, to see an ideal Jonson, an unrealizedpotential? Again, Jonson made his own lack of popularity an issue from the beginning;

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reacting angrily to failure in the theatre and also preaching the doctrine that publicrejection was inevitable for the greatest of artists. Even now his unpopularity withaudiences and readers puzzles critics, gives rise to regret and sometimes indignation.Finally, there is the triumph of Shakespeare’s supporters over Jonson in the eighteenthcentury and its consequences. In his own time, Jonson’s domination of the literary sceneobscured Shakespeare’s virtues. Now, in a Shakespearean literary universe, Jonson helpsput Shakespeare’s achievement into perspective, while Shakespeare’s example makesJonson’s work difficult to judge or even to see clearly. In a special sense, then, Jonson isinseparable from his critical heritage: the student of his works in the late twentiethcentury must still begin with questions which he himself raised and which hiscontemporaries and his immediate posterity were compelled to answer.

NOTES

1 Palladis Tamia (1598), fol. 283r.2 Nashes Lenten Stuffe (1599), p. 68.3 W.David Kay argues convincingly that it was the second and more satirical of the two plays

that established Jonson as the leading humours playwright: ‘The Shaping of Ben Jonson’sCareer: A Reexamination of Facts and Problems’, Modern Philology (1970), lxvii, 224–37.

4 H & S, i, 217–18. 5 For the identification of characters in the plays of the Poetomachia with individuals of the

time, see Josiah H.Penniman, The War of the Theatres (Philadelphia 1897); Roscoe A.Small,The Stage-Quarrel Between Ben Jonson and the So-Called Poetasters (Breslau 1899); Stuart Omans,‘The War of the Theaters: An Approach to Its Origins, Development and Meaning’ (Ph.D.thesis, Northwestern University 1969); and E.A.J.Honigmann, John Weever (Manchester1987), ch. 5. For the background to the quarrels, see Oscar James Campbell, Comicall Satyreand Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus and Cressida’ (San Marino, Calif. 1938), and Alfred Harbage,Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions (New York 1952), pp. 90–119.

6 H & S, i, 140.7 Marston, The Plays, ed. Harvey Wood (Edinburgh 1939), iii, 258, and The Poems, ed. Arnold

Davenport (Liverpool 1961), p. 102.8 Stanley Fish, without referring to Poetaster, explores Jonson’s peculiar version of the

‘ideology of merit’ in the poems along similar lines, in ‘Authors-Readers: Jonson’s Communityof the Same’, Representations (1984) vii, 26–58.

9 The White Devil (1612), Sig. A2r-v.10 On Jonson and the laureateship, see Richard Helgerson, Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser, Jonson,

Milton and the Literary System (Berkeley, Calif. 1983), ch. 3.11 Lucy, commendatory verse to The Alchemist (1612); Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

(Oxford 1624), p. 401.12 The Gratefull Servant (1630), dedication, Sig. A2r.13 Gerald Eades Bentley, Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century

Compared (Chicago 1945), i, 70.14 For Coventry’s comment, see Jonsonus Virbius (1638), p. 20; on elegies for Shakespeare, see

S.Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford 1970), pp. 56–7.15 Samuel Holland, Don Zara del Fuego: A Mock-Romance (1656), pp. 101–2.16 See ‘The Second Prologue personated like Ben Johnson rising from below’ in Edward

Howard’s The Womens Conquest (1671). Extracts from the preface to the play are given in No.

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78, below. The tradition continued through the century: Jonson returns to lashcontemporary poets ‘into Sence’ in the anonymous The Tory-Poets: A Satyr (1682), p. 9.

17 As in Richard Brome’s commendatory verse in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio, Comediesand Tragedies (1647):

While this of Fletcher and his Works I speake:His Works (says Momus) nay, his Plays you’d say:Thou hast said right, for that to him was Play Which was to other braines a toyle; with easeHe played on Waves which were their Troubled Seas….

Edward Howard uses the ‘works’ versus ‘plays’ formula without irony in No. 89.18 The Noble Stranger, Sig. G3v (Act IV). Crambo in Shadwell’s adaptation of the Duke of

Newcastle’s play The Triumphant Widow (acted 1674, published 1677) has Jonson’s works‘apply’d to his head’ to correct the weakness of his Muse (pp. 59–61, Act IV). RichardWhitlock calls Jonson ‘justly confident’ in his statement, in Zω τµια: or Observations on thePresent Manners of the English (1654), p. 24, quoted in H & S, ix, 532; William Mountfortwishes he could share Jonson’s confidence in the prologue to The Injur’d Lovers (1688).

19 Bentley, i, 67–73. The phrase is used by John Denham in ‘On Mr. John Fletcher’s Workes’,in Beaumont and Fletcher, Comedies and Tragedies (1647), Sig. b1v.

20 ‘Of my Self’, in his Poems and Essays (1673), p. 81.21 In the preface ‘To the Readers’, in Richard Brome, Five New Playes, ed. Alexander Brome

(1659). The preface is apparently by ‘the Stationers’, named on the title page as ‘A.Crook’and ‘H.Brome’.

22 Rochester, ‘An Allusion to Horace’, l. 60; Dryden, dedication to his translation of Juvenal,The Satires (1693), p. iii.

23 In his Essay of 1667 (No. 67).24 Shadwell also noticed this technique, calling it ‘that connexion which the Incomparable

Johnson first taught the Stage’: The Royal Shepherdess (1669), preface, Sig. A2r.25 ‘To Sir Godfrey Kneller’ (1694), l. 118.26 Examen Poeticum (1693) dedication, Sig. [B6]v.27 And again, also in the Essay, ‘As he did not want imagination, so none ever said he had much

to spare’.28 As R.Jack Smith notes in ‘Shadwell’s Impact upon John Dryden’, Review of English Studies

(1944), xx, 29–44.29 The term is from Dryden’s dedication to The Assignation (1673), Sig.30 Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674), preface, Sig. A2v.31 Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco Revised (1674), preface, Sig. [A2]r.32 The Assignation (1673), dedication, Sig. [A4]v.33 Examen Poeticum (1693), dedication, Sig. [A5]r.34 Rochester, ‘An Allusion to Horace’, l. 81.35 Psyche: A Tragedy (1675), preface, Sig. [A3]r.36 The Virtuoso (1676), dedication, Sig. a3r.37 On the poem, and on the relations between Jonson, Dryden, and Shadwell generally, see Ian

Donaldson, ‘Fathers and Sons: Jonson, Dryden and Mac Flecknoe’, Southern Review (1985),xviii, 314–27.

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38 He cites Sylla’s ghost as another example of ‘extravagancies’ in Jonson in No. 89. Congrevedefends Morose as properly extravagant in No. 96(c).

39 Friend, did my fame and Muse shine forth as brightAs the renowned Ben’s, then would that lightLike th’hour telling Sun, the RectifierOf Clocks and Watches, shine to the whole quireOf common censurers….(Commendatory verse to Hugo Grotius, Sophomphaneas, or Joseph. A Tragedy, ed. Francis

Goldsmith (1652), Sig. Bv.)40 A late Printed Sermon against False Prophets, Vindicated by Letter, from the causeless Aspersions of Mr

Francis Cheynell (1647), pp. 21–2.41 ‘To one that asked me why I would write an English Epigram after B. Johnson’, in his Clarastella

(1650), p. 33, printed in Bentley, ii, 78.42 One of the commendatory verses to the anonymous EIKΩN AAH INH (1649) mentions

Jonson’s Catiline, but tells the author of the present work, ‘I make no doubt the knowing inour Age, /(As fooles did in his) will hiss thine off the stage’ (Sig. av).

43 There is a reference in the first printed version of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal (1672) to ‘Romancloaths, guilded Truncheons, forc’d conceipt, smooth Verse, and a Rant’ in the production(pp. 38–9).

44 In the preface to an anonymous play in MS, of c. 1654, quoted in Bernard M.Wagner, ‘AJonson Allusion, and Others’, Philological Quarterly (1948), vii, 307.

45 Brown’s character Bays (Dryden) is reporting how he diminished all rival poets, includingJonson, over his career: The Reasons of Mr. Bays Changing his Religion (1688), p. 15.

46 See No. 159(b).47 ‘To Mr Garrick’, The Gentleman’s Magazine (1743), xiii, 489.48 Robert Gale Noyes, Ben Jonson on the English Stage 1660–1776 (Cambridge, Mass. 1935), p.

103.49 Nos 125, 169; and Nos 136, 146(a), 150, 159, 170.50 In a table in the Literary Magazine: Or, Universal Review (1758), iii, 6, Jonson scores 8 out of

20 for ‘Versifications’, the lowest score under that heading for any of the poets listed.51 Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s-Inn Journal (1756), 1, 263 (no. 40, 28 July 1753); Sir John Hill,

Some Remarks upon the new-revived Play of ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ (1759), quoted in BrianVickers (ed.), Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage (1974–81), iv, 403.

52 See the note to Rowe’s ‘Account’ of Shakespeare’s life, in Malone’s edition of The Plays andPoems of Shakespeare (1790), i, Part i, p. 112. Malone assembles evidence that Jonson’sreputation even in his own time arose from the praises ‘that a few scholars gave him in theirclosets’, rather than from any general popularity (pp. 112–13). There is a vivid account ofJonson’s decline in reputation in the eighteenth century in Jonas A.Barish (ed.), Ben Jonson: ACollection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1963), pp. 1–5.

53 i, 262–6.54 Dennis, The Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar (1720), p. 31; on Garrick’s contrasting roles,

see ‘The Character of an excellent Actor’, The Gentleman’s Magazine (1743), xiii, 254(reprinted from The British Champion (May 1743), n.s., v), and Garrick in No. 125.

55 Dennis expounds the theory energetically in No. 100, as does Gildon in No. 106(b).56 So says Charles Gildon in a passage in The Laws of Poetry (1721), p. 251 (not printed in No.

112), quoting Congreve and Sir William Temple.57 A Discourse upon Comedy, In Reference to the English Stage (1702), in Farquhar’s Works (1711), p.

72.

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58 ‘The Apotheosis of Milton. A Vision’, The Gentleman’s Magazine (May 1738), viii, 234.59 The part played by Volpone in propaganda against Walpole is discussed in Graham William

Nicholls, ‘Aspects of Stage Productions of Ben Jonson 1660–1776’ (Ph.D. thesis, St David’sCollege, Lampeter 1972), ch. 3. The leading article of The Country Journal: Or, The Craftsman,no. 153, 7 June 1729, is devoted to an application of Sejanus to Walpole. See also RobertGale Noyes, ‘Volpone; Or, the Fox—the Evolution of a Nickname’, Harvard Studies inPhilology and Literature (1934), xvi, 161–75.

60 Dryden comments on this aspect of Jonson’s artful plots in No. 67.61 See Nos 132 (1749), 144 (1756), 152 (1763).62 The texts are conveniently collected in Scott McMillin (ed.), Restoration and Eighteenth

Century Comedy (New York 1973): Hobbes (1650) on pp. 343–4, Steele in 1704 and 1710 onpp. 367–70, and Addison (1711) on pp. 370–3. On the shift in the notion of ‘humour’, seeStuart Tave, The Amiable Humorist: A Study in the Comic Theory and Criticism of the Eighteenth andEarly Nineteenth Centuries (Chicago, Ill. 1960).

63 The Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser, 26 and 28 December 1776. The letter of 28 Decemberdefends a comedy of ‘knaves, fops, and fools’ against one based on ‘deck’d virtue, or brilliancyof sentiment’. The suggestion that the author might be Garrick is from Charles Harold Gray,Theatrical Criticism in London to 1795 (New York 1931), p. 228.

64 From an essay quoted in the headnote to No. 141. 65 An Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare, With Remarks on Several Passages of his Plays (1748),

pp. 22–3, 76–8.66 Biographia Dramatica, or, A Companion to the Playhouse (1782), i, 755; Garrick, The Letters, ed.

David M.Little, George M.Kahrl, and Phoebe de K.Wilson (Cambridge, Mass. 1963), i,303–4. In No. 176(c), Davies discusses the difficulty of acting Jonson so long after his death.

67 See for example Eliza Haywood’s comment in The Female Spectator, Book viii (1745); in the1775 edition, volume ii, 78.

68 Garrick’s addition of a confrontation in which Drugger adopts a defiant boxing poseattracted adverse comment: see the unsigned article, ‘Critical Examen of Mr GARRICK’sAbilities as an Actor’, in The Theatrical Review, 1 February 1764, pp. 79–80, and the letterfrom ‘Rusticus Theatricus’ to The London Evening Post, 10–13 February 1770.

69 The traditional formulas were still useful to the poet of the 1767 Rational Rosciad (No. 157).70 An Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare, p. 13.71 Steevens (ed.), The Plays of Shakespeare (1778), i, 219–22; Malone (ed.), The Plays and Poems of

Shakespeare (1790), i, Part i, 388.72 i, 277–8 (not printed in No. 176).73 William Kenrick, A Review of Doctor Johnson’s New Edition of Shakespeare (1765), p. 106.74 E.A.J.Honigmann, Shakespeare’s Impact on his Contemporaries (1982), P. 99.75 Reed (ed.), The Plays of William Shakespeare (1785), iv, 503, 516; viii, 59.76 Edward Capell, Notes and Various Readings to Shakespeare (1783), iii, 479. See No. 156.77 Ireland is quoted in Schoenbaum, p. 219; Chalmers’s identification of the ‘Poet-Ape’ is in A

Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare-Papers (1799), pp. 240–2.78 A Complete History of the Stage (1800), iii, 308. Jonson is the subject of chs 5 and 6 of volume

iii.79 Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism, ed. Thomas Middleton Raysor (1936), pp. 46, 52, 49;

A.W.Schlegel, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature [given 1808], trans. JohnBlack (1815), pp. 282–3.

80 Hazlitt, The Complete Works, ed. P.P.Howe (1931), vi, 38–9.

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81 In Gilchrist’s An Examination of the Charges Mainteined by Messrs. Malone, Chalmers, and others, ofBen Jonson’s Enmity, &c. Towards Shakespeare (1808) and Godwin’s ‘Of Ben Jonson andMilton’s Imitation of that Author’, appended to his Lives of Edward and John Philips, nephewsand pupils of Milton (1815).

82 As does the writer in the unsigned review of Gifford’s edition in The Retrospective Review(1820), i, Part ii, pp. 181–200.

83 See the unsigned review of Gifford’s edition in The British Critic (1818), 2nd series, x, 183–99; John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian (1839), i, 97–9 (the passage followingNo. 175(b), below); and William Bodham Donne, ‘Ben Jonson: His Life and Works’,Bentley’s Quarterly Review (1860), ii, 404–33.

84 Hazlitt, The Complete Works, ed. Howe, vi, 304.85 The terms are from John Aikin’s note to ‘Still to be neat, still to be dressed…’ from Epicoene

in his anthology Vocal Poetry, or, A Select Collection of English Songs (1810), p. 166. On thetreatment of Jonson in nineteenth-century anthologies, see Ian Donaldson, ‘Jonson’s Ode toSir Lucius Cary and Sir H.Morison’, Studies in the Literary Imagination (1973), vi, 139–42.

86 W.C.Roscoe, ‘Ben Jonson’, National Review (1858), vi, 139–47.87 Tennyson is quoted in Hallam, Lord Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir (1897), ii, 73.

The MS of The Golden Treasury with Tennyson’s notes is in the British Library (Add. MS42126A, B): for commentary, see B.Ifor Evans, ‘Tennyson and the Origin of the GoldenTreasury’, The Times Literary Supplement, 8 December 1932, and Colin J.Horne, ‘Palgrave’sGolden Treasury’, English Studies (1949), n.s. ii, 54–63.

88 See the unsigned review of the editions by Gifford (1816) and Bell (1856) in The BritishQuarterly Review (1857), xxv, 308–20; William Bodham Donne, ‘Ben Jonson: His Life andWorks’, p. 405; and William Harkins, ‘Shakespeare and Ben Jonson’, Cornell Review (1873),i, 141–5.

89 Thomas Carlyle, Historical Sketches of Notable Persons and Events in the Reigns of James I andCharles I, ed. Alexander Carlyle (1898), p. 74.

90 A Study of Ben Jonson (1889), p. 124.91 Unsigned article, ‘Academy Portraits. I. —Ben Jonson’, Academy (1896), 1, 390–1;

E.K.Chambers, letter, Academy (1896), 1, 432.92 Unsigned review of Swinburne’s A Study of Ben Jonson, The Athenaeum, 8 March 1890, pp.

315–18. The scenes in question appear in the 1602 version of the play; the evidence for theirattribution is discussed in Philip Edwards (ed.), The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd(Manchester 1959), pp. lxi–lxvi.

93 See Leigh Hunt’s Dramatic Criticism, 1808–31, ed. Lawrence Huston Houtchens and CarolynWashburn Houtchens (New York 1949), pp. 122–3; Henry Kingsley, ‘Ben Jonson’, TempleBar (1874), xlii, 35–50.

94 W.W.Greg (ed.), Ben Jonson’s Sad Shepherd with Waldron’s Continuation (Louvain 1905), p. i;G.Gregory Smith, Ben Jonson (1919), pp. 201, 64–5.

95 In The Times Literary Supplement, 13 November 1919, pp. 637–8, and The Athenaeum, 14November 1919, pp. 1180–1; combined as ‘Ben Jonson’ and published in The Sacred Wood(1920).

28 BEN JONSON

1.John Weever, Marston and Jonson

1599

From Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion, Sixth Week, no. 11.E.A.J.Honigmann, John Weever (Manchester 1987), p. 91, suggests a date of late

1598 or 1599 for the sonnet. Weever (1575 or 1576–1632) is best known for hisreferences to poetic contemporaries in the Epigrammes (Fourth Week, no. 22 is asonnet on Shakespeare) and for his 1631 folio, Ancient Funerall Monuments. There isslighting reference to Weever’s epigrams in Jonson’s ‘To my meere Englishcensurer’ (Epig. 18). See Introduction, p. 3, and Nos 4 and 7, below.

Ad Io: Marston, & Ben: Iohnson

Marston, thy Muse enharbours Horace vaine,Then some Augustus give thee Horace merit,And thine embuskin’d Johnson doth retaineSo rich a stile, and wondrous gallant spirit;That if to praise your Muses I desired,My Muse would muse. Such wittes must be admired.

(Sig. [F8]v)

30

2.Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour

1599

Printed from the first edition, The Comicall Satyre of Every Man out of his Humor(1600). The play was first performed in 1599.

Cordatus (described in the dramatis personae as ‘The Authors friend; A man inlyacquainted with the Scope and Drift of his Plot: Of a discreet, and understandingJudgement; and has the place of a Moderator’) and Mitis form the Grex or chorus,commenting on critical issues and explicating the action and characters. Thepassages from the chorus printed below are those which deal with specific criticalissues arising from the action of the play, rather than those which explicate oranticipate it, or discuss drama in general.

(a) From the Induction.

Mit. You have seene his play Cordatus? pray you; how is’t?Cord. Faith Sir, I must refraine to judge, onely this I can say of it, ’tis strange, and of a

perticular kind by it selfe, somewhat like Vetus Comœdia: a worke that hath bounteouslypleased me, how it will answere the generall expectation, I know not.

Mit. Does he observe all the lawes of Comedie in it?Cord. What lawes meane you?Mit. Why the equall devision of it into Acts and Scenes, according to the Terentian

manner, his true number of Actors; the furnishing of the Scene with Grex or Chorus,and that the whole Argument fall within compasse of a daies efficiencie.

Cord. O no, these are too nice observations.Mit. They are such as must bee received by your favour, or it cannot be Authentique.Cord. Troth I can discerne no such necessitie.Mit. No?Cord. No, I assure you signior; if those lawes you speake of, had beene delivered us, ab

Initio; and in their present vertue and perfection, there had beene some reason ofobeying their powers…. (Sig. [Biv]v)

[Cordatus then gives a brief history of the development of the classical drama, toshow how successive playwrights adapted the forms they inherited.]

(b) The chorus following Act I, Scene iii.

Cord. Now signior, how approve you this? have the Humorists exprest themselves trulyor no?

Mit. Yes (if it be wel prosecuted) ’tis hitherto happy ynough: but methinks Macilente wenthence too soone, he might have been made to stay and speake somewhat in reproofe ofSordido’s wretchednesse, now at the last.

Cor. O no, that had bin extreamly improper, besides he had continued the Scene too longwith him as’t was, being in no more action.

Mit. You may enforce the length as a necessarie reason; but for propriety the Scene woldvery wel have born it, in my judgement.

Cor. O worst of both; why you mistake his Humor utterly then.Mit. How? do I mistake it? is’t not Envie?Cord. Yes, but you must understand Signior, hee envies him not as he is a villaine, a wolfe

i’ the commonwealth, but as he is rich and fortunate; for the true condition of envie, isDolor aliena felicitatis, to have our eies continually fixt upon another mans prosperitie,that is his cheefe happinesse, and to grieve at that. Whereas if we make his monstrousand abhord actions, our object, the greefe (we take then) comes neerer the nature ofHate than Envie, as being bred out of a kind of contempt and lothing in our selves.

Mit. So you’le infer it had been Hate, not Envie in him, to reprehend the humour ofSordido?

Cord. Right, for what a man truly envies in another, he could alwaies love, and cherish inhimselfe; but no man truly reprehends in another what he loves in himselfe, thereforeReprehension is out of his Hate. And this distinction hath he himselfe made in a speechthere (if you markt it) where hee saies, I envie not this Buffon, but I hate him.

Mit. Stay sir: I envie not this Buffon, but I hate him; why might he not as well have hated Sordidoas him?

Cord. No sir, there was subject for his envie in Sordido; his wealth: So was there not in theother, he stood possest of no one eminent gift, but a most odious and fiend-likedisposition, that would turne Charitie it selfe into Hate, much more Envie for thepresent. (Sig. [D iv]r-v)

(c) From the chorus following Act II, Scene iii. The act as a whole has displayed thehumours of Fastidious Brisk, Carlo Buffone, Sogliardo, Puntarvolo, Sordido, andFungoso.

Mit. Me thinks Cordatus, he dwelt somwhat too long on this Scene; it hung i’the hand.Cord. I see not where he could have insisted lesse, and t’have made the Humors

perspicuous enough.Mit. True, as his Subject lies: but he might have altered the shape of Argument, &

explicated ‘hem better in single Scenes.Cord. That had been Single indeed: why? be they not the same persons in this, as they

would have been in those? and is it not an object of more State, to behold the Scenefull, and reliev’d with varietie of Speakers to the end, than to see a vast emptie stage,and the Actors come in (one by one) as if they were dropt down with a feather into theeie of the Audience?

Mir. Nay, you are better traded with these things than I, and therefore I’le subscribe toyour judgement; mary you shall give me leave to make objections.

32 BEN JONSON

Cord. O what else? it’s the speciall intent of the Author you should do so: for therebyothers (that are present) may as well be satisfied, who happily would object the sameyou doe. (Sig. [Fiv.]r-v)

(d) From the chorus following Act II, Scene vi.

Mit. Well, I doubt this last Scene will endure some grievous Torture.Cord. How? you feare ’twill be rackt by some hard Construction?Mit. Doe not you?Cord. No in good faith: unlesse mine eyes could light mee beyond Sence, I see no reason

why this should be more Liable to the Racke than the rest: you’le say perhaps theCittie will not take it wel, that the Merchant is made here to dote so perfectly upon hiswife; and shee againe, to be so Fastidiously affected, as she is?

Mit. You have utter’d my thought sir, indeed.Cord. Why (by that proportion) the Court might as well take offence at him we call the

Courtier, and with much more Pretext, by how much the place transcends and goesbefore in dignitie and vertue: but can you imagine that any Noble or true spirit in theCourt (whose Sinewie, and altogether unaffected graces, very worthily expresse him aCourtier) will make any exception at the opening of such an emptie Trunk as thisBriske is? or thinke his owne worth empeacht by beholding his motley inside?

Mit. No Sir, I doe not. Cord. No more, assure you, will any grave wise Cittizen, ormodest Matron, take the object of this Follie in Deliro and his Wife; but rather apply itas the foile to their owne vertues: For that were to affirme, that a man writing of Nero,should meane all Emperours: or speaking of Machiavell, comprehend all States-men; orin our Sordido, all Farmars; and so of the rest; than which, nothing can bee utter’dmore malicious and absurd. Indeed there are a sort of these narrow-ey’d Decipherers,I confesse, that will extort straunge and abstruse meanings out of any Subject, bee itnever so Conspicuous and Innocently delivered. But to such (where e’re they sitconceald) let them know, the Authour defies them, and their writing-Tables; andhopes, no sound or safe judgement will infect it selfe with their contagious Comments,who (indeed) come here only to pervert and poyson the sence of what they heare, andfor nought else. (Sig. Hiir-v)

(e) The chorus following Act III, Scene vi.

Mit. I travell with another objection Signior, which I feare will be enforc’d against theAuthor, ere I can be deliver’d of it.

Cord. What’s that sir?Mit. That the argument of his Comedie might have ben of some other nature, as of a

Duke to be in love with a Countesse, and that Countesse to be in love with the Dukesson, & the son to love the Ladies waiting maid; some such crosse woing, with aClowne to their servingman, better than to be thus neere and familiarly allied to thetime.

Cord. You say well, but I would faine hear one of these Autumne—judgements defineonce, Quid sit Comœdia?1 if he cannot, let him content himselfe with Ciceros definition(till hee have strength to propose to himself a better) who would have a Comedie to beImitatio vitæ, Speculum Consuetudinis, Imago veritatis,2 a thing throughout pleasant andridiculous, and accommodated to the correction of manners: if the maker have fail’d in

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 33

any particle of this, they may worthily taxe him, but if not, why; be you (that are forthem) silent, as I will bee for him; and give way to the Actors. (Sig. Kr)

(f) The chorus following Act III, Scene viii. Sordido has resolved to hang himself, becausethe prognostications of his beloved almanacs have proved false.

Cord. How now Mitis? what’s that you consider so seriously?Mit. Troth, that which doth essentially please me: the warping condition of this greene

and foggie multitude: but in good faith Signior, your Author hath largely outstript myexpectation in this Scene, I will liberally confesse it. For when I saw Sordido sodesperately intended, I thought I had had a hand of him then.

Cord. What? you suppos’d hee should have hung himselfe indeed?Mit. I did; and had fram’d my objection to it readie, which may yet be very fitly urg’d, &

with some necessitie: for though his purpos’d violence lost th’effect, & extended notto death, yet the Intent & Horror of the object was more than the nature of a Comediewill in any sort allow.

Cord. I? what thinke you of Plautus in his Comedie called Cistellaria there? where he bringsin Alcesimarchus with a drawne sword readie to kill himselfe, and as hee is e’ne fixinghis breast upon it, to bee restrain’d from his resolv’d outrage by Silemion and theBawd: is not his authoritie of power to give our Scene approbation?

Mit. Sir, I have this (your only) evasion left mee, to say, I thinke it bee so indeed, yourmemorie is happier than mine: but I wonder what engine he will use to bring the rest outof their Humors?

Cord. That will appeare anone, never preoccupie your imagination withall. Let your mindkeepe companie with the Scene stil, which now removes itselfe from the Countrie tothe Court. Here comes Macilente and Signior Briske freshly suted, loose not your selfe,for now the Epitasis or busie part of our Subject is in Action. (Sig. Kiiir-v)

(g) From the chorus following Act IV, Scene viii.

Mit. This Macilente Signior begins to bee more sociable on a suddaine me thinkes, than hewas before, there’s some Portent in’t, I beleeve.

Cord. O hee’s a fellow of a strange Nature. Now do’s hee (in this calme of his Humor)plot and store up a world of malicious thoughts in his braine, till he is so full with ’hem,that you shall see the very Torrent of his Envie breake forth, and against the course ofall their affections oppose it selfe so violently, that you will almost have wonder tothinke how ’tis possible the current of their Dispositions shall receive so quicke andstrong an alteration.

Mit. I marry sir, this is that on which my Expectation has dwelt all this while: for I musttell you Signior (though I was loth to interrupt the Scene) yet I made it a question inmine owne private discourse, how hee should properly call it, Everie man out of hisHumor, when I saw all his Actors so strongly pursue and continue their Humors?

Cord. Why therein his Art appeares most full of lustre, and approacheth nearest the life,especially when in the flame and height of their Humors they are laid flat, it fils the eyebetter, and with more contentment. How tedious a sight were it to behold a prowdexalted tree lopt and cut downe by degrees, when it might be feld in a moment? and to

34 BEN JONSON

set the Axe to it, before it came to that pride and fulnesse, were as not to have itgrow.

Mit. Well I shall long till I see this fall you talke of. (Sig. Ov)

NOTES

1 ‘What is a comedy?’2 ‘The imitation of life, the mirror of custom, the image of truth’ (attributed to Cicero by

Donatus: Commentum Terenti, ed. Paul Wessner (Stuttgart 1962), i, 22).

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 35

36

3.Ben Jonson, prologue to Cynthia’s Revels

1600

From the quarto edition, 1601. The play was acted by the Children of the Queen’sChapel, at Blackfriars, in 1600.

If gratious silence, sweete Attention,Quick sight, and quicker apprehension,(The light of judgments throne) shine any wher;Our doubtful author hopes, this is their SphæreAnd therefore opens he himselfe to those,To other weaker Beames, his labors close;As loathe to prostitute their virgin straine,To every vulgar, and adulterate braine.In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath,She shuns the print of any beaten path;And prooves new wayes to come to learned eares:Pied ignorance she neither loves, nor feares.Nor hunts she after popular applause,Or fomy praise, that drops from common Jawes;The garland that she weares, their hands must twine,Who can both censure, understand, defineWhat Merrit is: Then cast those piercing rayes,Round as a crowne, insteed of honor’d BayesAbout his Poesie; which (he knowes) affoords,Words above Action: matter, above wordes. (Sig. Br)

38

4.John Weever, Jonson as humorist

1601

From The Whipping of the Satyre (1601), by ‘W.I.’, almost certainly John Weever.For Weever, see No. 1, above. The pamphlet attacks a ‘Satyrist’, an

‘Epigrammatist’, and a ‘Humorist’ for their arrogant and intolerant assaults oncontemporary society. The ‘Satyrist’ must be Marston, the ‘Epigrammatist’ is mostlikely William Guilpin, and the ‘Humorist’ is Jonson: see A. Davenport (ed.), TheWhipper Pamphlets (Liverpool 1951), Part i, pp. v–xi.

The persona of the poem dreams that he is wandering as a pilgrim in the HolyLand, and comes across the figure of Commonwealth lamenting to her companionChurch that she has brought up three ‘That viperlike would eate my bowels out’(Sig. B4v); they are ‘Sat. rough, severe: Ep. skip-Jacke jester like: /Hu. withnewfangled neuterisme enflam’d, /A1 naught’ (Sig. [B5]r) (‘Neuterisme’ referspresumably to the fashionable term ‘humours’ itself). Elsewhere this last figure isaddressed as ‘captious Humourist’ (Sig. E2v). The pilgrim offers to ‘correct’ thesatirist and to show the other two ‘how lewdly they their time mispent’ (Sig. [B5]v–[B7]r), and the rest of the poem deals with his attempt to do so.

(a) From the prefatory Epistle, To the Vayne-Glorious, the Satyrist, Epigrammatist, andHumorist’.

Now by your leave, Monsieur Humorist, you that talke of mens humours anddispositions, as though you had bene a Constellation-setter seven yeres in the firmament,or had cast account of every mans nativitie with the starres: but if I were as theAstronomers, I would call you into question for it, seeing you have so abused their Art.But, had you bene but so meane a Philosopher, as have knowne, that mores sequunturhumores,1 you would questionles have made better humours, if it had bene but to betterour maners, and not instead of a morall medicine, to have given them a mortall poyson:but I consider of you, as of a yonger brother: you wanted this fame multis nimium; andnulli satis,2 coyne (a goodyere of it) and therefore opus & usus3 put you to such a pinch,that you made sale of your Humours to the Theater and there plaid Pee boh with the peoplein your humour, then out of your humour. I doe not blame you for this: for though you wereguilty of many other things, yet I dare say, you were altogether without guilt at that time,not-withstanding I suppose you would have written for love, and not for money: but I seeyou are one of those that if a man can finde in his purse to give them presently, they canfinde in their hearts to love him everlastingly: for now adaies Aes in præsenti perfectumformat amorem.4 But it makes the lesse matter, because I know but few but are corrivals

with you in the love of silver: so that if the question were asked, Quis amat pecuniam?Experience would answere the voice with a double Eccho, Quisquis.5 And indeed I see noreason, why everie true subject should not love the Q. coyne. (Sigs A3

v–[A4]r)(b) From the poem.

It seemes your brother Satyre and ye twayne,Plotted three wayes to put the Divell downe;One should outrayle him by invective vaine,One all to flout him like a countrey clowne;And one in action, on a stage out-face,And play upon him to his great disgrace.You Humorist, if it be true I heare,(d) An action thus against the Divell brought,Sending your humours to each Theater,To serve the writ that ye had gotten out.(e) That Mad-cap yet superiour praise doth win,Who out of hope even casts his cap at sin.(d) Against the booke of Humours.(e) Pasquils Mad-cap.Why did ye such unchristian courses take,As lothes the eares of the offended wise?Can ye make sinne against itselfe to make,Or wring the Divell out by his owne vice?It’s past your power, to bring your will to passe,Your vaine attempting, but a tempting was. (Sig [F3v]–F4r)

NOTES

1 ‘Manners follow humours’.2 ‘Too much to many…enough to none’.3 ‘Need and want’.4 ‘Money in the present forms love in the perfect’ (a parody of the line giving the rule for the

present tense of the first conjugation: ‘As in praesenti perfectum format in avi…’: cited inDavenport (ed.), The Whipper Pamphlets, Part i, p. 55).

5 ‘Who loves money? …Anyone’.

40 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

5.Nicholas Breton on the satirical fashion

1601

From Breton’s No Whippinge, nor trippinge: but a kinde friendly Snippinge (1601).Breton (?1545–?1626) was the son of a rich London merchant, but after his

father’s death his mother married George Gascoigne, who spent most of the familyestate. Breton attempted to revive his fortunes through preferment at court andthen by numerous publications. Jonson wrote an admiring commendatory verse tohis Melancholike humours of 1600 (U.V., 2), but has a dismissive reference toBreton’s (‘Nicholas Pasquill’s’) writings in the ‘Execration upon Vulcan’, l. 77, as hasFletcher in No. 23(d), below.

Breton’s Pasquil’s Madcap (1600), a mild verse satire on perennial socialcorruption, is mentioned in The Whipping of the Satyre (Sig. F3v; see No. 4, above);Breton’s reply in the present pamphlet laments the fashion for satire and poeticalbackbiting generally.

Tis strange to see the humors of these daies:How first the Satyre bites at imperfections:The Epigrammist in his quips displaiesA wicked Course in shadowes of corrections:The Humorist hee strictly makes collectionsOf loth’d behaviours both in youthe and age:And makes them plaie their parts upon a stage.An other Madcappe in a merry fit.For lacke of witte did cast his cappe at sinne:And for his labour was well tould of it,For too much playing on that merry pinne:For that all fishes are not of one sinne: And they that are of cholerick complections,Love not too plain to reade their imperfectionNow comes another with a new founde vaine;And onely falls to reprehensions;Who in a kind of scoffing chiding straine,Bringes out I knowe not what in his inventions:But I will ghesse the best of his intencions;

Hee would that all were well, and so would I.Fooles shuld not too much shew their foolery,And would to God it had ben so indeed,The Satyres teeth had never bitten so:The Epigrammist had not had a feedeOf wicked weedes, among his herbes to sowe,Nor one mans humor did not others showe,Nor Madcap had not showen his madness such,And that the whipper had not jerkt so much. (Sig. [A4]r-v)

42 BEN JONSON

6.Ben Jonson, Poetaster

1601

From the quarto, Poetaster or the Arraignment (1602). The play was performed in1601.

Horace in the play reflects Jonson’s perception of his own situation in thecontemporary literary world, and Horace’s critics Crispinus (the poetaster of thetitle) and Demetrius stand for Marston and Dekker respectively. See Introduction,PP. 3–5.

(a) From Act IV, Scene iii.

[Crispinus has had his song ‘Love is blinde, and a wanton’ sung; Tibullus revealsthat it was stolen from Horace. Tucca and Demetrius abuse Horace in his absence.]

Demet. Alas, sir, Horace? he is a meere spunge; nothing but Humours and Observation; hegoes up and down sucking from every societie; and when he comes home, squeazeshimselfe dry againe. I knowe him, I.

Tuc. Thou sayest true, my poore Poeticall Furie, he will pen all he knowes. A sharpethorny tooth’d Satyricall Rascall, flye him; He carries Haye in his horne; he will soonerloose his best friend, then his least Jeast. What he once drops upon paper, against aman, lives eternally to upbraide him in the mouth of every slave Tankerd-bearer, orWater-man: not a Baud, or a boy that comes from the bake house, but shall point athim: ’tis all Dogge, and Scorpion; hee carries poyson in his teeth, and a sting in histaile; fough, Bodie of Jove! I’le have the slave whipt one of these daies for his Satyres,and his Humours, by one casheer’d Clarke, or another.

Crisp. We’ll undertake him, Captaine.Demet. I, and tickle him i’faith, for his Arrogancie, and his impudence, in commending his

owne thinges: and for his translating: I can trace him i’faith: ô, he is the most openfellowe, living; I had as lieve as a newe Suite, I were at it. (Sig. G3v–G4r)

(b) From Act V, Scene iii.

[Lupus brings an ‘embleme’ of Horace’s to Caesar, claiming it is a libel on theEmperor; this malicious misinterpretation is exposed, and Caesar deputes Virgil topreside at the trial of the charges against Crispinus and Demetrius.]

Tibul. Rufus Laberius Crispinus, and Demetrius Fannius, hold up your hands. You are, beforethis time, joyntly and severally indited; and here presently to be arraigned, upon the Statute ofCalumny, or Lex Remmia (The one by the name of Rufus Laberius Crispinus, aliasCrispinas, Poetaster, and Plagiary: the other by the name of Demetrius Fannius, Play-dresser & Plagiary) That you (not having the feare of Phœbus or his shafts, before your eyes)contrary to the peace of our liege Lord, Augustus Cæsar, his Crowne and dignitie, and againstthe forme of a Statute in that case made, and provided; have most ignorantly, foolishly, and(more like your selves) malitiously gone about to deprave, and calumniate the Person and writingsof Quintus Horatius Flaccus, here present, Poet and Priest to the Muses: and to that endhave mutually conspir’d, and plotted, at sundry times, as by severall meanes, and in sundry places,for the better accomplishing your base and Envious purpose; taxing him, falsely, of Selfe love,Arrogancy, Impudence, Rayling, filching by Translation, &c. Of all which Calumnies,and every of them in manner and forme aforesaid, what answere you? Are you Guiltie, or notGuilty? (Sig. L3v)

[After the judges have been sworn in, Demetrius’ squib against Horace is read outto the court.]

Tibul. Our Muse is in minde for th’untrussing a Poet:I slip by his Name; for most men doe know it:A Critick, that al the world bescumbersWith Satyricall Humors, and Lyricall Numbers:(Tucca. Art thou there, Boy?)And for the most part, himselfe doth advanceWith much selfe-love, and more Arrogance:(Tucca. Good: Againe.)And (but that I would not be thought a Prater)I could tell you, he were a Translater.I know the Authors from whence he ha’s stole,And could trace him too, but that I understand ’hem not full and whole.(Tucca. That line is broke loose from all his felowes; chaine him up shorter, doe.)The best note I can give you to knowe him by,Is, that he keepes Gallants company;Whome I would wish, in time should him feare, Least after they buy Repentance too deare.Subscri, De. Fannius.

Tuc. Well said. This carries Palme with it.Horace. And why, thou Motley Gull? why should they feare?

When hast thou knowne us wrong, or taxe a Friend?I dare thy malice, to betray it. Speake.Now thou curlst up, thou poore and nasty Snake;And shrinkst thy poysnous head into thy Bosome:Out Viper; thou that eat’st thy Parents, hence.Rather, such speckled Creatures, as thy selfe,Should be eschew’d, and shund: such, as will biteAnd gnaw their absent Friends, not cure their Fame;Catch at the loosest Laughters, and affect

44 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

To be thought Jesters; such, as can deviseThings never scene, or heard, t’impayre mens Names,And gratifie their credulous Adversaries;Will carry Tales; doe basest offices;Cherish divided Fiers; and increaseNew Flames, out of old Embers; will revealeEach secret that’s committed to their Trust:These be blacke Slaves; Romanes, take heede of these.

Tucca. Thou twangst right, little Horace; they be indeed:A couple of Chap-falne Curres. Come, Wee of the Bench,Let’s rise to the Urne, and condemne ’hem, quickly.

Virgill. Before you goe together (worthy Romanes)We are to tender our Opinion;And give you those Instructions, that may addeUnto your even Judgement in the Cause;Which thus we doe Commence: First, you must knowThat where there is a true, and perfect Merit,There can be no Dejection; and the ScorneOf humble Basenesse, oftentimes, so workesIn a high Soule upon the grosser Spirit;That to his bleared, and offended Sense,There seemes a hideous Fault blaz’d in the Object;When only the Disease is in his Eyes.Here-hence it comes, our Horace now stands taxtOf Impudence, Selfe-love, and Arrogance,By these, who share no merit in themselves;And therefore, thinke his Portion is as small.For they, from their owne guilt, assure their Soules,If they should confidently praise their workes,In them it would appeare Inflation;Which, in a full, and well-digested man,Cannot receive that foule abusive name,But the faire Title of Erection.And, for his trewe use of translating Men,It still hath beene a worke of as much PalmeIn clearest Judgements, as t’invent, or make.His sharpnesse, that is most excusable;As being forc’t out of a suffering Vertue,Oppressed with the Licence of the Time:And howsoever Fooles, or Jerking Pedants,Players, or such like Buffonary wits,May with their beggerly, and barren trash,Tickle base vulgar eares, in their despight;This (like Joves Thunder) shall their pride controule.‘The honest Satyre hath the happiest Soule.’Now, Romanes, you have heard our thoughts. Withdrawe, when you please. (Sig. L4v–Mv)

BEN JONSON 45

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[The accused are found guilty. Virgil asks what cause they had to malign Horace.]

Demet. In troth, no great cause, not I; I must confesse: but that he kept better companie(for the most part) then I: and that better Men lov’d him, then lov’d me: and that hiswritings thriv’d better then mine, and were better lik’t & grac’t: Nothing else.

Virg. Thus, envious Soules repine at others good.Hor. If this be all; faith, I forgive thee freely.

Envie me still; so long as Virgill loves me,Gallus, Tibullus, and the best-best Cæsar,My deare Mecœnas; while these, with many more(Whose names I wisely slip) shall think me worthyTheir honour’d and ador’d Society,And read, and love, proove, and applaud my Poemes;I would not wish but such as you should spight them.

(Sig. M2v–M3r)

(c) From the ‘apologeticall Dialogue’ printed with the play in the 1616 Workes.

TO THE READER.

IF, by looking on what is past, thou hast deserv’d that name, I am willing thou should’st yet knowmore, by that which followes; an apologeticall Dialogue: which was only once spoken upon thestage, and all the answere I ever gave, to sundry impotent libells then cast out (and some yetremayning) against me, and this Play. Wherein I take no pleasure to revive the times, but thatPosteritie may make a difference, betweene their manners that provok’d me then, and mine thatneglected them ever. For, in these strifes, and on such persons, were as wretched to affect a victorie, asit is unhappy to be committed with them. Non annorum canicies est laudanda, sed morum.1

(348)

[Nasutus and Polyposus go to visit ‘The Author’, and find him scornful of his critics,and refusing to defend his play in public.]

NAS. I never saw this play bred all this tumult.What was there in it could so deeply offend?And stirre so many hornets? AUT. Shall I tell you?

NAS. Yes, and ingenuously. AUT. Then, by the hope,Which I preferre unto all other objects,I can professe, I never writ that peeceMore innocent, or empty of offence.Some salt it had, but neyther tooth, nor gall,Nor was there in it any circumstance,Which, in the setting downe, I could suspectMight be perverted by an enemies tongue.Onely, it had the fault to be call’d mine.That was the crime. POL. No? why they, say you tax’dThe Law, and Lawyers; Captaines; and the Players

46 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

By their particular names. AUT. It is not so.I us’d no name. My Bookes have still beene taughtTo spare the persons, and to speake the vices.These are meere slanders, and enforc’d by suchAs have no safer wayes to mens disgraces,But their owne lyes, and losse of honesty.Fellowes of practis’d, and most laxative tongues,Whose empty and eager bellies, i’ the yeere,Compell their braynes to many desp’rate shifts,(I spare to name ’hem: for, their wretchednesse,Fury it selfe would pardon.) These, or suchWhether of malice, or of ignorance,Or itch, t’have me their adversary (I know not)Or all these mixt; but sure I am, three yeeres.They did provoke me with their petulant stilesOn every stage: And I at last, unwilling,But weary, I confesse, of so much trouble,Thought, I would try, if shame could winne upon ’hem.And therefore chose AUGUSTUS CÆSARS times,When wit, and artes were at their height in Rome,To shew that VIRGIL, HORACE, and the restOf those great master-spirits did not wantDetractors, then, or practisers against them:And by this line (although no paralel)I hop’d at last they would sit downe, and blush.But nothing could I finde more contrary.And though the impudence of flyes be great,Yet this hath so provok’d the angry waspes,Or as you sayd, of the next nest, the hornets;That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrills:And like so many screaming grasse-hoppers,Held by the wings, fill every eare with noyse.And what? those former calumnies you mention’d.First, of the Law. Indeed, I brought in OVID,Chid by his angry father, for neglectingThe study of their lawes, for poetry:And I am warranted by his owne words.Sape pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas?Mæonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.2

And in farre harsher terms elsewhere, as these:Non me verbosas leges ediscere, non meIngrato voces prostituisse foro.3

But how this should relate, unto our lawes,Or their just ministers, with least abuse,I reverence both too much, to understand!Then, for the Captaine; I will onely speakeAn Epigramme I here have made: It isUnto true Souldiers. That’s the lemma. Marke it.

BEN JONSON 47

[Quotes Epig. 108, ‘To True Soldiers’.]

Now, for the Players, it is true, I tax’d ’hem,And yet, but some; and those so sparingly,As all the rest might have sate still, unquestion’d,Had they but had the wit, or conscience,To thinke well of themselves. But, impotent theyThought each mans vice belong’d to their whole tribe:And much good doo’t ’hem. What th’ have done ’gainst me,I am not mov’d with. If it gave ’hem meat,Or got ’hem clothes. ’Tis well. That was their end.Onely amongst them, I am sorry forSome better natures, by the rest so drawne,To run in that vile line. POL. And is this all?Will you not answere then the libells? AUT. No.POL. Nor the untrussers? AUT. Neither. POL. Y’are undone then.AU. With whom? POL. The world. AU. The baud! POL. It will be takenTo be stupidity, or tamenesse in you.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

POL. O, but they lay particular imputations—AUT. As what? POL. That all your writing, is meere rayling.AUT. Ha! If all the salt in the old comœdy

Should be so censur’d, or the sharper witOf the bold satyre, termed scolding rage,What age could then compare with those, for buffons?What should be sayd of ARISTOPHANES?PERSIUS? or JUVENAL? whose names we nowSo glorifie in schooles, at least pretend it.Ha’ they no other? POL. Yes: they say you are slow,And scarse bring forth a play a yeere. AUT. ’Tis true.I would, they could not say that I did that,There’s all the joy that I take i’ their trade,Unlesse such Scribes as they might be proscrib’dTh’ abused theaters. They would thinke it strange, now,A man should take but colts-foote, for one day,And, betweene whiles, spit out a better poemeThen e’re the master of art, or giver of wit,Their belly made. Yet, this is possible,If a free minde had but the patience,To think so much, together, and so vile.But, that these base, and beggerly conceiptsShould carry it, by the multitude of voices,Against the most abstracted worke, oppos’dTo the stuff’d nostrills of the drunken rout!O, this would make a learn’d, and liberal! soule,

48 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

To rive his stayned quill, up to the back,And damne his long-watch’d labours to the fire;Things, that were borne, when none but the still night,And his dumbe candle saw his pinching throes:Were not his owne free merit a more crowneUnto his travailes, then their reeling claps.This ’tis, that strikes me silent, seales my lips,And apts me, rather to sleepe out my time,Then I would waste it in contemned strifes,With these vile Ibides, these uncleane birds,That make their mouthes their clysters, and still purgeFrom their hot entrailes. But, I leave the monstersTo their owne fate. And, since the Comick MUSEHath prov’d so ominous to me, I will trieIf Tragœdie have a more kind aspect.Her favours in my next I will pursue,Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one,So he judicious be; He shall b’ aloneA Theatre unto me: Once, I’le say,To strike the eare of time, in those fresh straines,As shall, beside the cunning of their ground,Give cause to some of wonder, some despight,And unto more, despaire, to imitate their sound.I, that spend halfe my nights, and all my dayes,Here in a cell, to get a darke, pale face,To come forth worth the ivy, or the bayes,And in this age can hope no other grace—Leave me. There’s something come into my thought,That must, and shall be sung, high, and aloofe,Safe from the wolves black jaw, and the dull asses hoofe.

NASU. I reverence these raptures, and obey ’hem. (350–3)

NOTES

1 ‘Old age is truly venerable when it grows hoary not with grey hairs but with good deeds’: StAmbrose, Letters, 16; trans. Sister Mary Melchior Beyenka (Washington 1954), p. 69.

2 ‘Often my father said, “Why do you try a profitless pursuit? Even the Maeonian left nowealth”’: Ovid, Tristia, 4.10.21–2.

3 ‘Not to learn by heart wordy laws nor to prostitute my voice in the ungrateful Forum’:Ovid, Amores, 1.15.5–6; Ovid’s Amores Book One, trans. John A.Barsby (Oxford 1973), p.156, adapted.

BEN JONSON 49

50

7.Thomas Dekker, Horace untrussed

1601–2

From Satiro-mastix. OR The untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1602).Dekker’s reply to Poetaster must have been staged in the autumn of 1601; it was

entered in the Stationers’ Register on 11 November 1601. Grafted onto a playabout William Rufus and Caelestine, daughter of Sir Quintilian Shorthose, who isto be married on the day the action takes place to Sir Walter Terril, is an attack onthe Horace of Poetaster for his satirical activities. In the end Horace is forced to takean oath forswearing his self-promoting, self-aggrandizing, and double-dealingactivities in tavern, theatre, and town generally. See Introduction, pp. 3–5.

(a) From the preface, ‘To the World’. Dekker’s account of the stage-quarrel.World, I was once resolv’d to bee round with thee, because I know tis thy fashion to bee round with

every bodie: but the winde shifting his point, the Veine turn’d: yet because thou wilt sit as Judge ofall matters (though for thy labour thou wear’st Midasses eares, and art Monstrum horrendum,informe: Ingens cui lumen ademptum;1 whose great Poliphemian eye is put out) I care notmuch if I make description (before thy Universality) of that terrible Poetomachia, latelycommenc’d betweene Horace the second, and a band of leane-witted Poetasters. They have bin athigh wordes, and so high, that the ground could not serve them, but (for want of Chopins) havestalk’d upon Stages.

Horace hal’d his Poetasters to the Barre, the Poetasters untruss’d Horace: how worthilyeyther, or how wrongfully, (World) leave it to the Jurie: Horace (questionles) made himselfbeleeve, that his Burgonian wit might desperately challenge all commers, and that none durst takeup the foyles against him: It’s likely, if he had not so beleiv’d, he had not bin so deceiv’d, for heewas answer’d at his owne weapon: And if before Apollo himselfe (who is Coronator Poetarum) anInquisition should be taken touching this lamentable merry murdering of Innocent Poetry: all mountHelicon to Bun-hill it would be found on the Poetasters side Se defendendo. Notwithstandingthe Doctors thinke otherwise. I meete one, and he runnes full Butt at me with his Satires hornes, forthat in untrussing Horace, I did onely whip his fortunes, and condition of life, where the morenoble Reprehension had bin of his mindes Deformitie, whose greatnes if his Criticall Lynx hadwith as narrow eyes, observ’d in himselfe, as it did little spots upon others, without all disputation,Horace would not have left Horace out of Every man in’s Humour. His fortunes? why does nothe taxe that onely in others? read his Arraignement and see. A second Cat-a-mountaine mewes, andcalls me Barren, because my braines could bring foorth no other Stigmaticke than Tucca, whomeHorace had put to making, and begot to my hand; but I wonder what language Tucca would have

spoke, if honest Capten Hannam had bin borne without a tongue? Ist not as lawfull then for mee toimitate Horace, as Horace Hannam? Besides, If I had made an opposition of any other new-minted fellow, (of what Test so ever) hee had bin out-fac’d, and out-weyed by a settled formerapprobation; neyther was it much improper to set the same dog upon Horace, whom Horace had setto worrie others. (Sig. A33–[A4]r)

(b) From Act I, Scene ii.

[Horace’s style of composing, his complacency aired to his foolish follower AsiniusBubo (possibly a caricature of John Weever: see Honigmann, John Weever, pp. 42–9),reproaches from Crispinus and Demetrius (Marston and Dekker), a quarrel withTucca.]

Horrace sitting in a study behinde a Curtaine, a candle by him burning, bookes lying confusedly: tohimselfe.

Hor. To thee whose fore-head swels with Roses,Whose most haunted bowerGives life & sent to every flower,Whose most adored name incloses,Things abstruse, deep and divine,Whose yellow tresses shine,Bright as Eoan fire. O me thy Priest inspire.For I to thee and thine immortall name,In—in—in golden tunes,For I to thee and thine immortall name—In—sacred raptures flowing, flowing, swimming, swimming:In sacred raptures swimming.Immortall name, game, dame, tame, lame, lame, lame,Pux, hath, shame, proclaime, oh—In Sacred raptures flowing, will proclaime, not—O me thy Priest inspyre!For I to thee and thine immortall name,In flowing numbers fild with spright and flame,Good, good, in flowing numbers fild with spright & flame.

Enter Asinius Bubo.

Asini. Horace, Horace, my sweet ningle, is alwayes in labour when I come, the nine Musesbe his midwives I pray Jupiter: Ningle.

Hor. In flowing numbers fild with sprite and flame, To thee.Asini. To me? I pledge thee sweet Ningle, by Bacchus quaffing boule, I thought th’adst

drunke to me.Hor. It must have been in the devine lycour of Pernassus, then in which, I know you would

scarce have pledg’d me, but come sweet roague, sit, sit, sit.Asini. Over head and eares yfaith? I have a sacke-full of newes for thee, thou shall plague

some of them, if God send us life and health together.Hor. Its no matter, empty thy sacke anon, but come here first honest roague, come.Asini. Ist good, Ist good, pure Helicon ha?

52 BEN JONSON

Hor. Dam me ift be not the best that ever came from me, if I have any judgement lookesir, tis an Epithalamium for Sir Walter Terrels wedding, my braines have given assault toit but this morning.

Asin. Then I hope to see them flye out like gun-powder ere night.Hor. Nay good roague marke, for they are the best lynes that ever I drew. Asin. Heer’s the best leafe in England, but on, on, Ile but tune this Pipe.Hor. Marke, to thee whose fore-head swels with Roses.Asin. O sweet, but there will be no exceptions taken, because fore-head and swelling comes

together?Hor. Push, away, away, its proper, besides tis an elegancy to say the fore head swels.Asin. Nay an’t be proper, let it stand for Gods love.Hor. Whose most haunted bower,

Gives life and sent to every flower.Whose most adored name incloses,Things abstruse, deep and divine.Whose yellow tresses shine,Bright as Eoan fire.

Asini. O pure, rich, ther’s heate in this, on, on.Hor. Bright as Eoan fire,

O me thy Priest inspire!For I to thee and thine immortall name—marke this.In flowing numbers fild with spryte and flame.

Asini. I mary, ther’s spryte and flame in this.Hor. A pox, a this Tobacco.Asin. Wod this case were my last if I did not marke, nay all’s one, I have always a consort

of Pypes about me, myne Ingle is all fire and water; I markt, by this Candle (which isnone of Gods Angels) I remember, you started back at sprite and flame.

Hor. For I to thee and thine immortall name,In flowing numbers fild with sprite and flame,To thee Loves mightiest King,Himen Ô Himen does our chaste Muse sing.

Asin. Ther’s musicke in this;Hor. Marke now deare Asinius.

Let these virgins quickly see thee,Leading out the Bride,Though theyr blushing cheekes they hide,Yet with kisses will they fee thee,To untye theyr Virgin zone,They grieve to lye alone.

Asini. So doe I by Venus.Hor. Yet with kisses wil they see thee, my Muse has marcht (deare roague) no farder yet:

but how ist? how ist? nay prethee good Asinius deale plainly, doe not flatter me, come,how? —

Asin. If I have any judgement:Hor. Nay look you Sir, and then follow a troope of other rich and labour’d conceipts, oh

the end shall be admirable! but how ist sweet Bubo, how, how!Asini. If I have any Judgement, tis the best stuffe that ever dropt from thee.Hor. You ha scene my Acrosticks?

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 53

Asi. Ile put up my pypes and then Ile see any thing.Hor. Th’ast a Coppy of mine Odes to, hast not Bubo?Asi. Your odes? O that which you spake by word a mouth at the’ ordinary, when Musco

the gull cryed Mew at it:Hor. A pox on him poore braineles Rooke: and you remember, I tolde him his wit lay at

pawne with his new Sattin sute, and both would be lost, for not fetching home by aday.

Asi. At which he would faine ha blusht but that his painted cheekes would not let him.Hor. Nay sirra the Palinode, which I meane to stitch to my Revels, shall be the best and

ingenious peece that ever I swet for….

⋆ ⋆ ⋆…but honest roague, come, what news, what newes abroad? I have heard a the horses

walking a’th top of Paules.

Asi. Ha ye? why then Captain Tucca rayles upon you most preposterously behinde yourbacke, did you not heare him?

Ho. A pox upon him: by the white & soft hand of Minerva, Ile make him the mostridiculous: dam me if I bring not’s humor ath stage: &—scurvy lymping tongu’dcaptaine, poor greasie buffe Jerkin, hang him: tis out of his Element to traduce me: Iam too well ranckt Asinius to bee stab’d with his dudgion wit: sirra, Ile compose anEpigram upon him, shall goe thus—

Asi. Nay I ha more news, ther’s Crispinus & his Jorneyman Poet Demetrius Faninus too,they sweare they’ll bring your life & death upon’th stage like a Bricklayer in a play.

Hor. Bubo they must presse more valiant wits than theyr own to do it: me ath stage? ha,ha, Ile starte thence poor copper-lace workmasters, that dare play me: I can bring (&that they quake at) a prepar’d troope of gallants, who for my sake shal distaste everyunsalted line, in their fly-blowne Comedies.

Asi. Nay that’s certaine, ile bring 100 gallants of my ranke.Hor. That same Crispinus is the silliest Dor, and Faninus the

slightest cob-web-lawne peece of a Poet, oh God!Why should I care what every Dor doth buzIncredulous eares, it is a crowne to me,That the best judgements can report me wrong’d.

Asi. I am one of them that can report it:Hor. I thinke but what they are, and am not moov’d.

The one a light voluptuous Reveler,The other, a strange arrogating puffe,Both impudent, and arrogant enough.

Asin. S’lid do not Criticus Revel in these lynes, ha Ningle ha?[Knocking]

Hor. Yes, they’re mine owne.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Crispinus and Demetrius enter and ask Asinius to read a book and leave them inpeace with Horace.]

54 BEN JONSON

Hor. To see my fate, that when I dip my penIn distilde Roses, and doe strive to dreine,Out of myne Inke all gall; that when I weyEach sillable I write or speake, becauseMine enemies with sharpe and searching eyesLook through & through me, carving my poore laboursLike an Anotomy: Oh heavens to see,That when my lines are measur’d out as straightAs even Paralels, tis strange that still,Still some imagine they are drawne awry.The error is not mine, but in theyr eye,That cannot take proportions.

Cris. Horrace, Horrace,To stand within the shot of galling tongues,Proves not your gilt, for could we write on paper,Made of these turning leaves of heaven, the cloudes,Or speake with Angels tongues: yet wise men know,That some would shake the head, tho Saints should sing,Some snakes must hisse, because they’re borne with stings.

Hor. Tis true.Cris. Doe we not see fooles laugh at heaven? and mocke

The Makers workmanship; be not you griev’dIf that which you molde faire, upright and smooth,Be skewd awry, made crooked, lame and vile,By racking coments, and calumnious tongues,So to be bit it ranckles not: for innocenceMay with a feather brush off the foulest wrongs.But when your dastard wit will strike at menIn corners, and in riddles folde the vicesOf your best friends, you must not take to heart,If they take off all gilding from their pilles,And onely offer you the bitter Coare.

Hor. Crispinus.Cri. Say that you have not sworne unto your Paper,

To blot her white cheekes with her dregs and bottomeOf your friends private vices: say you sweareYour love and your aleageance to bright vertueMakes you descend so low, as to put onThe Office of an Executioner,Onely to strike off the head of sinne,Where ere you finde it standing,Say you sweare;And make damnation parcell of your oath,That when your lashing jestes make all men bleed;Yet you whip none. Court, Citty, country, friends,Foes, all must smart alike; yet Court, nor Citty,Nor foe, nor friend, dare winch at you; great pitty.

Dem. If you sweare, dam me Faninus, or Crispinus,

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 55

Or to the law (Our kingdomes golden chaine)To Poets dam me, or to Players dam me,If I brand you, or you, tax you, scourge you:I wonder then, that of five hundred, foure hundred five,Should all point with their fingers in one instantAt one and the same man?

Hor. Deare Faninus.Dem. Come, you cannot excuse it.Hor. Heare me, I can—Dem. You must daube on thicke collours then to hide it.Cris. We come like your Phisitions, to purge

Your sicke and daungerous minde of her disease.Dem. In troth we doe, out of our loves we come, And not revenge, but if you strike us

still,We must defend our reputations:Our pens shall like our swords be alwayes sheath’d,Unlesse too much provockt, Horace if thenThey draw bloud of you, blame us not, we are men:Come, let thy Muse beare up a smoother sayle,Tis the easiest and the basest Arte to raile.

Hor. Deliver me your hands. I love you both,As deare as my owne soule, proove me, and whenI shall traduce you, make me the scorne of men.

Both. Enough, we are friends.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[After an exchange about Asinius’ book.]

Enter Blunt and Tucca.

Blun. Wher’s this gallant? Morrow Gentlemen: what’s this devise done yet Horace?Hor. Gods so, what meane you to let this fellow dog you into my Chamber?Blun. Oh, our honest Captayne, come, prethee let us see.Tuc. Why you bastards of nine whoores, the Muses, why doe you walk heere in this

gorgeous gailery of gallant inventions, with that whooreson poore lyme & hayre-rascall? why—

Cris. O peace good Tucca, we are all sworne friends,Tuc. Sworne, that Judas yonder that walkes in rug, will dub you Knights ath Poste, if you

serve under his band of oaths, the copper-fact rascal wil for a good supper out swearetwelve dozen of graund Juryes.

Blun. A pox ont, not done yet, and bin about it three dayes?Hor. By Jesu within this houre, save you Captayne Tucca.Tuc. Dam thee, thou thin bearded Hermaphrodite, dam thee, Ile save my selfe for one I

warrant thee, is this thy Tub Diogines?Hor. Yes Captaine this is my poore lodging.Asin. Morrow Captaine Tucca, will you whiffe this morning?

56 BEN JONSON

Tuc. Art thou there goates pizzel; no godamercy Caine I am for no whiffs I, come hethersheep-skin-weaver, s’foote thou lookst as thou th’adst beg’d out of a Jayle: drawe, Imeane not thy face (for tis not worth drawing) but drawe neere: this way, martch,follow your commaunder you scoundrell: So, thou must run of an errand for meeMephostophiles.

Hor. To doe you pleasure Captayne I will, but whether?Tuc. To hell, thou knowst the way, to hell my fire and brimstone, to hell; dost stare my

Sarsens-head at Newgate? dost gloate? Ile march through thy dunkirkes guts, forshooting jestes at me.

Hor. Deare Captaine but one word.Tuc. Out bench-whistler out, ile not take thy word for a dagger Pye: you browne-bread-

mouth stinker, ile teach thee to turne me into Bankes his horse, and to tell gentlemen Iam a Jugler, and can shew trickes.

Hor. Captaine Tucca, but halfe a word in your eare.Tuc. No you starv’d rascal, thou’t bite off mine eares then, you must have three or foure

suites of names, when like a lowsie Pediculous vermin th’ast but one suite to thy backe:you must be call’d Asper, and Criticus, and Horace, thy tytle’s longer a reading thenthe Stile a the big Turkes: Asper, Criticus, Quintus, Horatius, Flaccus.

Hor. Captaine I know upon what even bases I stand, and therefore—Tuc. Bases? wud the roague were but ready for me.Blun. Nay prethee deare Tucca, come you shall shake—Tuc. Not hands with great Hunkes there, not hands, but Ile shake the gull-groper out of

his tan’d skinne.Crisp. & Deme. For our sake Captaine, nay prethee holde.Tuc. Thou wrongst heere a good honest rascall Crispinus, and a poore varlet Demetrius

Fanninus (bretheren in thine owne trade of Poetry) thou sayst Crispinus Sattin dubletis Reavel’d out heere, and that this penurious sneaker is out at elboes, goe two mygood full mouth’d ban-dog, Ile ha thee friends with both.

Hor. With all my heart captaine Tucca, and with you too, Ile laye my handes under yourfeete, to keepe them from aking.

Omnes. Can you have any more?Tuc. Saist thou me so, olde Coale? come doo’t then; yet tis no matter neither, Ile have

thee in league first with these two rowly powlies: they shall be thy Damons and thoutheir Pithyasse: Crispinus shall give thee an olde cast Sattin suite, and Demetrius shallwrite thee a Scene or two, in one of thy strong garlicke Comedies; and thou shall takethe guilt of conscience for’t, and sweare tis thine owne olde lad, tis thine owner thounever yet fels’t into the hands of sattin, didst?

Hor. Never Captaine I thanke God.Tuc. Goe too, thou shalt now King Gorboduck, thou shalt, because Ile ha thee damn’d,

Ile ha thee all in Sattin: Asper, Criticus, Quintus, Horatius, Flaccus, Crispinus shaldoo’t, thou shalt doo’t, heyre apparant of Helicon, thou shalt doo’t.

Asi. Mine Ingle weare an olde cast Sattin suite?Tuc. I wafer-face your Ningle.Asi. If he carry the minde of a Gentleman, he’ll scorne it at’s heeles.Tuc. Mary muffe, my man a ginger-bread, wilt eate any small coale?Asi. No Captaine, wod you should well know it, great coale shall not fill my bellie.Tuc. Scorne it, dost scorne to be arrested at one of his olde Suites?Hor. No Captaine, Ile weare anything.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 57

Tuc. I know thou wilt, I know th’art an honest low minded Pigmey, for I ha scene thyshoulders lapt in a Plaiers old cast Cloake, like a Slie knave as thou art: and when thouranst mad for the death of Horatio2: thou borrowedst a gowne of Roscius the Stager,(that honest Nicodemus) and sentst it home lowsie, didst not? Responde, didst not?

Blun. So so, no more of this, within this houre—Hor. If I can sound retreate to my wits, with whome this leader is in skirmish, Ile end

within this houre.Tuc. What wut end? wut hang thy selfe now? has he not writ Finis yet Jacke? what will he

bee fifteene weekes about this Cockatrices egge too? has hee not cackeld yet? not laideyet?

Blunt. Not yet, hee sweares hee will within this houre.Tuc. His wittes are somewhat hard bound: the Puncke his Muse has sore labour ere the

whoore bee delivered: the poore saffron-cheeke Sun-burnt Gipsie wantes Phisicke;give the hungrie-face pudding-pye-eater ten Pilles: ten shillings my faire Angelica,they’l make his Muse as yare as a tumbler.

Blu. He shall not want for money if heele write.Tuc. Goe by Jeronimo, goe by; and heere, drop the ten shillings into this Bason; doe,

drop, when Jacke? hee shall call me his Mœcenas: besides, Ile dam up’s Oven-mouthfor rayling at’s: So, ist right Jacke? ist sterling? fall off now to the vanward of yonderfoure Stinkers, and aske alowde if wee shall goe? the Knight shall defray Jacke, theKnight when it comes to Summa totalis, the Knyght, the Knight. —(Sig. [B4]r–D2r)

(c) From Act II, Scene ii.

[Horace, having had Asinius Bubo distribute satirical epigrams against Tucca andhaving cast slurs on the literary efforts of Crispinus and Demetrius, gives his creedas a satirist.]

Hor. The Muses birdes the Bees were hiv’d and fled,Us in our cradle, thereby prophecying;That we to learned eares should sweetly sing,But to the vulger and adulterate braine,Should loath to prostitute our Virgin straine.No, our sharpe pen shall keep the world in awe,Horace thy Poesie, wormwood wreathes shall weare,We hunt not for mens loves but for their feare. Exit (Sig. E3v)

(d) From Act, IV, Scene i.

[Tucca bids Horace remember his time as a journeyman actor; Sir Vaughan is alsopresent.]

Tucca …thou hast been at Parris garden hast not?Hor. Yes Captaine, I ha plaide Zulziman3 there.Sir Vau. Then M.Horace you plaide the part of an honest man.Tuc. Death of Hercules, he could never play that part well in’s life, no Fulkes you could

not: thou call’st Demetrius Jorneyman Poet, but thou putst up a Supplication to be apoore Jorneyman Player, and hadst beene still so, but that thou couldst not set a good

58 BEN JONSON

face upon’t: thou hast forgot how thou amblest (in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, inthe high way, and took’st mad Jeronimoes part, to get service among the Mimickes:and when the Stagerites banisht thee into the Ile of Dogs, thou turn’dst Ban-dog(villanous Guy) & ever since bitest therefore I aske if th’ast been at Parris-garden,because thou hast such a good mouth; thou baitst well, read, lege, save thy selfe andread. (Sig. G3v–[G4r])

(e) From Act IV, Scene ii.

[Tucca challenges Horace, accuses him of satirizing friends and patronsindiscriminately. Horace recants but vows poetic revenge on him.]

Boy. Capten, Capten, Horace stands sneaking heere.Tuc. I smelt the foule-fisted Morter–treader, come my most damnable fastidious rascall, I

have a suite to both of you.Asi. O holde, most pittifull Captaine holde.Hor. Holde Capten, tis knowne that Horace is valliant, & a man of the sword.Tuc. A Gentleman or an honest Cittizen, shall not Sit in your pennie-bench Theaters, with

his Squirrell by his side cracking nuttes; nor sneake into a Taverne with his Mermaid;but he shall be Satyr’d, and Epigram’d upon, and his humour must run upo’th Stage:you’ll ha Every Gentleman in’s humour, and Every Gentleman out on’s humour: wee that areheades of Legions and Bandes, and feare none but these same shoulder-clappers, shallfeare you, you Serpentine rascall.

Hor. Honour’d Capten.Tuc. Art not famous enough yet, my mad Horastratus, for killing a Player, but thou must

eate men alive? thy friends? Sirra wilde-man, thy Patrons? thou Anthropophagite, thyMecenæsses?

Hor. Captaine, I’m sorry that you lay this wrong. So close unto your heart: deareCaptaine thinke I writ out of hot blood, which (now) being colde, I could be pleas’d(to please you) to quaffe downe, The poyson’d Inke, in which I dipt your name.

Tuc. Saist thou so, my Palinodicall rimester?Hor. Hence forth Ile rather breath out Solœcismes

(To doe which Ide as soone speake blasphemie)Than with my tongue or pen to wound your worth,Beleeve it noble Capten; it to meShall be a Crowne, to crowne your actes with praize,Out of your hate, your love Ile stronglie raize.

Tuc. I know th’ast a number of these Quiddits to binde men to’th peace: tis thy fashion toflirt Inke in everie mans face; and then to craule into his bosome, and damne thy selfeto wip’t off agen: yet to give out abroad, that hee was glad to come to compositionwith thee: I know Monsieur Machiavell tis one a thy rules; My long-heel’d Troglodite, Icould make thine eares burne now, by dropping into them, all those hot oathes, towhich, thy selfe gav’st voluntarie fire, (when thou wast the man in the Moone) thatthou wouldst never squib out any new Salt-peter Jestes against honest Tucca, nor thoseMaligo-tasters, his Poetasters; I could Cinocephalus, but I will not, yet thou knowst thouhast broke those oathes in print, my excellent infernall.

Hor. Capten.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 59

Tuc. Nay I smell what breath is to come from thee, thy answer is, that there’s no faith tobe helde with Heritickes & Infidels, and therfore thou swear’st anie thing: but come,lend mee thy hand, thou and I hence forth will bee Alexander and Lodwicke, the Gemini:sworne brothers, thou shall be Perithous and Tucca Theseus; but Ile leave thee i’th lurch,when thou mak’st thy voiage into hell: till then, Thine-assuredly.

Hor. With all my soule deare Capten.Tuc. Thou’lt shoote thy quilles at mee, when my terrible backe’s turn’d for all this, wilt

not Porcupine? and bring me and my Heliconistes into thy Dialogues to make us talkemadlie, wut not Lucian?

Hor. Capten, if I doe—Tuc. Nay and if thou dost, hornes of Lucifer, the Parcell-Poets shall Sue thy wrangling

Muse, in the Court of Pernassus, and never leave hunting her, till she plead in FormaPauperis: but I hope th’ast more grace: come: friendes, clap handes tis a bargaine;amiable Bubo, thy fist must walke too: so, I love thee, now I see th’art a littleHercules, and wilt fight; Ile Sticke thee now in my companie like a sprig of Rosemary.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[When left alone at the end of the scene Horace is less repentant.]

Hor. … Well, we will goe,And see what weapons theyr weake wittes doe bring;If sharpe, we’ll spred a large and nobler wing;Tucca, heere lyes thy Peace; warre roares agen;My Swoord shall never cutte thee, but my pen.Exit. (Sig. H2r–[H4]r)

(f) From Act IV, Scene iii.

[Tucca’s charges against Horace; Demetrius and Crispinus defend the motives ofHorace’s enemies.]

Sir Va. Two urds Horace about your eares: how chance it passes, that you bid God boyghto an honest trade of building Symneys, and laying downe Brickes, for a worsehandicraftnes, to make nothing but railes; your Muse leanes upon nothing but filthyrotten railes, such as stand on Poules head, how chance?

Hor. Sir Vaughan.Sir Va. You lye sir varlet sir villaine, I am sir Salamanders, ounds, is my man Master Peter

Salamanders face as urse as mine? Sentlemen, all and Ladies, and you say once or twiceAmen, I will lap this little Silde, this Booby in his blankets agen.

Omnes. Agree’d, agree’d.Tuc. A blanket, these crackt Venice glasses shall fill him out, they shall tosse him, holde

fast wag-tailes: so, come, in, take this bandy with the racket of patience, why when?dost stampe mad Tamberlaine, dost stampe? thou thinkst th’ast Morter under thyfeete, dost?

Ladies. Come, a bandy ho.Hor. O holde most sacred beauties.

60 BEN JONSON

Sir Vau. Hold, silence, the puppet-teacher speakes.Hor. Sir Vaughan, noble Capten, Gentlemen,

Crispinus, deare Demetrius Ô redeeme me,Out of this infamous—by God by Jesu—

Cri. Nay, sweare not so good Horace: now these Ladies,Are made your executioners: prepare,To suffer like a gallant, not a coward;Ile trie t’unloose, their hands, impossible.Nay, womens vengeance are implacable.

Hor. Why, would you make me thus the ball of scorne?Tuc. Ile tell thee why, because th’ast entred Actions of assault and battery, against a

companie of honourable and worshipfull Fathers of the law: you wrangling rascal, lawis one of the pillers ath land, and if thou beest bound too’t (as I hope thou shall bee)thou’t proove a skip-Jacke, thou’t be whipt. Ile tell thee why, because thy sputteringchappes yelpe, that Arrogance, and Impudence, and Ignoraunce, are the essentiallparts of a Courtier.

Sir Vaugh. You remember Horace, they will puncke, and pincke, and pumpe you, and theycatch you by the coxcombe: on I pray, one lash, a little more.

Tuc. Ile tell thee why, because thou cryest ptrooh at worshipfull Cittizens, and cal’st themFlat-caps, Cuckolds, and banckrupts, and modest and vertuous wives punckes &cockatrices. Ile tell thee why, because th’ast arraigned two Poets against all lawe andconscience; and not content with that, hast turn’d them amongst a company ofhorrible blacke Fryers.

Sir Vaugh. The same hand still, it is your owne another day, Master Horace, admonitionsis good meate.

Tuc. Thou art the true arraign’d Poet, and shouldst have been hang’d, but for one of thesepart-takers, these charitable Copper-lac’d Christians, that fetcht thee out of Purgatory,(Players I meane) Theaterians pouch-mouth Stage-walkers; for this Poet, for this, thoumust lye with these foure wenches, in that blancket, for this—

Hor. What could I doe, out of a just revenge,But bring them to the Stage? they envy meBecause I holde more worthy company.

Dem. Good Horace, no; my cheekes doe blush for thine,As often as thou speakst so, where one trueAnd nobly-vertuous spirit, for thy best partLoves thee, I wish one ten, even from my heart.I make account I put up as deepe shareIn any good mans love, which thy worth earnes,As thou thy selfe; we envy not to see,Thy friends with Bayes to crown thy Poesie.No, heere the gall lyes, we that know what stuffeThy verie heart is made of, know the stalkeOn which thy learning growes, and can give lifeTo thy (once dying) basenes; yet must weDance Antickes on your Paper.

Hor. Fannius.Cris. This makes us angry, but not envious,

No, were thy warpt soule, put in a new molde,

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 61

Ide weare thee as a Jewell set in golde.Sir Vau. And Jewels Master Horace, must be hang’d you know.Tuc. Good Pagans, well said, they have sowed up that broken seame-rent lye of thine,

that Demetrius is out at Elbowes, and Crispinus is falne out with Sattin heere, they have;but bloate-herring dost heare?

Hor. Yes honour’d Captaine, I have eares at will.Tuc. Ist not better be out at Elbowes, then to bee a bond-slave, and to goe all in

Parchment as thou dost?Hor. Parchment Captaine? tis Perpetuana I assure you.Tuc. My Perpetuall pantaloone true, but tis waxt over; th’art made out of Wax; thou

must answere for this one day; thy Muse is a hagler, and weares cloathes upon best-be-trust; th’art great in some bodies books for this, thou knowst where; thou wouldst beeout at Elbowes, and out at heeles too, but that thou layest about thee with a Bill forthis, a Bill—

Hor. I confesse Capten,. I followed this suite hard.Tuc. I know thou didst, and therefore whilst we have Hiren heere, speake my little dish-

washers, a verdit Pisse-kitchins.Omn. Blancket.Sir Vaugh. Holde I praye, holde, by Sesu I have put upon my heade, a fine device, to make

you laugh, tis not your fooles Cap Master Horace, which you cover’d your Poetastersin, but a fine tricke, ha, ha, is jumbling in my braine.

Tuc. Ile beate out thy braines, my whorson hansome dwarfe, but ile have it out of thee.Omnes. What is it good Sir Vaughan?Sir Vau. To conclude, tis after this manners, because Master Horace is ambition, and does

conspire to bee more hye and tall, as God a mightie made him, wee’ll carry thisterrible person to Court, and there before his Masestie Dub, or what do you call it, diphis Muse in some licour, and christen him, or dye him, into collours of a Poet.

Omn. Excellent.Tuc. Super Super-excellent. Revelers goe, proceede you Masters of Arte in kissing these

wenches, and in daunces, bring you the quivering Bride to Court, in a Maske, comeGrumboll, thou shalt Mum with us; come dogge mee skneakes-bill.

Hor. O thou my Muse!Sir Vaugh. Call upon God a mighty, and no Muses, your Muse I warrant is otherwise

occupied, there is no dealing with your Muse now, therefore I pray marse, marse,oundes your Moose?Exeunt. (Sig. 13r–[14]v)

(g) From Act V, Scene ii.

[After Caelestine’s triumphant return from the dead, Horace is brought tojudgement as an entertainment for the king (Crispinus has called him ‘selfe-creatingHorace’, Sig. L2r).]

Sir Vau. Horace and Bubo, pray send an answere into his Masesties eares, why you goe thusin Ovids Morter-Morphesis and strange fashions of apparrell. Tuc. Cur why? Asini. My

Lords, I was drawne into this beastly suite by head and shoulders onely for love I bare tomy Ningle.

62 BEN JONSON

Tuc. Speake Ningle, thy mouth’s next, belch out, belch why—Hor. I did it to retyre me from the world;

And turne my Muse into a Timonist,Loathing the general Leprozie of Sinne,Which like a plague runs through the soules of men:I did it but to—

Tuc. But to bite every Motley-head vice by’th nost, you did it Ningle to play the BugbeareSatyre, and make a Campe royall of fashion-mongers quake at your paper Bullets; younastie Tortois, you and your Itchie Poetry breake out like Christmas, but once a yeare,and then you keepe a Revelling, and Araigning, and a Scratching of mens faces, as thoyou were Tyber the long-tail’d Prince of Rattes, doe you?

Cris. Horace.Sir Vaugh. Silence, pray let all urdes be strangled, or held fast betweene your teeth.Cris. Under controule of my dread Soveraigne,

We are thy Judges; thou that didst Arraigne,Art now prepar’d for condemnation;Should I but bid thy Muse stand to the Barre,Thy selfe against her wouldst give evidence:For flat rebellion against the Sacred lawes,Of divine Poesie: heerein most she mist,Thy pride and scorn made her turne Saterist,And not her love to vertue (as thou Preachest)Or should we minister strong pilles to thee:What lumpes of hard and indigested stuffe,Of bitter Satirisme, of Arrogance,Of Selfe-love, of Detraction, of a blackeAnd stinking Insolence should we fetch up? But none of these, we give thee what’s morefit,With stinging nettles Crowne his stinging wit.

Tuc. Wel said my Poeticall huckster, now he’s in thy handling rate him, doe, rate himwell.

Hor. O I beseech your Majesty, rather than thus to be netled, Ile ha my Satyres coatepull’d over mine eares, and bee turn’d out a the nine Muses Service.

Asin. And I too, let mee be put to my shiftes with myne Ningle.Sir Vaugh. By Sesu so you shall Master Bubo; flea off this hairie skin Master Horace, so, so,

so, untrusse, untrusse.Tuc. His Poeticall wreath my dapper puncke-fetcher.Hor. Ooh—Sir Vaugh. Nay your oohs, nor your Callin-oes cannot serve your turne, your tongue you

know is full of blisters with rayling, your face full of pockey-holes and pimples, withyour fierie inventions: and therefore to preserve your head from aking, this Biggin isyours, —nay by Sesu you shall bee a Poet, though not Lawrefyed, yet Nettlefyed, so:

Tuc. Sirra stincker, thou’rt but untruss’d now, I owe thee a whipping still, and Ile pay it:I have layd roddes in Pisse and Vineger for thee: It shall not bee the Whipping a’thSatyre, nor the Whipping of the blinde-Beare, but of a counterfeit Jugler, that stealesthe name of Horace.

King. How? counterfeit? does hee usurpe that name?Sir Vaugh. Yes indeede ant please your Grace, he does sup up that abhominable name.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 63

Tuc. Hee does O King Cambises, he does: thou hast no part of Horace in thee but’s name,and his damnable vices: thou hast such a terrible mouth, that thy beard’s afraide topeepe out: but, looke heere you staring Leviathan, heere’s the sweet visage of Horace;looke perboylde-face, looke; Horace had a trim long-beard, and a reasonable good facefor a Poet, (as faces goe now-a-dayes) Horace did not skrue and wriggle himselfe intogreat Mens famyliarity, (impudentlie) as thou doost: nor weare the Badge ofGentlemens company, as thou doost thy Taffetie sleeves tackt too onely with somepointes of profit: No, Horace had not his face puncht full of Oylet-holes, like the coverof a warming-pan: Horace lov’d Poets well, and gave Coxcombes to none other butfooles; but thou lov’st none, neither Wisemen nor fooles, but thy selfe: Horace was agoodly Corpulent Gentleman, and not so leane a hollow-cheekt Scrag as thou art: No,heere’s the Coppy of thy countenance, by this will I learne to make a number ofvillanous faces more, and to look scurvily upon the world, as thou dost.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Asinius Bubo is made to forswear having Horace write his inscriptions and love-letters for him, carrying Latin poetry-books he doesn’t understand around with him,and calling Horace ‘his Ningle’.]

Sir Vaugh. Now Master Horace, you must be a more horrible swearer, for your oath mustbe (like your wittes) of many collours; and like a Brokers booke of many parcels.

Tuc. Read, read; th’inventory of his oath.Hor. Ile swear till my haire stands up an end, to bee rid of this sting, oh this sting.Sir Vaugh. Tis not your sting of conscience, is it?Tuc. Upon him: Inprimis.Sir Vaugh. Inprimis, you shall sweare by Phæbus and the halfe a score Muses lacking one: not

to sweare to hang your selfe, if you thought any Man, Ooman or Silde, could writePlayes and Rimes, as well-favour’d ones as your selfe.

Tuc. Well sayd, hast brought him toth gallowes already?Sir Vaugh. You shall swear not to bumbast out a new Play, with the olde lynings of Jestes,

stolne from the Temples Revels.Tuc. To him olde Tango.Sir Vaugh. Moreover, you shall not sit in a Gallery, when your Comedies and Enterludes

have entred their Actions, and there make vile and bad faces at everie line, to makeSentlemen have an eye to you, and to make Players afraide to take your part.

Tuc. Thou shalt be my Ningle for this.Sir Vaugh. Besides, you must forswear to venter on the stage, when your Play is ended,

and to exchange curtezies, and complements with Gallants in the Lordes roomes, tomake all the house rise up in Armes, and to cry that’s Horace, that’s he, that’s he, that’she, that pennes and purges Humours and diseases.

Tuc. There boy, agen.Sir Vaugh. Secondly, when you bid all your friends to the marriage of a poore couple, that

is to say: your Wits and necessities, alias dictus, to the rifling of your Muse: alias, your Musesup-sitting: alias a Poets Whitson-Ale; you shall sweare that within three dayes after, youshall not abroad, in Booke-binders shops, brag that your Vize-royes or Tributorie-Kings,have done homage to you, or paide quarterage.

64 BEN JONSON

Tuc. Ile busse thy head Holofernes.Sir Vaugh. Moreover and Inprimis, when a Knight or Sentlemen of urship, does give you

his passe-port, to travaile in and out to his Company, and gives you money for Godssake; I trust in Sesu, you will sweare (tooth and nayle) not to make scalde and wry-mouth Jestes upon his Knight-hood, will you not?

Hor. I never did it by Parnassus.Tuc. Wut sweare by Parnassus and lye too, Doctor Doddipol?Sir Vaugh. Thirdly, and last of all saving one, when your Playes are misse likt at Court,

you shall not crye Mew like a Pusse-cat, and say you are glad you write out of theCourtiers Element.

Tuc. Let the Element alone, tis out a thy reach.Sir Vaugh. In brieflynes, when you Sup in Tavernes, amongst your betters, you shall

sweare not to dippe your Manners in too much sawce, nor a Table to fling Epigrams,Embleames, or Play-speeches about you (lyke Hayle-stones) to keepe you out of theterrible daunger of the Shot, upon payne to sit at the upper end of the Table, a’th lefthand of Carlo Buffon: sweare all this, by Apollo and the eight or nine Muses.

Hor. By Apollo, Helicon, the Muses (who march three and three in a rancke) and by all thatbelongs to Pernassus, I sweare all this.

Tuc. Beare witnes.Cris. That fearefull wreath, this honour is your due,

All Poets shall be Poet-Apes but you;Thanks (Learnings true Mecœnas, Poesies king)Thankes for that gracious eare, which you have lent,To this most tedious, most rude argument.

King. Our spirits have well been feasted; he whose penDrawes both corrupt, and cleare bloud from all men:(Careles what veine he prickes) let him not rave,When his owne sides are strucke, blowes, blowes doe crave.

(Sig. L3r–M2r)

[In the ‘Epilogus’ Tucca encourages the audience to applaud so ‘that HereticallLibertine Horace’ ‘will write against it, and you may have more sport’. (Sig. M2v–[M3]r)]

NOTES

1 ‘A monster awful, shapeless, huge, bereft of light’: Virgil, Aeneid, 3.658.2 As Hieronimo in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, revived in 1597.3 This part has not been identified.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 65

66

8.Charles Fitzgeffrey on Jonson

1601

‘Ad Beniaminum Ionsonium’, Latin epigram addressed to Jonson in Affaniae: siveEpigrammatum Libri Tres (Oxford 1601), Book ii, pp. 60–1. The translation printedhere is by the Revd Alexander B.Grosart, from his edition of The Poems of the Rev.Charles Fitzgeoffrey (Manchester 1881), pp. xxi–xxii.

Fitzgeffrey (? 1575–1638) was educated at Oxford, published a poem on Drakein 1596 (Sir Francis Drake, his Honorable Lifes Commendation and his Tragicall DeathesLamentation), went into orders and published a series of sermons from 1620. Hisepigram is printed here for its tribute to the laughter provoked by Jonson’s earlycomedies. There are a number of epigrams addressed to the poets in Book ii,including ones to Spenser, Campion, Drayton, and Marston. W.David Kay, ‘TheShaping of Ben Jonson’s Career: A Reexamination of Some Facts and Problems’,Modern Philology (1970), lxvii, 227, notes that the reference to Plautus hereindicates that Fitzgeffrey is thinking of The Case is Altered which is based on theRoman playwright’s Captivi and Aulularia.

Jonson, I call thee, come thou forth to justice,I’m here to drag thee to the bar of Phœbus,Guilty of stealing and of wicked thieving,All the nine Muses sitting by in circle.Know then that certain plays of wondrous beauty,Which in the shade of an Elysian rose-bed,Plautus most merry of the choir of poetsLately composed, and to the gods recitedOn starry seats, all sitting round to listen,Moving to peals of laughter the Eternals,And drawing smiles from Jupiter’s grim visage.Each pole of heaven thundering with applauses.These plays, I say then—plays so wondrous clever,Thou stolest basely while the gods were busy,And now proceedest as thine own to vend them:Jonson, to justice come thou forth—I call thee!Lo, to defend thee, King and father PhœbusRises at once, O Jonson, and before all

Bears solemn witness that indeed thine own wereThese famous plays, and that thou didst compose them,Himself being privy to them and assisting.Whence then, I pray, did Plautus having got them,Read them aloud to Jove and the Eternals?Lo, Maia’s son and Atlas clever grandson,Wings on his swift feet, on his fingers birdlime,Mercury, sharp boy, and a very rascal,Aught to conceal with merry theft and laughter;As once before, when love of his own torchesHe deftly stripped, and robbed him of his quiver,So, lately (since he often is accustomedWith thee to play, and clap his hands, and crack jokes),From thee he stole these scattered sheets of paper,And bade them mount up with him to the Heavenlies.Now, put to shame, I’m silent, thou dost conquer,O Jonson, Phœbus being thy judge and patron!

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9.Cambridge views on the War of the Theatres

1601–2

From the anonymous The Returne from Pernassus: Or The Scourge of Simony (1606).This, the third of the Parnassus plays, was acted by the students at St John’s

College, Cambridge, over 1601–2. It was the only one printed at the time. Thelikeliest candidate for the ‘purge’ mentioned in the second extract is Satiromastix.

(a) From Act I, Scene ii.

[Ingenioso, a scholar, and Judicio, a correcter of the press, are examining‘Belvedere’, i.e. Bel-vedere, or The Garden of the Muses, 1600, which was edited byAnthony Munday, and probably planned by John Bodenham: see J.B.Leishman(ed.), The Three Parnassus Plays (1598–1601) (1949) pp. 230–1n. They discuss theauthors as they come up; Jonson has just been mentioned.]

Jud. The wittiest fellow of a Bricklayer in England.Ing. A meere Empyrick, one that getts what he hath by observation, and makes onely

nature privy to what he endites, so slow an Inventor, that he were better betakehimselfe to his old trade of Bricklaying, a bould whorson, as confident now in makingof a booke, as he was in times past in laying of a brick. [They go on to discuss ‘WilliamShatespeare’.] (Sig. B2v)

(b) From Act IV, Scene iii.

[The scholars Philomusus and Studioso are to be auditioned by Burbage andKempe; Burbage hopes for ‘a good conceite in a part’ from the scholars, Kempesays they are proud, and speak only at the end of their walks across the stage.]

Bur. A little teaching will mend these faults, and it may bee besides they will be able topen a part.

Kemp. Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid, andthat writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpina & Juppiter. Why heres ourfellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is apestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespearehath given him a purge that made him beray his credit.

Bur. Its a shrewd fellow indeed: I wonder these schollers stay so long, they appointed tobe here presently that we might try them…. (Sig. G3r)

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10.Henry Chettle, Jonson’s steel pen

1603

From Englandes Mourning Garment (1603).This pastoral in prose and verse, lamenting the death of Elizabeth, contains a set

of verses reproaching the poets of the day for their silence on the occasion, spokenby the shepherd Collin. The eleven poets are referred to by pseudonyms andperiphrases, Chapman as Coryn, Jonson as Horace and Shakespeare as Melicert inthe extract below. There is an ‘Antihorace’ in the list (Sig. D3r), perhaps Dekker, asHenry Jenkins, The Life and Work of Henry Chettle (1934), p. 52, suggests. Chettle(born about 1560–1, died before 1607) was a printer. He edited Greene’sGroatsworth of Wit in 1592 and became a prolific playwright.

It is interesting to see Jonson at this early date pictured as the sharp drawer ofcharacter and true satirist, and placed next to Shakespeare of the honeyed Rape ofLucrece.

Neither doth Coryn full of worth and wit,That finisht dead Musæus gracious song,With grace as great, and words, and verse as fit;Chide meager death for dooing vertue wrong:He doth not seeke with songs to deck her herse,Nor make her name live in his lively verse.Nor does our English Horace, whose steele penCan drawe Characters which will never die,Tell her bright glories unto listning men,Of her he seemes to have no memorie.His Muse an other path desires to tread,True Satyres scourge the living leave the dead.Nor doth the silver tonged Melicert,Drop from his honied muse one sable teareTo mourne her death that graced his desert,And to his laies opend her Royall eare.Shepheard remember our Elizabeth,And sing her Rape, done by that Tarquin, Death. (Sig. D2v–D3r)

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11.Samuel Daniel attacks the learned masque

1604

From the dedication to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, of The Vision of the TwelveGoddesses (performed and published in 1604).

Jonson had not yet produced a masque for the court, but his approach to theentertainment for King James in the previous year (see No. 12, below) suggests thathe was one of the chief of the party against which Daniel is directing his attack here,in defending his own understanding of the masque. For Jonson’s reply, see No. 18,below.

And though these Images have oftentimes divers significations, yet it being not ourpurpose to represent them, with all those curious and superfluous observations, we tookethem only to serve as Hierogliphicqs for our present intention, according to some oneproperty that fitted our occasion, without observing other their misticall interpretations,wherein the Authors themselves are so irrigular & confused, as the best Mytheologers,who will make somewhat to seem any thing, are so unfaithful to themselves, as they haveleft us no certain way at all, but a tract of confusion to take our course at adventure. Andtherefore owing no homage to their intricate observations, we were left at libertie to takeno other knowledge of them, then fitted our present purpose, nor were tyed by any lawesof Heraldry to range them otherwise in their precedencies, then they fell out to stand withthe nature of the matter in hand. (Sig. A4r)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆And thus Madame, have I briefly delivered, both the reason and manner of this Maske; aswell to satisfie the desire of those who could not well note the cariage of these passages,by reason (as I sayd) the present pompe and splendor entertain’d them otherwise (as thatwhich is most regardfull in these Shewes) wherein (by the unpartiall opinion of all thebeholders Strangers and others) it was not inferiour to the best that was ever presented inChristen-dome….

And for the captious Censurers, I regard not what they can say, who commonly can dolittle els but say; and if their deepe judgements ever serve them to produce any thing, theymust stand on the same Stage of Censure with other men, and peradventure performe nosuch great wonders as they would make us believe: and I comfort my selfe in this, that inCourt I know not any, (under him, who actes the greatest partes) that is not obnoxious toenvie, & a sinister interpretation. And whosoever strives to shewe most wit about thesePuntillos of Dreames and showes, are sure sicke of a disease they cannot hide, & wouldfaine have the world to thinke them very deeply learned in all misteries whatsoever. And

peradventure they thinke themselves so, which if they doe, they are in a farre worse casethen they imagine; Non potest non indoctus esse qui se doctum credit.1 And let us labour to shewnever so much skill or Art, our weaknesses and ignorance will be seene, whatsoevercovering wee cast over it. And yet in these matters of shewes (though they bee that whichmost entertaine the world) there needs no such exact sufficiency in this kind. For Luditistis animus, non proficit.2 (Sig. [a4]v–Br)

NOTES

1 ‘He cannot but be ignorant who believes himself to be learned.’2 ‘The mind plays with these things, does not profit from them.’

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12.Thomas Dekker on Jonson’s pedantry

1604

From the account of ‘The Device’ in Dekker’s The Magnificent Entertainment: Givento king James…15th March, 1603.

Dekker and Jonson collaborated on an entertainment for James on his entry intoLondon on 15 March 1603. They published separate accounts of the devices andspeeches presented on the occasion. In defending his creation of a female Genius ofLondon to be the first to welcome the king, Dekker, in his published version, TheMagnificent Entertainment, pours scorn on Jonson’s elaborate display of scholarship inhis account, The King’s Entertainment (Jonson had a male ‘Genius Urbis’ in his partof the Entertainment). Dekker’s device had not in fact been performed.

…the induction of such a Person, might (without a Warrant from the court of Critists)passe very currant.

To make a false florish here with the borrowed weapons of all the old Maisters of thenoble Science of Poesie, and to keepe a tyrannicall coyle, in Anatomizing Genius, fromhead to foote, (only to shewe how nimbly we can carve up the whole messe of the Poets)were to play the Executioner, and to lay our Cities houshold God on the rack, to makehim confesse, how many paire of Latin sheets, we have shaken & cut into shreds to makehim a garment. Such feates of Activitie are stale, and common among Schollers, (beforewhome it is protested we come not now (in a Pageant) to play a Maisters prize). For Nuncego ventosæ Plebis suffiagia venor.1

The multitude is now to be our Audience, whose heads would miserably runne a wooll-gathering, if we doo but offer to breake them with hard words. (Sig. [A4]r-v)

NOTE

1 ‘I am [not] one to hunt for the votes of a fickle public’: Horace, Epistles, 1.19.37.

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13.John Marston, tribute to Jonson

1604

From the epilogue to The Malcontent (1604).The play is dedicated to Jonson, ‘POETÆ ELEGANTISSIMO GRAVISSIMO AMICO

SUO CANDIDO ET CORDATO’ (‘To the most elegant and eminent poet, his candidand judicious friend’).

Then till an others happier Muse appears,Till his Thalia feast your learned eares,To whose desertfull Lampes pleasd Fates impart,Art above Nature, Judgement above Art,Receive this peece which hope, nor feare yet daunteth,He that knows most, knows most how much he wanteth.

(Sig. Iv)

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14.Sir Edward Herbert on Jonson’s Horace

1604

‘Upon his Friend Mr. Ben: Jonson, and his Translation’. Printed in Q.Horatius Flaccus:His Art of Poetry. Englished by Ben: Jonson (1640).

Drummond in the Conversations mentions that Jonson told him there was an‘Epigrame’ by Herbert prefixed to Jonson’s translation of Horace’s Art of Poetry (H& S, i, 134), and it must have survived with the manuscript of the translation fromwhich John Benson printed it in 1640: the verses by

Herbert appear there. The passage in the Conversations also seems to indicate thatthe translation was made in 1604. Herbert (1583–1648), philosopher, traveller,and soldier, was knighted by James soon after his succession and was created LordHerbert of Cherbury in 1629. Jonson has an epigram in praise of him (Epig. 106),and one of the books in his library is inscribed ‘Ex dono Ed. Herberti EquitisAmiciss. Doctiss.’ (‘Given by Edward Herbert, most friendly and most learnedknight’: H & S, i, 270).

Twas not enough, Ben: Jonson to be thoughtOf English Poets best, but to have broughtIn greater state, to their acquaintance, oneMade equall to himselfe and thee; that noneMight be thy second: while thy glory isTo be the Horace of our times, and his. (Sig. A7r)

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15.Jonson as laureate

1605

From the anonymous Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage and Entertainment in Rushia (1605).The author of this euphuistic pamphlet is describing the predicament of the

Godunov family after the sudden death of the Tsar Boris Fedorovich Godunov inApril 1605, which took place during Sir Thomas Smith’s visit to Russia as James’sspecial ambassador.

Oh for some excellent pen-man to deplore their state: but he which would lively,naturally, or indeed poetically delyneate or enumerate these occurrents, shall either leadyou thereunto by a poeticall spirit, as could well, if well he might the dead living, life-giving Sydney Prince of Poesie; or deifie you with the Lord Salustius1 devinity, or in anEarth-deploring, Sententious, high rapt Tragedie with the noble Foulk-Grevill, not onelygive you the Idea, but the soule of the acting Idea; as well could, if so we would, theelaborate English Horace that gives number, waight, and measure to every word, to teachthe reader by his industries, even our Lawreat worthy Benjamen, whose Muze approveshim with (our mother) the Ebrew signification to bee, The elder Sonne, and happely to havebeen the Childe of Sorrow: It were worthy so excellent rare Witt: for myselfe I am neitherApollo nor Appelles, no nor any heire to the Muses: yet happely a younger brother, though Ihave as little bequeathed me, as many elder Brothers, and right borne Heires gaine bythem: but Hic labor, Hoc opus est.2 (Sig. Kv)

NOTES

1 I.e. Guillaume de Salluste, seigneur du Bartas (1544–90), Huguenot author of La Semaine(1578), on the seven days of creation.

2 ‘This is the toil, this the task’: Virgil, Aeneid, 6.129.

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16.On Sejanus

1605

From the quarto of the play (1605): it had been performed in 1603.

(a) Jonson, ‘To the Readers’.The following, and voluntary Labours of my Friends, prefixt to my Booke, have

releived me in much, whereat (without them) I should necessarilie have touchd: Now, I willonely use three or foure short, and needfull Notes, and so rest.

First, if it be objected, that what I publish is no true Poeme; in the strict Lawes of Time. Iconfesse it: as also in the want of a proper Chorus, whose Habite, and Moodes are such,and so difficult, as not any, whome I have scene since the Auntients, (no not they who havemost presently affected Lawes) have yet come in the way off. Nor is it needful, or almostpossible, in these our Times, and to such Auditors, as commonly Things are presented, toobserve the ould state, and splendour of Drammattick Poemes, with preservation of anypopular delight. But of this I shall take more seasonable cause to speake; in myObservations upon Horace his Art of Poetry, which (with the Text translated) I intend,shortly to publish. In the meane time, if in truth of Argument, dignity of Persons, gravityand height of Elocution, fulnesse and frequencie of Sentence, I have discharg’d the otheroffices of a Tragicke writer, let not the absence of these Formes be imputed to me, whereinI shall give you occasion hereafter (and without my boast) to thinke I could betterprescribe, then omit the due use, for want of a convenient knowledge.

The next is least in some nice nostrill, the Quotations might savour affected, I doe letyou know, that I abhor nothing more; and have onely done it to shew my integrity in theStory, and save myselfe in those common Torturers, that bring all wit to the Rack: whoseNoses are ever like Swine spoyling, and rooting up the Muses Gardens, and their wholebodies, like Moles, as blindly working under earth to cast any, the least, hilles uponVertue.

Whereas, they are in Latine and the worke in English, it was presupposd, none but theLearned would take the paynes to conferre them, the Authors themselves being all in thelearned Tongues…. Lastly I would informe you, that this Booke, in all numbers, is not thesame with that which was acted on the publike Stage, wherein a second Pen had goodshare: in place of which I have rather chosen, to put weaker (and no doubt lesse pleasing)of mine own, then to defraud so happy a Genius of his right, by my lothed usurpation.

Fare you well. And if you read farder of me, and like, I shall not be afraid of it thoughyou praise me out.

Neque enim mihi cornea fibra est.1

But that I should plant my felicity, in your generall saying Good, or Well, &c. were aweaknesse which the better sort of you might worthily contemne, if not absolutely hate mefor.

BEN. JONSON. and no such.Quem Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.2

(Sig. ¶ 2r-v)

(b) George Chapman, ‘IN SEIANUM BEN. IONSONI Et Musis, et sibi in deliciis’ (‘To the Sejanus ofBen Jonson, favourite both of the Muses and of himself’).

[Chapman also wrote a commendatory poem for the 1607 Quarto of Volpone.

Included here for the sake of the extended metaphors for Jonson’s borrowings and for hiswriting for the public theatre. Chapman also suggests that Sejanus is vividly instructive.Anne Barton, Ben Jonson: Dramatist (Cambridge 1984), p. 93, suggests that Chapman isreferring to unpublished early tragedies by Jonson when he says below that Jonson’s musehad previously ‘shut her soft wings, and durst not shew her spirit’.]

So brings the wealth-contracting JewellerPearles and deare Stones, front richest shores & streames,As thy accomplish Travaile doth conferFrom skill-inriched soules, their wealthier Gems;So doth his hand enchase in ammeld Gould,Cut, and adornd beyond their Native Merits,His solid Flames, as thine hath here inrouldIn more then Goulden Verse, those betterd spirits;So he entreasures Princes Cabinets,As thy Wealth will their wished Libraries;So, on the throate of the rude Sea, he setsHis ventrous foote, for his illustrous Prise;And through wilde Desarts, armd with wilder Beasts,As thou adventurst on the Multitude,Upon the boggy, and engulfed brestsOf Hyrelings, sworne to finde most Right, most rude:And he, in stormes at Sea doth not endure,Nor in vast Desarts, amongst Woolves, more danger;Then we, that would with Vertue live secure,Sustaine for her in every Vices anger.Nor is this Allegoric unjustly rackt,To this strange length; Onely that Jewels are,In estimation meerely, so exact:And thy worke, in it selfe, is deare and Rare.Wherein Minerva had beene vanquished,Had she, by it, her sacred Loomes advanc’t,And through thy subject woven her graphicke Thread,

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Contending therein, to be more entranc’t;For, though thy hand was scarce addrest to draweThe Semi-circle of Sejanus life,Thy Muse yet makes it the whole Sphære, and LaweTo all State Lives: and bounds Ambitions strife.And as a little Brooke creepes from his Spring,With shallow tremblings, through the lowest Vales,As if he feard his streame abroad to bring,Least prophane Feete should wrong it, and rude Gales;But finding happy Channels, and suppliesOf other Fordes mixe with his modest course,He growes a goodly River, and descriesThe strength, that mannd him, since he left his Source;Then takes he in delightsome Meades, and Groves,And, with his two-edg’d waters, flourishesBefore great Palaces, and all Mens LovesBuild by his shores, to greets his Passages:So thy chaste Muse, by vertuous selfe-mistrust,Which is a true Marke of the truest Merit,In Virgin feare of Mens illiterate Lust,Shut her soft wings, and durst not showe her spirit;Till, nobly cherisht, now thou lett’st her flie,Singing the sable Orgies of the Muses,And in the highest Pitche of Tragedie,Mak’st her command, al things thy Ground produces.But, as it is a signe of Loves first firing,Not Pleasure by a lovely Presence taken,And Bouldnesse to attempt; but close Retiring,To places desolate, and Fever-shaken;So, when the love of Knowledge first affects us,Our Tongues doe falter, and the Flame doth roveThrough our thinne spirits, and of feare detects usT’attaine her Truth, whom we so truely love.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Though Others qualified, then, with Naturall skill,(More sweete mouthd, and affecting shrewder wits)Blanche Coles, call Illnesse, good, and Goodnesse ill,Breath thou the fire, that true-spoke Knowledge fits.Thou canst not then be Great? yes. Who is he,(Said the good Spartane King) greater then I,That is not likewise juster? No degreeCan boast of emminence, or Emperie,(As the great Stagerite held) in any One

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Beyond Another, whose Soule farther sees,And in whose Life the Gods are better knowne:Degrees of Knowledge difference all Degrees.Thy Poeme, therefore, hath this due respect,That it lets passe nothing, without observing,Worthy Instruction; or that might correctRude manners, and renowme the well deserving:Performing such a lively EvidenceIn thy Narrations, that thy Hearers stillThou turnst to thy Spectators; and the senseThat thy Spectators have of good or ill,Thou inject’st joyntly to the Readers soules.So deare is held, so deckt thy numerous Taske,As thou putt’st handles to the Thespian Boules,Or stuckst rich Plumes in the Palladian Caske.All thy worth, yet, thyselfe must Patronise,By quaffing more of the Castalian Head;In expiscation of whose Mysteries,Our Netts must still be clogd, with heavy Lead,To make them sincke, and catche: For cheerefull Gould,Was never found in the Pierian Streames,But Wants, and Scornes, and Shame for silver sould.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

And so good Friend, safe passage to thy FreightTo thee a long Peace, through a vertuous strife,In which, lets both contend to Vertues height,Not making Fame our Object, but good life.

Come forth SEJANUS, fall before this Booke,And of thy Falles Reviver, aske forgivenesse,That thy lowe Birth and Merits, durst to lookeA Fortune in the face, of such unevennesse;For so his fervent love to Vertue, hates,That her pluckt plumes should wing Vice to such calling,That he presents thee to all marking States,As if thou hadst beene all this while in falling.His strong Arme plucking, from the Midle-world,Fames Brazen House, and layes her Towre as lowe,As HOMERS Barathrum; that, from Heaven hurld,Thou might’st fall on it; and thy Ruines groweTo all Posterities, from his worke, the Ground,And under Heav’n, nought but his Song might sound.

(Sig. [¶]3r- Av)

86 BEN JONSON

(c) ‘CYGNUS’, ‘To the deserving Author’.

When I respect thy argument, I seeAn Image of those Times: but when I viewThe wit, the workemanship, so rich, so true,The Times themselves do seeme retriv’d to me.And as Sejanus, in thy Tragedie,Falleth from Cæsars grace; even so the CrewOf common Play-wrights, whom Opinion blewBig with false greatnesse, are disgrac’d by thee.Thus, in one Tragedie, thou makest twaine:And, since faire workes of Justice fit the partOf Tragic writers, Muses doe ordaineThat all Tragedians, Maisters of their Arte,Who shall hereafter follow on this tract,In writing well, thy Tragedie shall acte. (Sig. A2r)

(d) John Marston, ‘Amicis, amici nostri dignissimi, dignissimis, Epigramma’ (‘To the most worthyfriends, of our most worthy friend, an epigram’).

Yee ready Friendes, spare your unneedful Bayes,This worke dispairefull Envie must even praise:

Phœbus hath voic’d it, loud, through ecchoing skies,SEJANUS FALL shall force thy Merit rise.

For never English shall, or hath beforeSpoake fuller grac’d. He could say much, not more.

(Sig. A3r)

(e) ‘ ’ ‘To him that hath so excell’d on this excellent subject’.

Thy Poeme (pardon me) is meere deceat.Yet such deceate, as thou that dost beguile,Are juster farre then they who use no wile:And they who are deceaved by this feat,More wise, then such who can eschewe thy cheat.For thou hast given each parte so just a stile,That Men suppose the Action now on file;(And Men suppose, who are of best conceat.)Yet some there be, that are not moov’d hereby,And others are so quick, that they will spyWhere later Times are in some speech enweav’d;Those wary Simples, and these simple Elfes:They are so dull, they cannot be deceav’d,These so unjust, they will deceave themselves. (Sig. A3v)

(f) ‘Ev. B’, ‘To the most understanding Poet’.

This may well be by Edmund Bolton; ‘Ev.’ would then be a misprint for ‘Ed.’. Bolton(? 1575—after 1634), a Roman Catholic, published numerous historical, antiquarian, andpoetical works, beginning with a poem in England’s Helicon (1600). In 1617 he proposed

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 87

to King James a royal academy or college; Jonson’s name is included in a list of the eighty-four members Bolton proposed for it (H & S, i, 86), and Jonson is praised in Bolton’sHypercritica of about 1621 (see No. 32, below).

When in the GLOBES fair Ring, our Worlds best Stage,I saw Sejanus, set with that rich foyle,I look’t the Author should have borne the spoileOf conquest, from the Writers of the Age.But when I veiw’d the Peoples beastly rage,Bent to confound thy grave, and learned toile,That cost thee so much sweat, and so much oyle,My indignation I could hardly’ asswage.And many there (in passion) scarce could tellWhether thy fault, or theirs deserv’d most blame;Thine, for so shewing, theirs, to wrong the same:But both they left within that doubtfull Hell.From whence, this Publication setts thee free:They, for their Ignorance, still damned bee. (Sig. A3v)

NOTES

1 ‘My heart is not made of horn’: Persius, Satires, 1.47.2 ‘Whom denial of the palm sends home lean, its bestowal plump’: adapted from Horace,

Epistles, 2.1.181.

88 BEN JONSON

17.John Marston glances at Sejanus

1606

The preface, ‘To the generall Reader’, to the Roman tragedy The Wonder of WomenOr The Tragedie of Sophonisba (1606).

Sophonisba was Marston’s last completed play.

Know, that I have not labored in this poeme, to tie my selfe to relate any thing as anhistorian but to enlarge every thing as a Poet, To transcribe Authors, quote authorities, &translate Latin prose orations into English blank-verse, hath in this subject beene the leastaime of my studies. Then (equall Reader) peruse me with no prepared dislike, and ifought shall displease thee thank thy selfe, if ought shall please thee thank not mee, for Iconfesse in this it was not my onely end. (Sig. A2r)

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18.Ben Jonson on his masques

1606

From Hymenaei: Or The Solemnities of Masque, and Barriers, Magnificently performed onthe eleventh, and twelfth Nights, from Christmas; At Court… (1606).

(a) From the preface.

[Included here for the sake of the indications it gives of a controversy aboutJonson’s scholarly approach to the masque. Jonson, who had replaced Daniel asmasque-maker for the Christmas season at court with the series of masquesbeginning with The Masque of Blackness, performed in the 1604–5 season, isapparently replying here to Daniel’s attack on the learned masque (No. 11, above).]

It is a noble and just advantage, that the things subjected to Understanding have of those whichare objected to Sense, that the one sorte are but momentarie, and meerely taking; theother impressing, and lasting: Else the Glory of all these Solemnities had perish’d like aBlaze, and gone out, in the Beholders eyes. So short-liv’d are the Bodies of all Thinges, incomparison of their Soules. And, though Bodies oft-times have the ill lucke to be sensuallypreferr’d, they find afterwards, the good fortune (when Soules live) to be utterlyforgotten. This it is hath made the most royall Princes, and greatest Persons, (who arecommonly the Personaters of these Actions) not onely studious of Riches, and Magnificencein the outward Celebration, or Shew; (which rightly becomes them) but curious after themost high, and hearty Inventions, to furnish the inward parts: (and those grounded uponAntiquitie, and solide Learnings) which, though their Voyce be taught to sound to presentOccasions, their Sense, or dooth, or should alwayes lay hold on more remov’d Mysteries.And, howsoever some may squeamishly cry out, that all Endevor of Learning, andSharpnesse in these transitory Devises especially, where it steppes beyond their little, or (letme not wrong ’hem) no Braine at all is superfluous; I am contented, these fastidious Stomachsshould leave my full Tables, and enjoy at home, their cleane empty Trenchers, fittest forsuch airy Tasts: where perhaps a few Italian Herbs, pick’d up, & made into a Sallade, mayfind sweeter acceptance, than al, the most norishing, and sound Meates of the world.

For these Mens palates, let not mee answere, O Muses. It is not my fault, if I fill themout Nectar, and they run to Metheglin.1

Vaticana bibant, si delectentur.All the curtesie I can doe them, is to cry, againe;Prætereant, si quid non facit ad stomachum.2

As I wil, from the thought of them to my better Subject.

(b) From a marginal note on the allegory of the four Humours and the four Affections.

…And, for the Allegory, though here it be very cleare, and such as might well escape aCandle, yet because there are some, must complain of Darknes, that have but thick Eies, Iam contented to hold them this Light. First, as in Naturall Bodies, so likewise in Mindes, thereis no disease, or distemperature, but is caused either by som abounding Humor, orperverse Affection; After the same maner, in Politike Bodies (where Order, Ceremony, State,Reverence, Devotion are Parts of the Mind) by the difference, or predominant Wil of whatwe (Metaphorically) call Humors, and Affections, all things are troubled and confusd. Thesetherefore, were Tropically brought in, before Marriage, as disturbers of that Mysticall Body,and the Rites, which were Soule unto it; that afterwards, in Marriage, being dutifullytempted by hir Power, they might more fully celebrate the happines of such as live in thatsweet Union, to the harmonious Laws of Nature, and Reason. (Sig. Bv)

(c) Note on the verse of the ‘Epithalamion’.

This Poeme had for the most part Versum intercalarem or Carmen Amœbæum;3 yet that notalwaies one, but oftentimes varied, and sometimes neglected in the same Song, as in oursyou shall find observed. (Sig. Dr)

NOTES

1 Metheglin is a Welsh mead made with herbs.2 ‘They may drink Vatican [an inferior wine], if they prefer…They may pass by, if that does

not suit their stomach’: adapted from Martial, 10.45.5–6.3 ‘Intercalary lines [i.e. hypermetric lines inserted at intervals] …alternating verses’.

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19.On Volpone

1605–7

From the prefatory material to the 1607 quarto. The play was performed in 1605.

(a) Jonson, ‘The Prologue’.Now, luck God send us, and a little witWill serve, to make our PLAY hit;(According to the palates of the season)Here is ri’me, not emptie of reason:This we were bid to credit, from our Poet,Whose true scope, if you would knowe it,In all his Poemes, still, hath beene this measure,To mixe profit, with your pleasure;And not as some (whose throates their envie fayling)Crie hoarsely, All he writes, is rayling:And, when his PLAYES come forth, thinke they can flout them,With saying, He was a yeare about them.To these there needes no Lye, but this his creature,Which was, two monthes since, no feature;And, though he dares give them five lives to mend it,’Tis knowne, five weekes fully pen’d it:From his owne hand, without a Co-adjutor,Novice, Jorney-man, or Tutor.Yet, thus much I can give you, as a tokenOf his PLAYES worth, No egges are broken;Nor quaking Custards with feirce teeth affrighted,Wherewith your route are so delighted;Nor hales hee in a Gull, old ends reciting,To stop gappes in his loose writing;With such a deale of monstrous, and forc’d action:As might make Bethlem a faction:Nor made he’ his PLAY, for jests, stolne from each Table,But makes jests, to fit his Fable.And, so presents quick Comœdy, refined,As best Criticks have designed,

The Lawes of Time, Place, Persons, he observeth,From no needefull Rule he swerveth.All gall, and coppresse, from his inke, he drayneth,Onelie, a little salt remaineth;Wherewith, hee’ll rub your cheekes, till (red with laughter)They shall looke fresh, a weeke after. (Sig. [A4]v)

(b) From ‘The Epistle’, addressed to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge anddated 11 February 1607. H & S, i, 195, point out that Jonson used one of thearguments of this ‘Epistle’ in a 1605 letter to Cecil, written at the time of hisimprisonment with Chapman for the unauthorized publication of Eastward Ho.

For my particular, I can (and from a most cleare conscience) affirme that I have evertrembled to thinke toward the least Prophanenesse; have loathed the use of such foule,and un-wash’d Baudr’y, as is now made the foode of the Scene: And, howsoever I cannotescape, from some, the imputation of sharpnesse, but that they will say, I have taken apride, or lust to be bitter, and not my youngest Infant but hath come into the world withall his teeth; I would aske of these supercilious Politiques, what Nation, Society, or generallOrder, or State I have provoked? what publique Person? whether I have not (in all these)preserv’d their dignity, as mine owne person, safe? My WORKES are read, allow’d, (Ispeake of those that are intirely mine) looke into them, what broad reproofes I have usd:Where have I bin particular? Where personall, except to a Mimick, Cheater, Baud, orBuffon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be tax’d? or to which of these sopointingly, as he might not, either ingeniously have confest, or wisely dissembled hisdisease? But it is not Rumour can make men guilty, much lesse entitle me, to other menscrimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ, or carried, but may be madeobnoxious to construction; mary, whilst I beare mine innocence about me, I feare it not.Application, is now, growne a Trade with many; and there are, that professe to have a Keyfor the deciphering of every thing, but let wise and noble Persons take heed how they beetoo credulous, or give leave to these invading Interpreters to be over-familiar with theirfames, who cunningly, & often, utter their owne virulent malice, under other menssimplest meanings. As for those, that wil (by faults which charity hath rak’d up, orcommon honesty conceald) make themselves a name with the Multitude, or (to drawe theirrude, and beastly clappes) care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulantstiles; may they doe it, without a rivall, for mee: I chuse rather to live grav’d inobscuritie, then share with them, in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishesof those grave, and wiser Patriotes, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits maydoe in a State, devise rather to see Fooles, and Divells, and those antique reliques toBarbarisme retriv’d, with all other ridiculous, and exploded follies: then behold thewounds of Private men, of Princes, and Nations. For as HORACE, makes Trebatiusspeake, in these

—Sibi quisque timet, quanquam est intactus, & odit.1

And men may justly impute such rages, if continu’d, to the Writer, as his sports. Theencrease of which lust in liberty, together with the present trade of the Stage, in all theirmisc’line Enterludes, what learned or liberall soule doth not already abhor? where nothingbut the garbage of the time is utter’d, & that with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty

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of solœcismes, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepse’s, so rackt metaphor’s, with brothelry ableto violate the eare of a Pagan, and blasphemy, to turne the bloud of a Christian to water. Icannot but be serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame, & the reputations ofdiverse honest, & learned are the question; when a NAME, so full of authority, antiquity,and all great marke, is (through their insolence) become the lowest scorne of the Age: andthose MEN subject to the petulancie of every vernaculous Orator, that were wont to be thecare of Kings, and happiest Monarchs. This it is that hath not onely rap’t mee to presentindignation, but made mee studious, heretofore, and, by all my actions, to stand of, fromthem; which may most appeare in this my latest WORKE: (which you, most learnedARBITRESSES, have scene, judg’d, & to my crowne, approv’d) wherein I have labourd,for their instruction, and amendment, to reduce, not onely the ancient formes, butmanners of the Scene, the easinesse, the propriety, the innocence, and last the doctrine,which is the principall end of POESY to informe men, in the best reason of living. Andthough my Catastrophe may, in the strict rigour of Comick Law, meete with censure, asturning back to my promise; I desire the learned, and charitable Critick to have so muchfaith in me, to thinke it was done off industrye: For with what ease I could have varied it,nearer his scale (but that I feare to boast my owne faculty) I could here insert. But my specialaime being to put the snafle in their mouths, that crie out, we never punish vice in ourEnterludes &c. I tooke the more liberty; though not without some lines of example drawneeven in the Antients themselves, the goings out of whose Comœdies are not alwayes joyfull,but oftimes, the Baudes, the Servants, the Rivalls, yea and the maisters are mulcted: andfitly, it beeing the office of a Comick-POET to imitate justice, and instruct to life, or stirreup gentle affections. To which, upon my next opportunity toward the examining &digesting of my notes, I shall speake more wealthily, and pay the World a debt.

In the meane time (most reverenced SISTERS) as I have car’d to be thankefull for youraffections past, and here made the understanding acquainted with some ground of yourfavors; let me not dispayre their continuance, to the maturing of some worthier fruits:wherein, if my MUSES bee true to me, I shall raise the dispis’d head of POETRY againe,& stripping her out of those rotten and base ragges, wherewith the Times have adulteratedher forme, restore her to her primitive habite, feature, and majesty, and render herworthy to be imbraced, and kist, of all the great and Maister Spirits of our World. As forthe vile, and slothfull, who never affected an act, worthy of celebration, or are so inwardwith their owne vicious natures, as they worthely feare her; and thinke it a high point ofpolicie, to keepe her in contempt with their declamatory, and windy invectives: shee shallout of just rage incite her Servants (who are Genus iritabile)2 to spout inke in their faces,that shall eate, farder then their marrow, into their fames; and not CINNAMUS the Barber,with his art, shall be able to take out the brands, but they shall live, and be read, till theWretches die, as Things worst deserving of themselves in chiefe, and then of all mankind.(Sig. [¶]2r–[¶]4r)

(c) E[dmund] B[olton], ‘Ad Utramque Academiam, De Be-niamin Ionsonio’ (‘Toboth Universities, in praise of Benjamin Jonson’). Translated.

This is that man who first with fortunate endeavour will give learned plays to the Britons,like an explorer translating the ancient literary monuments of the Greeks and of theRoman theatre. Twin stars, favour his bold attempts. The ancient dramatists were contentto win glory either in tragedy or in comedy. This man, the sun of the stage, handles

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tragedy and comedy with equal skill. Volpone, you give jokes; Sejanus, you gave tears. Butif some people complain that Jonson’s poetry is confined to narrow limits: then say inreply ‘Too unhappy are those Englishmen to whom the English language is not sufficientlyknown; or to whom (because they were born overseas) is not known at all. When in timethe poet flourishes, he will change his native land, and he will himself become the EnglishApollo.’ (Sig. ¶ 4v)

(d) John Donne, ‘Amicissimo, & meritissimo BEN: IONSON’ (‘To the most friendlyand deserving Ben Jonson’). Translation from John T.Shawcross (ed.), The Poetry ofJohn Donne (Garden City, NY 1967), p. 218.

If, what here you have dared with your skill, O Poet,the deliberators of the law of men and Godhad dared to follow and to emulate the ancients,O might we all taste of salvation.But to these men the ancients are full of cobwebs;no one is such a follower of the ancients as youbecause you, restorer of the old, follow those you approve.Follow still what you pursue; and may your booksbe adorned with old age from their first hour:for assuredly youth is to be denied to literary works,and it is necessary that these books are born aged things,by which let your power be given immortality.Genius and toil render you equalto the ancients; outlive them so thatyou may ransom future men from our corruption,in which we surpass the past and future ages.

(e) Francis Beaumont, ‘To my deare friend, Mr. Benjamin Jonson, upon hisFOXE’.

If it might stand with Justice, to allowThe swift conversion of all follies; now,Such is my Mercy, that I could admitAll sorts should equally approve the wit,Of this thy even worke: whose growing fameShall raise thee high, and than it, with thy Name.And did not Manners, and my love commandMee to forbeare to make those understand,Whom thou, perhaps, hast in thy wiser doomeLong since, firmely resolv’d, shall never comeTo know more then they do; I would have showneTo all the world, the Art, which thou aloneHast taught our tongue, the rules of Time, of Place,And other Rites, deliver’d, with the graceOf Comick stile, which onely, is farre more,Then any English Stage hath knowne before.

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But since our subtle Gallants thinke it goodTo like of nought, that may be understood,Least they should be disprov’d; or have, at best,Stomacks so raw, that nothing can digestBut what’s obscene, or barkes: Let us desireThey may continue, simplie, to admireFine clothes, and strange words; and may live, in age,To see themselves ill-brought upon the Stage,And like it. Whilst thy bold, and knowing MuseContemnes all praise, but such as thou wouldst chuse. (Sig. A2r)

(f) ‘D. D.’, ‘To my good friend. Mr Jonson’. Perhaps by Dudley Digges, for whomsee No. 49(e), below. Suggests that while Jonson’s humour plays displaced the comicstyle of the ancients from the English stage, Volpone triumphantly revives that style.

The strange new follies of this idle age,In strange new formes, presented on the StageBy thy quick Muse, so pleas’d judicious eyes;That the’once-admired antient ComœdiesFashions, like clothes growne out of fashion, layLock’d up from use: untill thy FOXE birth-dayIn an old garbe, shew’d so much art, and wit,As they the Laurell gave to thee, and it. (Sig. A2v)

(g) ‘E.S.’, ‘To my worthily-esteemed Mr Ben: Jonson’. Perhaps by Edmund Scory,as suggested by H & S, xi, 322. Emphasizes the performances of the play in Oxfordand Cambridge, and suggests that however fine the play may appear in printedform, it must have been finer yet in performance.

VOLPONE now is dead indeed, and liesExposed to the censure of all eies,And mouth’s; Now he hath run his traine, and show’nHis subtill body, where he best was knowne;In both Minerva’s Cittyes: he doth yeeld,His well-form’d-limbes upon this open field.Who, if they now appeare so faire in sight,How did they, when they were endew’d with sprightOf Action? Yet in thy praise let this be read,The FOXE will live, when all his hounds be dead. (Sig. [A3]v)

NOTES

1 ‘Everybody is afraid for himself, though untouched, and hates you’: Satires, 2.1.23.2 ‘The fretful tribe’: Horace, Epistles, 2.2.102.

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20.Ben Jonson, more principles for the masque

1609

From The Masque of Queenes, performed and published in 1609.

(a) Jonson offers decorum, variety, and unity as principles for the construction (and thusfor the critical judgement) of this masque.

It increasing, now, to the third time of my being us’d in these services to her Majestiespersonall presentations, with the Ladyes whom she pleaseth to honor; it was my first &speciall regard, to see that the Nobility of the invention should bee answerable to thedignity of their persons. For which reason I chose the argument, to be, A celebration ofhonorable, and true Fame, bred out of Vertue: observing that rule of the⋆ best Artist, to sufferno object of delight to passe without his mixture of profit & example. And because herMajestie (best knowing, that a principall part of life, in these Spectacles, lay in their variety)had commanded me to think on some Dance or shew, that might præcede hers, & have theplace of a foile or false Masque; I was carefull to decline, not only from others, but mineowne steps in that kind, since the† last yeare, I had an Anti-masque of Boyes: and therforenow, devis’d, that twelve Women, in the habit of Hags, or Witches, sustaining the personsof Ignorance, Suspition, Credulity. &c. the opposits to good Fame, should fill that part; not asa Masque, but a Spectacle of strangenes, producing multiplicitie of gesture, and not unaptlysorting with the current, and whole fall of the devise. (Sig. [A4]r)

(b) Answering an objection to the mixture of persons in the masque.

But, here, I discerne a possible objection, arising against me; to which I must turne:As, How can I bring Persons of so different Ages, to appeare properly together? or, why (which ismore unnaturall) with Virgil’s Mezentius,1 I joyne the living with the dead? I answer to boththese, at once. Nothing is more proper; Nothing more naturall. For these all live, andtogether, in their Fame: & so I present them. Besides, if I would fly to the all-daring powerof Poetry, where could I not take Sanctuary? or in whose Poeme? For other objections, letthe lookes and noses of Judges hover thick; so they bring the braines: or if they do not, Icare not. When I suffer’d it to go abroad, I departed with my right: And now, so secure anInterpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise, nor dispraise shal affect me. (Sig. E3v)

NOTES

• Hor in Art. Poetic.

† In the Masque at my L.Hadding. wedding.1 Mezentius used to make his living victims embrace corpses, so bringing on a lingering death

(Aeneid, 8.485–8).

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21.Jonson’s comedy malicious and factious

1610

From the anonymous comedy Mucedorus (1610). There were earlier editions in1598 and 1606; in 1610 new material was added to the dialogue between‘Comedie’ and ‘Envie’ at the end of the play, including the passage below.

The writer must be referring to Jonson, who was well known for his ‘needieBeard’, and to Jonson’s early satirical plays.

Env. …From my foule Studie will I hoyst a Wretch,A leane and hungry Neager Canniball:Whose jawes swell to his eyes, with chawing Malice:And him Ile make a Poet.

Com. What’s that to’th purpose?Env. This scrambling Raven, with his needie Beard,

Will I whet on to write a Comedie,Wherein shall be compos’d darke sentences,Pleasing to factious braines.And every other where, place me a Jest,Whose high abuse, shall more torment then blowes:Then I my selfe (quicker then Lightning)Will flie me to a puisant Magistrate,And waighting with a Trencher, at his backe,In midst of jollitie, rehearse those gaules,(With some additions) so lately vented in your Theater:He upon this, cannot but make complaint,To your great danger, or at least restraint.

Com. Ha, ha, ha, I laugh to heare thy folly;This is a trap for Boyes, not Men, nor such,Especially desertfull in their doinges,Whose stay’d discretion, rules their purposes.I and my faction, doe eschew those vices…. (Sig. F3r-v)

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22.Ben Jonson, prologue to The Alchemist

1610

Text from the 1612 quarto of the play, which was first performed in 1610.

Fortune, that favours Fooles, these two short howersWe wish away; both for your sakes, and ours,Judging Spectators: and desire in place,To th’ Author justice, to our selves but grace.Our Scene is LONDON, ’cause we would make knowne.No Countries mirth is better then our owne.No Clime breedes better matter, for your Whore,Baud, Squire, Impostor, many Persons more,Whose manners, now call’d Humors, feede the Stage:And which have still beene Subject, to the rageOr spleene of Comick writers. Though this PenDid never ayme to grieve, but better Men;How e’er the Age, he lives in, doth endureThe vices that she breedes, above their cure.But, when the wholsome remedies are sweet,And, in their working, Gaine, and Profit meete,He hopes to finde no spirit so much diseas’d,But will, with such fayre Correctives, be pleas’d.For here, he doth not feare, who can apply.If there be any, that will sit so nighUnto the streame, to looke what it doth runne,They shall finde things, they’ld thinke, or wish, were done;They are so naturall follies: But so showne,As even the Doers may see, and yet not owne. (Sig. [A4]v)

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23.On Catiline

1611

From the prefatory material to the 1611 quarto of the play. It had been performedearlier in the same year.

(a) Jonson’s dedication to William, Earl of Pembroke.

MY LORD,In so thicke, and darke an ignorance, as now almost covers the Age, I crave leave to

stand neare your light: and, by that, to be read. Posterity may pay your benefit the honor,and thanks; when it shall know, that you dare, in these Jig-given times, to countenance alegitimate Poeme. I must call it so, against all noise of opinion: from whose crude, andayry reports, I appeale, to that great and singular faculty of Judgment in your Lordship, ableto vindicate truth from error: It is the first (of this race) that ever I dedicated to anyPerson, and had I not thought it the best, it should have been taught a lesse ambition.Now, it approcheth your censure chearfully, and with the same assurance, that Innocencywould appeare before a Magistrate.

Your. Lo. most faithfull Honorer.

Ben. Jonson. (Sig. A2r-v)

(b) Jonson’s prefaces.

TO THE READER IN ORDINARIE

The muses forbid, that I should restrayne your medling, whom I see already busie with the Title,and tricking over the leaves: It is your owne. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad.And, now, so secure an Interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise, nor dispraise from you canaffect mee. Though you commend the first two Actes, with the people, because they are the worst; anddislike the Oration of Cicero, in regard you read some pieces of it, at Schoole, and understand themnot yet; I shall finde the way to forgive you. Be anything you will be, at your owne charge. Would Ihad deserv’d but halfe so well of it in translation, as that ought to deserve of you in judgment, if youhave any. I know you will pretend (whosoever you are) to have that, and more. But all pretences arenot just claymes. The commendation of good things may fall within a many, their approbation but ina few: for the most commend out of affection, selfe tickling, an easinesse, or imitation: but men judgeonly out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty. And, to those workes that will beare a Judge,nothing is more dangerous then a foolish prayse. You will say I shall not have yours, therfore; but

rather the contrary, all vexation of Censure. If I were not above such molestations now, I had greatcause to thinke unworthily of my studies, or they had so of mee. But I leave you to your exercise.Beginne.

To the Reader extraordinaryYou I would understand to be the better Man, though Places in Court go otherwise: to

you I submit my selfe, and worke.Farewell.BEN: JONSON. (Sig. [A3]r)

(c) Francis Beaumont, ‘To my friend Mr. Ben: Jonson, upon his Catiline’.

If thou had’st itch’d after the wild applauseOf common people, and had’st made thy LawesIn writing, such, as catch’d at present voyce,I should commend the thing, but not thy choyse.But thou hast squar’d thy rules, by what is good;And art three Ages yet, from understood:And (I dare say) in it, there lies much WitLost, till thy Readers can grow up to it.Which they can nere outgrow, to find it ill,But must fall backe againe, or like it still. (Sig. [A3]v)

(d) John Fletcher, ‘To his worthy friend Mr Ben. Jonson’.

He, that dares wrong this Play, it should appeareDares utter more, then other men dare heare,That have their wits about ’hem: yet such men,Deare friend, must see your Booke, and reade; and then,Out of their learned ignorance, crie ill,And lay you by, calling for mad Pasquill,Or Greene’s deare Groatsworth, or Tom Coryate,The new Lexicon, with the errant Pate;And picke away, from all these severall ends,And durtie ones, to make their as-wise friendsBeleeve they are translaters. Of this, pitty,There is a great plague hanging o’re the Citty:Unlesse she purge judgement presently.But, O thou happy man, that must not dieAs these things shall: leaving no more behindBut a thin memory (like a passing wind)That blowes, and is forgotten, ere they are cold.Thy labours shall out live thee; and, like goldStampt for continuance, shall be currant, whereThere is a Sunne, a People, or a Yeare. (Sig. [A3]v–[A4]r)

(e) Nathaniel Field, ‘To his worthy beloved friend Mr BEN. JONSON’.

Field (1587–1633) was one of the six principal comedians of the Children of theQueen’s Chapel, who performed Cynthia’s Revels in 1600; he acted in Poetaster in

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1601. He was befriended by Jonson and tutored by him; he records his gratitude toJonson for his ‘grave instructions philosophicall’ in a commendatory verse toFletcher in The Faithful Shepherdess (c. 1610). Jonson pays him the compliment ofhaving Cokes ask in Bartholomew Fair about ‘Your best Actor. Your Field?’ (5.3.88).Field contributed a commendatory verse to the 1607 quarto of Volpone. He wroteplays himself from about 1610 on.

Had the great thoughts of Catiline bene good,The memory of his name, streame of his bloud,His plots past into acts, (which would have turn’dHis Infamy to Fame, though Rome had burn’d)Had not begot him equall grace with men,As this, that he is writ by such a Pen:Whose inspirations, if great Rome had had,Her good things had bene better’d, and her badUndone; the first for joy, the last for feare.That such a Muse should spread them, to our Yeare.But woe to us then: for thy laureat browIf Rome enjoy’d had, we had wanted now.But, in this Age, where Jigs and Dances move,How few there are, that this pure worke approve!Yet, better then I rayle at, thou canst scorneCensures, that die, ere they be throughly borne.Each Subject thou, still thee each Subject rayses.And whosoever thy Book, himselfe disprayses. (Sig. [A4]r)

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24.John Selden on Jonson’s scholarship

1614

From the preface to Titles of Honor (1614).Jonson has a commendatory poem, ‘To His Honord Friend Mr. John Selden

Health,’ prefixed to the volume. Selden argues in the body of the book that,contrary to received opinion, crowns were not anciently regarded as specificallyroyal attributes (Part i, pp. 135–54). He there disputes the reading of the Greekscholiast Arsenius which suggests that Euripides refers to a crown in Orestes inconnection with Atreus (Orestes, ll. 12–13). This extract from his preface describeshis looking up Arsenius in Jonson’s library and discussing the problem with him.

In 1631, in the second edition of Titles of Honor, Selden added a section on poeticlaurels, included, he says, to fulfil a promise to his ‘beloved’ Jonson; he complimentsJonson’s ‘curious learning and judgment’ and tells him that in the matter of thelaurel crown of poets ‘you both fully know whatconcernes it, and your singular Excellencie in the Art most eminently deserves it’(pp. 411–12).

[Selden mentions the reference in Orestes.]

…which, when I was to use, and not having at hand the Scholiast (out of whom I hoped some aid) Iwent, for this purpose, to see it in the well-furnisht Librarie of my beloved friend that singular PoetM.Ben: Jonson, whose speciall Worth in Literature, accurate Judgment, and Performance, knownonly to that Few which are truly able to know him, hath had from me, ever since I began to learn,an increasing admiration. Having examin’d it with him, I resolved upon my first Opinion, andfound, as I ghesse, a New but more proper Interpretation of the Place…. (Sig. dr-v)

110

25.Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair

1614

Acted in 1614; first published in 1631 in volume ii of Jonson’s Workes.

(a) ‘The Prologue to the Kings Majesty’.Your Majesty is welcome to a Fayre;Such place, such men, such language & such ware,You must expect: with these, the zealous noyseOf your lands Faction, scandaliz’d at toyes,As Babies, Hobby-horses, Puppet-playes,And such like rage, whereof the petulant wayesYour selfe have knowne, and have bin vext with long.These for your sport, without perticular wrong,Or just complaint of any private man,(Who of himselfe, or shall thinke well or can)The Maker doth present: and hopes to nightTo give you for a Fayring, true delight. (Sig. A3r)

(b) From ‘The Induction on the Stage’.

In the first part of the Induction, the Stage-Keeper gives the audience his views onthe deficiencies of the play to come; he is chased off the stage by the Book-Holder-Scrivener who reads the articles drawn up by the playwright for an agreementbetween himself and the audience; the play is announced as ‘a new sufficient Playcalled BARTHOLOMEW FAYRE, merry, and as full of noise, as sport: made todelight all, and to offend none’ (Sig. [A5]r). The last portion of the Induction, givenhere, offers some instructive direct and indirect comment on the nature of theplay, as well as the much quoted glance at The Tempest.

It is further covenanted, concluded and agreed, that how great soever the expectationbee, no person here, is to expect more then hee knowes, or better ware than a Fayre willaffoord: neyther to looke backe to the sword and buckler-age of Smithfield, but contenthimselfe with the present. In stead of a little Davy, to take toll o’the Bawds, the Authordoth promise a strutting Horse-courser, with a leere-Drunkard, two or three to attend him,in as good Equipage as you would wish. And then for Kinde-heart, the Tooth-drawer, a fineoyly Pig-woman with her Tapster, to bid you welcome, and a consort of Roarers for

musique. A wise Justice of Peace meditant, in stead of a Jugler, with an Ape. A civill Catpursesearchant. A sweete Singer of new Ballads allurant: and as fresh an Hypocrite, as ever wasbroach’d rampant. If there bee never a Servant-monster i’the Fayre; who can help it? hesayes; nor a nest of antiques? Hee is loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like those thatbeget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries, to mixe his head with other mens heeles; letthe concupisence of Jigges and Dances, raigne as strong as it will amongst you: yet if thePuppets will please any body, they shall be entreated to come in.

In consideration of which, it is finally agreed, by the foresaid hearers, and spectators, thatthey neyther in themselves conceale, nor suffer by them to be concealed any State-decipherer, or politique Picklocke of the Scene, so solemnly ridiculous, as to search out, whowas meant by the Ginger-bread-woman, who by the Hobby-horse-man, who by the Costard-monger, nay, who by their Wares. Or that will pretend to affirme (on his owne inspiredignorance) what Mirror of Magistrates is meant by the Justice, what great Lady by the Pigge-woman, what conceal’d States-man, by the Seller of Mouse-trappes, and so of the rest. But thatsuch person, or persons so found, be left discovered to the mercy of the Author, as aforfeiture to the Stage, and your laughter, aforesaid. As also, such as shall so desperately,or ambitiously, play the foole by his place aforesaid, to challenge the Author of scurrilitie,because the language some where savours of Smithfield, the Booth, and the Pig-broath, orof prophanenesse, because a Mad-man cryes, God quit you, or blesse you. In witnesse whereof,as you have preposterously put to your Seales already (which is your money) you will nowadde the other part of suffrage, your hands, The Play shall presently begin. And though theFayre be not kept in the same Region, that some here, perhaps, would have it, yet thinke,that therein the Author hath observ’d a speciall Decorum, the place being as durty as Smithfield,and as stinking every whit.

Howsoever, hee prayes you to beleeve, his Ware is still the same, else you will make himjustly suspect that hee that is so loth to looke on a Baby, or an Hobby-horse, heere, wouldbee glad to take up a Commodity of them, at any laughter, or losse, in another place. (Sig.[A5]v–[A6]v)

112 BEN JONSON

26.On Jonson’s epigrams

1615

An epigram entitled ‘Scribimus indocti doctique epigrammata passim’ (‘Skilled orunskilled, we scribble poetry, all alike’: Horace, Epistles, 2.1.117), in a collectionmade by ‘R.C., Gent’ and titled ‘The Times Whistle, or a newe Daunce of SevenSatires, whereunto are annexed divers other poems comprising things naturall,morall, and theologicall’, in the Library of Canterbury Cathedral (LiteraryManuscript D10).

J.M.Couper, in the introduction to his edition of the manuscript, The TimesWhistle, or a new Daunce of Seven Satires, and other Poems (1871), suggests a date of1615 for the collection (pp. x–xiii); the present poem apparently refers to a printedversion of Jonson’s epigrams, and to the dedication to them which appears in the1616 folio (compare line 9 with No. 29(e), below). This would suggest that thewriter had seen the 1616 volume, though it is possible there was an earlier separateprinted version or MS of the epigrams (discussed in H & S, viii, 16, and xi, 356).The reference to a pamphlet suggests such a publication, rather than the imposingfolio of 1616.

Johnson, they say, ’s turnd EpigrammatistSoe think not I, believe it they that list.Peruse his booke, thou shall not find a dramOf witt, befitting a true Epigram.Perhaps some scraps of play-bookes thou maist see,Collected heer & there confusedlie,Which piece his broken stuffe, if thou but note,Just like soe many patches on a cote.And yet his intret Cato sta[n]ds before,Even at the portall of his pamphlets dore,As who should say, this booke is fit for none,But Catoes, learned men to looke upon:Or else, let Cato censure if he will,My booke deserves the best of judgement skill.When every gull may see his booke’s untwitten,And Epigrams as bad as ere were written.Johnson this worke thy other doth distaine,And makes the world imagine that thy vein

Is not true bred, but of some bastard race,Then write no more, or write with better grace,Turne thee to plaies & therin write thy fill,Leave Epigrams to artists of more skill, (fol. 91r)

114 BEN JONSON

27.William Fennor on the reception of Sejanus

1616

From ‘The Description of a Poet’, in Fennors Descriptions, Or A True Relation ofcertaine and divers speeches, spoken before the King and Queenes most excellent Majestie, thePrince his highnesse, and the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace (1616).

The reception of Sejanus is Fennor’s example of the poet’s sad fate of beingjudged by the multitude (his poem begins, ‘A Poets life is most unfortunate…’).Fennor describes himself on the title-page as ‘His Majesties Servant’.

[A murderer, or a thief, is given a trial by twelve men charged with clearing anydoubts about rash judgement.]

…But sweet PoesyeIs oft convict, condem’d, and judg’d to dieWithout just triall, by a multitudeWhose judgements are illiterate, and rude.Witnesse Scejanus, whose approved worth,Sounds from the calme South, to the freezing North.And on the perfum’d wings of Zepherus,In triumph mounts as farre as Æolus,With more then humane art it was bedewed,Yet to the multitude it nothing shewed;They screwed their scurvy jawes and look’t awry,Like hissing snakes adjudging it to die:When wits of gentry did applaud the same,With Silver shouts of high lowd sounding fame:Whil’st understanding grounded men contemn’d it,And wanting wit (like fooles to judge) condemn’d it.Clapping, or hissing, is the onely meaneThat tries and searches out a well writ Sceane.So is it thought by Ignoramus crew,But that good wits acknowledge’s untrue;The stinckards oft will hisse without a cause,And for a baudy jeast will give applause.Let one but aske the reason why they roare

They’l answere, cause the rest did so before.But leaving these who for their just reward,Shall gape, and gaze, amongst the fooles in th’ yard. (Sig. B2r-v)

116 BEN JONSON

28.Robert Anton, Jonson among the melancholic

creators1616

From The Philosophers Satyrs (1616).In his sixth satire Anton considers the activities in Mercury’s sphere, those of wit

and the arts. He attacks literary efforts inspired by ‘phantasticke humors’, smoke,wine and other artificial stimulants and declares his admiration for the products of‘arts and deeper skill’ (p. 59), and of the melancholic temperament.

Anton graduated from Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1609–10; he is alsothe author of a prose tract, Moriomachia (1613).

The chollericke complexion hot and drie,Writes with a Scriants hand most gripingly.The Phlegmaticke in such a waterie vaine,As if some (riming-Sculler) got his straine.But the sound melancholicke mixt of earth,Plowes with his wits, and brings a sollid birth:The labor’d lines of some deepe reaching Scull,Is like some Indian ship or stately hull,That three yeares progresse furrows up the maine.…

⋆⋆⋆

[Beaumont and Spenser are cited first, then]

The labor’d Muse of Johnson, in whose loomeHis silke-worme stile shall build an honor’d toombeIn his owne worke: though his long curious twinsHang in the roofe of time with daintie lines:Greeke-thundring Chapman beaten to the ageWith a deepe furie and a sollid rage.And Morrall Daniell with his pleasing phrase,Filing the rockie methode of these daies. (p. 64)

118

29.From The Workes of Benjamin Jonson

1616

On this, the first of the folio collections of Jonson’s works, see Introduction, p. 11.

(a) John Selden, ‘Ad V[irum] CL[arissimum] Ben. Ionsonium, Carmen protrepticon’ (Tothe most noble Ben Jonson, A hortatory poem’). Translated.

Let Neanthus strike the snatched lyre of the Thracian. Let Palaemon write songs incircles. The man who sacrifices to the Goddesses with unwashed hands, let him fearProbus. You like pleasing learned ears, you like pleasing few. When with full attention Iwas reading your poems (for your poems demand one’s full attention; they are not for alazy reader) and when I saw the rhythm, intelligence, skill, wonderful judgement, which,O Jonson, the critic himself, even if excessively prejudiced, would demand if he were atthe same time a learned man, and when I saw the fine style and the wit worthy ofMercury, and the new ideas but old moral standards; whatever dramatic work of yours Iread was within your competence; it would always be so, and you had spoken so that Lemnoswas not so famous for its clay, and Apis made sacred by his spot, was not so famous, andVenus was not so famous for her girdle, or Apollo for his long hair, as you will be famousfor your learned poetry, as a bright star by its rays surpasses the brightness of lesser stars.I remembered the saying of Stolo, that the Muses would have used Plautus’ Latin, and Iremembered Cicero’s saying, that the son of Saturn would have used Plato’s Greek, if theMuses had been speaking in Latium and Jupiter had been speaking in Athens. Now I thinkthat Jupiter and the Muses would have used Jonson’s verse if they had been speaking tothe English. You teach wisdom so pleasantly. You strew and scatter pleasant things sowisely. But among so many pleasures, one thing is not pleasing: the fact that the book-binder’s board has separated them among so many volumes. I wanted one volume, whichfuture generations of Englishmen would read and reread. The band and company of thosewho love poetry desire this, and whatever of your labours remains still preserved in yourdesk. But we seem to seek glory not so much for you as for ourselves, while we desireeagerly the unpublished writings of a man who openly deserves so many laurel wreaths;while we dare to separate you and your poems from the number tasting of bittenfingernails [i.e. from over-careful writers], as the old critics separated the muses fromboth sirens and cicadas; while we seem able to separate you, we seek a new book, a sacredone which will not be assailed in any age, will not grow old in any age, it will be asplendid Second Edition; so that at the same time it will be thought that we too knewsomething. Good luck to you. Let us consecrate it to you like a sacrifice to the gods, inorder that we may have good fortune. May a fresher ivy wreath and new splendour crown

your head. The English race could one day be eternal and proud of your merits. The menwho envy your country and you this great wreath are merely those who want to abolishliterature altogether; being obscure, they fear the excessive brightness of Jonson. (Sig. ¶ 3v–[¶ 4]r)

(b) Edward Hayward, ‘To Ben. Jonson, on his workes’.

Edward Hayward (or Heyward) of the Inner Temple (d. 1658) had been praised byJonson in ‘An Epistle to Master John Selden’ as Selden’s ‘learned chamber-fellow’;Jonson there rejoices in his friendship with the two men (Und., 14, ll 70–82).

Selden’s Titles of Honor (see No. 24, above) was dedicated to Hayward.May I subscribe a name? dares my bold quill

Write that or good or ill,Whose frame is of that height, that, to mine eye,Its head is in the sky?Yes. Since the most censures, beleeves, and saithBy an implicit faith:Least their misfortune make them chance amisse,I’le waft them right by this.Of all I know thou onely art the manThat dares but what he can:Yet by performance showes he can do moreThen hath bene done before,Or will be after. (Such assurance givesPerfection where it lives.)Words speake thy matter; matter fills thy words;And choyce that grace affordsThat both are best: and both most fitly plac’t,Are with new VENUS grac’tFrom artfull method, all in this point meet,With good to mingle sweet.These are thy lower parts. what stands aboveWho sees not yet must love,When on the Base he reads BEN. JONSONS name,And heares the rest from Fame.This from my love of truth: which payes this dueTo your just worth, not you. (Sig. [¶ 4]v)

(c) Francis Beaumont, ‘Upon the Silent Woman’.

Further evidence of the emphasis on the moral purpose of Jonsonian comedy in thecritical comment of the time.

Heare you bad writers, and though you not see,I will informe you where you happy bee:Provide the most malicious thoughts you can,And bend them all against some private man,

120 BEN JONSON

To bring him, not his vices, on the stage,Your envie shall be clad in so poore rage,And your expressing of him shall be such,That he himselfe shall thinke he hath no touch.Where he that strongly writes, although he meaneTo scourge but vices in a labour’d scene,Yet private faults shall be so well exprestAs men doe act ’hem, that each private brest,That findes these errors in itselfe shall say,He meant me, not my vices, in the play. (Sig. [¶ 6]v)

(d) Jonson’s dedication of Sejanus to Lord Aubigny.

Jonson lodged with Esmé Stuart, Seigneur d’Aubigny (1574– 1624), for five years,between 1603 and 1607; Epig., 27 is addressed to him.

MY LORD,If ever any ruine were so great, as to survive; I thinke this be one I send you: the Fal of Sejanus.

It is a poente, that (if I well remember) in your Lo. sight, suffer’d no lesse violence from our peoplehere, then the subject of it did from the rage of the people of Rome; but, with a different fate, as (Ihope) merit: For this hath out-liv’d their malice, and begot it selfe a greater favour then he lost, thelove of good men. Amongst whom, if I make your Lo. the first it thankes, it is not without a justconfession of the bond your benefits have, and ever shall hold upon me.

Your Lo. most faithfull honorer,

BEN. JONSON. (p. 357)

(e) Jonson’s dedication of the Epigrams to William, Earl of Pembroke.Jonson had dedicated Catiline to Pembroke in the 1611 quarto (see No. 23(a), above).TO THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF HONOR AND VERTUE, THE MOST NOBLE

WILLIAM, EARLE OF PEMBROKE, L.CHAMBERLAYNE, &C.

MY LORD. While you cannot change your merit, I dare not change your title: It was that madeit and not I. Under which name, I here offer to you Lo: the ripest of my studies, my Epigrammes;which, though they carry danger in the sound, doe not therefore seeke your shelter: For, when I madethem, I had nothing in my conscience, to expressing of which I did need a cypher. But, if I be falne intothose times, wherein, for the likeness of vice, and facts, every one thinks anothers ill deeds objected tohim; and that in their ignorant and guiltie mouthes, the common voyce is (for their securitie)Beware the Poet, confessing, therein, so much love to their diseases, as they would rather make apartie for them, then be either rid, or told of them: I must expect, at your Lo: hand, the protection oftruth, and libertie, while you are constant to your owne goodnesse. In thankes whereof, I returne youthe honor of leading forth so many good, and great names (as my verses mention on the better part) totheir remembrance with posteritie. Amongst whom, if I have praysed, unfortunately, any one thatdoth not deserve; or, if all answere not, in all numbers, the pictures I have made of them: I hope itwill be forgiven me, that they are no ill pieces, though they be not like the persons. But I foresee aneerer fate to my booke, then this: that the vices therein will be own’d before the vertues (though,there, I have avoyded all particulars, as I have done names) and that some will be so readie to discredit

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 121

me, as they will have the impudence to belye themselves. For, if I meant them not, it is so. Nor, can Ihope otherwise. For, why should they remit any thing of their riot, their pride, their selfe-love, andother inherent graces, to consider truth or vertue; but, with the trade of the world, lend their longeares against men they love not: and hold their deare Mountebanke, or Jester, in farre bettercondition, then all the studie, or studiers of humanitie? For such, I would rather know them by theirvisards, still, then they should publish their faces, at their perill; in my Theater, where CATO, ifhe liv’d, might enter without scandall.

Your Lo: most faithfull honorer,

BEN. JONSON. (pp. 767–8)

122 BEN JONSON

30.William Drummond, Jonson’s character

1619

The summary at the end of the notes on his conversations with Jonson, printedfrom H & S, i, 151.

January 19. 1619.He is a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and Scorner of others, given

rather to losse a friend, than a Jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him(especiallie after drink) which is one of the Elements in which he liveth) a dissembler of illparts which raigne in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth, thinketh nothing wellbot what either he himself, or some of his friends and Countrymen hath said or done, heis passionately kynde and angry, carelesse either to gaine or keep, Vindicative, but if he bewell answered, at himself,

for any religion as being versed in both,interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst:oppressed with fantasie, which hath ever mastered his reason, a generall disease in

many poets, his inventions are smooth and easie, but above all he excelleth in a translation,when his Play of a Silent woman was first acted, ther was found Verses after on the

stage against him, concluding that, that play was well named the Silent Woman. ther wasnever one man to say plaudite to it

Finis

124

31.Inigo Jones, attack on Jonson

1619 or later

‘To his false freind mr: Ben Johnson’, from B.L.Harley MS 6057, composed afterJonson returned from Scotland in 1619. H & S, xi, 386, amend l. 13 to read ‘no illthou couldst so taske dwells not [in thee]’.

Jones (1573–1652) designed the settings for twelve of Jonson’s masques, fromThe Masque of Blackness, performed at the beginning of 1605, shortly after Jonesreturned from Italy, to Chloridia (1631). In 1631 the two men quarrelled openlyover who was to have precedence as creator of the masques. Jonson wrote an‘Expostulation’ with Jones, and epigrams on him (U.V., 34, 35, 36) and caricaturedhim as In-and-in Medlay in A Tale of a Tub (first recorded performance 1634) and asIniquo Vitruvius in Loves Welcome at Bolsover (1634). On Jones’s side, as well as thepoem below, there is a marginal annotation associating Jonson with a characterfrom tragedy stupefied with happiness at the applause of the mob, printed inAnthony Johnson, ‘Ben Jonson: An Ungathered Allusion’, Notes and Queries (1986),n.s. xxxiii, 384–5. Jones’s phrase ‘the best of Poetts but the worst of men’ appearsseveral times in connection with Jonson in Charles Stanhope’s marginalia in a copyof the 1640 folio of Jonson’s works, as well as in other books he owned (JamesM.Osborn, ‘Ben Jonson and the Eccentric Lord Stanhope’, The Times LiterarySupplement, 4 January 1957, p. 16, and G.P.V. Akrigg, ‘The Curious Marginalia ofCharles, Second Lord Stanhope’, Adams Memorial Studies, Folger ShakespeareLibrary, 1948, pp. 785–802).

Sixe daies are done with endlesse hopes since Ihad with expectance of thy honestythought of my thanks to be delivered freewhich soe longe I have travaild for with theebut thy neglect hath chaung’d the happier fateand made thy birth abortive turne to hatewhose language like thy nature now must proveand blame itt not you might have Taught itt loveI wonder howe you ever durst invayIn Satire. Epigram, or Libell-playagainst the manners of the tyme, or menin full examples of all mischeifes when no ill thou couldst soe staske dwells not meeand there the store house of your plottes wee see.

for thou that hast in thee soe many waiesof practizd mischief, hast begott thy bayesin reading of thy selfe, ticklinge the agestealinge all equal glory from the stagethat I confesse with like forme thou hast writtof good and badd things not with equall wittthe reason is, or may be quickly shownethe goods translation butt the ills thyne ownefor though with tired pace & sweaty feeteI never went to Scotland nor did meetethee att returne my selfe alone or withmy friends but soe far of a[s] Hamersmithyet I ofte unto your Jurnes glorywith patience heard you tell the teadious storyof all you in that trafficke suffered thougheI was as tyr’d as thou couldst bee to goeBesides I have beene druncke with thee & thensatt still and heard the[e] rayle at other menrepeat thy verses, and done all that mightmake my Succession to thy hart be rightAnd t’other daie I gave thee stile & woordespreferd thee in thy Choise before great LordesBut thou hast proved nowe by this neglectless worthy then that groome my disrespectheere Charected unto the life for heedeceiv’d no trust which murthered is by theefrom henceforth this repute dwell with the[e] thenthe best of Poettes but the worst of men (fol. 30r-v)

126 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

32.Edmund Bolton on Jonson’s language

1621

From Hypercritica, first printed by Anthony Hall in his Nicolai Triveti AnnaliumContinuatio; ut et Adami Murimuthensis Chroni-con… (Oxford 1722).

Bolton’s work is a guide to the writing of English history; in this section he isdiscussing poets as models for English style. Thomas H.Blackburn, ‘The Date andEvolution of Bolton’s Hypercritica’, Studies in Philology (1966), lxiii, 196–202,establishes a date of 1621 for the full version of the Hypercritica. Bodleian MSRawlinson D1 contains what Blackburn (p. 201) suggests is a late emendation of anearly outline of the work; it lists Jonson among the authors suitable as models forthe English language. It was printed (along with a reprint of Hall’s version) byJoseph Haslewood, in Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy (1815), ii,246–7n.

In verse there are Ed. Spencer’s Hymns. I cannot advise the allowance of other his Poems,as for practick English, no more than I can do Jeff. Chaucer, Lydgate, Peirce Ploughman, orLaureat Skelton. It was laid as a fault to the charge of Salust, that he used some old outwornWords, stoln out of Cato his Books de Originibus. And for an Historian in our Tongue toaffect the like out of those our Poets would be accounted a foul Oversight. That thereforemust not be, unless perhaps we cite the Words of some old Monument, as Livy citesCarmen Martium, or as other Latins might alledge Pacuvius, Andronicus, or Laws of the TwelveTables, or what else soever of the ancients. My judgment is nothing at all in Poems, or Poesie,and therefore I dare not go far, but will simply deliver my Mind concerning thoseAuthours among us, whose English hath in my Conceit most propriety, and is nearest tothe Phrase of Court, and to the Speech used among the noble, and among the better sortin London; the two sovereign Seats, and as it were Parliament tribunals to try the questionin.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Bolton recommends some or all the poems of Chapman, Daniel, Drayton, QueenElizabeth, Southwell, and Constable; The Mirror of Magistrates and Gorboduc; andpoems by Surrey, Wyatt, Raleigh, Donne, Hugh Holland and Fulke Greville. Heconcludes:]

But if I should declare mine own Rudeness rudely, I should then confess, that I nevertasted English more to my liking, nor more smart, and put to the height of Use in Poetry,then in that vital judicious, and most practicable Language of Benjamin Jonson’s Poems.(235–7)

128 BEN JONSON

33.George Chapman, expostulation with Jonson

1623 or later

‘An Invective Wrighten…against Mr Ben: Jonson’, from Bodleian Library MSAshmole 38.

Apparently a response to Jonson’s ‘An Execration upon Vulcan’, written afterthe fire of 1623, and which Chapman must have seen in manuscript. Chapman hadobviously turned against Jonson since the commendatory poem to Sejanus (No. 16(b), above). There is much in the poem that is obscure, but it is remarkable for itsindignation at what Chapman sees as Jonson’s pretensions—suggesting, forexample, that the works he claimed were destroyed by fire existed only in hisimagination (p. 138, below) —and at the cult of Jonson among his learned admire[r]s (pp. 135, 138, below).

Greate-Learned wittie-Ben: be pleas’d to lightthe world with that three-forked fire; Nor frightAll us thy sublearn’d with Luciferous Boastthat thou art most-greate-most-learn’d-wittie mostof all the kingdome; nay of all the earthAs being a thing betwixtt a humane birthand an Infernall; No humanityeOf the devine soule shewing Man In the[e]Being all of pride composde and surcudrieThus ytt might Argue; yf thy petulant willMay Flieblowe all men with thy great swans QuillIf itt Cann wright noe playes; yf thy plaies fayleAll the Earnests of our Kingdome straight must vaileTo thy wilde furie; that, as yf a feindeHad sleipte his Cirkell; showste thy brest is splendFrisking so madly that gaynst Towne and CourteThow plant’st thy battrie In most hedious SorteIf thy pied humours suffer least empaireAnd any vapour vex the virulent AyreThe Dunkerkes keepe not our Cole ships In aweMore then thy Moods are thy Admire[r]s Law—All eles, as well the grafflers of thy paweswith panicke Terrors flie bedred of cause

And sett the swinish Itche of thy fell wreakeRub gainst the presence Royall without CheckeHow must state use the[e] yf thy vaines thus leakeThou must be Muzzelde Ringd and lett In ChainesLest dames with childe a bide untymely paynesand Children perrish: didst thou not put outA boies Right eye that Croste thy mankind pouteyf all this you find perdone Fee and graceThe happiest outlaw th’art that ever wasGoodnes to virtue is a godlike thingeAnd man with god Joynes in a good doing kingeBut to give vice hur Name, and on all his(As her puer Merritts) to Confer all thiswho will not argue itt redounds, what evervice is sustayned with all, turnes pestilent feverwhat norishes vertue, ever more ConvertsTo blood and sperritts of nothing but desertsAnd shall a viper hanging on hur handby his owne poyson his full swindge CommandeHow shall grave virtue sperritt her honord fameyf Mottlye mockerye maie dispose her shameNever soe dully? Nor with such a dustAnd Clouted Choller? tis the foulest lustThat ever yett did violate actions Just.But yf this weighd, proud vile and saucie sperrittDepraveing everye exemplarye merrittMay itt nought lesse all his fatt hopes InherittWhen men turne Harpies, theire bloods standing lakesGreene bellied Serpents, and blacke freckled SnakesCrawling In their unwelldye Clottered wavesTheir tongues growne forked, and thair sorcerous pensLike pickturs prickt, and hid In smoaking dunghillsVext with the Sunn, tis tyme I thinke to banishAnd Cast out such unhallowedly dysloyallFrom bloods thrice sacred and devinely RoyallThers an Invention Mountibancke enoughto make petars to blow upp mens good namesVirtues and Dignities for vices pleasure;Take but an Idle and Rediculous CrewOf base back biters that ytt never knewVirtue or worth to manage; great flesh fliesSlight all the Clere and sound partes whear thay passAnd dwell uppon the soares; and Call to themThe Common learned, gatherer of poysonsfor envied Merritts that hee Cannott æquallAnd let hym gleane from Malice and foule mouthesDevices long since donn and sett them downeWith splene stupide and dead as brutish restes

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Transforming all most wrathfull fumes to JestsLetting the king his Royall eare allowe;And thers a reputation, broke as smaleAnd with as maygtye Arguments lett fallAs the Greeke Mans’ pure bodies Genitall.So that yf scandalls false beare free their spriteAll guiltles formes, are forc’t with rape and flightAnd shall all other Raisers of their namesT’aires highes Region, buy such short-winged famesHould not their titles, and whole states like tenuresMay wee not humblest things with highest rateAnd least with greatest, whear right must ModerateNow to your partes Calde good; your sacred deske(The wooden fountayne of the Mightye Muses)(Ah las) is burned; and their all their wealth faylde(That never Cann with all tyme be retayldeWhy then as good not name them) yes, O yesTenn tymes repeated will all brave things please,Not with theire Titles yett, and pore selfe prayses.Hee lives yett (heaven be praysed) that Can wrightIn his ripe yeares much better, and new borneIn spight of Vulcan, whome all true pens scorneYett lett me name them in meane tyme to Cherehis greddie followers with a prickt up eareItt does him selfe ease and why them no goodCome serve ytt in then give hime goulden food.Noe Bodie (hee dares saie) yet have sound partsOf profound search and Mastrie In the artes1

And perfect then his English Grammare tooTo teach some what thayr nurses could not doeThe puritie of Language, and AmongeThe rest; his Journye Into Scotland songeAnd twice twelve years storde upp humanitieWith humble gleanings in DevenytyeAfter the fathers and those wiser guidesThat faction had not drawne to steddie sidesCanst thou lose theise by fire; and live yet ableTo wright past Joves wrath, fier and Ayre things stableYet Curse as thou wert lost for everye bableSome pore thinge wright new; a Riche Caskett BenAll of riche Jems t’adore most learned menOr a Reclaime of most Jacete supposesTo teach full habited-men to blowe their nosesMake the king merrie; would’st thou now be knowneThe Devill and the Vice, and both In oneThow doest things backwards, are man thought to knoweMastries in th’arts with saying they doe soeAnd criing fire out In a dreame to kings

BEN JONSON 131

Burne things unborne, and that way generate thingsWright some new Lactean way to thy highe presenceAnd make not ever thy strong fancie essenceTo all thou wouldst be thought on all worlds worth;Or eles like Hercules Furens breaking forthBiting the grene—cloth,2 as a doge a stone,And for ridiculous shaddow of the boneHazard the substance; will thy fortune still(Spight of all learning) backe the witt thy willThough thy playe genius, hange his broken wingFull of sicke feathers, and with forced thingsImp thy scænes, Labord and UnnaturallAnd nothing good Comes with thy thrice vext CallComes thou not yet: nor yet? O no, Nor yettYet are thy learnd Admire[r]s so deep settIn thy preferment above all that CiteThe sunn in challendge for the heate and lightOf bothe heavens Influences which of you tow kneweAnd have most power In them; Greate Ben tis youExamine hime some truely Judging sperritt,That pride nor fortune hath to blind his merrittHee matcht with all booke-fiers hee ever readHis Deske poore Candle Rents; his owne fat headWith all the learnd worlds; Alexanders flameThat Cæsars Conquest Cowd, and stript his fame,he shames Not to give reckoning In for with his:As yf the king perdoning his petulenciesShould paie his huge loss to in such a skoreAs all earths learned fiers hee gather’d for.What thinkest thow (Just frind) equalde not this prideAll yet that ever, Hell or heaven defied?And yet for all this, this Clube will InflictHis faultfull paine, and him enough ConvicteHee onlye reading showed; Learning, nor witt;Onlye Dame Gilians fier his Deske will fittbut for his shift by fier to save the LoseOf his vast Learning; this may prove ytt groseTrue Muses ever, vent breathes mixt with fierWhich, formed In Numbers, they In flames expireNot onlye flames kindl’d with thayr owne blest breathThat give the unborne Life; and eternise death.Great Ben: I knowe what this is In thy hand,And how thou fixt on heavens fixt starre dost standIn all mens admirations and Comande.for all that can be scribled gainst the sortesof thy drad Repurcussions and Reportes,the Kingdome yeldes not such another manwounder of men hee is; the player Cann

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and bookeseller prove true; yf thay could knoweOnlye on[e] dropp, that drives In such A floweAre thay not learned beasts, the better farrTheire drossie exhalations, A starrtheire brainles Admirations may render.For Learning In the wise sort is but LenderOf mens prime Notions Doctrine their owne wayOf all skills preciptible formes A keyForging to wealth, and Honor soothed senceNever exploring truth or ConsequenceInforming any vertue or good LifeAnd therefore Plaier, Bookseller, or wifeOf eyther, (needing no such curiouse key)All men and things, may knowe their owne rude wayImagination and our appetiteForming our speach no easier then thay lighteAll letterles Companions; t’all thay knowHere or here after that like earths sonns ploweAll underworlds and ever downewards groweNor lett your learnings think egredious Ben:Thes letterles Companions are not menWith all the Arts and Sciences InduedIf of mans true and worthiest knowledge rudeWhich is to knowe and be, one Compleat manAnd that not all the swelling OceanOf Artes and sciences, cann poure both InIf that brave skill, then when thou didst begineto studdye letters, thy great wit had plideFreelye and onlye thy Disease of prideIn vulgar praise, had never bound thy,3 (16–18)

NOTES

1 A marginal note in the manuscript here says, ‘Wm then Lord Chamberlayne and Earl of Pemb.made him M[aste]r of Arts with his Letter.’ The ceremony took place in Oxford in 1619.

2 The board of control of the King’s Household. Jonson complains of its failure to give him hisallowance of sack in Und., 68.

3 At the end of the text in the MS there is the note, ‘More then this never came to my hands,but lost in his sicknes.’

BEN JONSON 133

134

34.Ben Jonson on The Staple of News

1626

‘The Prologue for the Court’ to the play, which was first acted in 1626, andprinted in 1631 in volume ii of Jonson’s Workes.

There is also an Induction to the play, and a separate prologue ‘for the Stage’.

A Worke not smelling of the Lampe, to night,But fitted for your Majesties disport,And writ to the Meridian of your Court,Wee bring; and hope it may produce delight:The rather, being offered, as a RiteTo Schollers, that can judge, and faire reportThe sense they heare, above the vulgar sortOf Nut-crackers, that onely come for sight.Wherein, although our Title, Sir, be Newes.Wee yet adventure, here, to tell you none;But shew you common follies, and so knowne,That though they are not truths, th’innocent MuseHath made so like, as Phant’sie could them state,Or Poetry, without scandall, imitate. (6)

136

35.Nicholas Oldisworth on Jonson

1629

‘A Letter to Ben Johnson. 1629’, from Oldisworth’s autograph collection of hispoems in the Bodleian (MS Don. C. 24, dated 1644).

Oldisworth, a Gloucestershire clergyman, was Sir Thomas Overbury’s nephew(see Ian Donaldson, ‘Jonson and the Moralists’, in Alvin Kernan (ed.), TwoRenaissance Mythmakers: Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson (Baltimore, Md. 1977),pp. 162, 164n). Jonson included the poem (with some variants, and two addedlines) in what he called ‘a packet of my own praises’, sent to the Earl of Newcastleon 4 February 1632 (the letter and copies of poems in praise are Harley MS 4955 inthe British Library). The Harley version is printed in Wit Restor’d in Several SelectPoems not formerly Publish’t (1658), pp. 79–81. In another poem in MS Don. C. 24—quoted in H & S, i, 113n—Oldisworth describes a visit to Jonson in Westminsteron a journey from London to Southampton in 1632; Jonson, far from giving hisvisitors the flashes of fantastic wit they expect, talks of nothing but ‘how Mankindegrew daily worse and worse, /How God was disregarded, How Men went/Downeeven to Hell, and never did repent....’.

Die Johnson: crosse not our Religion so,As to bee thought immortall. Lett us knowThou art a Man. Thy workes make us mistakeThy person; and thy great Creations makeUs idol thee, and ’cause wee see thee doeEternall thynges, thinke Thee eternall too.Restore us to our Faith, and die. Thy doomeWill doe as much good, as the Fall of Rome,’Twill crush an Heresie: wee n’er must hopeFor truth, till two bee gone, Thou and the Pope.And though wee are in danger, by thy FallTo loose our Witts, our Judgements (braines and all)Wee are content thou shouldst besott us thus.Better bee fooles, then superstitious.Die: to what Ende should wee thee now adore?There is not Scholarship to reach to more.Our Language is refin’d: Professours doubt

Their Greek and Hebrew shall be both putt out;And wee, that Latine studyed have so long,Shall now dispute, and write, in Johnson’s tongue.Nay, courtiers yeeld: and every beauteous wenchHad rather speake thy English, then her French.And for our Mater! Nature stands agast,Wondring to see her strength thus best at last;Invention stoppes her course, and bidds the worldLooke for noe more: shee hath already hurldHer treasure all on one. Thou has out-doneSo much our Wish and Expectation,That were it not for Thee, wee scarce had knownFancie it selfe could ere so farre have gone.Give lit’rature (a while) Leave to admireHow shee gott so high: shee can gett noe higher.Die: seemes it not enough thy Writings dateIs endlesse, but thine owne prolonged FateMust equall it? for shame, engross not Age,But now, thy fifth Act’s ended, leave the stage,And lett us clappe. Wee know, the Stars, which doeGive others one Life, give a Laureat two:But thou, if thus thy Bodie long survives,Hast two Eternities, and not two Lives.Die, for thine owne sake. Seest thou not, thy PraiseIs shortned meerly by this length of dayes?Men may talke this, and that: to part the strife,If I may judge, thou hast noe fault, but life.Cold authors please best. Mee thinks thy warm BreathCasts a thick Mist before thy Worth; which, DeathWould quickly dissipate. If thou wouldst haveThy baies to flourish, plant them on thy Grave.Gold now is drosse, and Oracles are stuffeWith us: for why? thou art not low enough,Wee still looke under thee: stoope, and submittThy glorie to the Meanesse of our Witt.The Rhodian colossus, ere it fell,Could not bee scann’d nor measur’d halfe so well.Art’s length, Art’s depth, Art’s heighth can n’er bee found,Till thou art prostrate layd upon the ground.Learning noe farther than thy Life extends:With thee beganne all Art, with Thee it endes. (fol. 8r-v)

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36.Controversy over The New Inn

1629–31

The play was acted in 1629 and first printed in 1631.

(a) Jonson’s epilogue to the play.

A second epilogue, intended for a court performance which never took place, isalso printed in the 1631 edition; it defends the playwright against the hissing that itseems took place at the first performance because the chambermaid was named‘Cis’ (the incident remains unexplained; the character is renamed ‘Pru’ in theprinted version).

Playes in themselves have neither hopes, nor feares,Their fate is only in their hearers eares:If you expect more then you had to night,The maker is sick, and sad. But doe him right,He meant to please you: for he sent things fit,In all the numbers, both of sense, and wit,If they ha’ not miscarried! if they have,All that his faint, and faltring tongue doth crave,Is, that you not impute it to his braine.That’s yet unhurt, although set round with paine,It cannot long hold out. All strength must yeeld.Yet judgement would the last be, i’the field,With a true Poet. He could have hal’d inThe drunkards, and the noyses of the Inne,In his last Act; if he had thought it fitTo vent you vapours, in the place of wit:But better ’twas, that they should sleepe, or spew,Then in the Scene to offend or him, or you.This he did thinke, and this doe you forgive:When ere the carcasse dies, this Art will live.And had he liv’d the care of King, and Queene,His Art in somthing more yet had beene seene;But Mayors, and Shriffes may yearely fill the stage:A Kings, or Poets birth doe aske an age. (Sig. [G7]v)

(b) Jonson, ‘Ode To himselfe’.

Written after the failure of The New Inn on stage in 1629. Printed from the versionin John Benson’s edition of Jonson’s poems, Ben: Jonson’s Execration against Vulcan.With divers Epigrams by the same Author…(1640). John Earles, Thomas Randolph, andWilliam Strode all made Latin verse translations of Jonson’s ‘Ode’: they areprinted in H & S, x, 333–8.

I.Come leave the loathed Stage,

And the more loathsome Age,Where pride and impudence in faction knit,Usurpe the Chaire of wit:Inditing and arraigning every day,Something they call a Play.Let their fastidious vaineCommission of the braine,Runne on, and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn,They were not made for thee, lesse thou for them.

II.

Say that pour’st ’hem wheat,And they would Akornes eat:Twere simple fury, still thy selfe to wastOn such as have no taste:To offer them a surfeit of pure bread,Whose appetites are dead:No give them Graines their fill,Huskes, Draffe to drinke, and swill:If they love Lees, and leave the lusty Wine,Envy them not, their pallat’s with the Swine,

III.

No doubt a mouldy Tale,Like Pericles, and StaleAs the Shrives crusts, and nasty as his Fish,Scraps out of every Dish,Throwne forth and rak’d into the common Tub,May keep up the play Club.Broomes sweepings doe as wellThere, as his Masters meale:For who the relish of these guests will fit,Needs set them but the Almes-basket of wit.

IV.

And much good do’t yee then,Brave Plush and Velvet men

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Can feed on Orts, and safe in your scæne cloaths,Dare quit upon your OathesThe Stagers, and the stage writes too; your Peers,Of stuffing your large earesWith rage of Commicke socks,Wrought upon twenty Blocks;Which if they’re torne, and foule, and patch’d enough,The Gamsters share your gilt, and you their stuffe.

V.

Leave things so prostitute,And take th’ Alcaîke Lute;Or thine owne Horace, or Anacreons Lyre;Warme thee by Pindars fire:And though thy Nerves be shrunke, and blood be cold,Ere yeares have made thee old,Strike that disdainfull heatThroughout, to their defeat:As curious fooles, and envious of thy straine,May blushing sweare, no Palsi’s in thy braine.

VI.

But when they heare thee singThe glories of thy King;His zeale to God, and his just awe of men,They may be blood-shaken, thenFeele such a flesh-quake to possesse their powers,That no tun’d Harpe like ours,In sound of Peace or Warres,Shall truely hit the Starres:When they shall read the Acts of Charles his Reigne,And see his Chariot triumph ’bove his Waine. (Sig. fv–[f2]v)

(c) The dedication from the 1631 edition of the play. (The title-page reads: ‘THE/NEW INNE. /OR, /The Light Heart. / A COMOEDY. /As it was never acted, butmost/negli-gently play’d, by some, /the Kings Servants. /And more squeamishlybeheld, and censu-/red by others, the Kings subjects. /1629. /Now, at last, set atliberty to the Readers, His Maties/Servants, and Subjects, to be judg’d. /1631. /Bythe Author, B.Jonson.’ The motto is adapted from Horace, Epistles, 2.2.214–15: ‘Iprefer to put myself in a reader’s hands, rather than brook the disdain of a scornfulspectator.’)

THEDEDICATION,

TOTHE READER.

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IF thou bee such, I make thee my Patron, and dedicate the Piece to thee: If not so much,would I had beene at the charge of thy better litterature. How-so-ever, if thou canst butspell, and joyne my sense; there is more hope of thee, then of a hundred fastidiousimpertinents, who were there present the first day, yet never made piece of their prospectthe right way. What did they come for, then? thou wil’t aske me. I will as punctuallyanswer: To see, and to bee scene. To make a generall muster of themselves in their clothesof credit: and possesse the Stage, against the Play. To dislike all, but marke nothing. Andby their confidence of rising between the Actes, in oblique lines, make affidavit to the wholehouse, of their not understanding one Scene. Arm’d, with this præjudice, as the Stage-furniture, or Arras-clothes, they were there, as Spectators, away. For the faces in thehangings, and they beheld alike. So I wish, they may doe ever. And doe trust my selfe, andmy Booke, rather to thy rusticke candor, than all the pompe of their pride, and solemneignorance, to boote. Fare thee well, and fall too. Read

BEN JONSON. (Sig. (⋆)2r–(⋆)3r)

(d) Owen Felltham, ‘An Answer to the Ode of Come leave the loathed Stage,&c.’, first printed in Parnassus Biceps, ed. Abraham Wright (1656); printed herefrom Felltham’s Lusoria: Or Occasional Pieces, printed with Resolves, ‘The eightImpression’ (1661).Felltham (? 1602–68) is best known for the Resolves, a series of moral essays.

Come leave this saucy wayOf baiting those that payDear 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.I wonder by what DowreOr Patent you had powerFrom all to rape1 a judgment. Let’t suffice,Had you been modest, y’ had been granted wise.

’Tis known you can do well,And that you do excelAs a Translator; but when things requireA genius and a fire,Not kindled heretofore by others’ pains;As oft y’have wanted brainsAnd art to strike the White,As you have levelled right;Yet if men vouch not things Apocryphal,You bellow, rave, and spatter round your gall.

Jug, Pierce, Peck, Fly, and allYour Jests so nominal,Are things so far beneath an able Brain,As they do throw a stainThrough all th’ unlikely plot, and do displeaseAs deep as Pericles,

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Where yet there is not laidBefore a ChambermaidDiscourse so weigh’d, as might have serv’d of oldFor Schools, when they of Love and Valour told.

Why rage then? when the showShould Judgement be and Know ledge, that there are in Plush who scorn to drudge,For Stages yet can judgeNot only Poets looser lines but wits,And all their Perquisits.A gift as rich as highIs noble Poesie:Yet though in sport it be for Kings a play,’Tis next Mechanick when it works for pay.

Alcæus lute had none,Nor loose AnacreonE’er taught so bold assuming of the Bayes,When they deserv’d no praise.To rail men into approbationIs new; ’tis yours2 alone,And, prospers not: For knowFame is as coy as youCan be disdainful; and who dares to proveA rape on her shall gather scorn, not love.

Leave then this humour vain,And this more humorous strain,Where self-conceit and choler of the bloudEclipse what else is good:Then if you please those raptures high to touch,Whereof you boast so much;And but forbear your CrownTill the world puts it on:No doubt from all you may amazement draw,Since braver Theme no Phæbus ever saw. (17–18)

(e) Thomas Carew, ‘To Ben Johnson uppon occasion of his Ode to Himself’. Text from theautograph in the Domestic State Papers, Charles I clv, no. 79, 1629; the poem was printed in

Carew’s Poems (1640), pp. 108–10.

Carew (? 1595–1640) was at Merton College, Oxford, then served Sir DudleyCarleton while the latter was ambassador in Venice and in the Netherlands, and SirEdward Herbert while he was ambassador in Paris, returning to England in 1624;thereafter he held various posts at court. As well as a small body of verse, he wrotea masque, Coelum Britannicum (1634). He refers to actors rehearsing ‘great Johnsonsverse’ in a commendatory poem to Davenant’s play The Just Italian (1630). Hisother recorded comment is a sarcastic aside to James Howell at a dinner whereJonson was present and praised himself: Howell says in a letter, published in 1647,that Carew ‘buz’d me in the ear, that though Ben had barreld up a great deale ofknowledg, yet it seems he had not read the Ethiques, which among other precepts of

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morality forbid self-commendation, declaring it to be an ill favourd solecism ingood manners...’: (Epistolae Ho-Elianae (second edition, 1650), ii, 25). Falkland’selegy in Jonsonus Virbius (No. 49(a), below) anticipates an elegy on Jonson fromCarew, but none is known.

’Tis true (deere Ben:) thy just chastizing handHath fix’d uppon the sotted age, a brandTo theyr swolne Pride, & empty scribling due,It can nor judge, nor write: & yet ’tis trueThy comique Muse from the exalted lineToucht by thy Alchymist, doth since declineFrom that her Zenith, & foretells a reddAnd blushing Evening, when she goes to bedd.Yet such, as shall outshine the glimmering lightWith which all starrs shall guilde the following night.Nor thinke it much, since all thy Eagletts mayeIndure the sunny tryall, if we sayeThis hath the stronger wing, & that doth shineTrickt vpp in fayrer plumes, since All are thine.Whoe hath his flock of caqueling Geese compardTo thy tun’d quire of Swans? or whoe hath dar’dTo call thy byrths deformd? but if thou bindeBy Cittie customs, or by GavellkindeIn equall shares, thy love to all thy race,Wee maye distinguish of theyr sexe & place.Though one hand shape them, & though one brayne strikeSoules into all, theye are not all alike.Why should the follies then, of this dull AgeDrawe from thy penn such an immodest rage,As seemes to blast thy else immortall bayes,When thyne owne tongue proclaymes thy itch of prayse?Such thirst will argue drowth: no, lett be hurldUppon thy workes, by the detracting worldWhat malice can suggest, lett the rowte sayeThe running sandes, that ere thou make a playeCount the slowe minuts, might a Godwin frame,To swallowe when th’hast done thy shippwrackt name,Lett them the deere expence of oyle upbrayde,Suckt by thy watchfull lampe, which hath betraydeTo theft the bloud of mayrtird Authors, spiltInto thy inke, whilst thou growst pale with guilt.Repine not at thy Tapers thriftie waste,That sleekes thy tearser Poems; nor is hastePrayse, but excuse: & if thou owercomeA knottie writer, bring the bootie home.Nor thinke it theft, if the rich spoyles so torneFrom conquerd Authors, be as Trophies worne.

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Lett others glutt on the extorted prayseOf vulgar breath, trust thou to after dayes.Thy labour’d workes shall live, when Time devouresTh’ abortive ofspring of theyr hasty howers.Thou art not of theyr ranke, the quarrell lyesWithin thyne owne virge; then lett this suffizeThe wiser world doth Greater Thee confessThen all men else, then Thyself only Less.’ (fol. 194r-v)

(f) R.Goodwin, ‘Vindiciae Jonsoniae’. Printed from British Library Harleian MS 4955.

Included by Jonson in the ‘packet of mine own praises’ he sent to the Earl of Newcastleat the beginning of 1631.

Since, what past Ages onlie had begun,and ventur’d at, Thou hast exactlie done;And that the Ancients, more precede not theein Time, then thou dost them, in Pœsie:Staine not that Well-gaind Honour, with the crude,or the rash Censure, of a Multitudeof Silken fooles; who cannot understand(for they were borne not to have wit, but Land)Thy sublim’d Soule: but daily doe preferrethose, who almost as diligentlie erre,as thou dost write; more Comick rules mistake,then thou observ’dst of old, or new dost make;Revenge those wrongs with pittie; for wee see,t’is Ignorance in them, noe Crime in thee,that moulds their Judgments, who ere chanc’t to see,that vast prodigious Louvre-Gallerie,but at his Entrance (judging by his Eyes)Would thinke the roof inclin’de, the floore did rise!And at the end, each Equidistant Side,mett in one Point! though, there, they bee as wideas where he stood; soe they who now adaiesCome to behold, not understand thy Plaies;With weake-ey’d Judgment, easelie may depressethy loftie Muse, extoll the Lowlines,of trampled Poets; with Sinister Witt,Contract thy Dexterous vaine to answear it,and be deceav’d like him, or as those Eyes,Which, through grosse vapours, and thick ayre that fliesclose to the earth, the riseing Sun can veiw,and with deluded Sence doe judge it true,that, then, hee’s twice as Great, as when he hath ran,and is inthron’d, in their Meridian.Though at that time, he was more distant farrethen the Whole Earth’s Semidiameter;Even so these Gallants, when they chance to heare

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 145

A new Witt peeping in their Hemisphere,Which they can apprehend, their clouded Braines,Will straight admire, and Magnifie his Straines,farre above thine; though all that he hath done,is but a Taper, to thy brighter Sun;Wound them with scorne! Who greives at such Fooles tongues,doth not revenge, but gratifie their wrongs.Who’s doom’d to erre, unto himself must beeAn Heretique, if he judge right of Thee;Icterick-eyes, all different colours thinke,the same; What feaverish Palates drinke,tast’s ill, though nere so good; wee find by Sence,ev’en Contraries may have Coincidence.for, to a Smileing statue, let a handadde some few Teares, though all the lines els stand,and Liniaments untouch’t, it will appeare,like Sorrowes figure, and the lively chereDrown’d into Sadnes: soe when these bold Men,blindlie misled, shall temerate thy Pen,Adding their Censures; thou maist seeme to bee,as different from Thy selfe, as they from Thee.Wer’t not the Sence I had of sacred writt,I should have call’d it Blasphemy ’gainst witt,And Sacriledge ’gainst Art; but when I seeThey little knowe themselves, & farr less Thee,Their dislike is thine Honour; Hee that’s mov’d,With such mens censures; graunteth it half prov’dthat he is guiltie; Innocence no Lawes,Vertue feares no Detraction; t’is no cause,Yet Argument of worth, in that t’is true,Your Witt cannot suite them, nor their Braines you.Could such poore Intellectualls as theirs,But reach thy pitch, the Mind, that now admires,Would then contemne Thee; Hee’s esteem’d by none,that can be understood by every one;Fear’st then, thy Fame that warr’s ’gainst Tyme; Thy Pen,that triumph’s, can be foil’d by Out-side Men?Such Aromatique Trees? is’t such a Gracet’have pretious Barkes, when as the Timber’s base?Had they been halfe soe vers’d in witt; so bredin learned Authors, as they’re deepelie readin subtill Shop-Bookes, I confesse their Doome,that give’s thee a Laurell now, had giv’n thee a Tombe.But scorne to stand, feare not to fall, by Votesof such imbroydered-glittering-Silver Coates!The Capitol was sav’d, I doe confesseby watchfull Geese; but when Roomes thankfulnes,a silver goose erected, which there stood,

146 BEN JONSON

did that discover foes, or doe Roome good?Nor can these Gilt-men, Thee. Thy dareing Pen,that may contend with Fate, can that feare men?When Roome, that quel’d the world, to thee had beenea debtor for her Safetie (had she scene,or beene so blest, as to have heard one lyne,Which thy Pen wrote of bloody Cataline)More, then to that vaine Consulls glorieing Style,Whose every period seemes a German myle;Whose fluent tongue, more lively, at that time,exprest his owne vaine-glorie, then their Crime;for words and Actions, might be easely knowne,the thought’s were only Cataline’s, and thine owne.And thou didst write, what he durst think, or dare:Could wee now Question Cataline, and compareHim with thy writeings, wee should sweare, almost,thy Muse had beene Confessor, to his Ghost;And his soules Characters in his Front had read,Which threatned death, when he himself was dead.Had shee read thy Sejanus life, and fate;World’s second Head! that Tympany of State!She had a wonder scene, farr greater, then,then was himselfe! him, equall’d by thy Pen!Nay more a miracle; for on thy Stage,Cæsar’s out done in Crafte, Rome in her rage.The other workes, rais’d by thy skillfull hand,pittying the Worlds old wonders, they shall standAs Monuments of thee, more firme, amidsall envies blasts, then Ægypts PyramidsThose burthens of the Earth, ’gainst laboring stormes;Thus, then secur’d above the reach of Harmes,Low Soules can meditate; use not that pen,that could affright the world, ’gainst such poore Men.Hee is more foole, then Tyrant, that would kill,His Enemie at once: too great an IllIt is to them, they cannot hurt thee: beethen wise to them as they are fooles to Thee.For if those men that built th’Ephesian Pile,did feed the toil’d out Asses all the while,on publique charge, whose younger strength did bring,Materialls to that Structure (as a thingeAs great in Charity, for them to yeildfood to those beasts, as Piety to buildeTheir Goddesse such a Temple) shal’t be thoughtthat the ridiculous Asses, which once brought, t,Thee such Materials, as have made thy Stage,to be the Greatest wonder of our Age,should not at last (tyr’d-out in Follies) gett,

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Licence to banquet, their Decrepit Witt,on Offall Poets? on the Common Store,and Scraps of witt? Nay greive there are no more,to please their Tasts, for when Fooles plentie bee,Wise men are Miracles. When Rome did see,at Cæsar’s Triumph, all the figures there,of rich Materials, Gold and Silver were:And in the Triumph, next to his, not one,but carv’d in Wood, in Ivory, or Stone;They did conceive, the Last which they had seen,serv’d as a case to keepe great Cæsars in:Soe after thy rare peeces, when wee hearesuch blockish Poems, doe they not appearelike dark-foiles, closely sett? which cannot shine,Yet give what in themselves they want, to thine,Lustre and life; as they were only showne,to lock thy Memory up in, not their owne;and that soe safelie too; that Fate from TheeCannot take life; it may Mortalitie:Other Oblivion, then, thou ne’re shalt find,then that, which, with Thee, must put out Mankind. (fols 186r–187v)

(g) The anonymous ‘The Cuntrys Censure on Ben Johnsons New Inn’, in BodleianLibrary Ashmole MS 38. (The punctuation has been lightened.) The poet refers to‘Pru’ (l.22), indicating that it was written after the publication of the play in 1631.

Listen (decaying Ben) and Counsell heare,wittes have their date and strength of braines may weare;Age, steept In sacke, hath quencht thy Enthean fier,wee pittye now, whom once wee did Admire.Surrender then thy right to th’stage; forbeareto dare to wright what others Loath to heare,and justlye, since thy Crazye Muse doth nowTo quitte her Spartane province3 fayntly knowe.Swear not by God tis good, for yf you doe,The world will taxe your zeale, and Judgment too.for In a Poett, yf that’s last regarded,New Inn’s discretion hath the[e] quite discarded;from Aganippes pale and plact the[e] AmongeNot the giddye headed, but the Unbrowed Thronge.Rayle not att the Actors; doe not them Abuse,Action to dullness Cannott Life Infuse;for Velvett, Scarlett, Plush, doe tell you true,t’was not their Cloaths, but thay did blush for youto see; and was not that, Just cause of rage?Weaknes and Impudence possesst the stage,Injurde the strength of Witt, now cloyde and dry.

148 BEN JONSON

Goodstocke, Prue, Frampole, Huffell, Burst, Typ, Fly,And their Comrades, whose Language but to heareMight stricke A surfett Into A gentle eare.But lett me tell thee this, Ben, by the way,Thy Argument’s as tedious as thy play;Thou saist noe Palsye doth thy Brayne pan vex,I pray the[e] tell me what? an Apoplex?Thy Pegasus can stir, yett thy best CareMakes her but shuffle lyke the parson[’s] mare4

who from his owne side witt sayes thus by mee:hee hath bequeath’d his bellye unto theeTo holde that little Learning, which is fledInto thy Gutts from out thy Emptye head.Yett thou art Confident, & darst still sweare,The fault’s not In thy Brain, but In their eare.What dismale fate is this, thus on thee seaseth?Thy worth doth fayle; thy Arrogance Increaseth;Pride and presumption hath dethronde thy witt,And sett upp Philautie In place of ytt,Thy Innbred Darling, whose strong selfe Conceipt,forstailing prayse, did thy Just prayse defeate.Worth being selfe praisd, doth fall; hee is the best PoettCan justly merritt Prayse, & yett scarce knowe ytt.But tis New Inn’s disaster, not to knoweWhat or thy selfe, or others can Allow.Wee wronge the[e] nott, for take thy enraged Appeale,twill rather fester thy Mad wound then heale.For knowe, what5 Justly doth dispise,doth prove A greater scandall to our eyes;And sure that sensure must Impartiall beewhear readers and spectators both agree:Yett, yff pure need Inforce thee to this shame,we proner are to Advise thee, then to blame.Since Witts doe fayle, thou wert best, pore Crackt braine elfe,To turne mine host, and keep new Inn thy selfe:But Change thy signe yff thou’lt bee ruld by me,No more Light Hart, but Light Brayne lett ytt bee.Thy Hostler Peck Abused thus the Jadeof this fatt-bellied Parson, who thes made. (79–80)

NOTES

1 So in Parnassus Biceps; the Lusoria text reads, ‘to rap’t’.2 So in Parnassus Biceps; the Lusoria text reads, ‘Is new in yours’.3 Michael Hattaway (ed.), The New Inn (Manchester 1984), p. 226n, points out that this is a

reference to Richard Brome: spartum is Latin for broom, thus the ‘Spartan province’ is thestage won by Jonson’s pupil and rival.

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4 There is a discussion in The New Inn on how Peck the ostler is to cozen parsons in lookingafter their horses; ‘A little greasing i’ the teeth’ keeps a parson’s horse ‘in a sober shuffle’,suggests Fly (3.1.145–6). The passage is alluded to again in the final couplet of the presentpoem.

5 A word has apparently been left out between ‘what’ and ‘Justly’.

150 BEN JONSON

37.Falkland on Jonson as the dispenser of fame

1631 or earlier

‘Epistle To his Noble Father, Mr Jonson’, from Harleian MS 4955, in the BritishLibrary.

Sent by Jonson to the Earl of Newcastle in 1631 with an ‘Epistle’ by Falkland onthe anniversary of Sir Henry Morison’s death—in which Jonson is called ‘Poet-paramont’ and ‘Our Metropolitane in Poetry’ —and verses by Oldisworth (No. 35,above) and Goodwin (No. 36(f)). The poem conveys spiritedly Falkland’sadmiration for Jonson, and pictures the poet as a living monument, alreadydisembodied into abstract qualities.

Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland (? 1610–43) was the centre of anintellectual circle at his house at Great Tew, Oxfordshire, joined the Royalistparty, became Secretary of State in 1642 and fell at the Battle of Newbury inSeptember 1643. He was one of Jonson’s patrons: Clarendon says in the Life thatFalkland ‘seemed to have his estate in trust, for all worthy persons, who stood inwant of supplies and encouragement, as Ben Johnson, and many others of thattime, whose fortunes required, and whose spirits made them superior to, ordinaryobligations…’ (G.Huehns (ed.), Clarendon: Selections from ‘The History of the Rebellionand Civil Wars’ and ‘The Life by Himself’ (1955), p. 64).

The Fox the Lions sight extreamelie fear’dhaveing his force, and feircenes onelie heard;And, the first time, was Ague-struck to seehis dangerous Pawes, and King-like Majestie;The second meeting-time, approaching nere,A warmer courage thaw’d away his feare:The third, you would have thought, he had his Twinhis Den-fellowe, or long acquaintance bin.T’was onlie custome; for the Fox had skillto know the Lion, was a Lion, still.Such is my case: for when I first did seethe Patent, of your Imortalitie,Your workes, by whose full Style, Strong Witt, I knewso long as English liv’d, so long would you!I should have quak’d, if I had thought to writeto Phœbus, his owne wonder, Mans Delight!

That which augments my Courage, with such Store,is not I like you lesse; But know you more.I thought you proud, for I did surely knowe,had I Ben: Jonson, bene, I had beene soe.And thought it was forgiveable, nay fittfor him, whose Muse had such wit-wonders, writt.Now I recant; And doubt, whether your Storeof Ingenuity, or Ingenie, be more!I wish your Wealth were equall to them both,You have deserv’d it: yet I should be loththat want, should a Quotidian trouble beeto such a Zeno, in Phylosophie;Shame’s wants worst companie; and t’is no shameto want in Mettall, and be rich in fame.In Hell, it might Sejanus spirits raisethat your pen spoke of him, although Dispraise.Hee sure would choose a mention from your Quill,rather, then t’have bene fix’t a Favorite still.Hee may allow Tiberius thanks, not hate;his worser, hath begot his better Fate.Hee had not cause to joy, so in that howerhe second was in place; but first, in power,of all the world! Then can there be a Blisseto be compar’d, nay to come neare to his?Whom this your Quill (not differing from your hart)hath often mencioned, on the better part?Shall he that all els cures, himself not live?can you want that, you can to others give?None gives but what hee hath; that happinesYou deale abroad, still you your-self possesse:Though given to others, it becomes their Due:it, echo-like, reverberates to yow!That ⋆Earle of Warwick, which (past Poetrie)Æqual’d the acts of fabulous Sir Guy,With whom, still, like his Page, Destruction came:Whose Armes got fewer Conquest’s then his Name:Whom, to his end, scare infinite od’s could bring;chose rather to create, then be a King.Let his Example then, exclude all woe:that Man’s most happie, that makes others soe.Ipse ego qui nullos me affirmo scribere versusInvenior Parthis mendacior, et prius ortoSole, vigil calamum, et chartas, et scrinia posco.1

Your Sonne and servant.Lucius Cary. (fol. 184r-v)

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NOTES

[Marginal note in MS] In H[enry]: the 6ths time. ⋆1 ‘I myself, who declare that I write no verses, prove to be more of a liar than the Parthians:

before sunrise I wake, and call for pen, paper, and writing-case’: Horace, Epistles, 2.1.111–13.

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154

38.Leonard Digges, Shakespeare’s plays more popular

than Jonson’s(?)1632

‘Upon Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, the Deceased Authour, and his POEMS’,prefixed to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s Poems.

Digges wrote a shorter tribute to Shakespeare for the 1623 Folio (‘To theMemorie of the deceased Authour Maister W. Shakespeare’), which like the presentpoem refers to Shakespeare’s Romans parleying at half-sword. As John Freehaferpoints out in ‘Leonard Digges, Ben Jonson, and the beginning of ShakespeareIdolatry’, Shakespeare Quarterly (1970), xxi, 63–75, Digges’s reference here to ‘newFortunes younger brethren’ suggests a date of composition for the poem of 1630–4,the only period when there was a boys’ company (the King’s Revels) acting at theFortune theatre; moreover, the fact that Digges’s verses are apparently meant for aprinted collection of Shakespeare’s plays suggests that they were a rewriting of the1623 poem for the Second Folio of 1632 (the suggestion first made in David Frost,‘Shakespeare in the Seventeenth Century’, Shakespeare Quarterly (1965), xvi, 84n).It would seem that Digges’s disparaging references to Jonson’s work in the newsections made it imposible to include them in a volume which gave Jonson’s lineson Shakespeare pride of place among the prefatory verses. Indeed, as Freehaferpoint out, Digges’s poem may well be seen as a vigorous reply to Jonson’ssuggestions in his ‘Ode’ that poets were made as well as born, that Shakespeare’sclassical learning was scanty and that his work owed something to laborious Art aswell as to Nature.

Digges (1588–1635) graduated BA at Oxford in 1606 and in 1626 was grantedan MA and permitted to live in University College, where he died. According toAnthony à Wood he had spent some years in foreign universities; he published TheRape of Proserpine, a translation from Claudian, in 1617, and Gerardo, a translationfrom the Spanish of Cespedes, in 1622.

Poets are borne not made, when I would proveThis truth, the glad rememberance I must loveOf never dying Shakespeare, who alone,Is argument enough to make that one.First, that he was a Poet none would doubt,That heard th’applause of what he sees set outImprinted; where thou hast (I will not say)

Reader his Workes (for to contrive a Play:To him twas none) the patterne of all wit,Art without Art unparaleld as yet.Next Nature onely helpt him, for looke thorowThis whole Booke, thou shall find he doth not borrow,One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate,Nor once from vulgar Languages Translate,Nor Plagiari-like from others gleane,Nor begges he from each witty friend a SceneTo peece his Acts with, all that he doth write,Is pure his owne, plot, language exquisite,But oh! what praise more powerfull can we giveThe dead, then that by him the Kings men live,His Players, which should they but have shar’d the Fate,All else expir’d within the short Termes date;How could the Globe have prospered, since through wantOf change, the Plaies and Poems had growne scant.But happy Verse thou shall be sung and heard,When hungry quills shall be such honour bard.Then vanish upstart Writers to each Stage,You needy Poetasters of this Age,Where Shakespeare liv’d or spake, Vermine forbeare,Least with your froth you spot them, come not neere;But if you needs must write, if povertySo pinch, that otherwise you starve and die,On Gods name may the Bull and Cockpit haveYour lame blancke Verse, to keepe you from the grave:Or let new Fortunes younger brethren see,What they can picke from your leane industry.I doe not wonder when you offer atBlacke-Friers, that you suffer: tis the fateOf richer veines, prime judgements that have far’dThe worse, with this deceased man compar’d.So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare,And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were,Brutus and Cassius: oh how the Audience,Were ravish’d, with what wonder they went thence,When some new day they would not brooke a line,Of tedious (though well laboured) Catilines;Sejanus too was irkesome, they priz’de moreHonest lago, or the jealous Moore.And though the Fox and subtill Alchimist,Long intermitted could not quite be mist,Though these have sham’d all the Ancients, and might raise,Their Authours merit with a crowne of Bayes.Yet these sometimes, even at a friends desireActed, have scarce defrai’d the Seacoale fireAnd doore-keepers: when let but Falstaffe come,

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Hall, Poines, the rest you scarce shall have a roomeAll is so pester’d: let but BeatriceAnd Benedicke be seene, loe in a triceThe Cockpit Galleries, Boxes, all are fullTo heare Malvoglio that crosse garter’d Gull.Briefe, there is nothing in his wit fraught Booke,Whose sound we would not heare, on whose worth lookeLike old coynd gold, whose lines in every page,Shall passe true currant to succeeding age.But why doe I dead Shakespeares praise recite,Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write;For me tis needlesse, since an host of men,Will pay to clap his praise, to free my Pen. (Sig. ⋆3r–[⋆4]r)

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158

39.Thomas Randolph on the power of Jonson’s verses

1632 or later

From ‘An Eglogue to Mr Johnson’, in Randolph’s Poems with the Muses looking-Glasse: and Amyntas (1638). Date suggested in G.Thorn-Drury (ed.), The Poems ofThomas Randolph (1929), p. 206.

Randolph (1605–35) was among the most enthusiastic of Jonson’s ‘Sons’, but,of the poems praising Jonson, the extract below offers the most specific commentson his work. ‘A Letter to Ben Johnson’, in Bodleian Library MS Eng. Poet, e. 97,pp. 98–9, protests honour and love to Jonson, calling him ‘our God of Poets’ andacknowledging that writing verses to him is adding ‘Dropps to the sea’; there is areference to ‘The divine Ben, the immortall Johnson’ and to ‘his vulpone, thelerned fox’ in the manuscript version of Aristippus of c. 1627 (British Library SloaneMS. 2531, fol. 133r: omitted in the printed version, 1630, Sig. C1v); there is thereverent ‘A gratulatory to Mr Ben. Johnson for his adopting of him to be his Son’from 1628 or after; and there is ‘An answer to Mr Ben Johnson’s Ode to perswadehim not to leave the stage’ from the New Inn controversy of 1629, urging theenraged poet to ignore his enemies and go on writing for the stage as well as in thevein of Horace and Pindar and ‘have this envious, ignorant Age to know, /Thouthat can sing so high, canst reach as low’ (Poems (1638), p. 73). Later in the‘Eglogue’ Damon refers to Tityrus’s (Jonson’s) uneven success with audiences: ‘theVulgar I contemn; Thy pipe not alwaies Tytirus wins with them’ (p. 99)

[Damon (i.e. Randolph himself) pauses in telling Tityrus (Jonson) why he hasbroken his reed and forsworn music to praise Tityrus’s piping:]

Thine which the floods have stopt their course to hear;To which the spotted Linx hath lent an eare.Which while the severall Ecchoes would repeat,The Musick has been sweet, the Art so greatThat Pan himself amaz’d at thy deep aires,Sent thee of his own bowl to drown thy cares.Of all the Gods Pan doth the Pipe respect,The rest unlearned pleasures more affect.Pan can distinguish what thy Raptures beFrom Bavius loose lascivious Minstralsie,

Or Mævius windy Bagpipe, Mævius, heWhose wit is but a Tavern Tympanie.If ever flock of my own doe feed,My fattest Lambs shall on his Altar bleed. (ll. 33–46; p. 98)

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40.Ben Jonson, The Magnetic Lay

1632

From the Induction and Chorus of the play. It was performed in 1632, and firstpublished in volume ii of the 1640 folio, as The Magnetick Lady: Or, Humors Reconcild.

The speakers in the Induction and Chorus are Mr. Probee and Mr. Damplay,two ‘Gentlemen’, and a boy ‘of the house’, i.e. of the theatre.

(a) From the Induction.

Dam. But, why Humors reconcil’d? I would fain know?Boy…. The Author, beginning his studies of this kind, with every man in his Humour; and

after, every man out of his Humour; and since, continuing in all his Playes, especiallythose of the Comick thred, whereof the New-Inne was the last, some recent humoursstill, or manners of men, that went along with the times, finding himselfe now nearethe close, or shutting up of his Circle, hath phant’sied to himselfe, in Idæa, thisMagnetick Mistris. A Lady a brave bountifull House-keeper, and a vertuous Widow:who having a young Neice, ripe for a man and marriageable, hee makes that his Centerattractive, to draw thither a diversity of Guests, all persons of different humours tomake up his Perimiter. And this hee hath call’d Humors reconcil’d.

Pro. A bold undertaking! and farre greater, then the reconciliation of both Churches, thequarrell betweene humours having beene much the ancienter, and, in my pooreopinion, the root of all Schisme, and Faction, both in Church and Common-wealth.

Boy. Such is the opinion of many wise men, that meet at this shop still; but how hee willspeed in it, wee cannot tell, and hee himselfe (it seems) lesse cares. For hee will not beintreated by us, to give it a Prologue. He has lost too much that way already, hee sayes.Hee will not woo the gentile ignorance so much. But carelesse of all vulgar censure, asnot depending on common approbation, hee is confident it shall super-please judiciousSpectators, and to them he leaves it to worke, with the rest by example, or otherwise.

Dam. Hee may be deceived in that, Boy: Few follow examples now, especially, if they begood. (7)

(b) From the Chorus between Acts I and II.

Boy…. I would we had Hokospokos for ’hem, then; your People, or Travitanto Tudesko.Dam. Who’s that, Boy?

Boy. Another Juggler, with a long name. Or that your expectors would be gone hence,now, at the first Act; or expect no more hereafter, then they understand.

Dam. Why so my peremptory Jack?Boy. My name is John, indeed—Because, who expect what is impossible, or beyond

nature, defraud themselves.Pro. Nay, there the Boy said well: They doe defraud themselves indeed.Boy. And therefore, Mr. Damplay, unlesse like a solemne Justice of wit, you will damne

our Play, unheard, or unexamin’d; I shall intreat your Mrs. Madam Expectation, if sheebe among these Ladies, to have patience, but a pissing while: give our Springs leave toopen a little, by degrees: A Source of ridiculous matter may breake forth anon, thatshall steepe their temples, and bathe their braines in laughter, to the fomenting ofStupiditie it selfe, and the awaking any velvet Lethargy in the House.

Pro. Why doe you maintaine your Poets quarrell so with velvet, and good clothes, Boy?wee have scene him in indifferent good clothes, ere now.

Boy. And may doe in better, if it please the King (his Master) to say Amen to it, and allowit, to whom hee acknowledgeth all. But his clothes shall never be the best thing abouthim, though; hee will have somewhat beside, either of humane letters, or severehonesty, shall speak him a man though he went naked.

Pro. Hee is beholden to you, if you can make this good, Boy.Boy. Himselfe hath done that, already, against Envy. (19)

(c) From the Chorus between Acts III and IV.

Dam. This was a pittifull poore shift o’ your Poet, Boy, to make his prime woman withchild, and fall in labour, just to compose a quarrell.

Boy. With whose borrowed eares, have you heard, Sir, all this while, that you can mistakethe current of our Scene so? The streame of the Argument, threatned her being withchild from the very beginning, for it presented her in the first of the second Act, withsome apparent note of infirmity, or defect: from knowledge of which, the Auditorywere rightly to bee suspended by the Author, till the quarrell, which was but theaccidentall cause, hastned on the discovery of it, in occasioning her affright; whichmade her fall into her throwes presently, and within that compasse of time allow’d tothe Comedy, wherein the Poet exprest his prime Artifice, rather then any errour, thatthe detection of her being with child, should determine the quarrell, which hadproduc’d it.

Pro. The Boy is too hard for you. Brother Damplay, best marke the Play, and let him alone.(42)

(d) The Chorus between Acts IV and V.

Dam. Troth, I am one of those that labour with the same longing, for [the intrigue] isalmost pucker’d, and pull’d into that knot, by your Poet, which I cannot easily, withall the strength of my imagination, untie.

Boy. Like enough, nor is it in your office to be troubled or perplexed with it, but to sitstill, and expect. The more your imagination busies it selfe, the more it is intangled,especially if (as I told, in the beginning) you happen on the wrong end.

162 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Pro. He hath said sufficient, Brother Damplay; our parts that are the Spectators, or shouldheare a Comedy, are to await the processe, and events of things, as the Poet presentsthem, not as wee would corruptly fashion them. Wee come here to behold Playes, andcensure them, as they are made, and fitted for us; not to beslave our owne thoughts, withcensorious spitle tempering the Poets clay, as wee were to mould every Scene anew:That were a meere Plastick, or Potters ambition, most unbecomming the name of aGentleman. No, let us marke, and not lose the busines on foot, by talking. Follow theright thred, or find it.

Dam. Why, here his Play might have ended, if hee would h’ let it; and have spar’d us thevexation of a fift Act yet to come, which every one here knowes the issue of already, ormay in part conjecture.

Boy. That conjecture is a kind of Figure-flinging, or throwing the Dice, for a meaning wasnever in the Poete purpose perhaps. Stay, and see his last Act, his Catastrophe, how heewill perplexe that, or spring some fresh cheat, to entertaine the Spectators, with aconvenient delight, till some unexpected, and new encounter breake out to rectifie all,and make good the Conclusion.

Pro. Which, ending here, would have showne dull, flat, and unpointed; without anyshape, or sharpenesse, Brother Damplay.

Dam. Well, let us expect then: And wit be with us, o’ the Poets part. (52)

BEN JONSON 163

164

41.Alexander Gill, attack on The Magnetic Lady

1633

‘Uppon Ben Jonsons Magnettick Ladye’, in Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 38, fromwhich it is printed here. Gill (1597–1642) was under-usher and later high-master ofSt Paul’s School, where he taught Milton. Jonson responded to his attack in U.V.,39.

Parturient Montes Nascitur1

Is this your Loadestone Ben that must AttractApplause and Laughter att each Scæne and ActeIs this the Childe of your Bedridden wittAn[d] none but the Black-friers foster yttIff to the Fortune you had sent your LadyeMongest Prentizes, and Apell wyfes, ytt may beeYour Rosie Foole might have some sporte have gottWith his strang habitt, and Indiffinett NottBut when As silkes and plush, and all the wittsAre Calde to see, and Censure as befittsAnd yff your Follye take not, they perchanceMust feare them selfes stilde Gentle IgnoranceFoh how ytt stinckes; what generall offenceGives thy Prophanes, and grosse ImpudenceO, how thy frind, Natt Butter2 gan to MelteWhen as the poorenes of thy plott he smelteAnd Inigo with laughter ther grewe fattThat thear was Nothing worth the Laughing attAnd yett thou Crazye art ConfidenteBelchinge out full mouthd oathes with foulle IntentCalling us Fooles and Rogues unlettered menPoor Narrow soules that Cannott Judge of Ben:Yett which is wors after three shamfull foylesThe Printers must bee putt to further toyles3

Where as Indeed to (Vindicate thy fame)Th’hadst better give thy Pamphelett to the flameO what a strange Prodigiows yeare twill beeYff this thy playe Come forth In thirtye three

Lett Doomse Day rather Come on New yeares EveAnd yff thy Paper plague the worlde bereaveWhich Plague I feare worse then A sergeants bittWorse then the Infection or an Ague FittWorse then Astronomers Devynning LippsWorse then three sunns, A Comett or EclippsOr yff thy Learned brother Allestree(Whose Homer unto the[e] for Poetrye)Should tell of Raigne uppon Saint Swithins dayAnd that should wash our harvest Clean awayAs for the Press, yf thy Playe must Come tooteLet Thomas Purffoot or John Trundell doo’teIn such Dull Charrectors as for releiffsof fines and wrackes wee find in Beggine briefesBut In Capp paper lett ytt printed beeIndeed Browne paper Is to good for theeAnd lett ytt bee so ApocriphallAs nott to dare to venture on A stallExcept ytt bee of Druggers Grocers CookesVictuallers Tobackoe men and suchlike RookesFrom Bucklers Burye lett ytt not be bardeBut thincke nott of Ducke lane or Paules ChurchyardeButt to advyse the[e] Ben, In this strickt AgeA Brickehill’s fitter for the[e] then A stageThou better knowes a groundsell how to LayeThen lay the plott or groundworke of A playeAnd better canst derecte to Capp a ChimneyThen to Converse with Clio, or Polihimnyfall then to worke, In thy old Age agenTake upp your Trugg and Trowell gentle BenLett playes Alone, and yff thou needs wilte wrightand thrust thy feeble Muse Into the LightLett Lowine4 Cease, and Taylore feare to TouchThe Loathed stage; for thou hast made ytt such. (15)

NOTES

1 ‘The mountains laboured, [a ridiculous mouse] was born’: Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 139.2 The stationer Nathaniel Butter, who is glanced at in the play (3.7.13).3 H & S, ix, 253 suggest that the ‘three shamfull foyles’ were three unsuccessful performances

of the play. Gill’s next lines indicate that ‘Jonson was expected to follow the precedent ofThe New Inn and to print the play at once when it failed upon the stage’ (H & S, xi, 348).

4 John Lowin and Joseph Taylor were two leading actors in the King’s Men.

166 BEN JONSON

42.James Howell, letters to Jonson

1632–5

Howell (? 1594–1666) worked for a glassware makers’ company in London afterleaving Oxford in 1613, spending some years on the Continent collecting materialsand workmen on its behalf. From 1622 he turned to diplomacy and to writing toearn his living; in 1661 he was made historiographer royal. The first volume of theEpistolae Ho-Elianae. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren…was published in 1645, asecond in 1647, an edition in three volumes in 1650, and in four volumes in 1655.Verona M.Hirst in ‘The authenticity of James Howell’s familiar letters’, ModernLanguage Review (1959), liv, 558–61, concludes that Howell drew on his collectionof copies of already written letters to make up a heavily edited version forpublication. (The dates of the letters in Howell’s first volume were only added inthe second edition of 1650.) A letter to Jonson, not printed here, retails a macabreFrench tale which Howell suggests may be ‘choice and rich stuff for you to putupon your Loom’ (dated 3 May 1635; 1650 edition, i, 207–8). Howell has an elegyto Jonson in Jonsonus Virbius, also printed (with a letter to Dr Duppa explaining thatthe poem was solicited by Sir Thomas Hawkins) in the Epistolae (i, 217–18).

(a) ‘To my Father Mr Ben: Johnson’, Section 5, no. xvii; first printed in 1645, texthere from the second edition of 1650. Dated 1629, but mentions The Magnetic Ladyso part of it at least must date from 1632 or later. Howell must have found theWelsh dictionary mentioned in the letter below, as a copy survives with Jonson’sinscription recording the gift (H & S, i, 258–9) and Howell prints the letter that,accompained it (i, 163–4).

Father Ben, Nullum fit magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ, thers no great wit withoutsom mixture of madnes, so saith the Philosopher, nor was he a fool who answered, necparvum, sine mixtura stultitia, nor small wit without some allay of foolishness. Touching thefirst it is verified in you, for I find that you have bin oftentimes mad, you were mad whenyou writ your Fox, and madder when you writ your Alchymist, you were mad when you writCatilin, and stark mad when you writ Sejanus; but when you writ your Epigrammes, and theMagnetic Lady you were not so mad; Insomuch as I perceive that ther be degrees of madnesin you; Excuse me that I am so free with you. The madness I mean is that divine fury, thatheating and heightning Spirit which Ovid speaks of, Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illo,1

that true enthusiasm which transports, and elevates the souls of Poets, above the middle

Region of vulgar conceptions, and makes them soar up to Heaven to touch the starrs withtheir laurelld heads, to walk in the Zodiac with Apollo himself, and command Mercury upontheir errand.

I cannot yet light upon Doctor Davies his Welsh Grammer, before Christmas I ampromised one; So desiring you to look better hereafter to your charcole fire and chimney,which I am glad to be one that preserv’d from burning, this being the second time thatVulcan hath threatened you, it may be because you have spoken ill of his wife and bin toobusy with his hornes; I rest

Westminster, 27 June,1629

Your Son, and contiguousNeighbour, J.H. (i, 154)

(b) ‘To Mr. B.J.’, no. 2 in volume ii of the Epistolae, first printed in 1647. Text fromthe second edition of 1650.In an earlier letter Howell had warned Jonson that he had been censured at courtfor his attack on Jones (dated 3 May 1635; 1650 edition, i, 208).

F[ather]. B[en]. The fangs of a Bear, and the Tusks of a wild Bore, do not bite worse,and make deeper gashes than a Goose-quill somtimes, no not the Badger himself, who issaid to be so tenacious of his bite, that he will not give over his hold, till he feels his teethmeet, and the bone crack: your quill hath prov’d so to Mr. In. Jones but the pen wherwithyou have so gash’d him, it seems was made rather of a Porcupine, than a Goose quill, it is sokeen and firm: You know

Anser, Apis, Vitulus, populos & Regna gubernant;The Goose, the Bee, and the Calf (meaning Wax, Parchment, and the Pen) rule the world,

but of the three, the Pen is most predominant; I know you have a commanding one, butyou must not let it tyrannize in that manner, as you have don lately; some give out therwas a hair in’t, or that your ink was too thick with Gall, els it could not have sobespattered and shaken the reputation of a Royall Architect, for reputation, you know islike a fair structure long time a rearing, but quickly ruin’d: If your spirit will not let youretract, yet you shall do well to repress any more copies of the Satyr, for to deal plainlywith you, you have lost som ground at Court by it, and as I hear from a good hand, theKing who hath so great a judgment in Poetry (as in all other things els) is not well pleasedtherwith. Dispense with this freedom of

Westmin. 3 July,1635

Your respectfull S.and Servitor, J.H. (ii, 2–3)

NOTE

1 ‘There is a god within us. It is when he stirs us that our bosom warms’: Ovid, Fasti, 6.5.

168 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

43.Sir John Suckling, caricature of Jonson

1637 or earlier

From the unfinished tragedy The Sad One, first published in 1659; this text fromL.A.Beaurline (ed.), The Works of Sir John Suckling: The Plays (Oxford 1971).

‘A Song to a Lute’ in Act IV, Scene iv, of The Sad One is a parody of ‘Have youseen but a bright lily grow’ from The Devil is an Ass; and the character SigniorMultecarni, a poet preparing a masque for the court in the play, is evidently a caricature of Jonson. Ironically, the publisher of the 1659 edition, HumphreyMoseley, cites the publication of The Sad Shepherd, by ‘an Author who confessedly isreputed the Glory of the English Stage’, as a precedent for publishing Suckling’sfragment: Jonson’s pastoral, though it ‘wants two entire Acts, was neverthelessjudg’d a Piece of too much worth to be laid aside, by the Learned and HonorableSir Kenelme Digby, who published that Volume’; the example of the publication ofJonson’s fragment The Fall of Mortimer is also quoted (p. 3).

Sir John Suckling (1609–?41) left Cambridge without taking a degree, andtravelled frequently on the Continent as a soldier, student, and diplomat between1629 and 1632. After his return to England he established himself as a courtier (hehad purchased his knighthood in 1630) and as a poet, and was well-known for hisgambling exploits. In 1639 he raised a troop for service in the ignominious FirstBishops’ War, and in 1641 he fled to France after the revelation of the Army Plotagainst Parliament, in which he was involved.

Nicholas Rowe’s story of Suckling’s defence of Shakespeare against Jonson in aconversation including Jonson himself, Sir William Davenant, Endymion Porter,and John Hales of Eton (see No. 105, below), suggests that he was a partisanagainst Jonson in the controversy over the latter’s merits as against Shakespeare’s.(There are versions of the story in Dryden’s Essay (see No. 67, below), and inCharles Gildon, Miscellaneous Letters and Essays (1694), pp. 85–6—though inGildon’s version, Jonson is not mentioned and Suckling appears as one of the‘Judges’ of the issue rather than as partisan for Shakespeare.) In ‘Sir, /Whetherthese lines do find you out’, a poem in Suckling’s Fragmenta Aurea (1646), the poetinvites Hales to come to London where (among other pleasures) a hackney-coach willconvey him to ‘The sweat of learned Johnson’s brain, /And gentle Shakespear’s easierstrain…’ (p. 35).

(a) Act IV, Scene v.

Enter Signior MULTECARNI the Poet, and two of the Actors. MULTECARNI. Well, ifthere be no remedy, one must act two parts; Rosselio shall be the Fool and the Lord, andTisso the Citizen and the Cuckold.

1. ACTOR. That cannot be, Signior, you know, one still comes in, when the other goesout. MULTECARNI. By Jove ’tis true; let me see, we’ll contrive it, the Lord and theUsurer, the Citizen and the Polititian; and sure they never are together. But who shallact the Honest Lawyer? ’Tis a hard part, that.

2. ACTOR. And a tedious one, it’s admired you would put it in, Squire; and ’tis againstyour own rules, to represent any thing on the Stage, that cannot be. MULTECARNI.Why, dost think ’tis impossible for a Lawyer to be honest?

1. ACTOR. As ’tis for a Lord Treasurer to be poor, or for a King not to be cozened.There’s little Robin, in debt within these three years, grown fat and full by the trade:and then there’s Borachio, an unknown man, got it all by speaking loud and bawling:believe it, Signior, they have no more conscience then an Inn-keeper. —MULTECARNI. I grant you all this; An old Cook, and a good, will please all palates:There’s that for the young Tapers of the Law; then there’s a bawdy Jest or twoextraordinary for the Ladies; and when it comes to be acted in private, I’ll have a jerkat the State for the Country-Gentlemen: If it does not take, my masters, it lies notupon me, I have provided well; and if the stomack of the times be naught, the fault’snot in the meat or the Cook. Come, let’s find out Lepido and dine at the Mermaid—Come let us have one Rowse, my Joves, in Aristippus, we shall conceive the betterafterwards. ACTORS. Agreed, Agreed—

Come, come away, to the Tavern I say,For now at home is Washing-day:Leave your prittle-prattle, let’s have a Pottle,We are not so wise as Aristotle.Exeunt singing. (26–7)

(b) Act V, Scene i.

Enter LEPIDO, DROLLIO.

DROLLIO. A rare Masque, no doubt, who contriv’d it?LEPIDO. Marry he that says ’tis good, howsoere he has made it,

Signior Multecarni. DROLLIO. Who, the Poet Laureat?LEPIDO. The same.DROLLIO. Oh then ’twere blasphemy to speak against it: What, are

we full of Cupids? Do we sail upon the vast, and resail, and fetch theMasque from the clouds?

LEPIDO. Away Critick, thou never understoodst him.DROLLIO. Troth I confess it; but my comfort is, others are troubled

with the same disease, ’tis epidemical, Lepido, take’t on my word,and so let’s in, and see how things go forward.

Exeunt. (29–30)

170 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

44.Ben Jonson, prologue to The Sad Shepherd

1637 or earlier

First printed in volume ii of the 1640 folio, with a title-page dated 1641.Jonson had apparently defended the inclusion of comedy in the pastoral to

Drummond: in Drummond’s notes of his conversations with Jonson in 1619,Jonson is reported as giving an account of a pastoral not in print, ‘intitled the MayLord’, in which, ‘contrary to all other pastoralls, he bringeth the Clownes makingMirth and foolish Sports’ (H & S, i, 143).

He that hath feasted you these forty yeares,And fitted Fables, for your finer eares,Although at first, he scarce could hit the bore;Yet you, with patience harkning more and more,At length have growne up to him, and made knowne,The Working of his Pen is now your owne:He pray’s you would vouchsafe, for your owne sake,To heare him this once more, but, sit awake.And though hee now present you with such wooll,As from meere English Flocks his Muse can pull,He hopes when it is made up into Cloath;Not the most curious head here will be loathTo weare a Hood of it; it being a Fleece,To match, or those of Sicily, or Greece.His Scene is Sherwood: And his Play a TaleOf Robin-hood’s inviting from the ValeOf Be’voir, all the Shep’ards to a Feast:Where, by the casuall absence of one Guest,The Mirth is troubled much, and in one ManAs much of sadnesse showne, as Passion can.The sad young Shep’ard, whom wee here present,⋆ Like his woes Figure, darke and discontent,For his lost Love; who in the Trent is said,To have miscarried; ’lasse! what knowes the headOf a calme River, whom the feet have drown’d?Heare what his sorrowes are; and, if they woundYour gentle brests, so that the End crowne all,

Which in the Scope of one dayes chance may fall:Old Trent will sent you more such Tales as these,And shall grow young againe, as one doth please.†But here’s an Heresie of late let fall;That Mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall;Such say so, who can make none, he presumes:Else, there’s no Scene, more properly assumesThe Sock. For whence can sport in kind arise,But from the Rurall Routs and Families?Safe on this ground then, wee not feare to day,To tempt your laughter by our rustick Play.Wherein if we distaste, or be cry’d downe,Wee thinke wee therefore shall not leave the Towne;Nor that the Fore-wits, that would draw the restUnto their liking, alwayes like the best.The wise, and knowing Critick will not say,This worst, or better is, before he weigh;Where every piece be perfect in the kind:And then, though in themselves he difference find,Yet if the place require it where they stood,The equall fitting makes them equall good.You shall have Love and Hate, and Jealousie,As well as Mirth, and Rage, and Melancholy:Or whatsoever else may either move,Or stirre affections, and your likings prove.But that no stile for Pastorall should goeCurrent, but what is stamp’d with Ah, and O;Who judgeth so, may singularly erre;As if all Poesie had one Character:In which what were not written, were not right,Or that the man who made such one poore flight,In his whole life, had with his winged skillAdvanc’d him upmost on the Muses hill.When he like Poet yet remaines, as thoseAre Painters who can only make a Rose.From such your wits redeeme you, or your chance,Lest to a greater height you doe advanceOf Folly, to contemne those that are knowneArtificers, and trust such as are none. (119–20)

NOTES

• The sad Shep’ard passeth silently over the Stage.† Here the Prologue thinking to end, returnes upon a new purpose, and speakes on.

172 BEN JONSON

45.Sir John Suckling, Jonson’s arrogance

1637

From ‘A Sessions of the Poets’, first published in the posthumous Fragmenta Aurea(1646).

Also referred to in the period by its alternative title, ‘The Wits’, Suckling’spoem describes a contest for the bays which Apollo awards in the end to analderman, on the grounds that ‘the best signe/Of good store of wit’s to have goodstore of coyn’ (ll. 108–9). It may well have been the ‘Ballad made of the Wits’sung to the king while on a hunting expedition in the New Forest in the latesummer of 1637, and sent to the Earl of Strafford on 9 October that year: ThomasClayton (ed.), The Works of Sir John Suckling: The Non-Dramatic Works (Oxford1971), p. xliv. As Clayton points out (p. 268), many of the ‘Wits’ mentioned inthe poem, including Jonson, Sandys, and Waller, are known to have belonged tothe circle of Lord Falkland (himself named in the poem). For Suckling, see No. 43,above.

A Session was held the other day,And Apollo himself was at it (they say)The Laurel that had been so long reserv’d,Was now to be given to him best deserv’d.AndTherefore the wits of the Town came thither,[’]T was strange to see how they flocked together,Each strongly confident of his own way,Thought to gain the Laurel away that day.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆The first that broke silence was good old Ben,

Prepar’d before with Canary wine,And he told them plainly he deserv’d the Bayes,For his were calld Works, where others were but Plaies.And

Bid them remember how he had purg’d the StageOf errors, that had lasted many an Age,And he hopes they did think the silent Woman,The Fox, and the Alchymist out done by no man.

Apollo stopt him there, and bade him not go on,

’Twas merit, he said and not presumptionMust carry’t; at which Ben turned about,

And in great choler offer’d to go out:But

Those that were there thought it not fitTo discontent so ancient a wit;And therefore Apollo call’d him back agen,And made him mine host of his own new Inne.(stanzas 1 and 3–4; pp. 7–8)

174 BEN JONSON

46.James Shirley on Jonson and The Alchemist

Between 1637 and 1640

‘A Prologue to the ALCHIMIST Acted there’, printed in Shirley’s Poems (1646).Shirley (1596–1666) became master of the grammar school at St Albans and

then moved to London and established himself as the leading playwright of theCaroline stage. The present prologue must date from Shirley’s time as the residentdramatist at the Werburgh Street Playhouse, Dublin; he was there from its openingin late 1637 to April 1640, when he returned to England (see Allan H.Stevenson,‘James Shirley and the Actors at the First Irish Theater’, Modern Philology (1942–3),147–60). In the dedication of his The Gratefull Servant (1630) Shirley had calledJonson ‘our acknowledg’d Master’; in a commendatory verse in the same volume,William Habington claimed that Shirley would be Jonson’s successor, and afterJonson’s death verses by ‘Dru. Cooper’ and by W.Markham in Shirley’s The RoyallMaster (1638) declared Shirley his rightful heir.

The Alchimist, a Play for strength of wit,And true Art, made to shame, what hath bin writIn former Ages: I except no worthOf what or Greek or Latines have brought forth,Is now to be presented to your eare,For which I wish each man were a Muse here.To know, and in his soule be fit to beJudge of this Master-piece of Comedie;That when we heare but once of Johnsons name,Whose mention shall make proud the breath of Fame,We may agree, and Crownes of Laurel bringA justice unto him the Poets King.But he is dead, Time envious of that blisse,Which we possest in that great Braine of his,By putting out this light, hath darkned allThe sphere of Poesie, and we let fallAt best, unworthy Elegies on his Herse,A Tribute that we owe his living Verse;Which though some men that never reacht him, mayDecry, that love all folly in a Play,The Wiser few shall this distinction have,

To kneele, not tread upon his honour’d grave. (36–7)

176 BEN JONSON

47.Newcastle, tribute to Jonson

1637 or later

‘To Ben: Jonson’s Ghost’, printed from a manuscript at Welbeck in WelbeckMiscellany No. 2: A Collection of Poems by Several Hands, ed. Francis Needham (Bungay1934).

William Cavendish (1592–1676) was created Earl of Newcastle in 1638 andDuke of Newcastle in 1665. He was a patron of Hobbes, Brome, Davenant, Shirley,and Dryden as well as of Jonson, and himself wrote poems, plays, and treatises onhorsemanship. The first evidence of Jonson’s association with him is an epitaph onhis father, Sir Charles Cavendish, who died in 1619 (U.V., 22); in Jonson’s lastyears, Newcastle employed him to write the masques for his entertainments for theking and queen at Welbeck in 1633 and at Bolsover in 1634. In a letter of 1634Jonson tells the duke that his payment for the masques ‘fell like the dewe of heavenon my necessities’ (H & S, i, 212). Jonson wrote poems on Newcastle’shorsemanship and on his fencing (Und., 53, 59). Newcastle became governor of thePrince of Wales and Privy Councillor in 1638; he was a Royalist commander in thenorth in the Civil War, was exiled and had his estates confiscated under theCommonwealth, and after the Restoration retired from public life. His play TheVarietie (1649) includes a parody of Jonson’s ‘Have you seen but a bright lily grow’(p. 57).

I would write of Thee, Ben; not to approveMy witt or Learneing; but my Judgement, Love.But when I think or this or that, to chuse;Each part of Thee, is too big for my Muse.Should I compare Thee to Rome’s dust, that’s dead?Their witt, to Thine’s as heavy as thy lead:Should I prophane thee to our liveing Men?Th’are light as strawes, and feathers to Thee, Ben.Did wee want Ballads for these shallow tymes,Or for our winter Nights, some sporting rhymes;For such weake trifles, wee have witts great store;Now thou art gone, there’s not a Poet more.Our Country’s Glory! Wee may justly boastThus much; more would but raise thy angry Ghost.We may with sadder blacks behange thy hearse;

All els, were Libells on ourselves, if Verse.Rest then, in Peace, in our vast Mothers wombe,Thou art a Monument, without a Tombe.Is any Infidel? Let him but lookeAnd read, Hee may be saved by thy Booke. (43)

178 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

48.George Stutvile, Jonson as tutor

1637 or later

‘The Genius of the stage Dep[l]oring the death of Ben Johnson’, included inNicholas Burghe’s commonplace book, now Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 38.Adopting the emendation in H & S, xi, 487, of ‘Men’ for ‘then’, l. 48.

[In the first part of the poem the Genius laments the world’s loss, and heaven’sgain, of so great a poet.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆This one must bee the best and stand alonewithout comparison (disgracing none)I know that am the Genius of the stage& here pronounce it spight of Crettique rageWho fill’d the Theaters, with knowing men& made them soe, but hee, (renowned Ben)Whose workes deservd, but his, and Cost?and Men were happye when thay payd for[’]t most.Thay came desciples to attend his preachersbut went a way confirmd Juditious teachersWho satt at others workes like Judges sterneAt Johnsons actes were pupills sett to learneWho read him true must know, read knowe much moreThen his wise Tutor ever taught beforeLay by his looser Poemes (though each onewolde not disgrace Apollo to have done[)]and reade his sceans; seeme but to love strong sence& it shall ravish thyn intelligence.Marke wheare hee courts Thalia you will beeTranslated with his IngenuityBut when hee Cloathes his Buskind muse with horrorGules her with blood, bedeckes her face with terrorYour flesh shall num, Heare tremble to rehearseThe soule-affrighting numbers of his verseThis made Ben Johnson soe admir’d att CourteThat could create their sadnes & their sporte

This made hym favourd of two mightye kingsLov’d of the nobles, feard of the meaner thingsThis makes mee weep (though hee hath left behindeThe stocke of witt, and that the Age shall find)weep and pray like an Indulgent MotherThat my Sonns soule may flie into some other,And what the stage must want, now hee is gonIt may regayne by Transmygration. (ll. 41–74; pp. 97–8)

180 BEN JONSON

49.Tributes from Jonsonus Virbius

1638

Jonsonus Virbius: Or, The Memorie of Ben: Johnson Revived by the Friends of the Muses is acollection of thirty-three elegies on Jonson’s death, edited by Bryan Duppa, Bishopof Chichester. According to Aubrey, it was Lord Falkland who suggested the title(H & S, xi, 428). See Introduction, pp. 8–9.

(a) Falkland, ‘An Eglogue on the Death of BEN JOHNSON, between Melybaeus andHylas’. Printed first in the collection.For Falkland, see No. 37, above.

[Hylas (evidently Falkland) begins by declaring his grief to Melybaeus at the death ofJonson. (Dorus in the extract below must be Sir Henry Morison.)]

Mel. Ah Hylas! then thy griefe I cannot callA passion, when the ground is rationall.I now excuse thy teares and sighs, though thoseTo deluges, and these to tempests rose:Her great instructer gone, I know the AgeNo lesse laments then doth the widdow’d stage,And onely Vice and Folly, now are glad,Our Gods are troubled, and our Prince is sad:He chiefly who bestowes light, health and art,Feeles this sharpe griefe pierce his immortall heart,He his neglected Lire away hath throwne,And wept a larger nobler Helicon,To find his Hearbs, which to his wish prevaile,For the lesse lov’d should his owne favorite faile:So moan’d himselfe when Daphne he ador’d,That arts relieving al, should faile their Lord:Hyl. But say, from whence in thee this knowledge springs,Of what his favour was with Gods and Kings.Mel. Dorus, who long had known books, men, & townes,At last the honour of our Woods and Downes,Had often heard his Songs, was often fir’dWith their inchanting power, ere he retir’d,

And ere himselfe to our still groves he brought,To meditate on what his Muse had taught:Here all his joy was to revolve alone,All that her Musicke to his soule had showne,Or in all meetings to divert the streameOf our discourse; and make his Friend his Theame,And praising works which that rare Loome hath weav’d,Impart that pleasure which he had receav’d,So in sweet notes (which did all tunes excell,But what he prais’d) I oft have heard him tellOf His rare Pen, what was the use and price,The Bayes of Vertue and the scourge of Vice:How the rich ignorant he valued least,Nor for the trappings would esteeme the beast:But did our youth to noble actions raise,Hoping the meed of his immortall praise:How bright and soone His Muses morning shone,Her Noone how lasting, and her Evening none:How speech exceeds not dumbenesse, nor verse prose,More then His verse the low rough rimes of those,(For such his scene, they seem’d,) who highest rear’d,Possest Parnassus ere his power appear’d:Nor shall another Pen his fame dissolve,Till we this doubtfull Probleme can resolve,Which in his workes we most transcendent see,Wit, Judgement, Learning, Art, or Industry,Which Till is Never, so all jointly flow,And each doth to an equall Torrent grow:His Learning such, no Author old nor new,Escapt his reading that deserv’d his view,And such his Judgement, so exact his Test,Of what was best in Bookes, as what bookes best,That had he joyn’d those notes his Labours tooke,From each most prais’d and praise-deserving Booke,And could the world of that choise Treasure boast,It need not care though all the rest were lost:And such his Wit, He writ past what he quotes,And his Productions farre exceed his Notes:So in his workes where ought inserted growes,The noblest of the Plants engrafted showes,That his adopted Children equall not,The generous Issue his owne Braine begot:So great his Art, that much which he did write,Gave the wise wonder, and the Crowd delight,Each sort as well as sex admir’d his Wit,The Hees and Shees, the Boxes, and the Pit;And who lesse lik’t within, did rather chuseTo taxe their Judgements then suspect his Muse,

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How no spectator his chaste stage could callThe cause of any crime of his, but allWith thoughts and wils purg’d and amended rise,From th’ Ethicke Lectures of his Comedies,Where the Spectators act, and the sham’d ageBlusheth to meet her follies on the stage;Where each man finds some Light he never sought,And leaves behind some vanitie he brought,Whose Politicks no lesse the minds direct,Then these the manners, nor with lesse effect,When his Majesticke Tragedies relateAll the disorders of a Tottering state,All the distempers which on Kingdomes fall,When ease, and wealth, and vice are generall,And yet the minds against all feare assure,And telling the disease, prescribe the Cure:Where, as he tels what subtle wayes, what friends(Seeking their wicked and their wisht for ends)Ambitious and luxurious Persons prove,Whom vast desires, or mighty wants doth move,The generall Frame, to sap and undermine,In proud Sejanus, and bold Cateline;So in his vigilant Prince and Consuls parts,He shewes the wiser and the nobler Arts,By which a state may be unhurt, upheld,And all those workes destroy’d, which hell would build.Who (not like those who with small praise had writ,Had they not cal’d in Judgement to their Wit)Us’d not a tutoring hand his to direct,But was sole workeman and sole Architect:And sure by what my Friend did daily tell,If he but acted his owne part as wellAs he writ those of others, he may boast,The happy fields hold not a happier ghost.Hyl. Strangers will thinke this strange, yet he (deare Youth,)Where most he past beleefe, fell short of Truth:Say on, what more he said, this gives reliefe,And though it raise my cause, it bates my griefe,Since Fates decreed him now no longer liv’d,I joy to heare him by thy Friend reviv’d.Mel. More he would say, and better, (but I spoileHis smoother words with my unpolisht stile)And having told what pitch his worth attain’d,He then would tell us what Reward it gain’d;How in an ignorant, and learn’d age he swaid,(Of which the first he found, the second made)How He, when he could know it, reapt his Fame,And long out-liv’d the envy of his Name:

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To him how daily flockt, what reverence gave,All that had wit, or would be thought to have,Or hope to gaine, and in so large a store,That to his Ashes they can pay no more,Except those few who censuring, thought not so,But aim’d at glory from so great a foe:How the wise too, did with meere wits agree,As Pembroke, Portland, and grave Aubigny;Nor thought the rigid’st Senator a shame,To contribute to so deserv’d a fame:How great Eliza, the Retreate of those,Who weake and injur’d her protection chose,Her Subjects joy, the strength of her Allies,The feare and wonder of her Enemies,With her judicious favours did infuseCourage and strength into his yonger Muse:How learned JAMES, whose praise no end shall finde,(But still enjoy a Fame pure like his Mind)Who favour’d quiet, and the Arts of Peace,(Which in his Halcion dayes found large encrease)Friend to the humblest if deserving Swaine,Who was himself a part of Phœbus Traine,Declar’d great JOHNSON worthiest to receiveThe Garland which the Muses hands did weave,And though his Bounty did sustaine his dayes,Gave a more welcome Pension in his praise:How mighty Charles amidst that Weighty care,In which three Kingdomes as their Blessing share,Whom as it tends with ever watchfull eyes,That neither Power may force, nor Art surprise,So bounded by no shore, graspes all the Maine,And farre as Neptune claimes, extends his reigne.Found still some Time to heare and to admire,The happy sounds of his Harmonious Lire,And oft hath left his bright exalted Throne,And to his Muses feet combin’d His owne:⋆As did his Queene, whose Person so disclos’dA brighter Nimph then any Part impos’d,When she did joyne, by an Harmonious choise,Her gracefull Motions to his Powerful voice:How above all the rest was Phœbus fir’dWith love of Arts, which he himselfe inspir’d,Nor oftner by his Light our Sence was chear’d,Then he in Person to his sight appear’d,Nor did he write a line but to supply,With sacred Flame the Radiant God was by. (ll. 43–206; pp. 2–7)

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[In the last part of the eclogue, Melybaeus persuades a reluctant Hylas to raise amonument to Jonson in verse.]

(b) Sir John Beaumont, ‘TO THE MEMORY OF him who can never be forgotten,Master BENJAMIN JOHNSON’.

Jonson contributed a commendatory poem (U.V., 32) to Bosworth-field (1629), avolume of verses by Sir John Beaumont (1583–1627), father of the Sir JohnBeaumont who wrote this poem (and edited his father’s verses), and brother to theplaywright Francis Beaumont.

Had this bin for some meaner Poets Hearse,I might have then observ’d the lawes of verse:But here they faile, nor can I hope t’expresseIn Numbers, what the world grants Numberlesse;Such are the Truths, we ought to speake of Thee,Thou great refiner of our Poesie,Who turn’st to gold that which before was lead;Then with that pure Elixar rais’d the dead.Nine Sisters who (for all the Poets lyes)Had bin deem’d Mortall, did not JOHNSON riseAnd with celestiall Sparkes (not stolne) reviveThose who could erst keep winged Fame alive:T’was he that found (plac’t) in the seat of wit,Dull grinning Ignorance, and banish’t it;He on the prostituted Stage appearesTo make men heare, not by their eyes, but eares;Who painted Vertues, that each one might know,And point the man, that did such Treasure owe:So that who could in JOHNSONS lines be highNeeded not Honours, or a Ribbon buy:But vice he onely shew’d us in a glasse,Which by reflection of those rayes that passe,Retaines the figure lively, set before,And that withdrawne, reflects at us no more;So, he observ’d the like Decorum, whenHe whipt the vices, and yet spar’d the men;When heretofore, the vices onely note,And signe from vertue [w]as his party-coate,When Devils were the last Men on the Stage,And pray’d for plenty, and the present Age;Nor was our English language, onely boundTo thanke him, for he Latin Horace found(Who so inspir’d Rome, with his Lyricke song)Translated in the Macaronicke toung,Cloth’d in such raggs, as one might safely vow,That his Mæcenas, would not owne him now;

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On him he tooke this pitty, as to clothIn words, and such expression, as for both,Ther’s none but judgeth the exchange will comeTo twenty more, then when he sold at Rome.Since then, he made our Language pure and good,And teach us speake, but what we understood,We owe this praise to him, that should we joyneTo pay him, he were payd but with the coyneHimselfe hath minted, which we know by thisThat no words passe for currant now, but his;And though He in a blinder age could changeFaults to perfections, yet ’twas farre more strangeTo see (how ever times, and fashions frame)His wit and language still remaine the sameIn all mens mouths; Grave Preachers did it useAs golden Pills, by which they might infuseTheir Heavenly Physicke; Ministers of StateTheir grave dispatches in his language wrate;Ladies made cur’tsies in them, Courtiers, legs,Physicians Bills, perhaps some Pedant begsHe may not use it, for he heares ’tis such,As in few words, a man may utter much.Could I have spoken in his language too,I had not said so much, as now I doe,To whose cleare memory, I this tribute sendWho Dead’s my wonder, Living was my Friend. (11–13)

(c) Sir Thomas Hawkins, ‘TO THE MEMORY OF M.BENJAMIN JONSON’.

Hawkins (d. 1640), a Roman Catholic, succeeded to the family estates in 1617 andwas knighted in 1618. He published a translation of the Odes and Epodes of Horace(1625). Howell says that it was Hawkins who solicited his contribution to JonsonusVirbius (Epistolae Ho-Elianae (1650 edition), i, 217), and Howell’s letter aboutJonson’s boasting at a dinner was addressed to Hawkins (see No. 36(e), above).

To presse into the throng, where Wits thus striveTo make thy Lawrels fading Tombes survive,Argues thy worth, their love, my bold desire,Somewhat to sing, though but to fill the Quire:But (Truth to speake) what Muse can silent be,Or little say, that hath for Subject, Thee,Whose Poems such, that as the Sphere of fire,They warme insensibly, and Force inspire,Knowledge, and wit infuse, mute tongues unlose,And wayes not track’t to write, and speake disclose.But when thou put’st thy Tragique Buskin on,Or Comique Socke of mirthfull Action,Actors, as if inspired from thy hand,

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Speake, beyond what they thinke, lesse, understand.And thirsty Hearers wonder-strucken say,Thy words make that a Truth, was meant a Play.Folly, and braine-sicke Humours of the time,Distempered Passion, audacious Crime,Thy Pen so on the stage doth personate,That ere men scarce begin to know, they hateThe Vice presented, and there lessons learne,Virtue, from vicious Habits to discerne.Oft have I scene Thee in a sprightly straine,To lash a Vice, and yet no one complaine,Thou threw’st the Inke of Malice from Thy Pen,Whose aime was evill manners, not ill men.Let then fraile parts repose, where solemne careOf pious Friends, thee Pyramids prepare;And take thou (BEN) from Verse a second breath,Which shall create Thee new, and conquer Death. (14–15)

(d) Henry King, ‘Upon BEN. JOHNSON’.

King (1592–1669) was the eldest son of John King, Bishop of London. He washimself appointed Bishop of Chichester in 1642, and preached Duppa’s funeralsermon in 1662; he and Donne were close friends. A collected edition of his Poemswas published in 1657, including this elegy on Jonson.

What ends soever other Quils invite,I can protest, it was no itch to write,Nor any vaine ambition to be read,But meerely love and justice to the dead,Which rais’d my famelesse Muse; and caus’d her bringThese drops, as tribute throwne into that Spring,To whose most rich and fruitfull head we oweThe purest streames of language which can flow.For ’tis but truth; Thou taughtst the ruder Age,To speake by Grammer; and reformd’st the Stage:Thy Comick Sock induc’d such purged sense,A Lucrece might have heard without offence.Amongst those soaring Wits that did dilateOur English, and advance it to the rateAnd value it now holds, thy selfe was oneHelpt lift it up to such proportion,That thus refin’d and roab’d it shall not spareWith the full Greeke or Latine to compare.For what Tongue ever durst, but Ours, translateGreat Tullies Eloquence, or Homers State?Both which in their unblemisht lustre shine,From Chapmans Pen, and from thy CATILINE.All I would aske for thee, in recompence

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Of thy successfull toyle, and times expenceIs onely this poore boone: That those who canPerhaps read French, or talke Italian,Or doe the lofty Spaniard affect,(To shew their skill in forreigne dialect)Prove not themselves so unnat’rally wiseThey therefore should their Mother-tongue despise:(As if her Poets both for stile and witt,Not equal’d, or not pass’d their best that writt)Until by studying JOHNSON they have knowneThe heighth, and strength, and plentie of their owne.Thus in what low earth, or neglected roome,So ere thou sleepst, thy BOOKE shall be thy Tombe,Thou wilt goe downe a happie Coarse, bestrew’dWith thine owne Flowres and feele thy selfe renew’d,Whilst thy immortall, never with’ring BayesShall yearely flourish in thy Readers praise.And when more spreading Titles are forgot,Or, spight of all their Lead and Seare-cloth, rot;Thou wrapt and shrin’d in thine owne sheets wilt lyeA Relique fam’d by all Posteritie. (ll. 16–60; pp. 16–18)

(e) Dudley Digges, ‘AN ELEGIE ON BEN JOHNSON’.

Digges (1613–43) was the third son of the Sir Dudley Digges, diplomat, who mayhave written a commendatory verse in the 1607 Volpone quarto (see No. 19(f),above). He became a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, in 1633. He published a numberof writings in defence of King Charles I.

O could we weepe like Thee! we might convayNew breath, and raise men from their Beds of ClayUnto a life of fame; he is not dead,Who by thy Muses hath beene buried.Thrice happy those brave Heroes, whom I meetWrapt in thy writings, as their winding-sheet:For, when tribute unto Nature due,Was payd, they did receive new life from you;Which shall not be undated, since thy breathIs able to immortall, after death.Thus rescu’d from the dust, they did ne’re seeTrue life, untill they were entomb’d by Thee.You that pretend to Courtship, here admireThose pure and active flames, Love did inspire:And though he could have tooke his Mistresse eares,Beyond fain’d sighs, false oaths, and forced teares;His heat was still so modest, it might warme,But doe the Cloystred Votarie no harme.

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The face he sometimes praises, but the mind,A fairer Saint, is in his Verse inshrin’d.He that would worthily set downe his prayse,Should studie Lines as loftie as his Playes.The Roman Worthies did not seeme to fightWith braver spirit, then we see him write:His Pen their valour equals; and that AgeReceives a greater glory from our Stage.Bold Catiline, at once Romes hate and feare,Farre higher in his storie doth appeare:The flames those active Furies did inspire,Ambition and Revenge, his better fireKindles afresh; thus lighted, they shallTill Rome to its first nothing doe returne.Brave fall, had but the cause beene likewise good!Had he so, for his Countrey, lost his blood!Some like not Tully in his owne; yet whileAll doe admire him in thy English stile,I censure not; I rather thinke, that weeMay well his equall, thine we ne’re shall see. (ll. 26–64; pp. 23–4)

(f) Edmund Waller, ‘Upon BEN: JOHNSON, the most excellent of Comick POETS’. The elegywas reprinted in Waller’s Poems (1645).

Waller (1606–87) was educated at Eton, Cambridge, and Lincoln’s Inn; he waswealthy, an MP and a member of the Falkland circle. His Poems were published in1645 and went through three editions; he was highly regarded by hiscontemporaries as a reformer of English verse. In his elegy he imagines Jonson asProteus—a creator of characters whose own character escapes detection (seeIntroduction, p. 9); and, unusually, he pictures the comedies as enshrining virtues,rather than as depicting vices.

Mirror of Poets! Mirror of our Age!Which her whol Face beholding on thy stage,Pleas’d and displeas’d with her owne faults endures,A remedy, like those whom Musicke cures,Thou not alone those various inclinations,Which Nature gives to Ages, Sexes, Nations,Hast traced with thy All-resembling Pen,But all that custome hath impos’d on Men,Or ill-got Habits, which distort them so,That scarce the Brother can the Brother know,Is represented to the wondring Eyes,Of all that see or read thy Comedies.Who ever in those Glasses lookes may finde,The spots return’d, or graces, of his minde;And by the helpe of so divine an Art,At leisure view, and dresse, his nobler part.

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Narcissus cozen’d by that flattering Well,Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,Had here discovering the deform’d estateOf his fond minde, preserv’d himselfe with hate,But Vertue too, as well as Vice, is clad,In flesh and blood so well, that Plato hadBeheld what his high Fancie once embrac’d,Vertue with colours, speech and motion grac’d.The sundry Postures of Thy copious Muse,Who would expresse a thousand tongues must use,Whose Fates no lesse peculiar then thy Art,For as thou couldst all characters impart,So none can render thine, who still escapes,Like Proteus in variety of shapes,Who was nor this nor that, but all we finde,And all we can imagine in mankind. (30–1)

(g) Sidney Godolphin, ‘The Muses fairest light in no darke time’.

A fine, energetic encomium. In the volume Godolphin’s name is just visiblebeneath the poem, obscured by a wide decorative border, as Sister Maria Teresapoints out in ‘Sidney Godolphin and “The Muses Fairest Light”’, Modern LanguageNotes (1946), lxi, 61–3. Godolphin (1610–43) was a Royalist of the Falkland circle,killed at the Battle of Chagford. He was in Parliament in 1628 and 1640. He leftmany poems in manuscript at his death; Waller completed his translation fromVirgil, The Passion of Dido for Aeneas (published 1658). Falkland in his elegy (No. 49(a)) includes him in ‘that inspired traine’ who are to commemorate Jonson.

The Muses fairest light in no darke time,The Wonder of a learned Age; the LineWhich none can passe; the most proportion’d Witt,To Nature, the best Judge of what was fit;The deepest, plainest, highest, cleerest PEN;The Voice most eccho’d by consenting Men,The Soule which answer’d best to all well saidBy others, and which most requitall made,Tun’d to the highest Key of ancient ROME,Returning all her Musique with his owne,In whom with Nature, Studie claim’d a part,And yet who to himself ow’d all his Art:Heere lies BEN JOHNSON, every Age will lookeWith sorrow heere, with wonder on his BOOKE. (27 (really 35))

(h) Jasper Mayne, ‘To the Memory of BEN JOHNSON’.

Jasper Mayne (1604–72) wrote the plays The City Match (1639) and The AmorousWar (1648); he became Archdeacon of Chichester. His ode records the charges ofJonson’s enemies— his slowness, his need for alcohol in composing, and the

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accusation that Carlo Buffone in Every Man out of his Humour, in particular, is avengeful caricature of a contemporary individual (Aubrey names the original of Carloas the jester Charles Chester: H & S, ix, 405). Mayne testifies, too, to thepopularity of plays like Volpone and The Alchemist, and pays specific tribute to Jonson’sverse (he calls him ‘Prince of Numbers’).

As when the Vestall hearth went out, no fireLesse holy then the flame that did expireCould kindle it againe: So at thy fallOur Witt, great BEN, is too ApocryphallTo celebrate the losse, since tis too muchTo write thy Epitaph, and not bee such.What thou wert, like th’ hard Oracles of old,Without an extasie cannot bee told.We must be ravisht first, Thou must infuseThy selfe into us both the Theame and Muse.Else, (though wee all conspir’d to make thy HerseOur Workes) so that ’t had beene but one great Verse,Though the Priest had translated for that timeThe Liturgy, and buried thee in Rime,So that in Meeter wee had heard it said,Poetique dust is to Poetique laid:And though that dust being Shakespears thou might’st haveNot his roome, but the Poet for thy grave;So that, as thou didst Prince of Numbers dyeAnd live, so now thou mightst in Numbers lie,’Twere fraile solemnitie; Verses on TheeAnd not like thine, would but kind Libels be;And we, (not speaking thy whole Worth) should raiseWorse blots, then they that envied thy praise.Indeed, thou need’st us not, since above allInvention, thou wert thine owne Funerall.Hereafter, when Time hath fed on thy Tombe,Th’inscription worne out, and the Marble dumbe;So that ’twould pose a Critick to restoreHalfe words, and words expir’d so long before.When thy maym’d Statue hath a sentenc’d face,And lookes that are the horror of the place,That ’twill be learning, and Antiquitie,And aske a SELDEN to say, this was Thee,Thou’lt have a whole Name still, nor needst thou feareThat will be ruin’d, or lose nose, or haire.Let others write so thin, that they can’t beAuthors till rotten, no PosteritieCan adde to thy Workes; th’had their whole growth thenWhen first borne, and came aged from thy Pen.Whilst living thou enjoy’dst the fame and sense

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Of all that time gives but the reverence.When th’art of Homers yeares, no man will sayThy Poems are lesse worthy, but more gray:Tis Bastard-Poetry, and o’th’ false bloodWhich can’t without succession be good.Things that will alwayes last, doe thus agreeWith things eternall; th’at once perfect bee.Scorne then their censures, who gav’t out, thy WittAs long upon a Comœdie did sitAs Elephants bring forth; and that thy blottsAnd mendings tooke more time then Fortune plotts:That such thy drought was, and so great thy thirst,That all thy Playes were drawne at th’ Mermaid first:That the Kings yearely Butt wrote, and his WineHath more right then thou to thy CATILINE.Let such men keep a diet, let their wittBe rackt, and while they write, suffer a fitt:When th’have felt tortures which out-paine the gout,Such, as with lesse, the State drawes treason out;Though they should the length of consumptions lieSicke of their verse, and of their Poem die,’Twould not be thy worst Scæne, but would at lastConfirme their boastings, and shew made in hast.He that writes well, writes quick, since the rule’s true,Nothing is slowly done, that’s alwayes new.So when thy FOXE had ten times acted beene,Each day was first, but that ’twas cheaper scene.And so thy ALCHYMIST plaid ore and ore,Was new oth’ Stage when ’twas not at the dore.Wee, like the Actors did repeat, the PitThe first time saw, the next conceiv’d thy Wit:Which was cast in those forms, such rules, such Arts,That but to some not halfe thy Acts were parts:Since of some silken judgements we may say,They fill’d a Boxe two houres, but saw no Play.So that th’unlearned lost their money, andSchollers sav’d onely, that could understand.Thy Scæne was free from Monsters, no hard PlotCall’d downe a God t’untie th’unlikely knot.The Stage was still a Stage, two entrancesWere not two parts oth’ World, disjoyn’d by Seas.Thine were land-Tragedies, no Prince was foundTo swim a whole Scæne out, then oth’ Stage drown’d;Pitch’t fields, as Red-Bull wars, still felt thy doome,Thou laidst no sieges to the Musique-Roome;Nor wouldst allow thy best ComœdiesHumours that should above the People rise:Yet was thy language and thy stile so high,

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Thy Socke to th’ ancle, Buskin reacht to th’ thigh;And both so chast, so ’bove Dramatick cleane,That we both safely saw, and liv’d thy Scene.No foule loose line did prostitute thy wit,Thou wrot’st thy Comœdies, didst not commit.We did the vice arraignd not tempting heare,And were made Judges, not bad parts by th’ eare.For Thou ev’n sinne didst in such words array,That some who came bad parts, went out good play.Which ended not with th’ Epilogue, the AgeStill acted, which grew innocent from th’ Stage.Tis true thou hadst some sharpnesse, but thy saltServ’d but with pleasure to reforme the fault.Men were laugh’d into vertue, and none moreHated Face acted then were such before.So did thy sting no bloud, but humours draw,So much doth Satyre more correct then Law;Which was not nature in thee, as some callThy teeth, who say thy wit lay in thy Gall.That thou didst quarrell first, and then, in spight,Didst ’gainst a person of such vices write:That ’twas revenge, not truth, that on the StageCarlo was not presented, but thy Rage:And that when thou in company wert met,Thy meate tooke notes, and thy discourse was net.Wee know thy free-veine had this innocence,To spare the partie, and to brand th’ offence.And the just indignation thou wert inDid not expose Shift, but his tricks and ginne.Thou mightst have us’d th’ old Comick freedome, theseMight have seene themselves plaid, like Socrates.Like Cleon, Mammon might the Knight have beene,If, as Greeke Authors, thou hadst turn’d Greeke spleene;And hadst not chosen rather to translateTheir learning into English, not their rate:Indeed this last, if thou hadst beene bereftOf thy humanitie, might be cal’d Theft.The other was not; whatsoere was stangeOr borrow’d in thee did grow thine by th’ change.Who without Latine helps had’st beene as rareAs Beaumont, Fletcher, or as Shakespeare were:And like them, from thy native Stock could’st say,Poets and Kings are not borne every day.(29–33 (really 37–41))

(i) William Cartwright, ‘In the memory of the most Worthy BENJAMIN JOHNSON’.

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Cartwright (1611–43), one of Jonson’s ‘Sons’, was a dramatist and divine. In 1642Bishop Duppa, the editor of Jonsonus Virbius, appointed him to a post in the churchof Salisbury. Cartwright’s tragi-comedy, The Royal Slave, was acted before the kingand queen at Oxford in 1636; he was a member of the king’s Council of War whenhe died in 1643. For his commendatory poem to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Comediesand Tragedies, see No. 54, below. Both that poem and the present elegy arereprinted in the posthumous collection of Cart-wright’s Comedies, Tragi-Comedies,With other Poems (1651); the preface to that volume quotes Jonson as saying, ‘My SonCartwright writes all like a Man’, and marvels at Cartwright’s verses on Jonson(quoted in Jesse Franklin Bradley and Joseph Quincy Adams (eds), The JonsonAllusion-Book (New Haven, Conn. 1922), p. 296). William Stanton in acommendatory verse in the same volume says the elegy is ‘so high and wisely writ, /It shews who is and who is not a Wit’ (The Jonson Allusion-Book, P. 297).

Father of Poets, though thine owne great dayStruck from thy selfe, scornes that a weaker rayShould twine in lustre with it: yet my flame,Kindled from thine, flies upwards tow’rds thy Name.For in the acclamation of the lesseThere’s Piety, though from it no accesse.And though my ruder thoughts make me of those,Who hide and cover what they should disclose:Yet, where the lustre’s such, he makes it sceneBetter to some, that drawes the veile betweene.And what can more be hop’d, since that divineFree filling spirit tooke its flight with thine?Men may have fury, but no raptures now;Like Witches, charme, yet not know whence, nor how.And through distemper, grown not strong but fierce;In stead of writing, onely rave in verse:Which when by thy Lawes judg’d, ’twill be confes’d,’Twas not to be inspir’d, but be posses’d.Where shall we find a Muse like thine, that canSo well present and shew man unto man,That each one finds his twin, and thinkes thy ArtExtends not to the gestures, but the heart?Where one so shewing life to life, that weThink thou taughtst Custome, and not Custome thee?Manners, that were Themes to thy Scenes still flowIn the same streame, and are their comments now:These times thus living o’re thy Modells, weThinke them not so much wit, as prophesie:And though we know the character, may sweareA Sybill’s finger hath bin busie there.Things common thou speakst proper, which though knownFor publique, stampt by thee grow thence thine owne:Thy thoughts so order’d, so expres’d, that we

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Conclude that thou didst not discourse, but seeLanguage so master’d, that thy numerous feet,Laden with genuine words, doe alwaies meetEach in his art; nothing unfit doth fall,Shewing the Poet, like the wiseman, All:Thine equall skill thus wresting nothing, madeThy penne seeme not so much to write as trade.That life, that Venus of all things, which weConceive or shew, proportion’d decencie,Is not found scattred in thee here and there,But, like the soule, is wholly every where.No strange perplexed maze doth passe for plot,Thou alwayes dost unty, not cut the knot.Thy Lab’rinths doores are open’d by one threadThat tyes, and runnes through all that’s don or said.No power comes down with learned hat and rod,Wit onely, and contrivance is thy god.’Tis easie to guild gold: there’s small skill spentWhere ev’n the first rude masse is ornament:Thy Muse tooke harder metalls, purg’d and boild,Labour’d and try’d, heated, and beate and toyld,Sifted the drosse, fil’d roughnes, then gave dresse,Vexing rude subjects into comlinesse.Be it thy glory then, that we may say,Thou run’st where th’ foote was hindred by the way.Nor dost thou poure out, but dispence thy veine,Skill’d when to spare, and when to entertaine:Not like our wits, who into one piece doThrow all that they can say, and their friends too,Pumping themselves, for one Termes noise so dry,As if they made their wills in Poetry.And such spruce compositions presse the stage,When men transcribe themselves, and not the age.Both sorts of Playes are thus like pictures showne,Thine of the common life, theirs of their owne.Thy modells yet are not so fram’d, as weMay call them libells, and not imag’rie:No name on any Basis: ’tis thy skillTo strike-the vice, but spare the person still:As he, who when he saw the Serpent wreath’dAbout his sleeping sonne, and as he breath’d,Drinke in his soule, did so the shoot contrive,To kill the beast, but keepe the child alive.So dost thou aime thy darts, which, ev’n whenThey kill the poisons, do but wake the men.Thy thunders thus but purge, and we endureThy launcings better then anothers cure,And justly too: for th’ age growes more unsound

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From the fooles balsam, then the wisemans wound.No rotten talke brokes for a laugh; no pageCommenc’d man by th’ instructions of thy stage;No bargaining line there; no provoc’tive verse;Nothing but what Lucretia might rehearse;No need to make good count’nance ill, and useThe plea of strict life for a looser Muse:No Woman rul’d thy quill: we can descryNo verse borne under any Cynthia’s eye:Thy Starre was judgement onely, and right sense,Thy selfe being to thy selfe an influence.Stout beauty is thy grace: Sterne pleasures doPresent delights, but mingle horrours too:Thy Muse doth thus like Joves fierce girle appeare,With a fair hand, but grasping of a Speare.Where are they now that cry, thy Lamp did drinkeMore oyle then th’ Authour wine, while he did thinke?We do imbrace their slaunder: thou has writNot for dispatch but fame; no market wit:’Twas not thy care, that it might passe and sell,But that it might endure, and be done well:Nor would’st thou venture it unto the eare,Untill the file would not make smooth, but weare:Thy verse came season’d hence, and would not give;Borne not to feed the Authour, but to live:Whence ’mong the choycer Judges rise a strife,To make thee read as Classick in thy life.Those that doe hence applause, and suffrage begge,’Cause they can Poems forme upon one legge,Write not to time, but to the Poets day:There’s difference between fame, and sodaine pay.These men sing Kingdomes falls, as if that fateUs’d the same force t’ a Village, and a State:These serve Thyestes bloody supper in,As if it had onely a sallad bin:Their Catilines are but Fencers, whose fights riseNot to the fame of battell, but of prize.But thou still put’st true passions on; dost writeWith the same courage that try’d Captaines fight;Giv’st the right blush and colour unto things;Low without creeping, high without losse of wings;Smooth, yet not weake, and by a thorough-care,Bigge without swelling, without painting faire:They wretches, while they cannot stand to fit,Are not wits, but materialls of wit.What though thy searching wit did rake the dustOf time, and purge old mettalls of their rust?Is it no labour, no art, thinke they, to

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Snatch Shipwracks from the deepe, as Dyvers do?And rescue Jewells from the covetous sand,Making the Seas hid wealth adorne the Land?What though thy culling Muse did rob the storeOf Greeke, and Latine gardens to bring orePlants to thy native soyle? Their vertues wereImprov’d farre more, by being planted here.If thy Still to their essence doth refineSo many drugges, is not the water thine?Thefts thus become just works: they and their graceAre wholly thine: thus doth the stampe and faceMake that the Kings, that’s ravisht from the mine:In others then ’tis oare, in thee ’tis coine.Blest life of Authours, unto whom we oweThose that we have, and those that we want too:Th’ art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,And to have writ so well’s thine onely curse.Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hateThat servile base dependance upon fate:Successe thou ne’r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,Which chance, and th’ ages fashion did make hit;Excluding those from life in after-time,Who into Po’try first brought luck and rime:Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty’ld nameWhat was but noise; and getting Briefes for fameGathered the many’s suffrages, and thenceMade commendation a benevolence:Thy thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did winThat best applause of being crown’d within.And though th’ exacting age, when deeper yeeresHad interwoven snow among thy haires,Would not permit thou shouldst grow old, cause theyNere by thy writings knew thee young; we maySay justly, they’re ungratefull, when they moreCondemn’d thee, cause thou wert so good before:Thine Art was thine Arts blurre, and they’ll confesseThy strong perfumes made them not smell thy lesse.But, though to erre with thee be no small skill,And we adore the last draughts of thy Quill:Though those thy thoughts, which the now queasie age,Doth count but clods, and refuse of the stage,Will come up Porcelaine-wit some hundreds hence,When there will be more manners, and more sense;Twas judgement yet to yeeld, and we affordThy silence as much fame, as once thy word:Who like an aged oake, the leaves being gone,Wast food before, art now religion;Thought still more rich, though not so richly stor’d,

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View’d and enjoy’d before, but now ador’d.Great soule of numbers, whom we want and boast;Like curing gold, most valu’d now th’ art lost;When we shall feed on refuse offalls, whenWe shall from corne to akornes turne agen;Then shall we see that these two names are one,JOHNSON and Poetry, which now are gone.

(34–9 (really 42–7))

(j) Owen Felltham, ‘To the Memory of immortall BEN’.

For Felltham, see No. 36(d), above.To write is easie; but to write of thee

Truth: will be thought to forfeit modesty.So farre beyond conceipt, thy strengths appeare;That almost all will doubt, what all must heare.For, when the World shall know, that Pindar’s height,Plautus his wit, and Seneca’s grave weight,Horace his matchlesse Nerves, and that high phraseWherewith great Lucan doth his Readers maze,Shall with such radiant illustration glide,(As if each line to life were property’d)Through all thy Workes; And like a Torrent move,Rowling the Muses to the Court of Jove,Wits generall Tribe, soone intitle theeHeire to Apollo’s ever verdant Tree.And ’twill by all concluded be, the StageIs widowed now; was bed-rid by thy age.Aswell as Empire, wit his Zenith hath,Nor can the rage of time, or tyrants wrathEncloud so bright a flame: But it will shineIn spight of envie, till it grow divine.As when Augustus raign’d, and warre did cease,Romes bravest wits were usher’d in by peace:So in our Halcyon dayes, we have had nowWits, to which, all that after come, must bow.And should the Stage compose her selfe a CrowneOf all those wits, which hitherto sh’as knowne:Though there be many that about her browLike sparkling stones, might a quick lustre throw:Yet, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Johnson, these three shallMake up the Jem in the point Verticall.And now since JOHNSON’S gone, we well may say,The Stage hath seene her glory and decay.Whose judgement was’t refined it? Or whoGave Lawes, by which hereafter all must goe.But solid JOHNSON? from whose full strong quill,Each line did like a Diamond drop distill, Though hard, yet cleare. Thalia that had skipt

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Before, but like a Maygame girle, now striptOf all her Mimick Jigges, became a sightWith mirth, to show each pleas’d spectators light.And in such gracefull measures, did discoverHer beauties now; that every eye turn’d Lover.Who is’t shall make with great Sejanus fall,Not the Stage crack, but th’Universe and all?Wild Catilines sterne fire, who now shall show?Or quench’t with milke, still’d downe by Cicero?Where shall old Authors in such words be showne,As vex their Ghosts, that they are not their owne?Admit his Muse was slow. ’Tis Judgements FateTo move, like greatest Princes, still in state.Those Planets placed in the higher Sphasres,End not their motion but in many yeares,Whereas light Venus and the giddy Moone,In one or some few dayes their courses run.Slow are substantiall bodies: But to thingsThat ayery are; has Nature added wings.Each triviall Poet that can chant a Rime,May chatter out his owne wits Funerall chime:And those slight nothings that so soone are made,Like Mushromes, may together live and fade.The Boy may make a Squib: But every lineMust be considered, where men spring a mine.And to write things that Time can never staine,Will require sweat, and rubbing of the braine.Such were those things he left. For some may beEccentrick, yet with Axiomes maine agree.This Ile presume to say. When Time has madeSlaughter of Kings that in the World have sway’d:A greener Bayes shall Crowne BEN. JOHNSONS Name,Then shall be wreath’d about their Regall Fame.For Numbers reach to Infinite. But HeOf whom I write this, has prevented me,And boldly said so much in his owne praise,No other pen need any Trophie raise.

(42–4 (really 50–2))

(k) Shackerley Marmion, ‘A Funerall sacrifice, to the sacred memory of his thrice honoured father BENJOHNSON’.

Shackerley Marmion (1603–39), gentleman and dramatist, wrote Hollands Leaguer(1632), A Fine Companion (1633), The Antiquary (performed in or before 1636,published 1641), and a poem, The Legend of Cupid and Psyche (1637). Marmion hadmoved in the Jonson circle, as a speech in A Fine Companion shows: in Act II, Scenev, the character Carelesse returns drunk and ‘full/Of Oracles’ from ‘Apollo’, theApollo Room at ‘The Devil and St. Dunstan’ tavern in Fleet Street, ‘where the

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boone Delphicke God, /Drinkes sacke, and keepes his Bacchanalias, /And has hisincense, and his Altars smoaking, / And speakes in sparkeling prophesies’ (Sig.D3v). Marmion joined Sir John Suckling’s troop for service in the First Bishops’War in 1639, but was taken ill early in 1639 and returned to die in London soonafter.

I cannot grave, nor carve, else would I giveThee S[t]atues, Sculptures, and thy name should liveIn Tombes, and brasse, untill the stones, or rustOf thine owne Monument, mixe with thy dust:But Nature has afforded me a slightAnd easie Muse, yet one that takes her flightAbove the vulgar pitch. BEN she was thine,Made by adoption free and genuine.By vertue of thy Charter, which from Heaven,By Jove himselfe, before the birth was given.The Sisters Nine this secret did declare,Who of Joves counsell, and His daughters are.These from Parnassus hill came running downe,And though an Infant did with Laurels crowne.Thrice they him kist, and took him in their armes,And dancing round, incircled him him with charmes.Pallas her Virgin breast did thrice distillInto his lips, and him with Nectar fill.When he grew up to yeeres, his mind was allOn Verses: Verses, that the Rocks might callTo follow him, and Hell it selfe command,And wrest Joves three-fold thunder from his hand.The Satires oft times hem’d him in a ring,And gave him pipes and reeds to heare him sing:Whose vocall notes, tun’d to Apolloes LyreThe Syrens, and the Muses did admire.The Nymphs to him their gemmes and corall sent;And did with Swannes, and Nightingales presentGifts farre beneath his worth. The golden Ore,That lyes on Tagus or Pactolus shore,Might not compare with him, nor that pure sandThe Indians find upon Hydaspes Strand.His fruitfull raptures shall grow up to seed.And as the Ocean does the Rivers feed,So shall his wits rich veines, the World supplyWith unexhausted wealth, and ne’re be dry.For whether He, like a fine thread does fileHis terser Poems in a Comick stile,Or treates of tragick furies, and him list,To draw his lines out with a stronger twist:Minervas, nor Arachnes loome can show

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Such curious tracts; nor does the Spring bestowSuch glories on the Field, or Flora’s Bowers,As His works smile with Figures, and with Flowrs.Never did so much strength, or such a spellOf art, and eloquence of papers dwell.For whil’st that he in colours, full and true,Mens natures, fancies, and their humours drewIn method, order, matter, sence and grace,Fitting each person to his time and place;Knowing to move, to slacke, or to make haste,Binding the middle with the first and last:He fram’d all minds, and did all passions stirre,And with a bridle guide the Theater.To say now He is dead, or to maintaineA Paradox he lives, were labour vaine:Earth must to earth. But His faire soule does weareBright Ariadnes Crowne. Or is plac’d neere,Where Orpheus Harpe turnes round with Lædas Swan:Astrologers, demonstrate where you can,Where His Star shines, and what part of the Skie,Holds His compendious Divinity,There He is fixt, I know it, ’cause from thence,My selfe have lately receiv’d influence.The Reader smiles; but let no man derideThe Embleme of my love, not of my pride.(47–9 (really 55–7))

(l) Richard West, ‘On Mr. BEN. JOHNSON’.

West (1614–90) was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford; hegraduated BA in 1636, MA in 1639, was made DD in 1660, and became Canon ofWells in 1664.

Poet of Princes, Prince of Poets (weeIf to Apollo well may pray, to thee.)Give Glo-wormes leave to peepe, who till thy NightCould not be scene, we darkened were with light.For Starres t’appeare after the fall o’th’ Sun,Is at the least modest presumption.I’ve scene a great Lamp lighted by the smallSparke of a Flint, found in a Field or Wall.Our thinner verse faintly may shaddow forthA dull reflexion of thy glorious worth;And (like a Statue homely fashion’d) raiseSome Trophies to thy Mem’rie, though not Praise.Those shallow Sirs, who want sharpe sight to lookOn the Majestique splendour of thy Booke.That rather choose to heare an Archy’s prate,

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Then the full sence of a learn’d Laureate,May when they see thy Name thus plainly writ,Admire the solemne measures of thy wit,And like thy Workes beyond a gawdy ShoweOf Boards and Canvas, wrought by INIGO.Plough-men who puzzled are with Figures, comeBy Tallies to the reckning of a Summe.And Milk-sop Heires, which from their Mothers LappeScarce travaild, know farre Countries by a Mappe.Shakespeare may make griefe merry, Beaumonts stileRavish and melt anger into a smile;In winter nights, or after meales they be,I must confesse very good companie:But thou exact’st our best houres Industrie;Wee may read them; we ought to studie thee:Thy Scænes are precepts, every verse doth giveCounsell, and teach us not to laugh, but live.You that with towring thoughts presume so high,(Sweld with a vaine ambitious Timpanie)To dreame on scepters, whose brave mischiefe calsThe blood of Kings to their last Funeralls:Learne from Sejanus his high fall, to proveTo thy dread Soveraigne a sacred love,Let him suggest a reverend feare to thee,And may his Tragedy, Thy Lecture bee.Learne the compendious Age of slippery PowerThat’s built on blood; and may one little houreTeach thy bold rashnesse that it is not safeTo build a Kingdome on a Cæsars grave.Thy Playes were whipt and libel’d, only ’causeTh’are good, and savour of our Kingdomes Lawes;HISTRIO-MASTIX (lightning like) doth woundThose things alone that solid are and sound.Thus guiltie Men hate justice; so a glasseIs sometimes broke for shewing a foule Face.There’s none that wish Thee Rods instead of Bayes,But such, whose very hate adds to thy Praise.Let Scriblers (that write Post, and versifieWith no more leasure then wee cast a Die)Spurre on their Pegasus, and proudly crie,This Verse I made ith’ twinckling of an eye.Thou couldst have done so, hadst thou thought it fit;But ’twas the wisedome of thy Muse to sitAnd weigh each syllable; suffering nought to passeBut what could be no better then it was.Those that keepe pompous State nere goe in hast;Thou went’st before them all, though not so fast.While their poore Cobweb-stuffe finds as quick Fate

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As Birth, and sells like Almanacks out of date;The marble Glory of thy labour’d RhimeShall live beyond the Calendar of Time.Who will their Meteors ’bove thy Sun advance?Thine are the Works of judgement, theirs of chance.How this whole Kingdome’s in thy debt! wee haveFrom others Perewigs and Paints, to saveOur ruin’d Sculls and Faces; but to TheeWe owe our Tongues, and Fancies remedie.Thy Poems make us Poets; wee may lacke(Reading thy BOOKE) stolne sentences and Sack.Hee that can but one speech of thine reherse,Whether hee will or no, must make a Verse.Thus Trees give fruit, the kernels of that Fruit,Doe bring forth Trees, which in more branches shoot.Our canting ENGLISH (of it selfe alone)(I had almost said a Confusion)Is now all harmony; what we did sayBefore was tuning only, this is Play.Strangers, who cannot reach thy sense, will throngTo heare us speake the Accents of thy TongueAs unto Birds that sing, if’t be so goodWhen heard alone, what is’t when understood!Thou shall be read as Classick Authors; andAs Greeke and Latine taught in every Land.The cringing Mounsieur shall thy Language vent,When he would melt his Wench with Complement.Using thy Phrases he may have his wishOf a coy Nun, without an angry Pish.And yet in all thy POEMS there is showneSuch Chastitie, that every Line’s a Zone.Rome will confesse that thou makst Cæsar talkeIn greater state and pompe then he could walke.Catilines tongue is the true edge of swords,We now not onely heare, but feele his words.Who Tully in thy Idiome understandsWill sweare that his Orations are commands.But that which could with richer Language dresseThe highest sense, cannot thy Worth expresse.Had I thy owne Invention (which affords‘Words above Action, matter above words’)To crowne thy Merits, I should only beeSumptuously poore, low in Hyperbole. (55–8 (really 63–6))

(m) Robert Meade, ‘Our Bayes (me thinks) are withered…’.

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Meade (1616–53) graduated BA at Oxford in 1638 and MA in 1641. While atWestminster School, he wrote a commendatory verse to his schoolfellow AbrahamCowley’s Poeticall Blossoms (1633); his comedy, The Combat of Love and Friendship,was printed in 1654. He was a captain in the Royalist army in 1640, and became anMD in 1646.

Our Bayes (me thinks) are withered, and they lookeAs if (though thunder-free) with envy, strooke;While the triumphant Cipresse boast to beDesign’d, as fitter for thy companie.Where shall we now find one dares boldly write,Free from base flattery yet as void of spight?That grovels not in’s Satyres, but soares high,Strikes at the mounting vices, can descryWith his quicke Eagles Pen those glorious crimes,That either dazle, or affright the Times?Thy strength of Judgement oft did thwart the tideO’th’ foaming multitude, when to their sideThrong’d plush, and silken censures, whilst it chose,(As that which could distinguish Men from cloathes,Faction from judgement) still to keepe thy BayesFrom the suspition of a vulgar praise.But why wrong I thy memory whilst I strive,In such a Verse as mine to keep’t alive?Well wee may toyle, and shew our wits the racke;Torture our needy fancies, yet still lackeWorthy Expressions Thy great losse to moane,Being none can fully praise thee but thy owne. (59 (really 67))

(n) Henry Ramsay, ‘UPON THE DEATH OF BENJAMIN JOHNSON’.

Ramsay graduated BA at Oxford in 1639. Line 1 alludes to the opening of Catiline,lines 17–18 to Bartholomew Fair, Act V, Scene v.

Let thine owne Sylla (BEN) arise, and tryeTo teach my thoughts an angry Extasie;That I may fright Contempt, and with just dartsOf fury sticke thy Palsey in their Hearts:But why doe I rescue thy Name from thoseThat only cast away their eares in Prose:Or, if some better Braine arrive so high,To venture Rhimes, ’tis but Court-Balladry,Singing thy death in such an uncouth Tone,As it had beene an Execution.What are his faul[t]s (O Envy!) that you speakeEnglish at Court, the learned Stage acts Greeke?That Latine Hee reduc’d, and could command

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That which your Shakespeare scarce could understand?That Hee expos’d you Zelots, to make knowneYour Prophanation; and not his owne?That One of such a fervent Nose, should bePos’d by a Puppet in DIVINITIE?Fame write ’em on his Tombe, and let him haveTheir Accusations for an Epitaph:Nor thinke it strange if such thy Scænes defie,That erect Scaffolds ’gainst Authoritie.Who now will plot to cozen Vice, and tellThe Tricke and Policie of doing well?Others may please the Stage, His sacred FireWise men did rather worship then admire:His lines did relish mirth, but so severe;That as they tickled, they did wound the Eare.Well then, such Vertue cannot die, though StonesLoaded with Epitaphs doe presse his Bones:Hee lives to mee; spite of this Martyrdome:BEN, is the selfe same POET in the Tombe.You that can Aldermen new Wits create,Know, JOHNSONS Sceleton is Laureate. (60–1 (really 68–9))

(o) William Bew, ‘Epitaph on Ben Jonson’ (‘Epitaphium in BEN: IONSON’). Translated.

Bew (d. 1705) was made a Fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1637, graduated BAin 1639, MA in 1644. He served as a cavalry major in the Swedish army in theCommonwealth period, and was made Bishop of Llandaff in 1679.

Stand still, stranger: it is worth the delay to learn what is buried under this tomb. Thedarling of Comedy; the glory of Tragedy; the pomp of the stage; the heart and head of thetheatre; the venerable devourer of languages; a perpetual supply of charms and graces; arunning fount of pungent but innocent wit; a radiant bèam of art; a brilliant star; apumice-stone of judgement, a deep well of learning (but clear and bright as well as deep);the genius of writers; the poetic leader, O how great a thing lies hidden under a smallrigid stone! (71)

NOTE

• [Marginal note] In his Maskes.

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206

50.George Daniel, elegy on Jonson

1638

‘To the Memorie of the Best Dramaticke English Poet Ben: Jonson: 1.6.3.8’. FromBritish Library Add. MS 19255.

Daniel (1616–57), of Beswick, Yorkshire, wrote two long historical poems andoccasional and amorous verse, preserved in a manuscript collection dated 1646 andnow in the British Library. He was a stout defender of modern English poets,especially Sidney, Spenser, and Jonson: ‘these justly we may call/Fathers’, he saysin ‘An Essay; Endevouring to ennoble our English Poesie…’ (MS, fol. 31r). In ‘AVindication of Poesie’ he calls Jonson the rival of Rome, ‘unenvied (’causeunequall’d) Laureate’, and ‘of English Drammatickes, the Prince’ (fol. 13r). Thereis also a short poem ‘Upon Ben Jonsons Booke’ in the collection, declaring thatJonson is not dead but lives in print (fol. 25v). The poems have been printed in TheSelected Poems of George Daniel of Beswick 1616–57, ed. Thomas B.Stroup (Lexington,Ky 1959).

Great Flame, of English Poets gon; how shallWee, strew our flowers, at thy Funerall?What obsequies performe; what rites prepareUnto thy Herse? what monument, but wereToo narrow to Containe Thee? or what StateBut were beneath, the honour, of thy fate?Noe rather; wee (remaining of the TribeSad orphans) can but wish, what wee ascribeUnto thy Merit; all wee bring, to thee,Is but our Tears; our filial Pietie;Great Lord of Arts! and Father of the AgeThe first, and best Informer, of the Stage!How? shall wee speake, of him? what Numbers bringT’empassionate? and worthy Orgies Sing?What? Shall wee Say? Shall wee in a Just ZealeRebuke the Age, of Ignoran[c]e, and tellAloud his merits? shall wee weepe, or boast,His worth? or Losse? shall wee say, when wee lostHim, a sad Night, of follie, did orespreadThis Iland, as wee see; and wee, are dead

Rather, then Hee, wee weep for? for Hee, stillLives, to instruct, the Age, with a Strong Quill;And as he did, from Ignorance, reduceTh’ abused Stage; Soe has he left to us(Who act upon this greater Theatre)Grave morall Pandects; Strong, & yet soe CleareHee is, his owne Expositor; and wee(Iff sottishly not blind or worse) may seeVertue, in Act; and everie gracefull StepShe treads may be our Path; but wee all SleepeUncapable, of what Hee taught; or howTo valew, what Hee left us; I could bow(And would the Age, might doo’t without offence)To name him, with a Modest Reverence;For Shall wee kneele, to Titles? and observeFormalities? to those, who nought deserve(More then their name, or painted outside give)And shall my Lord, have a prerogativeFor vertue, in his Ancestors? (though heePerhaps the Shame, of all his Pedigree;)And our Great Lord of witt; where vertue inHer Sphere, did move; where Art, and Judgment Shine,Inseparable; bee, with Common MenAnd vulgar Mention named? oh! the PenOf Witt, and Truth forbid it: rather letThe worthles present Age, his Name forget;For wee are Emulous fooles; and will admittNoe Rivalls, in the Claime, wee lay, to witt;But After-Ages, (more JudiciousUnswaied by Passion, only SedulousTo honour vertue) shall, (I will not doubt)Advance his name; when the despised Rout(His Scorne) shall perish; in the filthy SmoakeOf their owne Follies; then all Eyes, shall lookeWith Joy, and Admiration, to receiveA Light, their Fathers could not; I will leaveOnly this little: Judgment, shall Allow(When Men, have Eyes, to see; & witt, to knowWho merit most) the greatest EulogieFor Language, Art, and all DexteritieOf Witt; to Him; and happ’lie were the flameExtinct, wee might recover’t in his name:A Charme soe stronge: Who ever shall reherseBen: Jonson; cannot chuse but make a verse; (fols. 24v–25v)

208 BEN JONSON

51.John Benson, dedication of Jonson’s Poems

1640

In the quarto edition of the 1640 Poems, titled Ben Jonson’s Execration against Vulcan.With divers Epigrams by the same Author to severall Noble Personages in this Kingdome.

There was a similar dedication in Benson’s duodecimo edition of Jonson poems,published the same year (see No. 52, below); it omits the references to Jonson’sworks transcending ordinary imagination, and to the pyramids to his name theyraise.

My Lord:The assurance the Author of these Poems received of his Worth from your Honour, in

his lifetime, was not rather a marke of his desert, than a perfect demonstration of yourNoble love to him: Which consideration, has rais’d my bold desire to assumepresumption, to present these to your Honour, in the person of one deceased; the formewhereof somewhat disperst, yet carry with them the Prerogative of truth to be Mr Ben:Jonsons; and will so appeare to all, whose Eyes, and Spirits are rightly plac’d. You are (myLord) a Person who is able to give value and true esteeme to things of themselves no lessedeserving: such were his, strong, and as farre transcendent ordinary imagination, as theyare conformable to the sence of such who are of sound judgement: his Strenuous Lines,and sinewey Labours have rais’d such Piramydes to his lasting name, as shall out-lastTime. And that these may, without any diminution to the glory of his greater Workes,enjoy the possession of publicke favour, (by your Honours permission) I shall be glad bythis small Testimony account it a fit opportunity to assure your Honour, my Lord, that Iam

Your most humble and affectionate Servant,

JOHN BENSON. (Sig. A3r–[A4]r)

210

52.On Jonson’s translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica

1640

From the prefatory material to Q.Horatius Flaccus: His Art of Poetry. Englished by Ben:Jonson. With other Workes of the Author, never Printed before, published like No. 51 byJohn Benson. Lord Herbert’s epigram on the translation (see No. 14, above)appeared in this volume.

(a) ‘BARTON HOLYDAY, to BEN JONSON. EPODE’.

Barton Holiday (1593–1661) became Archdeacon of Oxford in 1626. Histranslation of Persius was published in 1616, again in 1617 and 1635; in theposthumous 1673 folio edition, a translation of Juvenal is added, with preface andnotes including references to Jonson as the source of several of the manuscripts hehad used for his volume; he calls Jonson ‘My dear friend, the Patriarch of our Poets’(Sig. a2v). Holiday had also written a comedy, T∊ ν γᵕα, or the Marriages of the Arts(1618), which was performed before the king in 1621.

Tis dangerous to praise; besides the taske,Which to do’t well, will askeAn age of time and judgement; who can thenBe prais’d, and by what pen?Yet, I know both, whilst thee I safely chuseMy subject, and my Muse.For sure, henceforth our Poets shall imploreThy aid, which lends them more,Then can their tyr’d Apollo, or the nineShe wits, or mighty wine.These Deities are banquerupts, and must beGlad to beg art of thee.Some they might once perchance on thee bestow:But, now, to thee they owe:Who dost in daily bounty more wit spend,Then they could ever lend.Thus thou, didst build the globe, which, but for thee,Should want its Axle-tree:And, like a carefull founder, thou dost now

Leave Rules for ever, howTo keep’t in reparations, which will doeMore good, than to build two.It was an able stock, thou gav’st before:Yet, loe, a richer store!Which doth, by a prevention, make us quitWith a deare yeare of wit:Come when it will, by this thy name shall lastUntill Fames utmost blast.Thou art a wealthy Epigram, which spendsMost vigour when it ends.This ful Epiphonema of thy bestWit, out-speaks all the rest.Me thinkes, I see our after Nephewes gaze,And all their time to praiseIs taken up in wonder; whilst they seeAges of wit, in theeCollected, and well judg’d: Charons stout heartFeeles thy new power of Art,And, his obedient armes labour amaine,Whilst he wafts back againeWhat Poets shadow, thou dost please to callTo this thy judgement hall:Whiles, at these frightning Sessions, thou dost sit,The searching Judge of wit,O how the Ghosts do shuffle one behindAnother, lest thou findThem, and their errours: but, in vaine, they flieThy persecuting eye.Bold Aristophanes, shrewd whorson, nowMore feares thy threatning brow,Then his owne guilt of libelling, and prayesHe may new write his playes.Plautus so quakes, that he had rather stillGrind on in his old mill.Terence would borrow his owne Eunuchs shape,By the disguise to scape.The Greek Tragœdians droop, as if they plaidThe persons whom they made:Fearing thou’lt bid them adde with more expenceOf braine, wit to their sence:Or whilst their murdered wits thou maist contemne,Write Tragœdies of them.Seneca, would with Hercules be gladTo scape, by running mad:Or at the least, he feares as lesse a hurt,To weare his burning shirt.They’d all take care, and if thy Flaccus too

212 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Writ now, he’d write all new.Yet all at once confesse Flaccus doe’s well,But thou makst him excell.The Morning Sunne viewing a silver stream,So guilds it with his beame.Master of Art, and Fame! who here makst knowneTo all, how all thine owneWell-bodied works were fram’d, whilst here we seeTheir fine Anatomee.Each nerve and vaine of Art, each slender string,Thou to our eye dost bring:Thus, what thou didst before so well collect,Thou dost as well dissect.For which skill, Poems now thy censure wait,And thence receive their Fate.Thou needst not seek for them, to thee they’re brought,And so held good, or nought.Thus, doth the eye disdaine, with an extreameScorne to send forth a beame:But scaly formes from the glad object flowBy which the eye doth knowIts subtle image: thus the eye keeps state,Thus doth the object wait.But here, at this, perchance some one stands by,And drawes his mouth awry;As if his mouth (his mouth he doth so teare)Would whisper in his eare;When thy soft pitty, if it see his spight,But saies, set your mouth right.Yet in mild truth, this worke hath some defect,As now I dare object:Thou err’st against a workmans rarest part,Which is to hide his Art.Next, all thy rules fall short, since none can teachA verse, thy worth to reach.For which, Ile now judge thee: know thy estateOf wit must beare this fate:Till Jonson teach some Muse a straine yet new,Jonson shall want his due. (Sig. [A7]v–[A9]v)

(b) Zouch Townley, ‘To Mr Jonson’.

Townley was a friend of Jonson’s, as the examination of Jonson by the Attorney-General in 1628 on the subject of some verses addressed to Felton, the assassin ofthe Duke of Buckingham, shows: Jonson says that he had given Townley a daggerwhich the latter had admired, while Townley’s guest at a supper (H & S, i, 242–4).Townley defended Jonson against Gill’s attack on The Magnetic Lady, in a poem inBodleian Library MS Ashmole 38, printed in H & S, xi,

BEN JONSON 213

Ben: the world is much in debt and though it maySome petty reck’nings to small Poets pay:Pardon if at thy glorious summe they stick,Being too large for their Arithmeticke.If they could prize the Genius of a Scene,The learned sweat that makes a language cleane,Or understand the faith of ancient skill,Drawn from the Tragick, Comick, Lyrick quill:The Greek and Roman denison’d by thee,And both made richer in thy Poetry.This they may know, and knowing this still grudge:That yet they are not fit of thee to judge.I prophesie more strength to after time,Whose joy shall call this Isle the Poets Clime,Because ’twas thine, and unto thee returneThe borrowed flames, with which thy Muse shal burn.Then when the stocke of others Fame is spent,Thy Poetry shall keep its owne old rent. (Sig. [A10]r)

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53.James Shirley on Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson

1642

‘Prologue at the Black-Fryers’ to Shirley’s The Sisters, A Comedie, first printed in SixNew Playes (1653).

The play was performed by the King’s men, apparently in the spring of 1642,the last of Shirley’s plays to open at the Blackfriars Theatre before the Civil War(Gerald Eades Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (Oxford 1941–68), v, 1148).A version of the poem appears as ‘Prologue to his Tragedy call’d the Cardinall’ inShirley’s Poems (1646), with eight lines added (pp. 158–9). For Shirley, see No. 46,above.

[The prologue laments that the town is empty and the playhouses neglected.]

And if you leave us too, we cannot thrive,I’l promise neither Play nor Poet liveTill ye come back, think what you do, you seeWhat audience we have, what Company‘To Shakespear comes, whose mirth did once beguile‘Dull hours, and buskind, made even sorrow smile,‘So lovely were the Wounds, that men would say‘They could endure the bleeding a whole day:He has but few friends lately, think o’that,Hee’l come no more, and others have his fate.‘Fletcher the Muses darling, and choice love‘Of Phœbus, the delight of every Grove;‘Upon whose head the Laurel grew, whose wit‘Was the Times wonder, and example yet,’Tis within memory, Trees did not throng,As once the Story said to Orpheus song.‘Jonson, t’whose name, wise Art did bow, and Wit‘Is only justified by honouring it:‘To hear whose touch, how would the learned Quire‘With silence stoop? and when he took his Lyre,‘Apollo dropt his Lute, asham’d to see‘A Rival to the God of Harmonie.

You do forsake him too, we must deploreThis fate, for we do know it by our door.How must this Author fear then, with his guiltOf weakness to thrive here, where late was spiltThe Muses own blood, if being but a few,You not conspire, and meet more frequent too?There are not now nine Muses, and you mayBe kind to ours, if not, he bad me say,Though while you careless kill the rest, and laugh,Yet he may live to write your Epitaph. (ll. 15–47; Sig. A3r-v)

216 BEN JONSON

54.William Cartwright on Jonson’s love-scenes

1647

Commendatory poem to Beaumont and Fletcher, Comedies and Tragedies (1647).Part of the second of two poems by Cartwright prefixed to the Beaumont andFletcher folio, and titled ‘Upon the report of the printing of the Dramaticall Poemsof Master John Fletcher, collected before, and now set forth in one Volume’.

The first of the poems comments that Fletcher steered his muse ‘Twixt Johnsonsgrave, and Shakespeares lighter sound’ (Sig. [d2]r). For Cartwright, see No. 49(i),above.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Johnson hath writ things lasting, and divine,Yet his Love-Scenes, Fletcher, compar’d to thine,Are cold and frosty, and exprest love so,As heat with Ice, or warme fires mixt with Snow;Thou, as if struck with the same generous darts,Which burne, and raigne in noble Lovers hearts,Hast cloath’d affections in such native tires,And so describ’d them in their owne true fires;Such moving sighes, such undissembled teares,Such charmes of language, such hopes mixt with feares,Such grants after denialls, such pursuitsAfter despaire, such amorous recruits,That some who sate spectators have confestThemselves transform d to what they saw exprest,And felt such shafts steale through their captiv’d sence,As made them rise Parts, and goe Lovers hence. (ll. 45–60; Sig. [d2]v)

218

55.Robert Herrick, tributes to Jonson

1648

Robert Herrick (1591–1674) was the vicar at Dean Prior, in Dorset, when hepublished some 1,400 of his poems in Hesperides (1648), among them these twotributes to Jonson.

(a) ‘Upon M.Ben Johnson. Epig.’.

As L.C.Martin notes in his edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick (Oxford1956), p. 532n, ‘Holy-Rage’ here echoes Und., 70, l. 80, ‘Possessed with holy rage’.Robert Burton had previously used the phrase ‘Arch-Poet’ for Jonson, in amarginal note to p. 401 of the 1624 edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy.

After the rare Arch-Poet JOHNSON dy’d,The Sock grew loathsome, and the Buskins pride,Together with the Stages glory stoodEach like a poore and pitied widowhood.The Cirque prophan’d was; and all postures rackt:For men did strut, and stride, and stare, not act.Then temper flew from words; and men did squeake,Looke red, and blow, and bluster, but not speake:No Holy-Rage, or frantick-fires did stirre,Of flash about the spacious Theater.No clap of hands, or shout, or praises-proofeDid crack the Play-house sides, or cleave her roofe.Artlesse the Sceane was; and that monstrous sinOf deep and arrant ignorance came in;Such ignorance as theirs was, who once histAt thy unequal’d Play, the Alchymist:Oh fie upon ’em! Lastly too, all wittIn utter darkenes did, and still will sitSleeping the lucklesse Age out, till that sheHer Resurrection ha’s again with Thee. (173)

(b) ‘Another’.

Thou had’st the wreath before, now take the Tree;

That henceforth none be Laurel crown’d but Thee.(170 (really 174))

220 BEN JONSON

56.Edmund Gayton, Jonson the scholar’s playwright

1654

From Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot (1654).This commentary on Cervantes’s novel contains a number of references to

Jonson’s work; the most elaborate is the aside on Jonson’s response to the failureof one of his plays. As H & S (ix, 241) suggest, the play in question may well havebeen Catiline, despite Gayton’s reference to a comedy. The lines of Horace quotedas a motto on the title-page of the quarto of the play (translation: ‘Such writing asthis gives no pleasure to the rabble; even with the upper class enjoyment has flittedfrom the ear to the restless eyes and the hollow delights of spectacle’: Epistles, 2.1.186–8) indicate that the play, like the one Gayton discusses, was condemned by theelite as well as the vulgar.

Gayton (1606–66) was a graduate then a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford,became a beadle in arts and physics at the university in 1636, lost the post in 1648and went to debtor’s prison in 1655; after the Restoration he became a beadle againat Oxford, where he died.

Both the Authors that compose them, and the Actors that represent them, must be such as they be, forto please the peoples humours.]1 It was an old one, and before this criticall observation said,

Populo ut placerent, quas fecisset fabulas.2 Nay in their Amphitheatricall gladiatures, the livesof captives lay at the mercy of the vulgar.

& verso pollice vulgi, Quemlibet occidunt populariter.3

And although the only Laureat of our stage (having composed a Play of excellent worth,but not of equall applause) fell downe upon his knees, and gave thanks, that he hadtranscended the capacity of the vulgar; yet his protestation against their ignorance, wasnot sufficient to vindicate the misapplication of the argument; for the judicious part ofthat Auditory condemn’d it equally with those that did not understand it, and although theComædy wanted not its

prodesse, & delectare.4

Had it been exhibited to a scholastick confluence; yet men come not to study at a Play-house, but love such expressions and passages, which with ease insinuate themselves intotheir capacities. Lingua,5 that learned Comædy of the contention betwixt the five senses forsuperiority, is not to be prostituted to the common stage, but is only proper for an Academy;to them bring Jack Drumm’s entertainment, Greens to quoque, the Devill of Edmonton,6 and thelike; or if it be on Holydayes, when Saylers, Water-men, Shoomakers, Butchers andApprentices are at leisure, then it is good policy to amaze those violent spirits, with some

tearing Tragædy full of fights and skirmishes: As the Guelphs and Guiblins, Greeks and Trojans,or the three London Apprentises,7 which commonly ends in six acts, the spectatorsfrequently mounting the stage, and making a more bloody Catastrophe amongstthemselves, then the Players did….

⋆ ⋆ ⋆All ‘which inconveniences might be redressed, if there were some understanding, and discreet

person ordain’d at Court.]8 An Inigo Jones for scenes, and a Ben Johnson for Playes, would havewrought great cures upon the stage, and it was so well reform’d in England, and growneto that height of Language, and gravity of stile, dependency of parts, possibility of plot,compasse of time, and fulnesse of wit, that it was not any where to be equall’d; nor arethe contrivers asham’d to permit their playes (as they were acted) to the publick censure,where they stand firme, and are read with as much satisfaction, as when presented on thestage, they were with applause and honour. Indeed their names now may very well bechang’d & call’d the works not Playes of Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Cartwright, and therest, which are survivers of the stage; that having faln, not into Court-Reformers, butmore severe correctors, who knowing not how to amend or repaire, have pluckt alldowne, and left themselves the only spectacle of their times. (271–3)

NOTES

1 From Thomas Sheldon’s translation, Part iv, ch. 21 (The History of the Valorous and WittieKnight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha (1612), p. 555). In modern editions of the novel thechapter is numbered Part 1, ch. 48.

2 ‘To see that his plays pleased the people’: Terence, The Lady of Andros, Prol., l. 3.3 ‘And win applause by slaying whomsoever the mob with a turn of the thumb bids them

slay’: Juvenal, Satires, 3.36–7.4 ‘To benefit, and amuse’: adapting Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 333.5 (1607), attributed to Thomas Tomkis.6 Marston, Jack Drum’s Entertainment (1600); Cooke, Greenes Tu quoque, or, The Cittie Gallant

(1611); Dekker, The Witch of Edmonton (1621). 7 Of these three plays, the first has not been identified, the second may be Haywood’s The Iron

Age (c. ? 1613), and the third the same writer’s The Four Prentices of London (? 1592): seeBentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, v, 1345–6, 1456.

8 From Sheldon’s translation, Part iv, ch. 21, p. 559.

222 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

57.On reviving Jonson at the Restoration

1660

An anonymous ‘Prologue to the Reviv’d Alchemist’, printed as a broadside sheet.Interesting for its emphasis on the difficulty of acting Jonson at such a remove

from the actors Jonson himself directed. A date of 1660 is suggested in Autrey NellWiley (ed.), Rare Prologues and Epilogues: 1642–1700 (1940), pp. 13–15.

The Alchemist; Fire, breeding Gold, our Theme:Here must no Melancholie be, nor Flegm.Young Ben, not Old, writ this, when in his Prime,Solid in Judgment, and in Wit sublime.The Sisters, who at Thespian Springs their BloodCool with fresh Streams, All, in a Merry Mood,Their wat’ry Cups, and Pittances declin’d,At Bread-street’s Mer-maid with our Poet din’d:Where, what they Drank, or who plaid most the Rig,Fame modestly conceals: but He grew bigOf this pris’d Issue; when a Jovial Maid,His Brows besprinkling with Canarie, said.Pregnant by Us, produce no Mortal Birth;Thy active Soul, quitting the sordid Earth,Shall ’mongst Heav’ns glitt’ring Hieroglyphicks trade,And Pegasus, our winged Sumpter, jade,Who from Parnassus never brought to Greece,Nor Romane Stage, so rare a Master-piece.This Story, true or false, may well be spar’d;The Actors are in question, not the Bard:How they shall humour their oft-varied Parts,To get your Money, Company, and Hearts,Since all Tradition, and like Helps are lost.Reading our Bill new pasted on the Post,Grave Stagers both, one, to the other said,The ALCHEMIST? What! are the Fellows mad?Who shall Doll Common Act? Their tender TibsHave neither Lungs, nor Confidence, nor Ribs.Who Face, and Subtle? Parts, all Air, and Fire:

They, whom the Authour did Himself inspire,Taught, Line by Line, each Tittle, Accent, Word,Ne’re reach’d His Height; all after, more absurd,Shadows of fainter Shadows, wheresoe’reA Fox he pencil’d, copied out a Bear.Encouragement for young Beginners small:Yet howsoe’re we’ll venture; have at All.Bold Ignorance (they say) falls seldome shortIn Camp, the Countrey, City, or the Court.Arm’d with the Influence of your fair Aspects,Our Selves we’ll conquer, and our own Defects,A thousand Eyes dart raies into our Hearts,Would make Stones speak, and Stocks play well theirParts:Some few Malignant Beams we need not fear,Where shines such Glory in so bright a Sphere.

224 BEN JONSON

58.Samuel Pepys on performances of Epicoene and

Bartholomew Fair1661

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) kept a diary from January 1661 to May 1669. In it herecords both his activities as a busy official (he was Clerk of the Acts, one of the foursenior administra- tive posts in the Navy Office) and a private life in which, thoughbrought up a Puritan, he pursued passions for amorous dalliance, for all kinds ofconviviality and for the arts, especially music and the theatre. He read Jonson, aswell as seeing the plays on stage: he notes that he read The Devil is an Ass as hetravelled down to Deptford on 22 July 1663 (Robert Latham and William Matthews(eds), The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1970–83), iv, 240), and again that he read EveryMan in his Humour one evening in 1667 (No. 66(a), below). He had a copy of the1692 edition of Jonson’s Works in his library (now no. 2645 in the Pepys Library,Magdalene College, Cambridge).

Text from the Latham and Matthews edition of the Diary.

(a) From the entry for 7 January 1661: on a performance by the King’s Company ofEpicoene at the Theatre Royal, Vere Street.

Edward Kynaston was well known at this time as a boy actor playing women’sparts, though Davenant’s introduction of actresses at the rival house of the Duke’sCompany was soon to end the tradition. Pepys saw Epicoene again at the Vere Streettheatre on 25 May: he noted then that it ‘pleased’ him (Diary, ii, 106).

To the office; and after that to dinner, where my brother Tom came and dined with me;and after dinner (leaveing 12d with my servants to buy a cake with at night, this day beingkept as Twelfeday) Tom and I and my wife to the Theatre and there saw The Silent Woman,the first time that ever I did see it and it is an excellent play. Among other things here,Kinaston the boy hath the good turn to appear in three shapes: 1, as a poor woman inordinary clothes to please Morose; then in fine clothes as a gallant, and in them wasclearly the prettiest woman in the house—and lastly, as a man; and then likewise didappear the handsomest man in the house, (ii, 7)

(b) From the entry for 8 June 1661: on a performance of Bartholomew Fair by the King’s Company atthe Theatre Royal, Vere Street.

This is the first record of a performance of the play after the Restoration. The entryin the Diary for 12 November 1661 (see 58(d), below) suggests that the presentproduction omitted the puppet-show in Act V. Pepys saw the play at the VereStreet theatre again on 27 June (Diary, ii, 127).

Then to the Cookes with Mr. Sheply and Creed and dined together; and then I went tothe Theatre and there saw Bartlemew faire, the first time it was acted nowadays. It is [a]most admirable play and well acted; but too much profane and abusive. (ii, 116–17)

(c) From the entry for 7 September 1661: on a performance of Bartholomew Fair bythe King’s Company at the Theatre Royal, Vere Street. William Joyce was a tallowchandler, married to a cousin of Pepys’s.

So I having appointed the young ladies at the Wardrobe1 to go with them to a play today,I left [William Joyce] and my brother Tom, who came along with him to dine; and mywife and I to them and took them to the Theatre, where we seated ourselfs close by theKing and Duke of Yorke and Madam Palmer (which was great content; and endeed, I cannever enough admire her beauty); and here was Barthelmew fayre, with the Puppet Shewe,acted today, which had not been these forty years (it being so satyricall againstpuritanisme, they durst not till now; which is strange they should already dare to do it,and the King to countenance it); but I do never a whit like it the better for the puppets,and rather the worse, (ii, 173–4)

(d) From the entry for 12 November 1661: on a performance of Bartholomew Fair bythe King’s Company at the Theatre Royal, Vere Street. Sir William Penn was oneof the Navy Commissioners.

…So abroad with Sir W.Pen, my wife and I, to Barthlemew fayre, with puppets (which Ihave seen once before, and the play without puppets often); but though I love the play asmuch as ever I did, yet I do not like the puppets at all, but think it to be a lessening to it.Thence to the Grayhound in Fleetstreete, and there drank some Raspbury Sack and eatsome Sasages; and so home very merry, (ii, 212)

NOTE

1 The daughters of the Earl of Sandwich, Master of the King’s Great Wardrobe.

226 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

59.The Play of the Puritan

1661

From a letter from the Revd William Hooke to the Revd John Davenport inAmerica, 12 October 1661, printed in Collections of the Massachusetts HistoricalSociety (Boston, Mass. 1868), 4th series, viii.

Hooke is reporting on a performance based on Bartholomew Fair. The version inquestion was evidently a much altered one; indeed, as Frances Teague, The CuriousHistory of ‘Bartholomew Fair’ (1985), pp. 69–70, suggests, the two Puritans Hookementions may well indicate that the piece incorporated parts of The Alchemist; itmay well have been titled The Play of the Puritan, judging from Hooke’s form ofwords. Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy were leading Puritan divines. Theproduction is referred to again in a letter from Robert Newman to Davenport of 28October 1661 (Collections, 4th series, viii, 174). This or a similar version of the playwas put on again in Dublin in 1670: during the performance, the galleries collapsed,a sign of Providence at work, according to the Presbyterian commentator quoted inWillam Smith Clark, The Early Irish Stage: The Beginnings to 1720 (Oxford 1955), pp.69–70. This performance is also mentioned by Richard Baxter in ReliquiaeBaxterianae (1696), Part iii, p. 84.

Hooke had settled in New England in 1637, returned to become Cromwell’sdomestic chaplain in 1656 (the Protector was a relation of his wife’s), and remainedin England after the Restoration.

You will heere by the bearer of the play of the Puritan before the Highest, where werepresent (as they say) the Earl [of] Manchester & 3 Bishops, and London one of them. In itwere represented 2 Presbiterians under the forme of Mr. Baxter & Mr. Callamy, whoseHabitt & actions were sett forth: prayers were made in imitation of the Puritan, with suchscripture expressions as I am loath to mention, the matter such as might have beene usedby any godly man in a right maner: The case of Syon lying in the dust was spreade before,&c: & God’s former deliverances of his people urged in such phraises as would amaze yowif yow heard them, with eyes lifted up to heaven, one representing the Puritan put in thestockes for stealing a pigg, & the stockes found by him unlockt, which he admires at as awonderfull providence & fruite of prayer, upon which he consults about his call, whetherhe should come forth or not, & at last perceived it was his way, & forth he comes, liftingup his eyes to heaven, & falls to prayse & thankesgiving; I canot tell yow all of it, beinglarge, but such as that some present, who were farr from liking the Puritan, were greatlyastonished, wondring the house did not fall upon there heades. The play I heere, was

taken out of one or two of Ben: Johnson’s, &c: for which Ben would say, that, if he weredamn’d, it would be for those 2 playes. I heere it hath beene acted againe. (177–8)

228 BEN JONSON

60.Margaret Cavendish on Jonson’s plays

1662

From the prefatory material to her Playes (1662).Margaret Lucas (? 1624–74) was in attendance on Henrietta Maria when she met

and married the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Newcastle in Paris in 1645. She was theauthor of numerous works in verse and prose, including a Life of her husband,published in 1667, which refers to the success of the entertainments for KingCharles and Queen Henrietta Maria which Newcastle had arranged in 1633 and1634, and for which he commissioned from Jonson The King’s Entertainment atWelbeck and Love’s Welcome at Bolsover (H & S, x, 703). In a letter the duchess saysthat ‘in truth I never heard any man Read Well but my Husband, and have heardhim say, he never heard any man Read Well but B.J. and yet he hath heard many inhis Time’ (CCXI Sociable Letters (1664), pp. 362–3).

The folio volume of Playes includes some twenty-one plays and no fewer than tenaddresses to readers, as well as a dedication, an ‘Epistle Dedicatory’, a prologueand an ‘Introduction’ in the form of a dialogue. In the first address ‘To theReaders’ the duchess admits her plays are ‘somewhat long... yet, I believe none of myPlayes are so long as Ben. Johnson’s Fox, or Alchymist, which in truth, are somewhat toolong…’ (Sig. [A32]v).

(a) From the second address ‘To the Readers’.

[She first defends her practice of not bringing all her characters on stage together atthe end of the play.]

Likewise my Playes may be Condemned, because they follow not the Ancient Custome, as the learnedsayes, which is, that all Comedies should be so ordered and composed, as nothing should be presentedtherein, but what may be naturally, or usually practiced or Acted in the World in the compass of oneday; truly in my opinion those Comedies would be very flat and dull, and neither profitable norpleasant, that should only present the actions of one day; for though Ben. Johnson as I have heardwas of that opinion, that a comedy cannot be good, nor is a natural or true Comedy, if it shouldpresent more than one dayes action, yet his Comedies that he hath published, could never be theactions of one day; for could any rational person think that the whole Play of the Fox could be theaction of one day or can any rational person think that the Alchymist could be the action of one day?as that so many several Cozenings could be Acted in one day, by Captain Face and Doll Common;

and could the Alchymist make any believe they could make gold in one day? could they burn so manyCoals, and draw the purses of so many, or so often from one person, in one day? and the like is in allhis Playes, not any of them presents the actions of one day, although it were a day at the Poles, butof many dayes, nay I may say some years. (Sig. A4r-v)

(b) From ‘A General Prologue to all my Playes’.

NOBLE Spectators, do not think to seeSuch Playes, that’s like Ben. Johnsons Alchymie,Nor Fox, nor Silent Woman: for those PlayesDid Crown the Author with exceeding praise,They were his Master-pieces, and were wroughtBy Wits Invention, and his labouring thought,And his Experience brought Materials store,His reading several Authors brought much more:What length of time he took those Plays to write,I cannot guess, not knowing his Wits flight;But I have heard, Ben Johnsons Playes came forth,To the Worlds view, as things of a great worth;Like Forein Emperors, which do appearUnto their Subjects, not ’bove once a year;So did Ben. Johnsons Playes so rarely pass,As one might think they long a writing was.But my poor Playes, like a common rout,Gathers in throngs, and heedlessly runs out….

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ As for Ben Johnsons brain, it was so strong,

He could conceive, or judge, what’s right, what’s wrong:His language plain, significant and free,And in the English Tongue, the Masterie:Yet Gentle Shakespear had a fluent Wit,Although less Learning, yet full well he writ;For all his Playes were writ by Natures light,Which gives his Readers, and Spectators sight.But Noble Readers, do not think my Playes,Are such as have been writ in former daies;As Johnson, Shakespear, Beaumont, Fletcher writ;Mine want their Learning, Reading, Language, Wit:The Latin phrases I could never tell,But Johnson could, which made him write so well….

(ll. 1–18, 43–56; Sig. A7r-v)

230 BEN JONSON

61.Thomas Fuller, portrait of Jonson

1662

From The History of the Worthies of England (1662).Fuller (1608–61) was well known as a divine, publishing numerous sermons and

The Church History of Britain (1655). The Worthies was published after his death byhis son, John Fuller.

(a) From the ‘Westminster’ section.BENJAMIN JOHNSON was born in this City. Though I cannot with all my industrious

inquiry find him in his cradle, I can fetch him from his long coats. When a little child he livedin Harts-horn-lane near Charing-cross, where his Mother married a Bricklayer for her Secondhusband.

He was first bred in a private school in Saint Martins Church, then in Westminster school,witness his own Epigram;

Camden, most reverend Head, to whom I oweAll that I am in Arts, all that I know.How nothing’s that, to whom my Country owesThe great renown and Name wherewith she goes, &c. [Epig., 14, ll. 1–4]

He was statuably admitted into Saint Johns-colledge in Cambridge, (as many years afterincorporated a honorary Member of Christ-church in Oxford) where he continued but fewweeks for want of further maintenance, being fain to return to the trade of his father inlaw. And let not them blush that have, but those who have not a lawful calling. He help’din the building of the new structure of Lincolns-Inn, when having a Trowell in his hand, hehad a book in his pocket.

Some gentlemen pitying that his parts should be buried under the rubbish of so mean aCalling, did by their bounty manumise him freely to follow his own ingenuousinclinations. Indeed his parts were not so ready to run of themselves as able to answer the spur,so that it may be truly said of him, that he had an Elaborate wit wrought out by his ownindustry. He would sit silent in learned company, and suck in (besides wine) their severalhumors into his observation. What was ore in others, he was able to refine to himself.

He was paramount in the Dramatique part of Poetry, and taught the Stage an exactconformity to the laws of Comedians. His comedies were above the Volge, (which areonely tickled with down right obscenity), and took not so well at the first stroke as at therebound, when beheld the second time; yea, they will endure reading, and that with duecommendation, so long as either ingenuity or learning are fashionable in our Nation. If his

later be not so spriteful and vigorous as his first pieces, all that are old will, and all thatdesire to be old, should excuse him therein.

He was not very happy in his children, and most happy in those which died first, thoughnone lived to survive him. This he bestowed as part of an Epitaph on his eldest son, dyingin infancy.

Rest in soft peace and Ask’d, say here doth lye,Ben Johnson his best piece of Poetry. [Epig., 45, ll. 9–10]

He dyed Anno Domini 1638. And was buried about the Belfry in the Abby-church atWestminster. (243)

(b) From the account of Shakespeare in the ‘Warwick-Shire’ section.

He was an eminent instance of the truth of that Rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur, one is notmade but born a Poet. Indeed his Learning was very little, so that as Cornish diamonds arenot polished by any Lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out ofthe earth, so nature it self was all the art which was used upon him. Many were the wit-combates betwixt him and Ben Johnson, which two I behold like a Spanish great Gallion, andan English man of War; Master Johnson (like the former) was built far higher in Learning;Solid, but Slow in his performances. Shake-spear with the English-man of War, 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. (126)

232 BEN JONSON

62.Richard Flecknoe, Jonson’s part in the history of the

English stage1664

From ‘A Short Discourse of the English Stage’, appended to Love’s Kingdom. APastoral Trage-Comedy (1664).

Flecknoe (c. 1620–78) is thought to have been Irish, and a Catholic priest. Hepublished a number of poems; Love’s Kingdom was the only one of his plays to beproduced.

[Discussing theatrical history after the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign and before theCivil War.]

In this time were Poets and Actors in their greatest flourish, Johnson, Shakespear, withBeaumont and Fletcher their Poets, and Field and Burbidge their Actors.

For Playes, Shakespear was one of the first, who inverted the Dramatick Stile, from dullHistory to quick Comedy, upon whom Johnson refin’d; as Beaumont and Fletcher first writin the Heroick way, upon whom Suckling and others endeavoured to refine agen; onesaying wittily of his Aglaura, that ’twas full of fine flowers, but they seem’d rather stuck,then growing there; as another of Shakespear’s writings, that ’twas a Fine Garden, but itwanted weeding.

There are few of our English Playes (excepting onely some few of Johnsons) withoutsome faults or other; and if the French have fewer then our English, ’tis because theyconfine themselves to narrower limits, and consequently have less liberty to erre.

The chief faults of ours, are our huddling too much matter together, and making themtoo long and intricate; we imagining we never have intrigue enough, till we lose ourselves and Auditors, who shu’d be led in a Maze, but not a Mist; and through turning andwinding wayes, but so still, as they may finde their way at last.

A good Play shu’d be like a good stuff, closely and evenly wrought, without anybreakes, thrums, or loose ends in ’um, or like a good Picture well painted and designed;the Plot or Contrivement, the Design, the Writing, the Coloris, and Counter-plot, theShaddowings, with other Embellishments: or finally, it shu’d be like a well contriv’dGarden, cast into its Walks and Counterwalks, betwixt an Alley and a Wilderness, neithertoo plain, nor too confus’d. Of all Arts, that of the Dramatick Poet is the most difficultand most subject to censure; for in all others, they write onely of some particular subject,as the Mathematician of Mathematicks, or Philosopher of Philosophy; but in that, the Poetmust write of every thing, and every one undertakes to judge of it.

A Dramatick Poet is to the Stage as a Pilot to the Ship; and to the Actors, as anArchitect to the Builders, or Master to his Schollars: he is to be a good moral Philosopher,but yet more learned in Men then Books. He is to be a wise, as well as a witty Man, and agood man, as well as a good Poet; and I’de allow him to be so far a good fellow too, totake a chearful cup to whet his wits, so he take not so much to dull ’um, and whet ’umquite away.

To compare our English Dramatick Poets together (without taxing them) Shakespearexcelled in a natural Vein, Fletcher in Wit, and Johnson in Gravity and ponderousness ofStyle; whose onely fault was, he was too elaborate; and had he mixt less erudition with hisPlayes, they had been more pleasant and delightful then they are. Comparing him withShakespear, you shall see the difference betwixt Nature and Art; and with Fletcher, thedifference betwixt Wit and Judgement: Wit being an exuberant thing, like Nilus, nevermore commendable then when it overflowes; but Judgement a stayed and reposed thing,alwayes containing it self within its bounds and limits. (Sig. ar–[a2]r)

234 BEN JONSON

63.Samuel Pepys on performances of Epicoene and

Bartholomew Fair1664–5

Text from the Latham and Matthews edition of the Diary.

(a) From the entry for 1 June 1664: on a performance of Epicoene by the King’sCompany at the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street (the first Drury Lane Theatre). ForWilliam Joyce, see No. 58(c), above.

Thence to W.Joyces, where by appointment I met my wife (but neither of them athome); and she and I to the King’s House and saw The Silent Woman; but methought not sowell done or so good [a] play as I formerly thought it to be, or else I am nowadays out ofhumour. Before the play was done, it fell such a storm of Hayle that we in the middle ofthe pit were fain to rise, and all the house in a disorder; and so my wife and I out and gotinto a little alehouse and stayed there an hour after the play was done before we could geta coach; which at last we did…. (v, 165–6)

(b) From the entry for 2 August 1664: on a performance of Bartholomew Fair by theKing’s Company at the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street. Thomas Killigrew was thepatentee and manager of the King’s Company.

Thence to the King’s play-house and there saw Bartholomew fayre, which doth still please meand is, as it is acted, the best comedy in the world I believe. I chanced to sit by Tom Killigrew—who tells me that he is setting up a Nursery; that is, is going to build a house in Moorefields wherein he will have common plays acted. But four operas it shall have in the year,to act six weeks at a time—where we shall have the best Scenes and Machines, the bestMusique, and everything as Magnificent as is in Christendome; and to that end hath sentfor voices and painters and other persons from Italy, (v, 230)

(c) From the entry for 14 January 1665: on a performance of Volpone by the King’sCompany at the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street.

Home to dinner, and thence with my wife to the King’s house, there to see Vulpone, amost excellent play—the best I think I ever saw, and well acted. (vi, 10)

236

64.Saint-Evremond, Jonson central to a French view of

English comedy1666–7

Saint-Evremond, ‘De la comédie angloise’, translated as ‘Of the English Comedy’, inThe Works of Mr de St. Evremont. In II Volumes. Translated from the French (1700).

René Ternois suggests in his edition of Saint-Evremond’s Oeuvres en Prose (Paris1962–9), iii, 39, that the essay was probably written in 1666–7. It was notpublished until 1689, in Saint-Evremond’s Oeuvres Meslées, edited by Claude Barbin.The reference to Shadwell’s Epsom Wells (1672) and the note on Molière must havebeen added some time after the date of first composition.

Saint-Evremond (1644–1703) was exiled permanently from France in 1661 forhis attack on Mazarin; he was, neverthe less, reputed to be the best French literarycritic of his day (see Quentin M.Hope, Saint-Evremond: the ‘Honnête Homme’ as Critic(Bloomington, Ind. 1962)). Most of his exile was spent in England, but he never, itseems, learned the language. Pierre Desmaizeaux, an early editor of his work,reports that the Duke of Buckingham and M.d’Aubigny explained English plays tohim (the passage is quoted in Ternois (ed.), Oeuvres en Prose, iii, 32). Volpone, inparticular, made such an impression on him that he wrote a play called Sir Politickwould-be, Comédie à la manière des Anglois (published posthumously in Desmaizeaux’s1705 edition of the Oeuvres Meslées). The play is discussed by Nicole Bonvalet in‘Une curiosité littéraire: Le Sir Politick Would-Be de Saint-Evremond’, Revue deLittérature Comparée (1980), liv, 80–90.

There is no Comedy more conformable to that of the Ancients, than the English, as forwhat relates to the Manners; it is not a pure piece of Gallantry full of Adventures andamorous Discourses, as in Spain and France; it is a Representation of the ordinary way ofliving, according to the various Humours, and different Characters of men. It is anAlchymist, who by the Illusions of his Art, feeds the deceitful hopes of a vain Curioso: It is asilly credulous Coxcomb, whose foolish Facility is continually abused; it is sometimes aridiculous Politician grave and composed, starched in every thing, mysteriously jealous-headed, that thinks to find out hidden designs in the most common Intentions, and todiscover Artifice in the most innocent Actions of Life: It is a whimsical Lover, a swaggeringBully, a pedantick Scholar, the one with natural Extravagancies, the other with ridiculousAffectations. The truth is these Cheats and Cullies, these Politicians and other Charactersso ingeniously devised, are carried on too far in our Opinion; as those which are to beseen upon our Stage, are a little too faint to the Relish of the English: and the reason ofthat, perhaps is, because the English think too much, and we commonly think not enough.

Indeed, we are satisfied with the first Images of things; and by sticking to the bareoutside, we generally take Appearance for Reality, and the easie and free for what isnatural. Upon this Head I shall observe en passant, that these two last Qualities aresometimes most improperly confounded; the Easie and the Natural agree well enough intheir Opposition to what is stiff or forced; but when we are to dive into the Nature ofthings, or the Natural Humour of Persons, it will be granted me, that the Easy will scarcecarry us far enough. There is something within us, something hidden, that would discoverit self, if we sounded the Subject a little more. (i, 516–17)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Saint-Evremond then expands on differences between the English and the French,before returning to his subject.]

…[I] must reassume my Subject of Comedy, and observe a considerable difference that isto be found betwixt theirs and ours. It consists in this, that being zealous to copy theRegularity of the Ancients, we still drive to the principal Action, without any otherVariety than that of the means that bring us to it.

It is not be denied but that the Representation of one principal Event ought to be the soleScope and End proposed in Tragedy; for we cannot without some Violence and Pain findour selves taken off from what employed our first Thoughts.

The Misfortune of an unhappy King, the sad and Tragical Death of a great Hero, whollyconfine the mind to these Objects, and all the Variety it cares for, is to know the differentmeans that contributed to bring about this principal Action; but Comedy being made todivert and not to busie us, provided Probability be observed, and Extravagance avoided,Variety in the Opinion of the English is an agreeable Surprize, and Change that pleases;whereas the continual Expectation of one and the same thing, wherein there seems to beno great matter of importance, must of necessity make our Attention flagg.

So then instead of representing a signal Cheat carried on by means all relating to thesame end, they bring upon the Stage a notable Rogue with several Cheats, each of whichproduces its proper Effect. As they scarce ever stick to the Unity of Action, that they mayrepresent a principal Person, who diverts them by different Actions: So they often quitthat principal Person, to shew what various things happen to several Persons in publickplaces; Ben Johnson takes this Course in his Bartholomew-Fair. We find the same thing inEpsom-Wells, and in both these Comedies, the ridiculous Adventures of those publick placesare comically represented.

There are some other Plays which have in a manner two Plots, that are interwoven soingeniously the one into the other, that the mind of the Spectators (which might be offendedby too sensible a Change) finds nothing but Satisfaction in the agreeable Variety theyproduce. It is to be confessed that Regularity is wanting here; but the English are ofOpinion, that the Liberties which are taken for better pleasing, ought to be preferredbefore exact Rules, which dull Authors make such a pother about, but tire the Audience.

Rules are to be observed for avoiding Confusion; good Sence is to be followed formoderating the Flight of a luxuriant Fancy; but Rules must not so constrain the mind, asto fetter it, and a scrupulous Reason ought to be banished, which adhering too strictly toExactness, leaves nothing free and natural.

They who cannot attain a Genius, when Nature hath denied them one, ascribe all toArt which they may acquire, and to set a Value upon the onely Merit they have, which is

238 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

that of being regular, they employ all their Interest to damn any piece that is notaltogether so. For those that love the Ridicule, that are pleased to see the Follies ofMankind, that are affected with true Characters, they will find some of the EnglishComedies as much, or perhaps, more to their relish, than any they have ever seen.

Our Moliere whom the Ancients have inspired with the true Spirit of Comedy, equalstheir Ben Johnson in truly representing the various humours and different ways of men,both observing in their descriptions, the peculiar tast and genius of their own Nation: Ibelieve they have carried that point as far as the Ancients ever did; But it is not to bedenied, but that they had a greater regard to their Characters than to the Plot, whichmight have better laid together and more naturally unravell’d. (i, 518–21)

BEN JONSON 239

240

65.Samuel Butler on Jonson and Shakespeare

1667–9

From his ‘Criticismes upon Bookes and Authors’. Text from Hugh de Quehen(ed.), Prose Observations by Samuel Butler (Oxford 1979).

Butler (1613–80) had a brief period of fame after the publication of the first partof his verse satire Hudibras (1662) —nine editions were published within a year,one of them a pirate edition—but then returned to his previous obscureemployments as secretary to a succession of noble families. At his death he left aconsiderable body of miscellaneous prose in manuscript, including a number ofprose observations; the ‘Criticismes’ belong to the group which were, it seems,composed between 1667 and 1669 (see R.Thyer (ed.), The Genuine Remains in Verseand Prose of Mr. Samuel Butler (1759), ii, iv, and de Quehen (ed.), Prose Observations,pp. xxvi, xli–xlvii). In a later note, Butler records that Dryden ‘weighs Poets in theVirtuoso’s Scales that will turne with the hundredth part of a Graine…. Hecomplaynd of B Johnson for stealing 40 Sceanes out of Plautus. —Set a Thief tofinde out a Thief’ (Prose Observations, p. 159). The reference seems to be to the‘Defence of the Epilogue’ to the Second Part of the Conquest of Granada (See. No. 82(c), below).

Men of the quickest apprehensions, and aptest Geniuses to any thing they undertake, donot always prove the greatest Masters in it. For there is more Patience and Flegmerequired in those that attaine to any Degree of Perfection, then is commonly found in theTemper of active, and ready wits, that soone tire and will not hold out; as the swiftestRace-horse will not perform a longe Jorney so well as a sturdy dull Jade. Hence it is thatVirgil who wanted much of that Natural easines of wit that Ovid had, did neverthelesswith hard Labour and long Study in the end, arrive at a higher Perfection then the other withall his Dexterity of wit, but less Industry could attaine to. The same we may observe ofJohnson, and Shakespeare. For he that is able to thinke long and Judg well wil be sure tofinde out better things then another man can hit upon suddenly, though of more quick andready Parts, which is commonly but chance and the other Art and Judgment. (128)

242

66.Samuel Pepys reads Every Man in his Humour, sees

Epicoene1667

Text from the Latham and Matthews edition of the Diary.

(a) From the entry for 9 February 1667.To the office, where we sat all the morning, busy. At noon home to dinner and then to

my office again, where also busy, very busy, late; and then went home and read a piece ofa play (Every Man in his Humour, wherein is the greatest propriety of speech that ever I readin my life); and so to bed. (viii, 50–1)

(b) From the entry for 16 April 1667: on a performance of Epicoene by the King’sCompany at the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street. ‘Knip’ is the actress ElizabethKnepp, with whom Pepys carried on a long association. Mary Mercer had been MrsPepys’s companion.

Up, and to the office, where sat all the morning; at noon home to dinner; and thence inhaste to carry my wife to see the new play I saw yesterday, she not knowing it. But there,contrary to expectation, find The Silent Woman, however, in; and there Knip came into thepit. I took her by me, and here we met with Mrs. Horsly, the pretty woman, anacquaintance of Mercer’s, whose house is burnt.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆I never was more taken with a play then I am with this Silent Woman, as old as it is—and

as often as I have seen it. There is more wit in it then goes to ten new plays, (viii, 168–9)

244

67.John Dryden’s Essay

1667

From Of Dramatick Poesie, An Essay. Published in August 1667, but dated 1668.There was a second edition in 1684, and a third in 1693.

This essay (seventy-two pages, outside of prefatory matter) was Dryden’s longestcritical piece, and the only one published separately. It takes the form of a dialoguebetween Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander, who have taken to the Thamesin a barge in early June 1665, to learn the result of a battle between the Dutch andEnglish navies. In the dedication to Charles Sackville (Lord Buckhurst), Drydenpresents the Essay as a contribution to the controversy on the use of verse in drama(see No. 71, below); in the dedication to the reader, the Essay is offered as avindication of English writers against the French, thus contributing to a differentcontroversy, begun with Samuel Sorbière’s attacks on the English drama in hisRelation d’un voyage en Angleterre (1664), and continued with Thomas Sprat’sObservations on Monsieur Sorbier’s Voyage into England (1665). On the Sorbière-Spratbackground for the Essay, see George Williamson, ‘The Occasion of An Essay ofDramatic Poesy’, in his Seventeenth Century Contexts (1960), pp. 272–88; and on theEssay in general, see Introduction, pp. 12–13.

[Crites is arguing for the superiority of the ancients.]

In the mean time I must desire you to take notice, that the greatest man of the last age(Ben. Johnson) was willing to give place to them in all things: He was not onely a professedImitator of Horace, but a learned Plagiary of all the others; you track him every where intheir Snow: If Horace, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal, had their own from him,there are few serious thoughts which are new in him; you will pardon me therefore if Ipresume he lov’d their fashion when he wore their cloaths. But since I have otherwise agreat veneration for him, and you, Eugenius, prefer him above all other Poets, I will use nofarther argument to you then his example: I will produce Father Ben. to you, dress’d in allthe ornaments and colours of the Ancients, you will need no other guide to our Party ifyou follow him; and whether you consider the bad Plays of our Age, or regard the goodones of the last, both the best and worst of the Modern Poets will equally instruct you toesteem the Ancients. (14–15)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Lisideius is arguing for the superiority of the modern French drama.]

I have taken notice but of one Tragedy of ours, whose Plot has that uniformity and unity ofdesign in it which I have commended in the French; and that is Rollo, or rather, under thename of Rollo, The Story of Bassianus and Geta in Herodian, there indeed the Plot is neitherlarge nor intricate, but just enough to fill the minds of the Audience not to cloy them.Besides, you see it founded upon the truth of History, onely the time of the action is notreduceable to the strictness of the Rules, and you see in some places a little farce mingled,which is below the dignity of the other parts; and in this all our Poets are extreamlypeccant, even Ben. Johnson himself in Sejanus and Catiline has given us this Oleo of a Play;this unnatural mixture of Comedy and Tragedy, which to me sounds just as ridiculously asthe History of David with the merry humours of Golia’s.1 In Sejanus you may take notice ofthe Scene betwixt Livia and the Physician, which is a pleasant Satyre upon the artificialhelps of beauty: In Catiline you may see the Parliament of Women; the little envies ofthem to one another; and all that passes betwixt Curio and Fulvia: Scenes admirable in theirkind, but of an ill mingle with the rest. (30–1)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Lisideius has quoted Horace (Ars Poetica, ll. 180–7) on the unsuitability of someactions for representation on stage.]

That is, those actions which by reason of their cruelty will cause aversion in us, or byreason of their impossibility unbelief, ought either wholly to be avoided by a Poet, oronely deliver’d by narration. To which, we may have leave to add such as to avoid tumult,(as was before hinted) or to reduce the Plot into a more reasonable compass of time, or fordefect of Beauty in them, are rather to be related then presented to the eye. Examples ofall these kinds are frequent, not onely among all the Ancients, but in the best receiv’d ofour English Poets. We find Ben. Johnson using them in his Magnetick Lady, where one comesout from Dinner, and relates the quarrels and disorders of it to save the undecentappearing of them on the Stage, and to abreviate the Story: and this in express imitation ofTerence, who had done the same before him in his Eunuch, where Pythias makes the likerelation of what had happen’d within at the Souldiers entertainment. The relationslikewise of Sejanus’s death, and the prodigies before it are remarkable; the one of whichwas hid from sight to avoid the horrour and tumult of the representation; the other toshun the introducing of things impossible to be believ’d. (34–5)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Neander is defending the modern English against the modern French drama, in replyto Lisideius.]

But of late years de Moliere, the Younger Corneille, Quinault, and some others, have beenimitating of afar off the quick turns and graces of the English Stage. They have mix’d theirserious Playes with mirth, like our Tragicomedies since the death of Cardinal Richlieu,which Lisideius and many others not observing, have commended that in them for a virtuewhich they themselves no longer practice. Most of their new Playes are like some of ours,deriv’d from the Spanish Novells. There is scarce one of them without a vail, and a trustyDiego, who drolls much after the rate of the Adventures. But their humours, if I may gracethem with that name, are so thin sown that never above one of them comes up in any Play:I dare take upon me to find more variety of them in some one Play of Ben. Johnsons then in

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all theirs together: as he who has seen the Alchymist, the silent Woman, or Bartholmew-Fair, cannot but acknowledge with me. (38)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆There is another part of Lisideius his Discourse, in which he has rather excus’d our

neighbours then commended them; that is, for aiming onely to make one personconsiderable in their Playes. ’Tis very true what he has urged, that one character in allPlayes, even without the Poets care, will have advantage of all the others; and that thedesign of the whole Drama will chiefly depend on it. But this hinders not that there may bemore shining characters in the Play: many persons of a second magnitude, nay, some sovery near, so almost equal to the first, that greatness may be oppos’d to greatness, and allthe persons be made considerable, not onely by their quality, but their action. ’Tisevident that the more the persons are, the greater will be the variety of the Plot. If thenthe parts are manag’d so regularly that the beauty of the whole be kept intire, and that thevariety become not a perplex’d and confus’d mass of accidents, you will find it infinitelypleasing to be led in a labyrinth of design, where you see some of your way before you, yetdiscern not the end till you arrive at it. And that all this is practicable, I can produce forexamples many of our English Playes: as the Maids Tragedy, the Alchymist, the SilentWoman; I was going to have named the Fox, but that the unity of design seems notexactly observ’d in it; for there appears two actions in the Play; the first naturally endingwith the fourth Act; the second forc’d from it in the fifth: which yet is the less to becondemn’d in him, because the disguise of Volpone, though it suited not with his characteras a crafty or covetous person, agreed well enough with that of a voluptuary: and by it thePoet gain’d the end he aym’d at, the punishment of Vice, and the reward of Virtue, whichthat disguise produc’d. So that to judge equally of it, it was an excellent fifth Act, but notso naturally proceeding from the former. (41–2)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆But for death, that it ought not to be represented, I have besides the Arguments

alledg’d by Lisideius, the authority of Ben. Johnson, who has forborn it in his Tragedies; forboth the death of Sejanus and Catiline are related: though in the latter I cannot but observeone irregularity of that great Poet: he has remov’d the Scene in the same Act, from Rometo Catiline’s Army, and from thence again to Rome; and besides, has allow’d a veryinconsiderable time, after Catilines Speech, for the striking of the battle, and the return ofPetreius, who is to relate the event of it to the Senate: which I should not animadvert uponhim, who was otherwise a painful observer of τ πρε•π ν, or the decorum of the Stage,if he had not us’d extream severity in his judgment upon the incomparable Shakespeare forthe same fault. (43)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Neander asserts the independence of the English drama of the French, and goes onto offer Epicoene as an example of a play as regular as any of the French, and yetwith more variety.]

For, if you consider the Plots, our own are fuller of variety, if the writing ours are morequick and fuller of spirit: and therefore ’tis a strange mistake in those who decry the wayof writing Playes in Verse, as if the English therein imitated the French. We haveborrow’d nothing from them; our Plots are weav’d in English Loomes: we endeavourtherein to follow the variety and greatness of characters which are deriv’d to us from

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Shakespeare and Fletcher: the copiousness and well-knitting of the intrigues we have fromJohnson, and for the Verse it self we have English Presidents of elder date then any of Corneille’sPlayes: (not to name our old Comedies before Shakespeare, which were all writ in verse ofsix feet, or Alexandrin’s, such as the French now use) I can show in Shakespeare, manyScenes of rhyme together, and the like in Ben. Johnsons Tragedies: In Catiline and Sejanussometimes thirty or forty lines; I mean besides the Chorus, or the Monologues, which bythe way, show’d Ben. no enemy to this way of writing, especially if you look upon his sadShepherd which goes sometimes upon rhyme, sometimes upon blanck verse, like anHorse who eases himself upon Trot and Amble. You find him likewise commendingFletcher’s Pastoral of the Faithful Shepherdess; which is for the most part Rhyme, thoughnot refin’d to that purity to which it hath since been brought: And these examples areenough to clear us from a servile imitation of the French.

But to return from whence I have digress’d, I dare boldly affirm these two things of theEnglish Drama: First, That we have many Playes of ours as regular as any of theirs; andwhich, besides, have more variety of Plot and Characters: And secondly, that in most ofthe irregular Playes of Shakespeare or Fletcher (for Ben. Johnson’s are for the most partregular) there is a more masculine fancy and greater spirit in all the writing, then there isin any of the French. I could produce even in Shakespeare’s and Fletcher’s Works, somePlayes which are almost exactly form’d; as the Merry Wives of Windsor, and the ScornfulLady: but because (generally speaking) Shakespeare, who writ first, did not perfectlyobserve the Laws of Comedy, and Fletcher, who came nearer to perfection, yet throughcarelesness made many faults; I will take the pattern of a perfect Play from Ben. Johnson, whowas a careful and learned observer of the Dramatique Lawes, and from all his Comedies Ishall select The Silent Woman; of which I will make a short Examen, according to thoseRules which the French observe.2

As Neander was beginning to examine the Silent Woman, Eugenius, looking earnestlyupon him; I beseech you Neander, said he, gratifie the company and me in particular so far,as before you speak of the Play, to give us a Character of the Authour; and tell us francklyyour opinion, whether you do not think all Writers, both French and English, ought togive place to him?

I fear, replied Neander, That in obeying your commands I shall draw a little envy uponmy self. Besides, in performing them, it will be first necessary to speak somewhat ofShakespeare and Fletcher, his Rivalls in Poesie; and one of them, in my opinion, at least hisequal, perhaps his superiour.

To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps AncientPoets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were stillpresent to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wantedlearning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn’d; he needed not thespectacles of Books to read Nature; he look’d inwards, and found her there. I cannot sayhe is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with thegreatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating intoclenches, his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some greatoccasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and didnot then raise himself as high above the rest of Poets.

Quantum lenta solent, inter viberna cupressi.3

The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton say, That there was no subject ofwhich any Poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better treated of in Shakespeare;

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and however others are now generally prefer’d before him, yet the Age wherein he liv’d,which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Johnson never equall’d them to him intheir esteem: And in the last Kings Court, when Ben’s reputation was at highest, Sir JohnSuckling, and with him the greater part of the Courtiers, set our Shakespeare far above him.

Beaumont and Fletcher of whom I am next to speak, had with the advantage ofShakespeare’s wit, which was their precedent, great natural gifts, improv’d by study. Beaumontespecially being so accurate a judge of Playes, that Ben. Johnson while he liv’d, submittedall his Writings to his Censure, and ’tis thought, us’d his judgement in correcting, if notcontriving all his Plots. What value he had for him, appears by the Verses he writ to him;and therefore I need speak no farther of it. The first Play which brought Fletcher and him inesteem was their Philaster: for before that, they had written two or three veryunsuccessfully: as the like is reported of Ben. Johnson, before he writ Every Man in hisHumour. Their Plots were generally more regular then Shakespeare’s, especially those whichwere made before Beaumont’s death; and they understood and imitated the conversation ofGentlemen much better; whose wilde debaucheries, and quickness of wit in reparties, noPoet can ever paint as they have done. This Humour of which Ben. Johnson deriv’d fromparticular persons, they made it not their business to describe: they represented all thepassions very lively, but above all, Love. I am apt to believe the English Language in themarriv’d to its highest perfection; what words have since been taken in, are rathersuperfluous then necessary. Their Playes are now the most pleasant and frequententertainments of the Stage; two of theirs being acted through the year for one ofShakespeare’s or Johnsons: the reason is, because there is a certain gayety in their Comedies,and Pathos in their more serious Playes, which suits generally with all mens humours.Shakespeares language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben. Johnson’s wit comes short oftheirs.

As for Johnson, to whose Character I am now arriv’d, if we look upon him while he washimself, (for his last Playes were but his dotages) I think him the most learned andjudicious Writer which any Theater ever had. He was a most severe Judge of himself aswell as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In hisworks you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and Language, and Humour also in somemeasure we had before him; but something of Art was wanting to the Drama till he came.He manag’d his strength to more advantage then any who preceded him. You seldomefind him making Love in any of his Scenes, or endeavouring to move the Passions; hisgenius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he cameafter those who had performed both to such an height. Humour was his proper Sphere,and in that he delighted most to represent Mechanick people. He was deeply conversantin the Ancients, both Greek and Latine, and he borrow’d boldly from them: there isscarce a Poet or Historian among the Roman Authours of those times whom he has nottranslated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his Robberies so openly, that one maysee he fears not to be taxed by any Law. He invades Authours like a Monarch, and what wouldbe theft in other Poets, is onely victory in him. With the spoils of these Writers he sorepresents old Rome to us, in its Rites, Ceremonies and Customs, that if one of their Poetshad written either of his Tragedies, we had seen less of it then in him. If there was anyfault in his Language, ’twas that he weav’d it too closely and laboriously in his seriousPlayes;4 perhaps too, he did a little to much Romanize our Tongue, leaving the wordswhich he translated almost as much Latine as he found them: wherein though he learnedlyfollowed the Idiom of their language, he did not enough comply with ours. If I wouldcompare him with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct Poet, but

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Shakespeare the greater wit. Shakespeare was the Homer, or Father of our Dramatick Poets;Johnson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I loveShakespeare. To conclude of him, as he has given us the most correct Playes, so in theprecepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries, we have as many and profitable Rulesfor perfecting the Stage as any wherewith the French can furnish us.

Having thus spoken of the Authour, I proceed to the examination of his Comedy, TheSilent Woman.

Examen of the Silent Woman.To begin first with the length of the Action, it is so far from exceeding the compass of a

Natural day, that it takes not up an Artificial one. ’Tis all included in the limits of threehours and an half, which is no more than is requir’d for the presentment on the Stage. Abeauty perhaps not much observ’d; if it had, we should not have look’d upon the SpanishTranslation of five hours with so much wonder. The Scene of it is laid in London; thelatitude of place is almost as little as you can imagine: for it lies all within the compass oftwo Houses, and after the first Act, in one. The continuity of Scenes is observ’d morethan in any of our Playes, excepting his own Fox and Alchymist. They are not brokenabove twice or thrice at most in the whole Comedy, and in the two best of Corneille’sPlayes, the Cid and Cinna, they are interrupted once apiece. The action of the Play is intirelyone; the end or aim of which is the setting Morose’s Estate on Dauphine. The Intrigue of itis the greatest and most noble of any pure unmix’d Comedy in any Language: you see in itmany persons of various characters and humours, and all delightful: As first, Morose, or anold Man, to whom all noise but his own talking is offensive. Some who would be thoughtCriticks, say this humour of his is forc’d: but to remove that objection, we may considerhim first to be naturally of a delicate hearing, as many are to whom all sharp sounds areunpleasant; and secondly, we may attribute much of it to the peevishness of his Age, orthe wayward authority of an old man in his own house, where he may make himselfobeyed; and this the Poet seems to allude to in his name Morose. Besides this, I am assur’dfrom diverse persons, that Ben. Johnson was actually acquainted with such a man, onealtogether as ridiculous as he is here represented. Others say it is not enough to find oneman of such an humour; it must be common to more, and the more common the morenatural. To prove this, they instance in the best of Comical Characters, Falstaff: There aremany men resembling him; Old, Fat, Merry, Cowardly, Drunken, Amorous, Vain, andLying: But to convince these people, I need but tell them, that humour is the ridiculousextravagance of conversation, wherein one man differs from all others. If then it be common,or communicated to many, how differs it from other mens? or what indeed causes it to beridiculous so much as the singularity of it? As for Falstaffe, he is not properly one humour,but a Miscellany of Humours or Images, drawn from so many several men; that whereinhe is singular in his wit, or those things he sayes, præter expectatum, unexpected by theAudience; his quick evasions when you imagine him surpriz’d, which as they areextreamly diverting of themselves, so receive a great addition from his person; for thevery sight of such an unwieldy old debauch’d fellow is a Comedy alone. And here having aplace so proper for it I cannot but enlarge somewhat upon this subject of humour intowhich I am fallen. The Ancients had little of it in their Comedies: for the ,5 ofthe old Comedy, of which Aristophanes was chief, was not so much to imitate a man, as tomake the people laugh at some odd conceit, which had commonly somewhat of unnaturalor obscene in it. Thus when you see Socrates brought upon the Stage, you are not toimagine him made ridiculous by the imitation of his actions, but rather by making himperform something very unlike himself: something so childish and absurd, as by

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comparing it with the gravity of the true Socrates, makes a ridiculous object for theSpectators. In their new Comedy which succeeded, the Poets sought indeed to express the

, as in their Tragedies the of Mankind. But this contain’d onely thegeneral Characters of men and manners: as old men, Lovers, Servingmen, Courtizans,Parasites, and such other persons as we see in their Comedies; all which they made alike:that is, one old man or Father; one Lover, one Courtizan so like another, as if the first ofthem had begot the rest of every sort; Ex homine hunc natum dicas.6 The same custome theyobserv’d likewise in their Tragedies. As for the French, though they have the word humeuramong them, yet they have small use of it in their Comedies, or Farces; they being but illimitations of the ridiculum, or that which stirr’d up laughter in the old Comedy. Butamong the English ’tis otherwise: where by humour is meant some extravagant habit,passion, or affection; particular (as I said before) to some one person: by the oddness ofwhich, he is immediately distinguish’d from the rest of men; which being lively andnaturally represented, most frequently begets that malicious pleasure in the Audiencewhich is testified by laughter: as all things which are deviations from common customesare ever the aptest to produce it: though by the way this laughter is onely accidental, asthe person represented is Fantastick or Bizarre; but pleasure is essential to it, as theimitation of what is natural. The description of these humours, drawn from theknowledge and observation of particular persons, was the peculiar genius and talent of Ben.Johnson; To whose Play I now return.

Besides Morose, there are at least 9 or 10 different Characters and humours in the SilentWoman, all which persons have several concernments of their own, yet are all us’d by thePoet, to the conducting of the main design to perfection. I shall not waste time incommending the writing of this Play, but I will give you my opinion, that there is morewit and acuteness of Fancy in it then in any of Ben. Johnson’s. Besides, that he has heredescrib’d the conversation of Gentlemen in the persons of True-Wit, and his Friends, withmore gayety, ayre and freedom, then in the rest of his Comedies. For the contrivance ofthe Plot ’tis extream elaborate, and yet withal easie; for the ,7 or untying of it, ’tisso admirable, that when it is done, no one of the Audience would think the Poet couldhave miss’d it; and yet it was conceald so much before the last Scene, that any other waywould sooner have enter’d into your thoughts. But I dare not take upon me to commendthe Fabrick of it, because it is altogether so full of Art, that I must unravel every Scene init to commend it as I ought. And this excellent contrivance is still the more to be admir’d,because ’tis Comedy where the persons are onely of common rank, and their businessprivate, not elevated by passions or high concernments as in serious Playes. Here everyone is a proper Judge of all he sees; nothing is represented but that with which he dailyconverses: so that by consequence all faults lie open to discovery, and few are pardonable.’Tis this which Horace has judiciously observ’d:

Creditor ex medio quia res arcessit habereSudoris minimum, sed habet Comedia tantoPlus oneris, quanto veniæ minus. —8

But our Poet, who was not ignorant of these difficulties, had prevail’d himself of alladvantages; as he who designes a large leap takes his rise from the highest ground. One ofthese advantages is that which Corneille has laid down as the greatest which can arrive toany Poem, and which he himself could never compass above thrice in all his Playes, viz.the making choice of some signal and long expected day, whereon the action of the Play isto depend. This day was that design’d by Dauphine for the selling of his Uncles Estate uponhim; which to compass he contrives to marry him: that the marriage had been plotted by

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him long beforehand is made evident by what he tells Truwit in the second Act, that in onemoment he had destroy’d what he had been raising many months.

There is another artifice of the poet, which I cannot here omit, because by the frequentpractice of it in his Comedies, he has left it to us almost as a Rule, that is, when he has anyCharacter or humour wherein he would show a Coup de Maistre, or his highest skill; herecommends it to your observation by a pleasant description of it before the person firstappears. Thus, in Bartholomew Fair he gives you the Pictures of Numps and Cokes, and in thisthose of Daw, Lafoole, Morose, and the Collegiate Ladies; all which you hear describ’d beforeyou see them. So that before they come upon the Stage you have a longing expectation ofthem, which prepares you to receive them favourably; and when they are there, even fromtheir first appearance you are so far acquainted with them, that nothing of their humour islost to you.

I will observe yet one thing further of this admirable Plot; the business of it rises inevery Act. The second is greater then the first; the third then the second, and so forwardto the fifth. There too you see, till the very last Scene, new difficulties arising to obstructthe action of the Play; and when the Audience is brought into despair that the business cannaturally be effected, then, and not before, the discovery is made. But that the Poet mightentertain you with more variety all this while, he reserves some new Characters to showyou, which he opens not till the second and third Act. In the second, Morose, Daw, theBarber and Otter, in the third the Collegiat Ladies: All which he moves afterwards in by-walks, or under-Plots, as diversions to the main design, least it should grow tedious,though they are still naturally joyn’d with it, and somewhere or other subservient to it.Thus, like a skilful Chest-player, by little and little he draws out his men, and makes hispawns of use to his greater persons.

If this Comedy, and some others of his, were translated into French Prose (whichwould now be no wonder to them, since Moliere has lately given them Playes out of Versewhich have not displeas’d them) I believe the controversie would soon be decided betwixtthe two Nations, even making them the Judges. But we need not call our Hero’s to ourayde; Be it spoken to the honour of the English, our Nation can never want in any Agesuch who are able to dispute the Empire of Wit with any people in the Universe. Andthough the fury of a Civil War, and Power, for twenty years together, abandon’d to abarbarous race of men, Enemies of all good Learning, had buried the Muses under theruines of Monarchy; yet with the restoration of our happiness, we see reviv’d Poesielifting up its head, & already shaking off the rubbish which lay so heavy on it. We haveseen since His Majesties return, many Dramatick Poems which yield not to those of anyforreign Nation, and which deserve all Lawrels but the English. (46–56)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Crites discusses the idea that rhyme is a necessary check on a luxuriant imagination.]

In our own language we see Ben. Johnson confining himself to what ought to be said, evenin the liberty of blank Verse; and yet Comeille, the most judicious of the French Poets, isstill varying the same sence an hundred wayes, and dwelling eternally upon the samesubject, though confin’d by Rhyme. (60)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Neander defends rhymed verse in drama.]

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And this, Sir, calls to my remembrance the beginning of your discourse, where you toldus we should never find the Audience favourable to this kind of writing, till we couldproduce as good Playes in Rhyme, as Ben. Johnson, Fletcher, and Shakespeare, had writ out ofit. But it is to raise envy to the living, to compare them with the dead. They are honour’d,and almost ador’d by us, as they deserve; neither do I know any so presumptuous ofthemselves as to contend with them. Yet give me leave to say thus much without injury totheir Ashes, that not onely we shall never equal them, but they could never equalthemselves, were they to rise and write again. We acknowledge them our Fathers in wit,but they have ruin’d their Estates themselves before they came to their childrens hands.There is scarce an Humour, Character, or any kind of Plot, which they have not blownupon: all comes sullied or wasted to us: and were they to entertain this Age, they couldnot make so plenteous treatments out of such decay’d Fortunes. This therefore will be agood Argument to us either not to write at all, or to attempt some other way. There is nobayes to be expected in their Walks; Tentanda via est quà me quoque possum tollere humo.9

This way of writing in Verse, they have onely left free to us; our age is arriv’d to aperfection in it, which they never knew; and which (if we may guess by what of theirs wehave seen in Verse (as the Faithful Shepherdess, and Sad Shepherd:) ’tis probable they nevercould have reach’d. For the Genius of every Age is different; and though ours excel in this,I deny not but that to imitate Nature in that perfection which they did in Prose, is greatercommendation then to write in verse exactly. (64–5)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆And for your instance of Ben Johnson, who you say, writ exactly without the help of

Rhyme; you are to remember ’tis onely an aid to a luxuriant Fancy, which his was not: Ashe did not want imagination, so none ever said he had much to spare. Neither was versethen refin’d so much to be an help to that Age as it is to ours. Thus then the secondthoughts being usually the best, as receiving the maturest digestion from judgment, andthe last and most mature product of those thoughts being artful and labour’d verse, it maywell be inferr’d, that verse is a great help to a luxuriant Fancy, and this is what thatArgument which you oppos’d was to evince. (72)

NOTES

1 I.e. Golias, a mythical medieval creator of satirical and licentious verses.2 In 1660 Corneille had published his Theatre with three Discours (on the usefulness of drama,

on tragedy, and on the three unities) and with Examens (brief individual discussions of hisplays). See Pierre Corneille, Writings on the Theatre, ed. H.T.Barnwell (Oxford 1965).

3 ‘As cypresses oft do among the bending osiers’: Virgil, Eclogues, 1. 25.4 Altered in 1684 to ‘in his Comedies especially’.5 ‘The ridiculous’.6 ‘You call this one a human being?’: Terence, Eunuch, l. 460.7 Corrected in 1684 to ‘λσις’. 8 ’Tis thought that Comedy, drawing its themes from daily, life, calls for less labour; but in

truth it carries a heavier burden, as the indulgence allowed is less’: Horace, Epistles, 2.1.168–70.

9 ‘I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth’: Virgil, Georgics, 3.8–9.

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254

68.John Dryden makes Shakespeare monarch over

Fletcher and Jonson1667

Dryden’s prologue to The Tempest: or The Enchanted Island, adapted by Davenant andhimself from Shakespeare’s play; first performed at court in November 1667, andpublished in 1670.

As when a Tree’s cut down the secret rootLives under ground, and thence new Branches shootSo, from old Shakespear’s honour’d dust, this daySprings up and buds a new reviving Play.Shakespear, who (taught by none) did first impartTo Fletcher Wit, to labouring Johnson Art.He Monarch-like gave those his subjects law,And is that Nature which they paint and drawFletcher reach’d that which on his heights did grow,Whilst Johnson crept and gather’d all below.This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest:One imitates him most, the other best.If they have since out-writ all other men,’Tis with the drops which fell from Shakespear’s Pen.The Storm which vanish’d on the Neighb’ring shore,Was taught by Shakespear’s Tempest first to roar.That innocence and beauty which did smileIn Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.But Shakespear’s Magick could not copy’d be,Within that Circle none durst walk but he.I must confess ’twas bold, nor would you now,That liberty to vulgar Wits allow,Which works by Magick supernatural things;But Shakespear’s pow’r is sacred as a King’s.Those Legends from old Priest-hood were receiv’d,And he then writ, as people then believ’d:But, if for Shakespear we your grace implore,We for our Theatre shall want it moreWho by our dearth of Youths are forc’d t’employOne of our Women to present a Boy.

And that’s a transformation you will sayExceeding all the Magick in the Play.Let none expect in the last Act to find,Her Sex transform’d from man to Woman-kind.What e’re she was before the Play began,All you shall see of her is perfect man.Or if your fancy will be farther led,To find her Woman, it must be abed. (Sig. [A4]r)

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69.John Dryden, Jonson’s borrowings

1668

‘Prologue to Albumazar’, for a revival of Thomas Tomkis’s Albumazar at theLincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, 22 February 1668. Printed in Covent Garden Drollery(1672); this text from the reissue of that work, also published in 1672.

There had been earlier accusations of the indebtedness of The Alchemist toTomkis’s play (see H & S, ii, 96n), but The Alchemist was performed in 1612, beforethe first performance of Albumazar (1614). Dryden’s lines are valuable none the lessfor his favourable comparison between Jonson’s borrowings and the far moreruthless plagiaries by authors of Dryden’s own day.

To say this Commedy pleas’d long a go,Is not enough, to make it pass you now:Yet gentlemen, your Ancestors had witt,When few men censurd, and fewer writ.And Johnson, of those few, the best chose this,And the best modell of his master piece;Subtle was got by our Albumazar,That Alchemist by this Astrologer.Here he was fashion’d, and I should suppose,He likes my fashion well, that wears my Cloaths.But Ben made nobly his, what he did mould,What was anothere’s Lead, became his Gold;Like an unrighteous Conquerer he raigns,Yet rules that well, which he unjustly gains.But this our age such Authors does afford,As make whole Playes, and yet scarce write a word:Who in this Anarchy of witt, rob all,And what’s their Plunder, their Possession call.Who like bold Padders scorn by night to prey,But Rob Sun-shine in the face of day;Who scarce the common Ceremony use,Of stand, Sir, and deliver up your Muse.But knock the Poet down; and, with a grace,Mount Pegasus before the owners Face. (ll. 1–24; p. 87)

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258

70.Thomas Shadwell on Jonson’s humour comedy

1668

From the preface to Shadwell’s The Sullen Lovers (1668). The dedication to theDuke of Newcastle is dated 1 September.

The comic dramatist Shadwell (1641–92) succeeded Dryden as poet laureate in1688. He identified himself as a follower of Jonson throughout his career, as hereand in No. 77, below. See Introduction, pp. 15–16. In No. 72(b), below, Pepysreports Shadwell’s admiration for The Silent Woman.

The dramatis personae of The Sullen Lovers includes Sir Positive At-All, a caricatureof Sir Robert Howard, and the poet Ninny, a caricature of the Hon. EdwardHoward, brother of Sir Robert, and author of Nos 78, 79, 84, and 89, below. InAct I, Sir Positive is reported as confiding to the hero Stanford his discovery of ‘twoPlays, that betwixt you and I have a great deal of Wit in e’m; Those are, the SilentWoman, and the Scornful Lady [by Beaumont and Fletcher]— And if I understandany thing in the World, there’s Wit enough, in both those, to make one good Play,If I had the management of e’m’ (p. 6). In Act V, Sir Positive quotes Catiline toNinny: ‘I’le plow up rocks steep as the Alps in dust, and lave the Tyrrhene Watersinto Clouds (as my friend Cateline sayes)’; Ninny responds by quoting Hotspur fromHenry IV, Part 1: ‘I’le pluck bright honour from the pale fac’d Moon (as my friendHot-spur sayes)’ (p. 72 (really p. 80)).

I have endeavour’d to represent variety of Humours (most of the persons of the Playdiffering in their Characters from one another) which was the practise of Ben Johnson,whom I think all Drammatick Poets ought to imitate, though none are like to come near;he being the onely person that appears to me to have made perfect Representations ofHumane Life: most other Authors that I ever read, either have wilde Romantick Tales,wherein they strein Love and Honour to that Ridiculous height, that it becomesBurlesque: or in their lower Comœdies content themselves with one or two Humours atmost, and those not near so perfect Characters as the admirable Johnson alwayes made,who never wrote Comedy without seven or eight considerable Humours. I never saw oneexcept that of Falstaffe that was in my judgment comparable to any of Johnson’sconsiderable Humours: You will pardon this digression when I tell you he is the man, ofall the World, I most passionately admire for his Excellency in Drammatick-Poetry.

Though I have known some of late so Insolent to say, that Ben Johnson wrote his bestPlayes without Wit; imagining, that all the Wit in Playes consisted in bringing two personsupon the Stage to break Jests, and to bob one another, which they call Repartie, not

considering that there is more wit and invention requir’d in the finding out good Humor,and Matter proper for it, then in all their smart reparties. For, in the Writing of a Humor,a Man is confin’d not to swerve from the Character, and oblig’d to say nothing but what isproper to it: but in the Playes which have been wrote of late, there is no such thing asperfect Character, but the two chief persons are most commonly a Swearing, Drinking,Whoring, Ruffian for a Lover, and an impudent ill-bred tomrig for a Mistress, and theseare the fine people of the Play; and there is that Latitude in this, that almost any thing isproper for them to say; but their chief Subject is bawdy, and profaness, which they callbrisk writing, when the most dissolute of Men, that rellish those things well enough inprivate, are chok’d at e’m in publick: and, methinks, if there were nothing but the illManners of it, it should make Poets avoid that Indecent way of Writing. (Sig. a2r-v)

260 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

71.John Dryden cites Jonson in the controversy over

rhymed drama1668

From ‘A Defence of An Essay of Dramatique Poesy, being an Answer to thePreface of The Great Favourite, or the Duke of Lerma’. Included at the beginning of somecopies of the second edition of Dryden’s The Indian Emperour, Or, The Conquest ofMexico by the Spaniards (1668); it does not appear in subsequent editions. Pepys hada copy of the second edition by 20 September (Diary, ix, 311).

Dryden’s essay is a reply to Sir Robert Howard’s defence of blank verse againstrhyme in his preface to The Great Favourite, Or, the Duke of Lerma (1668). It isDryden’s last word in the controversy with his brother-in-law, begun in Dryden’sdedication to The Rival Ladies (1664), continued in Howard’s preface to Four NewPlays (1665) and in Dryden’s Essay of 1667 (on the quarrel, see H.J.Oliver, SirRobert Howard (1626–1698) (Durham, NC 1963), pp. 88–120). Jonson is listed inthe essay (p. 13) among the ‘heroes’ who have dictated laws for the drama—Howard had suggested this was an impossibility—and Jonson’s practice in Catilineis cited to show the dangers of breaking the unity of place: ‘If Ben. Johnson himselfwill remove the Scene from Rome into Tuscany in the same Act, and from thencereturn to Rome, in the Scene which immediately follows; reason will consider thereis no proportionable allowance of time to perform the journey, and therefore willchuse to stay at home’ (pp. 17–18).

[Replying to Howard’s argument that prose dialogue in plays makes for greaterverisimilitude than verse. The ‘verse’ Jonson sometimes ascends to must berhyme.]

But I will be bolder, and do not doubt to make it good, though a Paradox, that one greatreason why Prose is not to be us’d in serious plays, is because it is too near the nature ofconverse: there may be too great a likeness; as the most skilful Painters affirm, that theremay be too near a resemblance in a Picture: to take every lineament and feature is not tomake an excellent piece, but to take so much only as will make a beautiful Resemblanceof the whole; and, with an ingenious flattery of Nature, to heighten the beauties of someparts, and hide the deformities of the rest. For so says Horace,

Ut pictura Poesis erit, etc….Hæc amat obscurum, vult hæc sub luce videri,Judicis argutum quæ non formidat acumen.…Et quæ

Desperat, tractata nitescere posse, relinquit.1

In Bartholomew-Fair, or the Lowest kind of Comedy, that degree of heightning is used,which is proper to set off that Subject: ‘tis true the Author was not there to go out ofProse, as he does in his higher Arguments of Comedy, The Fox and Alchymist; yet he does soraise his matter in that Prose, as to render it delightful; which he could never haveperformed, had he only said or done those very things that are daily spoken or practised inthe Fair: for then the Fair itself would be as full of pleasure to an ingenious person as the Play;which we manifestly see it is not. But he hath made an excellent Lazar of it; the Copy is ofprice, though the Original be vile. You see in Catiline and Sejanus, where the Argument isgreat, he sometimes ascends to Verse, which shews he thought it not unnatural in seriousPlays: and had his Genius been as proper for Rhyme, as it was for Humour; or had theAge in which he liv’d, attained to as much knowledge in Verse, as ours, ‘tis probable hewould have adorn’d those Subjects with that kind of Writing. (6–7)

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[Howard had argued against observing the unity of time in plays.]

In few words my own opinion is this, (and I willingly submit it to my Adversary, when hewill please impartially to consider it,) that the imaginary time of every Play ought to becontrived into as narrow a compass, as the nature of the Plot, the quality of the Persons,and variety of Accidents will allow. In Comedy I would not exceed 24 or 30 hours: forthe Plot, Accidents, and Persons of Comedy are small, and may be naturally turn’d in alittle compass: But in Tragedy the Design is weighty, and the Persons great, thereforethere will naturally be required a greater space of time in which to move them. And this,though Ben. Johnson has not told us, yet ’tis manifestly his opinion: for you see that to hisComedies he allows generally but 24 hours; to his two Tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, a muchlarger time: though he draws both of them into as narrow a compass as he can: For heshews you only the latter end of Sejanus his Favour, and the Conspiracy of Catiline alreadyripe, and just breaking out into action.

But as it is an errour on the one side, to make too great a disproportion betwixt theimaginary time of the Play, and the real time of its representation; so on the other side,’tis an oversight to compress the accidents of a Play into a narrower compass than that inwhich they could naturally be produc’d. Of this last errour the French are seldom guilty,because the thinness of their Plots prevents them from it: but few English men, exceptBen. Johnson, have ever made a Plot with variety of design in it, included in 24 hours whichwas altogether natural. For this reason, I prefer the Silent Woman before all other Plays, Ithink justly, as I do its Author in Judgment, above all other Poets. Yet of the two, I thinkthat errour the most pardonable, which in too strait a compass crowds together manyaccidents, since it produces more variety, and consequently more pleasure to theAudience; and because the nearness of proportion betwixt the imaginary and real timedoes speciously cover the compression of the Accidents. (19–20)

NOTE

1 ‘A poem is like a picture…. This courts the shade, that will wish to be seen in the light, anddreads not the critical insight of the judge…and what [the poet] fears he cannot makeattractive with his touch he abandons’: Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 361, 363–4, 149–50.

262 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

72.Samuel Pepys on Bartholomew Fair, Epicoene, Catiline,

and The Alchemist1668–9

Text from the Latham and Matthews edition of the Diary.

(a) From the entry for 4 September 1668: on a performance of Bartholomew Fair by theKing’s Company at the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street.

Will Hewer (1642–1715) was a naval official and merchant, and the executor ofPepys’s will. ‘Deb’ is Deborah Willet, Mrs Pepys’s companion.

Up, and met at the office all the morning; and at noon, my wife and Deb and Mercerand W.Hewer to the Fair, and there at the old house did eat a pig, and was pretty merry;but saw no sights, my wife having a mind to see the play, Bartholomew fayre with puppets;which we did, and it is an excellent play; the more I see it, the more I love the wit of it;only, the business of abusing the puritans begins to grow stale, and of no use, they beingthe people that at last will be found the wisest. And here Knipp came to us and sat withus, and thence took coach in two coaches; and losing one another, my wife and Knipp andI to Hercules-Pillars and there supped, and I did take from her both the words and notes ofthe song of the Larke, which pleases me mightily. (ix, 299)

(b) From the entry for 19 September 1668: on a performance of Epicoene by theKing’s Company at the Theatre Royal.

Mrs Knepp acted the part of Epicoene. William, second Viscount Brouncker, was amathematician, the first President of the Royal Society, and at this time one of theNavy Commissioners.

Up, and to the office, where all the morning busy; and so dined with my people at home,and then to the King’s playhouse and there saw The Silent Woman; the best comedy, I think,that was ever wrote; and sitting by Shadwell the poet, he was big with admiration of it.Here was my Lord Brouncker and W.Penn and their ladies in the box, being grownmighty kind of a sudden—but God knows, it will last but a little while, I dare swear.Knepp did her part mighty well; and so home straight and to write; and perticularly to myCosen Roger, who, W Hewers and my wife writes me, doth use them with mighty plentyand noble entertainment, (ix, 310)

(c) From the entry for 19 December 1668: on a performance of Catiline by theKing’s Company at the Theatre Royal. Sir Philip Howard was Captain of the King’sLifeguard and an MP. Earlier entries record talk that Catiline is to be put on at theKing’s House (Diary, viii, 569); that it cannot succeed for want of good actors andin particular because of the insufficiency of Nicholas Burt for the part of Cicero,and that the king is to give the company £ 500 for costumes, ‘there being, as theysay, to be sixteen scarlett robes’ (Diary, viii, 575); and that the performance will beheld up for some time for want of the clothes the king had promised (Diary, ix,20). In the month after the performance Pepys reports court gossip about LadyHarvey’s fury at being imitated by Mrs Corey in the part of Sempronia; ‘for whichshe got my Lord Chamberlain, her kinsman, to imprison Doll [i.e. Mrs Corey, wellknown for her acting of Doll Common in The Alchemist]; which my LadyCastlemayne made the King to release her, and to order her to act it again worse thenever the other day where the King himself was. And, since, it was acted again, andmy Lady Harvy provided people to hiss her and fling oranges at her’ (Diary, ix,415). H & S, ix, 241, note that the performance Pepys describes below includes a‘fight’ for which there is no warrant in the text. Pepys mentions reading Catiline ina diary entry for 18 December 1664, where he calls it ‘a very excellent piece’(Diary, v, 349). He later set Catiline’s first soliloquy from the play to music as arecitative (Diary, v, 349n).

Up, and to the office, where all the morning; and at noon, eating very little dinner, mywife and I by hackney to the King’s playhouse and there, the pit being full, sat in a boxabove and saw Catetin’s Conspiracy—yesterday being the first day—a play of much goodsense and words to read, but that doth appear the worst upon the stage, I mean the leastdivertising, that ever I saw any, though most fine in clothes and a fine Scene of the Senateand of a fight, that ever I saw in my life—but the play is only to be read. And thereforehome with no pleasure at all, but only in sitting next to Betty Hall, that did belong to thisHouse and was Sir Ph. Howard’s mistress; a mighty pretty wench, though my wife willnot think so, and I dare neither commend nor be seen to look upon her or any other now,for fear of offending her. (ix, 395–6)

(d) From the entry for 17 April 1669: on a performance of The Alchemist by theKing’s Company at the Theatre Royal.

James Pearse was the leading naval surgeon of the day and a close friend of Pepys’s.Walter Clun, a leading actor of the King’s Company, had been murdered afterappearing in The Alchemist, on 2 August 1664; Pepys had recorded the fact in hisdiary for 4 August 1664, noting that his performance as Subtle ‘was one of his bestparts that he acts’ (Diary, v, 232). Pepys records seeing two performances of theplay at the Vere Street theatre in 1661 (22 June and 14 August) On 22 June hecalled it ‘a most incomparable play’ (Diary, ii, 125).

…At noon home to dinner, and there find Mr. Pierce the surgeon, and he dined with us;and there hearing that The Alchymist was acted, we did go and took him with us, at theKing’s House; and is still a good play, it having not been acted for two or three yearsbefore; but I do miss Clun for the Doctor—but more, my eyes will not let me enjoy the

264 BEN JONSON

pleasure I used to have in a play. Thence with my wife in hackney to Sir W.Coventry’s….(ix, 522–3)

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 265

266

73.Clarendon on Jonson’s talents and achievements

1668–70

From Clarendon’s autobiography, Life of Edward, Earle of Clarendon, in BodleianLibrary MS Clarendon 123.

Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon (1609–74) was the greatest royaliststatesman of his century and author of The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars inEngland (first published in 1704). He wrote an autobiography in 1668–70 while inexile in France, which was first published in 1759 as The Life of Edward Earl ofClarendon. His association with Jonson was probably in the years 1629 to 1632(R.W.Harris, Clarendon and the English Revolution (1983), p. 6).

Whilst he was only a student of the law, and stoode at gaze and irresolute what course oflife to take, his chiefe acquaintance were Ben Johnson, John Selden, Charles Cotton, JohnVaughan, Sir Kellum Digby, Thomas May and Tho: Carew, and some otheres of eminentfacultyes in there several wayes: Ben Johnsons name can never be forgotten, havinge byhis very good learninge, and the severity of his nature, and manners, very much reformedthe Stage & indeede the English poetry it selfe; his naturall advantages were judgement toorder and governe fancy, rather than excesse of fancy, his productions being slow andupon deliberacion, yett then aboundinge with greate witt and fancy, and will lyveaccordingly, and surely as he did exceedingly exalte the english language, in eloquence,propriety, and masculyne expressions, so was he the best judge of, and fittest to prescriberules to poetry and poetts, of any man who had lyved with him or before him, or since, ifMr Cowly had not made a flight beyounde all men, with that modesty yett to own muchof his to the example and learninge of Ben. Johnson: His conversation was very good andwith the men of most note, and he had for many yeares an extraordinary kindnesse for MrHyde, till he found he betooke himselfe to businesse, which he believed ought never to bepreferred before his company: He lyved to be very old, and till the Palsy made a deepeimpression upon his body and his minde…. (48)

268

74.Charles Sackville, epilogue to an Every Man in his

Humour revival1670

Epilogue by Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset, to a revival of the play. A date for theperformance of March 1670 is suggested in LS, Part i, p. 169. The epilogue wasfirst printed (without attribution) in A Collection of Poems, Written upon SeveralOccasions, By several Persons (1672); it is attributed to Sackville in Helen A.Bagley, ‘AChecklist of the Poems of Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset and Middlesex’,Modern Language Notes (1932), xlvii, 454–61.

Sackville (1638–1706) was a member of the Wits and a patron of a number ofwriters including Dryden. ‘Mr. Matthew’ in the poem is Matthew Medbourne, forwhose translation of Tartuffe (performed by the same company, probably in May1670) Dorset also wrote an epilogue (LS, Part i, p. 170). The Bold Beauchamps is a lostplay attributed to Thomas Heywood; the other play referred to is evidentlyHeywood’s The Four Prentices of London.

Intreaty shall not serve, nor violence,To make me speak in such a Playes defence.A Play where Wit and Humour do agreeTo break all practis’d Laws of Comedy.The Scene (what more absurd) in England lies,No Gods descend, nor dancing Devils rise;No captive Prince from nameless Country broughtNo battel, nay, there’s not a duel fought;And something yet more sharply might be said,But I consider the poor Author’s dead;Let that be his excuse—Now for our own,Why—Faith, in my opinion, we need none.The parts were fitted well; but some will say,Pox on’em Rogues, what made’em choose this Play?I do not doubt but you will credit me,It was not choice, but meer necessity;To all our writing friends, in Town, we sent,But not a Wit durst venture out in Lent;Have patience but till Easter Term, and thenYou shall have Jigg, and Hobby-horse agen.Here’s Mr. Matthew, our domestique Wit,

Does promise one of the ten Plays h’as writ;But since great bribes weigh nothing with the just,Know, we have merits, and in them we trust:When any Fasts, or Holy-days, deferThe publick labours of the Theatre,We ride not forth, although the day be fair,On ambling Tit to take the Suburb air,But with our Authors meet, and spend that timeTo make up quarrels between sence and rhyme.Wednesdays and Fridays constantly we sateTill after many a long and free debate,For divers weighty reasons ’twas thought fit,Unruly sence shu’d still to rhyme submit.This the most wholesome Law we ever made,So strictly in this Epilogue obey’d,Sure no man here will ever dare to break.Enter Johnson’s Ghost.

Hold, and give way, for I my self will speak;Can you encourage so much insolence,And add new faults still to the great offenceYour Ancestors so rashly did commitAgainst the mighty powers of Art and Wit?When they condemn’d those noble works of mine,Sejanus, and my best lov’d Cataline:Repent, or on your guilty heads shall fallThe curse of many a rhyming Pastoral:The three bold Beauchamps shall revive again,And with the London-Prentice conquer Spain.All the dull follies of the former ageShall rise and find applause upon this Stage.But if you pay the great arrears of praise,So long since due to my much injur’d Plays,From all past crimes I first will set you free,And then inspire some one to write like me. (29–32)

270 BEN JONSON

75.Richard Flecknoe answers Dryden on Jonson

1670–1

‘Former Playes and Poets vindicated’, in Book iv of Flecknoe’s Epigrams. Of all sorts,Made at Several Times, on Several Occasions (1671).

This poem started life as ‘Of the difference Betwixt the Ancient and ModernPlayes’ in the first edition of Flecknoe’s Epigrams of all Sorts (1670), whichconcluded by commenting on how ‘hard ’tis now for any one to write/WithJohnson’s fire, or Fletcher’s flame & spright: /Much less inimitable Shakspears way, /Promethian-like to animate a Play’ (p. 72). The second edition has an expandedversion, printed below, and a preface to its fourth book lamenting modernplaywrights who ‘instead of neatly and closely plotting’ their plays like ‘our greatMasters’, leave ‘nothing but loose ends and Thrums’ (p. 49). The new version seemsdirected at Dryden in particular, though it continues a line of argument alreadypresent in No. 62, above.

In former times none ever went awayBut with a glowing bosom from a Play,With somewhat they had heard, or seen, so fir’d,You’d think they were celestially inspir’d:Now, we have only a few light conceits,Like Squibs and Crackers, neither warms nor heats,And sparks of wit, as much as you’d desire,But nothing of a true and solid fire.So few w’ave now a dayes know how to writewith Johnsons fire, and Fletchers flame and sprite,Much less inimitable Shakespears way,Promethian-like to animate play,Compar’d to whom, for moving passion,There’s none know how to do’t now they are gon;And this for learned Johnson I shall say,As few know, now he’s gone, to plot a Play.And though for th’ writing, Criticks wont allow,Their Times as witty were, as ours are now.Yet know, who e’r thou art, dost less esteemOf Johnson for the faults oth’ Times, not him,Had he writ now, h’ad better writ than thee,

Hadst thou writ then, th’adst writ far worse than he;And all in spight of Envy must confess,If he be’nt worthy praise, others much less. (51–2)

272 BEN JONSON

76.John Dryden explains his view of Jonson

1671

From the preface to the first edition of An Evening’s Love, or The Mock-Astrologer(1671). The play was first performed in 1668; it was first published in February1671 (Hugh Macdonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography of Early Editions and Drydeniana(Oxford 1939), p. 107).

In the dedication of the play to the Duke of Newcastle, Dryden pays tribute toNewcastle’s earlier patronage of Jonson and Davenant, declaring himself ‘proud tobe their Remembrancer’ (Sig. A3v). In the preface, printed below, Dryden repliesto Shadwell’s protest in his preface to The Sullen Lovers (No. 70, above).

I had thought, Reader, in this Preface to have written somewhat concerning the differencebetwixt the Playes of our Age, and those of our Predecessors on the English Stage: to haveshown in what parts of Dramatick Poesie we were excell’d by Ben. Johnson, I mean,humour, and contrivance of Comedy; and in what we may justly claim precedence ofShakespear and Fletcher, namely in Heroick Playes: but this design I have wav’d on secondconsiderations; at least deferr’d it till I publish the Conquest of Granada, where thediscourse will be more proper. I had also prepar’d to treat of the improvement of ourLanguage since Fletcher’s and Johnson’s dayes, and consequently of our refining theCourtship, Raillery, and Conversation of Playes: but as I am willing to decline that envywhich I shou’d draw on my self from some old Opinionatre judges of the Stage; solikewise I am prest in time so much that I have not leisure, at present, to go thorough withit. (Sig. A4r)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Dryden says he will defend even the purely crowd-pleasing things in his play.]

Yet I think it no vanity to say that this Comedy has as much of entertainment in it as manyother[s] which have bin lately written: and, if I find my own errors in it, I am able at thesame time to arraign all my Contemporaries for greater. As I pretend not that I can writehumour, so none of them can reasonably pretend to have written it as they ought. Johnsonwas the only man of all Ages and Nations who has perform’d it well, and that but in threeor four of his Comedies: the rest are but a Crambe bis cocta1; the same humours a littlevary’d and written worse: neither was it more allowable in him, than it is in our presentPoets, to represent the follies of particular Persons; of which many have accus’d him.

Parcere personis dicere de vitiis2 is the rule of Plays. And Horace tells you that the old Comedyamongst the Grecians was silenc’d for the too great liberties of the Poets.

————In vitium libertas excidit & vimDignam lege regi: lex est accepta chorusqueTurpiter obticuit, sublato jure nocendi.3

Of which he gives you the reason in another place: where having given the precept.Neve immunda crepent, ignominiosaque dicta:He immediately subjoyns,Offenduntur enim, quibus est equus, & pater, & res.4

But Ben. Johnson is to be admir’d for many excellencies; and can be tax’d with fewerfailings than any English Poet. I know I have been accus’d as an enemy of his writings; butwithout any other reason than that I do not admire him blindly, without looking into hisimperfections. For why should he only be exempted from those frailties, from whichHomer and Virgil are not free? Or why should there be any ipse dixit5 in our Poetry, any morethan there is in our Philosophy? I admire and applaud him where I ought: those who domore do but value themselves in their admiration of him: and, by telling you they extollBen. Johnson’s way, would insinuate to you that they can practice it. For my part I declarethat I want judgement to imitate him: and shou’d think it a great impudence in myself toattempt it. To make men appear pleasantly ridiculous on the Stage was, as I have said, histalent: and in this he needed not the acumen of wit, but that of judgement. For thecharacters and representations of folly are only the effects of observation; and observationis an effect of judgement. Some ingenious men, for whom I have a particular esteem, havethought I have much injur’d Ben. Johnson when I have not allow’d his wit to beextraordinary: but they confound the notion of what is witty with what is pleasant. ThatBen. Johnson’s Playes were pleasant he must want reason who denyes: But that pleasantnesswas not properly wit, or the sharpness of conceit; but the natural imitation of folly: whichI confess to be excellent in it’s kind, but not to be of that kind which they pretend. Yet ifhe will believe Quintilian in his Chapter de Movendo risu, he gives his opinion of both inthese following words. Stulta reprehendere facillimum est; nam per se sunt ridicula: & a derisunon procul abest risus: sed rent urbanam fecit aliqua ex nobis adjectio.6

And some perhaps wou’d be apt to say of Johnson as it was said of Demosthenes; Nondisplicuisse illi jocos, sed non contigisse,7 I will not deny but that I approve most the mixt wayof Comedy; that which is neither all wit, nor all humour, but the result of both. Neitherso little of humour as Fletcher shews, nor so little of love and wit, as Johnson. Neither allcheat, with which the best playes of the one are fill’d nor all adventure, which is thecommon practice of the other. I would have the characters well chosen, and kept distantfrom interfaring with each other; which is more than Fletcher or Shakespear did: but Iwould have more of the Urbana, venusta, salsa, faceta8 and the rest which Quintilian reckonsup as the ornaments of wit; and these are extremely wanting in Ben. Johnson. As forrepartie in particular; as it is the very soul of conversation, so it is the greatest grace ofComedy, where it is proper to the Characters: there may be much of acuteness in a thingwell said; but there is more in a quick reply: sunt, enim, longe venustiora omnia in respondendoquam in provocando9. Of one thing I am sure, that no man will ever decry wit, but he whodespairs of it himself; and who has no other quarrel to it but that which the Fox had to theGrapes. Yet, as Mr Cowley, (who had a greater portion of it than any man I know) tells usin his Character of Wit, rather than all wit let there be none;10 I think there’s no folly sogreat in any Poet of our Age as the superfluity and wast of wit was in some of ourpredecessors: particularly we may say of Fletcher and of Shakespear, what was said of Ovid,

274 BEN JONSON

In omni eius ingenio, facilius quod rejici, quam quod adjici potest, invenies.11 The contrary ofwhich was true in Virgil and our incomparable Johnson.

Some enemies of Repartie have observ’d to us, that there is a great latitude in theirCharacters, which are made to speak it: And that it is easier to write wit than humour;because in the characters of humour, the Poet is confin’d to make the person speak whatis only proper to it. Whereas all kind of wit is proper in the Character of a witty person.But, by their favour, there are as different characters in wit as in folly. Neither is all kindof wit proper in the mouth of every ingenious person. A witty Coward and a witty Bravemust speak differently. Falstaffe and the Lyar,12 speak not like Don John in the Chances, andValentine in Wit without Money.13 And Johnson’s Truwit in the Silent Woman, is a Characterdifferent from all of them. Yet it appears that this one Character of Wit was more difficultto the Author, than all his images of humour in the Play; For those he could describe andmanage from his observation of men; this he has taken, at least a part of it, from books:witness the Speeches in the first Act, translated verbatim out of Ovid de Arte Amandi. Toomit what afterwards he borrowed from the sixth Satyre of Juvenal against Women.

However, if I should grant, that there were a greater latitude in Characters of Wit,than in those of Humour; yet that latitude would be of small advantage to such Poets whohave too narrow an imagination to write it. And to entertain an Audience perpetually withHumour, is to carry them from the conversation of Gentlemen, and treat them with thefollies and extravagances of Bedlam.

I find I have launch’d out farther than I intended in the beginning of this Preface. Andthat in the heat of writing, I have touch’d at something, which I ought to have avoided.’Tis time now to draw homeward: and to think rather of defending myself, than assaultingothers. I have already acknowledg’d that this Play is far from perfect: but I do not thinkmy self oblig’d to discover the imperfections of it to my Adversaries, any more than aguilty person is bound to accuse himself before his Judges. ’Tis charg’d upon me that Imake debauch’d persons (such as they say my Astrologer and Gamester are) myProtagonists, or the chief persons of the Drama; and that I make them happy in theconclusion of my Play; against the Law of Comedy, which is to reward virtue and punishvice. I answer first, that I know no such law to have been constantly observ’d in Comedy,either by the Ancient or Modern Poets. Chœrea is made happy in the Eunuch, after havingdeflour’d a Virgin: and Terence generally does the same through all his Plays, where youperpetually see, not only debauch’d young men enjoy their Mistresses, but even theCourtezans themselves rewarded and honour’d in the Catastrophe. The same may beobserv’d in Plautus almost every where. Ben. Johnson himself, after whom I may be proudto erre, has given me more than once the example of it. That in the Alchemist is notorious,where Face, after having contriv’d and carried on the great cozenage of the Play, andcontinued in it without repentance to the last, is not only forgiven by his Master, butinrich’d by his consent, with the spoiles of those whom he had cheated. And, which ismore, his Master himself, a grave man, and a Widower, is introduc’d taking his Man’scounsel, debauching the Widow first, in hope to marry her afterward. In the SilentWoman, Dauphine, (who with the other two Gentlemen, is of the same character with myCeladon in the Maiden Queen, and with Wildblood in this) professes himself in love with allthe Collegiate Ladies: and they likewise are all of the same Character with each other,excepting only Madam Otter, who has something singular:) yet this naughty Dauphine iscrown’d in the end with the possession of his Uncles Estate, and with the hopes of enjoyingall his Mistresses. And his friend Mr Truwit (the best Character of a Gentleman which Ben.Johnson ever made) is not asham’d to pimp for him. As for Beaumont and Fletcher, I need

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not alledge examples out of them; for that were to quote almost all their Comedies. (Sig.ar–a2v)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Dryden defends himself from the charge of having stolen the plots for his plays.]

Most of Shakespear’s Playes, I mean the Stories of them, are to be found in theHecatomouthi, or hundred Novels of Cinthio. I have, myself, read in his Italian, that ofRomeo and Juliet, the Moor of Venice, and many others of them. Beaumont and Fletcher hadmost of theirs from Spanish Novels: witness the Chances, the Spanish Curate, Rule a Wife andhave a Wife, the Little French Lawyer, and so many others of them as compose the greatestpart of their Volume in folio. Ben. Johnson, indeed, has design’d his Plots himself; but noman has borrow’d so much from the Ancients as he has done: And he did well in it, for hehas thereby beautifi’d our language. (Sig. a4r)

NOTES

1 ‘The mess cooked up again’: adapted from Juvenal, Satires, 7.154.2 ‘To spare individuals and speak of vices’.3 ‘Its freedom sank into excess and violence deserving to be checked by law. The law was

obeyed, and the chorus to its shame became mute, its right to injure being withdrawn’: ArsPoetica, ll. 282–4.

4 ‘Or cracking their bawdy and shameless jokes. For some take offence—knights, free-born,and men of substance’: Ars Poetica, ll. 247–8.

5 ‘He himself said it’, used to denote ‘an unproved assertion resting on the bare authority ofsome speaker’ (OED).

6 ‘It is easy to make fun of folly, for folly is laughable in itself; but we may improve such jestsby adding something of our own’: Institutio Oratorio, 6.3.71.

7 ‘That he lacked the power to make jokes, not merely that he disliked to use it’: InstitutioOratorio, 6.3.2.

8 ‘Urbane, charming, piquant, elegant’. Quintilian gives definitions of these terms in InstitutioOratorio, 6.3.17–20.

9 ‘For wit always appears to greater advantage in reply than in attack’: Institutio Oratorio, 6.3.13.

10 Cowley, ‘Ode: Of Wit’, ll. 35–6: ‘Jewels at nose, and lips but ill appear; /Rather than allthings, Wit, let none be there.’

11 ‘In regard to all the manifestations of his genius, you will find it easier to detect superfluitiesthan deficiencies’: adapted from Institutio Oratoria, 6.3.5.

12 Corneille’s Le Menteur. In his Essay, Dryden refers to a performance in England of atranslation of the play (1667 edition, pp. 37–8).

13 Both comedies by Fletcher.

276 BEN JONSON

77.Thomas Shadwell defends his estimate of Jonson

1670–1

(a) Epilogue to Shadwell’s The Humorists. The first performance of the play was bythe Duke’s Company, at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, on 10 December 1670;the play, with the preface, was published the next year.

The Mighty Prince of Poets, learned BEN,Who alone div’d into the Minds of Men:Saw all their wandrings, all their follies knew,And all their vain fantastick passions drew.In Images so lively and so true;That there each Humorist himself might view.Yet onely lash’d the Errors of the Times,And n’er expos’d the Persons, but the Crimes:And never car’d for private frowns, when heDid but chastise publick iniquitie.He fear’d no Pimp, no Pick-pocket, or Drab;He fear’d no Bravo, nor no Ruffian’s Stab.’Twas he alone true Humors understood,And with great Wit and Judgment made them good.A Humor is the Byas of the Mind,By which with violence ’tis one way inclin’d:It makes our Actions lean on one side still,And in all Changes that way bends the will.This—He onely knew and represented right.Thus none but Mighty Johnson e’r could write.Expect not then, since that most flourishing Age,Of BEN. to see true Humor on the Stage.All that have since been writ, if they be scan’d,Are but faint Copies from that Master’s hand.Our Poet now, amongst those petty things,Alas, his too weak trifling humors brings.As much beneath the worst in Johnson’s Plays,As his great Merit is above our praise.

For could he imitate that great Author right,He would with ease all Poets else out-write.But to out-go all other men, would beO Noble BEN! less than to follow thee.Gallants you see how hard it is to write,Forgive all faults the Poet made to night:Since if he sinn’d, ’twas meant for your delight.Pray let this find—As good success, tho’ it be very bad,As any damn’d successful Play e’r had.Yet if you hiss, he knows not where the harm is,He’ll not defend his Non-sence Vi & Armis.1

But this poor Play has been so torn before,That all your Cruelty can’t wound it more. (79–80)

(b) Extract from the preface. Shadwell is responding to Dryden’s comments in No.76, above.

[Shadwell has just protested at those who ‘wrest the Writings of poets to their owncorrupted sense.’]

Mr. Johnson, I believe, was very unjustly taxed for personating particular men, but it willever be the fate of them, that write the humors of the Town, especially in a foolish, andvicious Age. Pardon me (Reader) that I name him in the same page with myself; whopretend to nothing more, than to joyn with all men of sense and learning in admiration ofhim; which, I think, I do not [sic] out of a true understanding of him; and for this I cannotbut value my self. Yet, by extolling his way of writing, I would not insinuate to you that Ican practise it; though I would if I could, a thousand times sooner than any mans.

And here I must make a little digression, and take liberty to dissent from my particularfriend, for whom I have a very great respect, and whose Writings I extreamly admire; andthough I will not say his is the best way of writing, yet, I am sure, his manner of writing itis much the best that ever was. And I may say of him, as was said of a Celebrated Poet,Cui unquam Poetarum magis proprium fuit subito œstro incalescere? Quis, ubi incaluit, fortius, &fœlicius debacchatur.2 His Verse is smoother and deeper, his thoughts more quick andsurprising, his raptures more mettled and higher; and he has more of that in his writing,which Plato calls σωɸρ να µανιαν,3 than any other Heroick Poet. And those who shallgo about to imitate him, will be found to flutter, and make a noise, but never rise. Yet(after all this) I cannot think it impudence in him, or any man to endeavour to imitate Mr.Johnson, whom he confesses to have fewer failings than all the English Poets, which implieshe was the most perfect, and best Poet; and why should not we endeavour to imitate him?because we cannot arrive to his excellence? ’Tis true we cannot, but this is no more anargument, than for a Soldier (who considers with himself he cannot be so great a one asJulius Cæsar) to run from his Colours, and be none; or to speak of a less thing, why shouldany man study Mathematicks after Archimedes, &c. This Principle would be an obstruction tothe progress of all learning and knowledge in the world. Men of all Professions oughtcertainly to follow the best in theirs, and let not their endeavours be blamed, if they go asfar as they can in the right way, though they be unsuccessful, and attain not their ends. If

278 BEN JONSON

Mr. Johnson be the most faultless Poet, I am so far from thinking it impudence toendeavour to imitate him, that it would rather (in my opinion) seem impudence in me notto do it.

I cannot be of their opinion who think he wanted wit, I am sure, if he did, he was so farfrom being the most faultless, that he was the most faulty Poet of his time, but, it may beanswered, that his Writings were correct, though he wanted fire; but I think flat and dullthings are as incorrect, and shew as little Judgment in the Author, nay less than sprightlyand mettled Nonsense does. But I think he had more true wit than any of hisContemporaries; that other men had sometimes things that seemed more fiery than his, wasbecause they were placed with so many sordid and mean things about them, that theymade a greater show.

Inter quæ verbum emicuit, si forte, decorum,Si versus pauco concinnor, unus, & alter,Injuste totum ducit, venditque Poema.4

Nor can I think, to the writing of his humors (which were not onely the follies, butvices and subtleties of men) that wit was not required, but judgment; where, by the way,they speak as if judgment were a less thing than wit. But certainly it was meant other wiseby nature, who subjected wit to the government of judgment, which is the noblest facultyof the mind. Fancy rough-draws, but judgement smooths and finishes; nay judgment doesin deed comprehend wit, for no man can have that who has not wit. In fancy mad menequal, if not excel all others, and one may as well say that one of those mad men is as gooda man as a temperate wiseman, as that one of the very fancyful Plays (admired most byWomen) can be so good a Play as one of Johnson’s correct, and well-govern’d Comedies.

The reason given by some, why Johnson needed not wit in writing humor, is, becausehumor is the effect of observation, and observation the effect of judgment; butobservation is as much necessary in all other Plays, as in Comedies of humor: For first,even in the highest Tragedies, where the Scene lies in Courts, the Poet must haveobserved the Customs of Courts, and the manner of conversing there, or he will commitmany indecencies, and make his Persons too rough and ill-bred for a Court.

Besides Characters in Plays being Representations of the Vertues or Vices, Passions orAffections of Mankind, since there are no more new Vertues, or Vices; Passions, orAffections, the Idea’s of these can no other way be received into the imagination of aPoet, but either from the Conversation or Writings of Men. After a Poet has formed aCharacter (as suppose of an Ambitious Man) his design is certainly to write it naturally,and he has no other rule to guid him in this, but to compare him with other men of thatkind, that either he has heard of, or conversed with in the world, or read of in Books (andeven this reading of Books is conversing with men) nay more; (besides judging of hisCharacter) the Poet can fancy nothing of it, but what must spring from the Observation hehas made of Men, or Books.

If this argument (that the enemies of humor use) be meant in this sense, that a Poet, inthe writing of a Fools Character, needs but have a man sit to him, and have his words andactions taken; in this case there is no need of wit. But ’tis most certain, that if we shoulddo so, no one fool (though the best about the Town) could appear pleasantly upon theStage, he would be there too dull a Fool, and must be helped out with a great deal of witin the Author. I scruple not to call it so, first, because ’tis not your downright Fool that isa fit Character for a Play, but like Sir John Dawe and Sir Amorous La Foole, your witty, brisk,aiery Fopps, that are Entreprennants.5 Besides, wit in the Writer, (I think, without anyAuthority for it) may be said to be the invention of remote and pleasant thoughts of what

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 279

kind soever; and there is as much occasion for such imaginations in the writing of aCurious Coxcomb’s part, as in writing the greatest Hero’s; and that which may be folly inthe Speaker, may be so remote and pleasant, to require a great deal of wit in the Writer.The most Excellent Johnson put wit into the mouths of the meanest of his people, andwhich, is infinitely difficult, made it proper for ’em. And I once heard a Person, of thegreatest Wit and Judgement of the Age, say, that Bartholomew Fair (which consists most oflow persons) is one of the Wittiest Plays in the World. If there be no wit required in therendering Folly ridiculous, or Vice odious, we must accuse Juvenal the best Satyrist, andwittiest Man of all the Latine Writers, for want of it.

I should not say so much of Mr. Johnson (whose Merit sufficiently justifies him to allMen of Sense) but that I think my self a little obliged to vindicate the Opinion I publicklydeclared, in my Epilogue to this Play; which I did upon mature consideration, and with afull satisfaction in my Judgement, and not out of a bare affected vanity of being thoughthis Admirer. (Sig. a2r–[a4]r)

NOTES

1 ‘With force and arms’.2 ‘For what poet ever was it as natural to be inflamed with sudden inspiration? What poet

when he was inflamed revelled in his poetic ecstasy with more vigour and with morefelicity?’

3 ‘Sober madness’.4 ‘Among them, it may be a pleasing phrase shines forth, or one or two lines are somewhat

better turned—then these unfairly carry off and sell the whole poem’: Horace, Epistles, 2.1.73–5.

5 ‘Enterprising’.

280 BEN JONSON

78.Edward Howard on Jonson

1671

From the preface to The Womens Conquest: A Tragi-Comedy, acted in November 1670,and published the next year.

Howard was the fifth son of Thomas Howard, first Earl of Berkshire, andbrother of Sir Robert Howard. He is caricatured as the poet Ninny in Shadwell’sThe Sullen Lovers (see the headnote to No. 70, above). The preface is a defence ofthe mixture of comedy and heroic material in Howard’s play. See Introduction, p.16.

[On prefaces in general.]

…nor do I find that the Antient Poets, or any of most repute of our Modern, assumed thiskind of vindication to themselves; though perhaps they might have done it, with moreassurance of success, then any that now most confidently undertake it; either as theycontemn’d the impotent censures and cavils, that were spread against their performances,or else a judicious confirmation in themselves, that their works were the best defiancesthat could be given their Enemies.

Not that I judge our unimitable Johnson, or those wonders of Wit, Beaumont andFletcher, were without their failings, or that in some things, their Plays were notquestionable, as well as ours; though I could wish our Muses were so happily adorned, astheir spots and beauties appear together: and I doubt it may be truly affirmed, that in thegreatest of their failings, they fell more below themselves, then beneath us; which gives ussome caution not to be too busie with their faults.

It is one thing to be excellent, and another to be absolutely perfect; the Diamond dothrequire some polishing, though of most commendable figure and brightness: The like maybe said of these excellent Poets, their thoughts were always pretious, though not alikepolished and set off by themselves.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Most men are naturally inclin’d to give to Antiquity its due respects, and there is some

reason for it (if no more) in that we must be old ourselves; but he were weakly anadmirer of times past, that by an over dotage on them, would continue himself in aChildhood of knowledge; since that were to go backward with ingenuity, as we set tooforward theirs, they have their fame, and we must expect ours; though at present theychallenge so long a prescription, that until ours does number more then the three parts of

an age, in equal repute with theirs. I make some doubt whether the best Rhime, orReason, that the Stage is now beholding to, will establish us as great in the judgment ofthose who shall succeed us; which, as I am far from assuming it to my self, in behalf of anyundertaking of mine, so I shall as unwillingly allow it to the boldest of Pretenders; besidesthis, we are obliged in so great a measure to those great Artificers of Invention, and Wit,by which they raised our Stage to its former glory, as also in a high degree for thoseexcellent rules and observations, which (if well heeded) cannot but improve ourendeavours in this kind, and from whom (if we do well) it is impossible to differ so far, asto declare them Enemies, and like the example of the Trojan Hero, to erect a Trophee andsuperscribe on it,

Æneas hæc de Danais victoribus arma.1 (Sig. A2r–[A3]r)⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Howard turns to his own play.]

…having made my self so far a party on the side of our former Poets, that I havecomposed this Play in some resemblance to theirs of the like nature, which in myjudgment I have esteemed best. I have given it the name likewise of Tragi-Comedy, as Ifind they have done some of theirs, which I need not particularize to the Reader, becausethey are well enough known to be at this day no inconsiderable ornament andentertainment of the Stage; not that I will undertake to justifie the word (since every Play,if strictly taken, must be either Tragedy or Comedy, excluding Farce, which does not somuch as deserve a Dramatis Personæ to be set before it, as we shall soon manifest). And it wasdoubtless created by former Poets, who finding that mixt Plays were very sutable to theEnglish Stage, and that it was somewhat below the denomination of their Heroicks to callthem simply Comedies (which as they are corruptly understood, imply, little more thenscurrility and laughter, though of far greater dignity, if rightly apply’d) They allow’d themthe names of Tragi-Comedies, & I do not find but the highest of our English Tragedies (asCataline, The Maids Tragedy, Rollo, The Cardinal and Traytor) considerable enough to berank’d with the best of these, are at all undervalued by their Authors, in being sweetned withmirth; for as all people do not come purposely to sympathize their passions with those ofthe Plays, so some will expect to be diverted accordingly; nor do I believe that it is lessnatural (as some have thought) to form a Play, that shall have this variety of Genius, then Ido to find of mankind some grave, reserv’d, fierce, cruel, others of more aiery andpleasant converse, to mingle humours and affairs together. (Sig. [A3]v–[A4]r)

[Discussing the use of rhymed verse in plays, and having quoted approvingly fromUnd., 29, on the subject.]

…whensoever Verse was us’d by Ben Johnson, as it is in Sylla’s Ghost, or scatter’d in someplaces in Sejanus; I cannot but observe his Art and Nature together, in not confining theperiods of sense and Rhime together (as is too much us’d now) but most commonly bycarrying the sense of one verse into part of another, which elevates the stile of Verse (as isto be seen in Virgil) and without which it will never shew so like Prose, and proper forDialogue, as it ought to do; an example to be worthily imitated by such as will write inVerse, to whose consideration I presume to commend it. (Sig. ar–v)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

282 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Words are the children of thought, and man must be granted to have first imaginedspeech, before he could express any conception of his by words; so that thought, was boththe primitive ground, and glory of Tongues, which successively came to be more improved; and doubtless it was the Wit of Poets that (above all) refin’d their ownlanguages; so that I wonder to find it affirmed, that Ben. Johnson (who had such a soul ofthought) did by Translating beautifie our Tongue; as if his ingenuity was not to be allowedthe glory of doing far more by its single strength. I should be loth to wish any so ill, as thathe were alive to answer the imputation; however, I could be well content, that such aswill make him their president in Translating from others, could dispose of it so well, andthat they had like wise as much Wit, and Learning besides.

Translating, may I grant, adds some perfection to a language, because it introduces thewit of others into its own words, as the French have of late done well in theirs; and wehave pretty well requited their kindness to us, in rendring so much of theirs in ours; butwhere I can make use of good Originals, I shall be more sparing of my esteem of Copies,and I dare averre, that the Ingenuities of Johnson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, with some other ofour former Poets, left our language more improved, as it expressed their thoughts, then ifthe best of Italian, Spanish, and French Wit, had been Translated by the greatest of Pens. Iwish it be our good fortune (for the benefit of future times) to leave our Tongue as muchinlarged and imbellished, as they left it to us. (Sig. [a3]v–[a4]r)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆…For as in the characters of Tragedy there will be some violent in love, others

haughty, rash, and turbulent, above what is ordinary to be observed in men; so Comedy willhave its extravagancies (besides many more) in morose, heedless, timorous and foolishpersons, which are images of the like contrary effects of nature; in like manner, thedesigns and adventures depending on these, have their proportions; for as Dramatickcharacters will have some remoteness from the ordinary actions of men, so must theirundertakings be sutable; wherefore I wonder to find it affirmed, that extravagancies ofactions should be fixed on Farce, (which is rather an entertainment of Mimikry, than aPlay in any kind) since Plays must not be so even, as to represent nothing above nature,which were to make them more reasonable, then Poetical; besides, it is a commendablelicense (especially in Poetry) to represent what is rather useful to know, (as it seems actuallydone) then the possibility of it, so it provide well for our manners; as we see inComedies, where we are taught from the mouths of Fools, and by such extravagancies asare in some kind impossible to be supposed, how we may become the wiser; why else didour learned Johnson compleat that great work of his Alchymist, with such persons thatcontinue a prosecution of extravagancy of humour or impossibility together, (except themaking of the Philosophers Stone be held a known truth) or that his Dol Common representingthe Queen of Fairies, was not to pass upon the weak capacity of Dapper deceived by it?The same may be affirmed of his Cynthias Revells, where Cupid, Mercury, and Eccho haveparts, or somewhat more extraordinary in his Devil’s an Ass, where the grand Demon, anda lesser, are made characters, as Satyrical Reflections on Vanity and Vice, to be correctedby them; which shews, that the truth or possibility of the characters, is less to beconsidered, then the Morality they aim at. Et hercule omnis salsa dicendi ratio in eo est, utaliter quam est rectum verumque dicatur2, as Quintilian observes. (Sig. b2v–[b3]r)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On the proper use of ‘vulgar’ characters in comedy.]

BEN JONSON 283

…here I cannot chuse but reflect on our mean imitation of French Plays, by introducing ofservants and waiting women to have parts, without being essential characters; an error wellavoided by our former writers, who never admitted any, otherwise then as messengersand attendants, except on the account of being characters, as is to be seen by Numphs inBartholomew Fair, and Face in the Alchymist; the latter of which (notwithstanding what canbe objected against him) may deservedly be granted one of the best parts on our EnglishStage. (Sig. [b4]r–v)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

NOTES

1 ‘These arms Aeneas from victorious Greeks’: Virgil, Aeneid. 3.288.2 ‘Indeed the essence of all wit lies in the distortion of the true and natural meaning of words’:

Institutio Oratorio, 6.3.89.

284 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

79.Edward Howard on Jonson’s imaginary creations

1671

From Howard’s preface to The Six days Adventure, Or The New Utopia, acted by theDuke’s Company at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in March 1671, and publishedlater in the year.

The play was a complete failure on stage; in the preface, Howard comfortshimself with the example of the neglect of the old English dramatists on thecontemporary stage—they who, he says, brought the stage to ‘a non ultra of designeand wit’ and gave the world ‘the best Dramatique Rules, and Plays together’ (Sig.A2r) —and of those who have tried to follow their principles (Aphra Behn echoesthe sentiment in her commendatory poem to the play). Specifically, he rebutscharges that his characters are not realistic by the example of the fantasticcharacters of The Devil is an Ass and Cynthia’s Revels, and by the improbabilities in theconception of Morose (an interesting contrast to the legend Dryden passed on ofthere having been a real prototype for the character). In this and the preface to TheWomens Conquest (No. 78, above) Howard makes a case for heroic comedy, a causealso championed at this time by Dryden.

And I differ from their judgments who think, that whatsoever is not vulgarly observ’damongst men, to be therefore not Poetically allowable, which if true, the wit of Poetrywere rather commonplace and observation, than invention, in no case to be allow’d.Wherefore there needs no practicable authority for every Character that is produced, ifwhat has been never before observ’d, answer the design of the Author in being useful andcorrective to manners, the essential dignity of Comedy, and without which it has smalltitle to that name or desert; besides a Satyr cannot be poetically expressed but it must behighly Hyperbolical, as may be seen in those of Juvenal’s, as also in most of the comediesof Ben Johnson in which are very many characters of no being amongst men, as in his Devil’san Ass, Cinthio’s Revels, and others; nay in his more exact one of the silent Woman, I doubtnot to affirm that there was never such a man as Morose who convers’d by a whisperthrough a Trunk, but the Poets authority in that case is sufficient for what is not probable,because it was an extravagancy well applyed to the humour of such a person, which issufficient to direct us that things may be allow’d in a Poetical scnce which are notnaturally so. Who ever disputed against the wonders mention’d by the Poets, theMetamorphosis of Ovid, Aesop’s Fables and the like, by reason that the moral of them ismore to be regarded than the truth; which consideration has been the best and general

authority of introducing of Fables: wherefore to such as are different in opinion, thereneeds no other reply, but that they are little skill’d in the Muses, and must be beholdingto their ignorance for their excuse. (Sig. [A4]r–v)

286 BEN JONSON

80.Edward Ravenscroft, Jonson the model for didactic

comedy1671

‘To the Author of the New Utopia’, prefixed to Howard’s The Six Days Adventure, OrThe New Utopia.

Ravenscroft (c. 1650–c. 1700) wrote a number of plays, mostly translations andadaptations (including a Titus Andronicus, produced in 1678), and quarrelled withDryden after attacking him in the prologue to his first play, Mamamouchi, or theCitizen turned Gentleman (1671). In the prologue to his The Canterbury Guests; Or, ABargain Broken (1695), Ravenscroft pictures a previous age, unlike the present one,‘When Bully

Ben lugg’d out in Cat’line’s Cause, /And huff’d his duller Audience to Applause, /Thenif the Poet swore ’twas good, each Guest/Believ’d the Author, and approv’d the Feast’.

1.How happy, Sir, was the last ageWhen learned Johnson rul’d the StageThat strict observer of mankind.Men were the Books he read, and heMade the whole town his Librarie;Theatres were then the SchoolsOf good morality, where Knaves and FoolsTheir follies saw, and vices acted so,Shame, those made honester, these, wiser grow.In every Scene he writ we findWith Pleasure Profit joyn’d,And every ComedieHe did intendAn Errata Page should be,To show men faults and teach ’em how to mend.

2.But this age disesteems true Comedy’Cause ’tis the mirrour of the times….

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

3.But you adventure to retrive The fading glories of the Stage, Whilst this Play you morethan giveTo the unthankful age. Great Ben thought it enough to swearThat his were goodBelieve me so they are, Could we but find a man had as much wit To read and judgof them as he that writ.The same fate now Do’s your Play disallow, ’Tis lik’d by as few as understood.

Our age beforeNe’er had a Play like this, nor e’er againWill such another see, less you once moreImploy your Pen,Which you must do in scorn of themThat for your virtue do your wit condemn.Their spightBrings you more praise than all your friends can write,And does assertYour Fame:For where there’s envy, there’s desert,That still at excellence doth aim.So mungrel Curs are knownTo bark against the brightness of the Moon….

(Sig. a4r-v; ll. 1–17, 31–56)

288 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

81.On Jonson and Shakespeare

1672

A ‘Prologue to Julius Caesar’, possibly by Dryden. Printed in Covent Garden Drolery,or a Colection, Of all the Choice Songs, Poems, Prologues and Epilogues, (Sung and Spoken atCourts and Theaters) never in Print before (1672), collected by ‘R.B. Servant to HisMajesty’.

No external evidence connects the poem to Dryden, but the views expressed arecertainly close to his. (The Oxford edition of Dryden’s Poems includes the‘Prologue’, the California edition of his Works does not.) A date for theperformance of January 1672 is suggested in LS, Part i, p. 191.

In Country Beauties as we often see,Something that takes in their simplicity.Yet while they charm, they know not they are fair,And take without their spreading of the snare;Such Artless beauty lies in Shakespears wit,’Twas well in spight of him what ere he writ.His Excellencies came and were not sought,His words like causal Atoms made a thought:Drew up themselves in Rank and File, and writ,He wondring how the Devil it were such wit.Thus like the drunken Tinker, in his Play,He grew a Prince, and never knew which way.He did not know what trope or Figure meant,But to perswade is to be eloquent,So in this Cæsar which this day you see,Tully ne’r spoke as he makes Anthony,Those then that tax his Learning are too blame,He knew the thing, but did not know the Name:Great Johnson did that Ignorance adore,And though he envi’d much, admir’d him more,The faultless Johnson equally writ well,Shakespear made faults; but then did more excel.One close at Guard like some old Fencer lay,Tother more open, but he shew’d more play.In Imitation Johnsons wit was shown,

Heaven made his men but Shakespear made his own.Wise Johnson’s talent in observing lay,But others follies still made up his play.He drew the like in each elaborate line,But Shakespear like a Master did design.Johnson with skill dissected humane kind,And show’d their faults that they their faults might find.But then as All Anatomists must do,He to the meanest of mankind did go.And took from Gibbets such as he would show.Both are so great that he must boldly dare,Who both of ’em does judge and both compare.If amongst Poets one more bold there be,The man that dare attempt in either way, is he. (9–10)

290 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

82.John Dryden on the faults of predecessors like

Jonson1672

From the material appended to the printed version of Dryden’s The Conquest ofGranada By The Spaniards: In Two Parts (1672), first performed in successive parts inDecember 1670 and January 1671.

(a) From the ‘Epilogue to the Second Part of Granada’.They, who have best succeeded on the Stage,Have still conform’d their Genius to their Age.Thus Jonson did Mechanique humour show,When men were dull, and conversation low.Then, comedy was faultless, but ’twas course:Cobbs Tankard was a jest, and Otter’s horse.And as their Comedy, their love was mean:Except, by chance, in some one labour’d Scene,Which must attone for an ill-written Play.They rose; but at their height could seldome stay.Fame then was cheap, and the first commer sped;And they have kept it since, by being dead,But were they now to write when Critiques weighEach Line, and ev’ry word, throughout a Play,None of ’em, no not Jonson, in his heightCould pass, without allowing grains for weight.Think it not envy that these truths are told,Our Poet’s not malicious, though he’s bold.’Tis not to brand ’em that their faults are shown,But, by their errours, to excuse his own.If Love and Honour now are higher rais’d,’Tis not the Poet, but the Age is prais’d.Wit’s now ariv’d to a more high degree;Our native Language more refin’d and free.Our Ladies and our men now speak more witIn conversation, than those Poets writ.Then, one of these is, consequently, true;That what this Poet writes comes short of you,

And imitates you ill, (which most he fears)Or else his writing is not worse than theirs.Yet, though you judge, (as sure the Critiques will)That some before him writ with greater skill,In this one praise he has their fame surpast,To please an Age more Gallant than the last. (159–60)

(b) From ‘Of Heroic Plays: An Essay’, which appears after the dedication at thebeginning of the volume.

To those who object my frequent use of Drums and Trumpets; and my representations of Battels, Ianswer, I introduc’d them not on the English Stage, Shakespear us’d them frequently: and, thoughJonson shows no Battel in his Catiline, yet you hear from behind the Scenes, the sounding ofTrumpets, and the shouts of fighting Armies. But, I add farther; that these warlike Instruments, and,even the representations of fighting on the Stage, are no more than necessary to produce the effects ofan Heroic Play, that is, to raise the imagination of the Audience, and to perswade them, for the time,that what they behold on the Theater is really perform’d. The Poet is, then, to endeavour anabsolute dominion over the minds of the Spectators: for, though our fancy will contribute to its owndeceipt, yet a Writer ought to help its operation.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Dryden is defending his hero Almanzor; in what he says below he attributes toCethegus some of Catiline’s statements as well as those properly his.]

He talks extravagantly in his Passion: but, if I would take the pains to quote an hundred passages ofBen. Johnson’s Cethegus, I could easily shew you that the Rhodomontades of Almanzor areneither so irrational as his, nor so impossible to be put in execution. For Cethegus threatens todestroy Nature, and to raise a new one out of it: to kill all the Senate for his part of the action; tolook Cato dead; and a thousand other things as extravagant, he sayes, but performs not one Actionin the Play. (Sig. [a4]v-b2r)

(c) From ‘Defence of the EPILOGUE. Or, An Essay on the Dramatique Poetry of thelast Age’.

To begin with Language. That an Alteration is lately made in ours or since the Writers ofthe last Age (in which I comprehend Shakespear, Fletcher and Jonson) is manifest. Any manwho reads those excellent Poets, and compares their language with what is now written,will see it almost in every line. But, that this is an Improvement of the Language, or analteration for the better, will not so easily be granted. For many are of a contrary opinion,that the English tongue was then in the height of its perfection; that, from Jonsons time toours, it has been in a continual declination; like that of the Romans from the Age of Virgilto Statius, and so downward to Claudian: of which, not onely Petronius, but Quintilianhimself so much complains, under the person of Secundus, in his famous Dialogue de causiscorruptæ eloquentiæ. (162)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆…I was speaking of their Sence and Language, and I dare almost challenge any man to

show me a page together, which is correct in both. As for Ben. Johnson, I am loath to name

292 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

him, because he is a most Judicious Writer; yet he very often falls into these errors. And Ionce more beg the Readers pardon, for accusing him or them. Onely let him considerthat I live in an age where my least faults are severely censur’d: and that I have no way leftto extenuate my failings but my showing as great in those whom we admire.

Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus cura sagittis.1

I cast my eyes but by chance on Catiline; and in the three or four first pages, foundenough to conclude that Johnson writ not correctly.

————Let the long hid seedsOf treason, in thee, now shoot forth in deedsRanker than honour. [1.25–7]

In reading some bombast speeches of Macbeth, which are not to be understood, he us’dto say that it was horrour, and I am much afraid that this is so.

Thy parricide, late on thy onely Son,After his mother, to make empty wayFor thy last wicked Nuptials, worse than theyThat blaze that act of thy incestuous life,Which gain’d thee at once a daughter and a wife. [1.32–6]

The Sence is here extreamly perplex’d: and I doubt the word They is false Grammar.———And be free

Not Heaven it self from thy impiety, [1.59–60]A Synchœsis, or ill placing of words, of which Tully so much complains in Oratory.The Waves, and Dens of beasts cou’d not receive

The bodies that those souls were frighted from. [1.250–1]The Preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with him, and which I have

but lately observ’d in my own writings.What all the several ills that visit earth,

Plague, famine, fire, could not reach unto,The Sword nor surfeits, let thy fury do. [1.49, 51–2]

Here are both the former faults: for, besides that the Preposition unto, is plac’d last inthe verse, and at the half period, and is redundant, there is the former Synchœsis, in thewords (The Sword nor Surfeits) which in construction ought to have been plac’d before theother.

Catiline sayes of Cethegus, that for his sake he wouldGo on upon the Gods; kiss Lightning, wrestThe Engine from the Cyclops, and give fireAt face of a full clowd, and stand his ire. [1.143–5]

To go on upon, is onely to go on twice, to give fire at face of a full cloud, was notunderstood in his own time: (and stand his ire) besides the antiquated word ire there is theArticle His, which makes false construction: and Giving fire at the face of a cloud, is aperfect image of shooting, however it came to be known in those daies to Catiline.

———others there areWhom Envy to the State draws and pulls on,For Contumelies receiv’d; and such are sure ones. [1. 146–8]

Ones in the plural Number: but that is frequent with him; for he sayes, not long after.Cæsar and Crassus; if they be ill men,

Are Mighty ones.Such Men they do not succour more the cause, &c. [4.530–1; 4.56]

They redundant.

BEN JONSON 293

Though Heav’n should speak with all his wrath at once;We should stand upright and unfear’d. [4.30, 32]

His is ill Syntax with Heaven; and by Unfear’d he means Unaffraid, words of a quitecontrary signification.

The Ports are open, [4.302]He perpetually uses Ports for Gates: which is an affected error in him, to introduce

Latine by the loss of the English Idiom: as in the Translation of Tully’s Speeches he usuallydoes.

Well placing of Words for the sweetness of pronunciation was not known till Mr.Waller introduc’d it: and therefore ’tis not to be wonder’d if Ben Johnson has many suchlines as these

But being bred up in his father’s needy fortunes, Brought up in’s sister’s Prostitution, &c. [4.122–3]

But meaness of expression one would think not to be his error in a Tragedy, whichought to be more high and sounding than any other kind of Poetry, and yet amongst manyothers in Catiline I find these four lines together:

So Asia, thou art cruelly evenWith us, for all the blows thee given:When we, whose Vertues conquer’d thee,Thus, by thy Vices, ruin’d be. [1.587–90]

Be there is false English; for are: though the Rhyme hides it.But I am willing to close the Book, partly out of veneration to the Author, partly out of

weariness to pursue an argument which is so fruitful in so small a compass. And whatcorrectness, after this, can be expected from Shakespear or from Fletcher, who wanted thatLearning and Care which Johnson had? I will therefore spare my own trouble of inquiringinto their faults: who had they liv’d now, had doubtless written more correctly. I supposeit will be enough for me to affirm (as I think I safely may) that these and the like errors whichI tax’d in the most correct of the last Age, are such, into which we doe not ordinarily fall.I think few of our present Writers would have left behind them such a line as this,

Contain your Spirit in more stricter bounds. [EMO, Induction, l. 46]But that gross way of two Comparatives was then, ordinary: and therefore more

pardonable in Johnson. (164–8)⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Dryden turns to the writing of wit in the older dramatists.]

For Ben. Johnson, the most judicious of Poets, he always writ properly; and as theCharacter requir’d: and I will not contest farther with my Friends who call that Wit. Itbeing very certain, that even folly it self, well represented, is Wit in a larger signification:and that there is Fancy, as well as Judgement in it; though not so much or noble: becauseall Poetry being imitation, that of Folly is a lower exercise of Fancy, though perhaps asdifficult as the other: for ’tis a kind of looking downward in the Poet; and representingthat part of Mankind which is below him.

In these low Characters of Vice and Folly, lay the excellency of that inimitable Writer:who, when at any time, he aim’d at Wit, in the stricter sence, that is, Sharpness ofConceit, was forc’d either to borrow from the Ancients, as, to my knowledge he did verymuch from Plautus: or, when he trusted himself alone, often fell into meanness of

294 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

expression. Nay, he was not free from the lowest and most groveling kind of Wit, whichwe call clenches; of which, Every Man in his Humour, is infinitely full, and, which is worse,the wittiest persons in the Drama speak them. His other Comedies are not exempted fromthem: will you give me leave to name some few? Asper, in which Character he personateshimself, (and he neither was, nor thought himself a fool,) exclaiming against the ignorantJudges of the Age, speaks thus.

How monstrous and detested is’t, to seeA fellow, that has neither Art nor Brain,Sit like an Aristarchus, or Stark-Ass,Taking Mens Lines, with a Tobacco-Face,In Snuffe, &c. [EMO, Induction, ll. 177–81]

And presently afterI mar’le whose wit ’twas to put a Prologue in yond Sackbut’s mouth? they might well think he

would be out of Tune, and yet you’d play upon him too [EMO, Prologue]. Will you have anotherof the same stamp?

O, I cannot abide these limbs of Sattin, or rather Satan. [EMO, 4.4.14–15]But, it may be you will object that this was Asper, Macilente, or, Carlo Buffone: you shall,

therefore, hear him speak in his own person: and, that, in the two last lines, or sting of anEpigram; ’tis Inscrib’d to Fine Grand: who, he says, was indebted to him for many things,which he reckons there: and concludes thus;

Forty things more, dear Grand, which you know true,For which, or pay me quickly, or I’le pay you [Epig. 73, ll. 21–2]

This was then the mode of wit, the vice of the Age and not Ben. Johnson’s, for you see, alittle before him, that admirable wit, Sir Philip Sidney, perpetually playing with his words.In his time, I believe, it ascended first into the Pulpit: where (if you will give me leave toclench too) it yet finds the benefit of its Clergy, for they are commonly the firstcorrupters of Eloquence, and the last reform’d from vicious Oratory: as a famous Italian hasobserv’d before me, in his Treatise of the Corruption of the Italian Tongue; which heprincipally ascribes to Priests and preaching Friars.

But, to conclude with what brevity I can; I will only add this in the defence of ourpresent Writers, that if they reach not some excellencies of Ben. Jonson; (which no Age, Iam confident, ever shall) yet, at least, they are above that meanness of thought which Ihave tax’d, and which is frequent in him.

That the wit of this Age is much more Courtly, may easily be prov’d by viewing theCharacters of Gentlemen which were written in the last. First, for Jonson, True-Wit in theSilent Woman, was his Master-piece, and True-wit was a Scholar-like kind of man, aGentleman with an allay of Pedantry: a man who seems mortifi’d to the world, by muchreading. The best of his discourse, is drawn, not from the knowledge of the Town, butBooks, and, in short, he would be a fine Gentleman, in an University. (170–2)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ And this leads me to the last and greatest advantage of our writing, which proceeds

from conversation. In the Age, wherein those Poets liv’d, there was less of gallantry thanin ours; neither did they keep the best company of theirs. Their fortune has been much likethat of Epicurus, in the retirement of his Gardens: to live almost unknown, and to becelebrated after their decease. I cannot find that any of them were conversant in Courts,except Ben. Jonson: and his genius lay not so much that way, as to make an improvement byit. Greatness was not, then, so easy of access, nor conversation so free as now it is. Icannot, therefore, conceive it any insolence to affirm, that, by the knowledge, and pattern

BEN JONSON 295

of their wit, who writ before us, and by the advantage of our own conversation, thediscourse and Raillery of our Comedies excell what has been written by them, and this willbe deny’d by none, but some few old fellows who value themselves on their acquaintancewith the Black-Friars: who, because they saw their Playes, would pretend a right to judgeours. The memory of these grave Gentlemen is their only Plea for being Wits, they cantell a story of Ben. Jonson, and perhaps have had fancy enough to give a supper in Apollothat they might be call’d his Sons: and because they were drawn in to be laught at in thosetimes, they think themselves now sufficiently intitled to laugh at ours. Learning I neversaw in any of them, and wit no more than they could remember. In short, they wereunlucky to have been bred in an unpolish’d Age, and more unlucky to live to a refin’d one.They have lasted beyond their own, and are cast behind ours: and not contented to haveknown little at the age of twenty, they boast of their ignorance at three score. (172–3)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[The conclusion of the essay.]

Let us therefore admire the beauties and the heights of Shakespear, without falling after himinto a carelesness and (as I may call it) a Lethargy of thought, for whole Scenes together.Let us imitate, as we are able, the quickness and easiness of Fletcher, without proposinghim as a pattern to us, either in the redundancy of his matter, or the incorrectness of hislanguage. Let us admire his wit and sharpness of conceit; but, let us at the same timeacknowledge that it was seldome so fix’d, and made proper to his characters, as that thesame things might not be spoken by any person in the Play. Let us applaud his Scenes ofLove; but, let us confess that he understood not either greatness or perfect honour in theparts of any of his women. In fine, let us allow, that he had so-much fancy, as when hepleas’d he could write wit: but that he wanted so much Judgment as seldome to havewritten humour; or describ’d a pleasant folly. Let us ascribe to Jonson the height andaccuracy of Judgment, in the ordering of his Plots, his choice of characters, andmaintaining what he had chosen, to the end. but let us not think him a perfect pattern ofimitation; except it be in humour: for Love, which is the foundation of all Comedies inother Languages, is scarcely mention’d in any of his Playes. and for humour it self, thePoets of this Age will be more wary than to imitate the meanness of his persons.Gentlemen will now be entertain’d with the follies of each other; and though they allowCob and Tib to speak properly, yet they are not much pleas’d with their Tankard or withtheir Raggs: And, surely, their conversation can be no jest to them on the Theatre, whenthey would avoid it in the street.

To conclude all, let us render to our Predecessors what is their due, without confineingour selves to a servile imitation of all they writ: and, without assuming to our selves theTitle of better Poets, let us ascribe to the gallantry and civility of our age the advantagewhich we have above them; and to our knowledge of the customs and manners of it, thehappiness we have to please beyond them. (174–5)

NOTE

1 ‘We keep smiting by turns and by turns presenting our own legs to the arrow’: Persius,Satires, 4.42.

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83.Aphra Behn on Shakespeare and Jonson

1673

From the preface to The Dutch Lover: A Comedy, produced at the Duke’s Theatre,Dorset Garden, in February 1673, and printed in the same year.

Behn (c. 1640–89) had her first play, The Forced Marriage, produced in 1670, andthereafter made her living as a playwright, the first woman in the English theatre todo so. In the prologue to her second play, The Amorous Prince (1671), she haddivided the audience into the ‘grave Dons who love no Play/But what is regular, GreatJohnson’s way’, and are ‘for things well said with spirit and soul’ and the rest, whowould rather hear ‘a smutty jest’ from the low comedians of the day, than ‘a Scene/Of the admir’d and well-penn’d Cataline’. In the present preface, less flatteringly toJonson, she suggests that there is an element of affectation in the ‘Sect’ of hisadmirers. See Introduction, p. 16.

…For waving the examination, why women having equal education with men, were not as capableof knowledge, of whatever sort as well as they: I’l only say as I have touch’d before, that Plays haveno great room for that which is mens great advantage over women, that is Learning: We all wellknow that the immortal Shakespears Plays (who was not guilty of much more of this than often fallsto womens share) have better pleas’d the World than Johnsons works, though by the way ’tis saidthat Benjamin was no such Rabbi neither, for I am inform’d his Learning was but Grammer high;(sufficient indeed to rob poor Salust of his best Orations) and it hath been observ’d, that they are aptto admire him most confoundedly, who have just such a scantling of it as he had; and I have seen aman the most severe of Johnsons Sect, sit with his Hat remov’d less than a hairs breadth from onesullen posture for almost three hours at the Alchymist; who at that excellent Play of Harry the Fourth(which yet I hope is far enough from Farce) hath very hardly kept his Doublet whole; but affectationhath always had a greater share both in the actions and discourse of men than truth and judgementhave: and for our Modern ones, except our most unimitable Laureat, I dare to say I know of none thatwrite at such a formidable rate, but that a woman may well hope to reach their greatest hights. Thenfor their musty rules of Unity, and God knows what besides, if they meant any thing, they are enoughintelligable, and as practible by a woman; but really methinks they that disturb their heads with anyother rules of Playes besides the making them pleasant, and avoiding of scurrility, might much betterbe imploy’d in studying how to improve mens too too imperfect knowledge of that antient EnglishGame, which hight long Laurence:1 And if Comedy should be the Picture of ridiculous mankind, Iwonder any one should think it such a sturdy task, whilst we are furnish’d with such precious

Originals as him, I lately told you of; if at least that Character do not dwindle into Farce, and sobecome too mean an entertainment for those persons who are us’d to think. (Sig. ar-v)

NOTE

1 To play at Lawrence is to do nothing, to laze.

298 BEN JONSON

84.Edward Howard, Jonson unparalleled among ancient

or modern authors1673

From the essay ‘Criticism and Censure’, in Howard’s Poems, and Essays: With aParaphrase on Cicero’s Laelius, or Of Friendship (1673).

Howard has a number of tributes to Jonson in this volume: in his poem ‘TheInterrogation’ he notes that in most of the ‘admired Scenes’ of ‘Elaborate Ben’, aswell as those of Fletcher and Shakespeare, ‘Their Busines or their Passion turns toLove’ (pp. 13–14); echoing the thought of the extract below, Howard cites ‘oureternal Ben’ in the poem ‘The Farewel’ as one of those who is valued less than the‘mean Wit’s’ of the present day (p. 37); and Jonson’s wish that Shakespeare hadblotted out a thousand of his lines is quoted with implicit approval (in the essay ‘Ofmy Self’, p. 81).

[The great critic Scaliger should attend to his own mistakes as well as to those ofother writers].

But how much more should our small siz’d Wits and Criticks take care of theirpresumptuous Descants and carpings at men’s performances, when they are scarcely wellvers’d in the common places of Grammar and Sense? nay, when there is nothing more tobe abominated by the judicious, than what they call wit, and would so father on the world?The Press as well as the Stage has enough of their endeavours and applauses; the latter ofwhich is transformed by these new Wits and their Poets into the most hideous license ofScurrility, Bawdery, and Prophaneness as can be imaginable, and no less an offence todiscreet and modest observers. Yet with this stuff, they are ready to vie with all formercommendable Writers: Shakespear, Beaumont, Fletcher and Johnson, must be nothing withthem, though such majestick strength of Wit and Judgement is due to their DramatiquePieces. Of Johnson, I dare affirm that he is yet unparallel’d by the world, and may be somesucceeding Ages: He gave our English Tongue firmness, greatness, enlarged and improvedit, without patching of French words to our speech, according to some of our modernPens: insomuch that I question whether any of the Wit of the Latine Poets be more Terseand Eloquent in their Tongue, than this great and Learned Poet appears in ours. (23–4)

300

85.Edward Phillips on Jonson’s achievements

1675

From his Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets (1675). This set of summary lives of the poets grew out of a Latin catalogue of English

poets—Compendiosa Enumeratio Poetarum—published as an appendix to JohannesBuchler, Sacrarum Profanarumque Phrasium Poeticarum Thesaurus (1669). The TheatrumPoetarum was later published in an enlarged version by Sir Egerton Brydges, asvolume i of Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800).

Phillips (1630–? 96), Milton’s nephew and pupil, published poems, two novels,a humorous miscellany and English and Latin dictionaries. He was tutor to JohnEvelyn’s son and to the son of the fifth Earl of Pembroke. In his continuation of SirRichard Baker’s A Chronicle of the Kings of England (1643), published in 1660, Phillipsincluded Jonson in a list of the ‘Resplendent’ poets of Charles I’s time (p. 503); whenhe revised the list in the 1670 edition, Jonson was highlighted as a poet who ‘by hisprofound Learning and Judgement, shewed a Poet was to be as well made as born’,while Shakespeare, though not named, must be the poet celebrated as one who‘though he wanted Learning, made as high and noble flights as fancy could advancewithout it’ (p. 604).

Benjamin Johnson, the most learned, judicious and correct, generally so accounted, of ourEnglish Comedians, and the more to be admired for being so, for that neither the height ofnatural parts[,] for he was no Shakespear, nor the cost of Extraordinary Education; for he isreported but a Bricklayers Son, but his own proper Industry and Addiction to Booksadvanct him to this perfection: In three of his Comedies, namely the Fox, Alchymist andSilent Woman he may be compared, in the Judgement of Learned Men, for Decorum,Language, and well Humouring of the parts, as well with the chief of the Ancient Greekand Latin Comedians as the prime of the modern Italians, who have been judg’d the best ofEurope for a happy vein in Comedies, nor is his Bartholomew-Fair much short of them; as forhis other Comedies Cinthia’s Revells, Poetaster, and the rest, let the name of Ben Johnsonprotect them against whoever shall think fit to be severe in censure against them: TheTruth is, his Tragedies Sejanus and Catiline seem to have in them more of an artificial andinflate than of a pathetical and naturally Tragic height: In the rest of his Poetry, for he isnot wholly Dramatic, as his Underwoods, Epigrams, &c. he is sometimes bold andstrenuous, sometimes Magisterial, sometimes Lepid and full enough of conceit, andsometimes a Man as other Men are. (19–20)

302

86.John Dryden, Jonson distinguished from Shadwell

1676

From Mac Flecknoe, or a Satyr upon the Tru-Blew-Protestant Poet, T.S. (1682).There are strong arguments for 1676 as the date of composition: see David

M.Vieth, ‘The Discovery of the Date of Mac Flecknoe’, in Evidence in LiteraryScholarship: Essays in Memory of James Marshall Osborn, ed. René Wellek and AlvaroRibeiro (Oxford 1979), pp. 63–87.

This satire on Shadwell as the rightful successor to Richard Flecknoe as absoluteruler of ‘the Realms of Nonsense’ ridicules Shadwell’s attempts to establish himselfas a successor to Jonson. In an earlier passage, Shadwell’s throne is placed in atheatre in the Barbican: ‘Great Fletcher never treads in Buskins here, Nor greaterJohnson dares in socks appear’ (ll. 79–80). See Introduction, pp. 15–16.

[Flecknoe is instructing Mac Flecknoe.]

Nor let false Friends seduce thy Mind to Fame,By Arrogating Johnson’s Hostile Name;Let Father Flecknoe Fire thy Mind with Praise,And Uncle Ogleby1 thy Envy raise;Thou art my Blood where Johnson hath no Part,What share have we in Nature, or in Art?Where did his Wit or Learning fix a Brand?Or rail at Arts he did not understand?Where made he love in Prince Nycanders Vain?Or swept the Dust in Psyches humble Strain?2

Where sold he Bargains? Whip-stich, Kiss mine A—s,Promis’d a Play, and dwindled to a Farce.Where did his Muse from Fletchers Scenes purloin,As thou whole Etheridge dost transfuse to thine?But so transfus’d as Oyls on Water Flow,His always Floats above, thine Sinks Below;This is thy Promise, this thy wondrous Way,New Humours to Invent for each New Play;This is that Boasted Bias of the Mind,By which one way to Dulness ’tis Inclin’d;Which makes thy Writings lame on one side still,

And in all Charges, that way bends thy will;Nor let thy Mountain Belly make Pretence,Of likeness, thine’s a Tympany of Sence.A Tun of Man in thy large Bulk is Writ,But sure thou art a Kilderkin of Wit;Like mine thy Gentle Numbers feebly creep,Thy Tragick Muse gives Smiles, thy Comick sleep…. (ll. 171–98; pp. 12–13)

NOTES

1 John Ogilby (1600–76), a writer and publisher also satirized in The Dunciad in Four Books (1.141, 328) as a feeble poet.

2 Prince Nicander is a character in Shadwell’s tragedy Psyche (1675).

304 BEN JONSON

87.John Oldham on Jonson

1678

‘Upon the Works of Ben Johnson. Written in 1678. Ode’, printed in Oldham’sPoems, and Translations (1683). Corrected here from the autograph copy in BodleianLibrary MS Rawlinson Poetry 123, following H & S, xi, 538–45.

Oldham (1653–83) is best known for his Satyrs upon the Jesuits, of which the first—inspired by the Popish Plot— appeared in 1679. In the ‘Advertisement’ to theSatyrs included in Oldham’s Works (1684), he acknowledges a debt to Catiline forthe first Satyr: ‘The first Satyr he drew by Sylla’s Ghost in the great Johnson, which maybe perceived by some strokes and touches therein, however short they come of the Original’(Book i, Sig. A2r). Weldon M.Williams, ‘The Influence of Ben Jonson’s Catilineupon John Oldham’s Satyrs upon the Jesuits,’ ELH (1944), xi, 38–62, suggests thatJonson’s influence in fact extends over all four of the Satyrs. In the ‘Advertisement’to Book ii of the Works Oldham acknowledges Jonson as one of his predecessors intranslating Horace’s Art of Poetry, one ‘of so establish’d an Authority, that whateverhe did is held as Sacred’ (Book ii, Sig. ar). See Introduction, pp. 10, 16.

I.Great Thou! whom ’tis a Crime almost todare to praise,Whose firm establish’d, and unshaken Glories stand,And proudly their own Fame command,Above our pow’r to lessen or to raise,And all, but the few Heirs of thy brave Genius,and thy Bays;Hail mighty Founder of our Stage! for so I dareEntitle thee, nor any modern Censures fear,Nor care what thy unjust Detractors say;They’l say perhaps, that others did Materials bring,That others did the first Foundations lay,And glorious ’twas (we grant) but to begin,But thou alone couldst finish the design,All the fair Model, and the Workmanship was thine:Some bold Advent’rers might have been before,Who durst the unknown world explore,By them it was survey’d at distant view,

And here and there a Cape, and Line they drew,Which only serv’d as hints, and marks to thee,Who wast reserv’d to make the full Discovery:Art’s Compass to thy painful search we owe,Whereby thou went’st so far, and we may after go,By that we may Wit’s vast, and trackles Ocean try,Content no longer, as before,Dully to coast along the shore,But steer a course more unconfm’d, and free,Beyond the narrow bounds, that pent Antiquity.

II.

Never till thee the Theater possestA Prince with equal Pow’r, and Greatness blest,No Government, or Laws it hadTo strengthen, and establish it,Till thy great hand the Scepter sway’d,But groan’d under a wretched Anarchy of Wit:Unform’d, and void was then its Poesie,Only some pre-existing Matter wePerhaps could see,That might foretell what was to be;A rude, and undigested Lump it lay,Like the old Chaos, e’re the birth of Light, and Day,Till thy brave Genius like a new Creator came,And undertook the mighty Frame;No shuffled Atoms did the well-built work compose,It from no lucky hit of blund’ring Chance arose(As some of this great Fabrick idly dream)But wise, all-seeing Judgment did contrive,And knowing Art its Graces give:No sooner did thy Soul with active Force and FireThe dull and heavy Mass inspire,But strait throughout it let us seeProportion, Order, Harmony,And every part did to the whole agree,And strait appear’d a beauteous new-made world of Poetry.

III.

Let dull, and ignorant Pretenders Art condemn(Those only Foes to Art, and Art to them)The meer Fanaticks, and Enthusiasts in Poetry

(For Schismaticks in that, as in Religion be)Who make’t all Revelation, Trance, and Dream,Let them despise her Laws, and thinkThat Rules and Forms the Spirit stint:Thine was no mad, unruly Frenzy of the brain,

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Which justly might deserve the Chain,’Twas brisk, and mettled, but a manag’d Rage,Sprightly as vig’rous Youth, and cool as temp’rateAge:Free, like thy Will, it did all Force disdain,But suffer’d Reason’s loose, and easie rein,By that it suffer’d to be led,Which did not curb Poetick liberty, but guide:Fancy, that wild and haggard Faculty,Untam’d in most, and let at random fly,Was wisely govern’d, and reclaim’d by thee,Restraint, and Discipline was made endure,And by thy calm, and milder Judgment brought tolure;Yet when ’twas at some nobler Quarry sent,With bold, and tow’ring wings it upward went,Not lessen’d at the greatest height,Not turn’d by the most giddy flights of dazlingWit.

IV.

Nature, and Art together met, and joyn’d,Made up the Character of thy great Mind.That like a bright and glorious Sphere,Appear’d with numerous Stars embellish’d o’re,And much of Light to thee, and much of Influencebore,This was the strong Intelligence, whose pow’rTurn’d it about, and did th’ unerring motions steer:Concurring both like vital Seed, and Heat,The noble Births they joyntly did beget,And hard ’twas to be thought,Which most of force to the great Generationbrought:So mingling Elements compose our Bodies frame,Fire, Water, Earth, and AirAlike their just Proportions share,Each undistinguish’d still remains the same,Yet can’t we say that either’s here, or there,But all, we know not how, are scatter’d every where.

V.

Sober, and grave was still the Garb thy Muse put on,No tawdry careless slattern Dress,Nor starch’d, and formal with Affectedness,Nor the cast Mode, and Fashion of the Court, andTown;

BEN JONSON 307

But neat, agreeable, and janty ’twas,Well-fitted, it sate close in every place,And all became with an uncommon Air, and Grace:Rich, costly and substantial was the stuff,Not barely smooth, nor yet too coarsly rough:No refuse, ill-patch’d Shreds o’th Schools,The motly wear of read, and learned Fools,No French Commodity which now so much doestake,And our own better Manufacture spoil,Nor was it ought of forein Soil;But Staple all, and all of English Growth, andMake:What flow’rs soe’re of Art it had, were foundNo tinsel’d slight Embroideries,But all appear’d either the native Ground,Or twisted, wrought, and interwoven with thePiece.

VI.

Plain Humor, shewn with her whole variousFace,Not mask’d with any antick Dress,Not screw’d in forc’d, ridiculous Grimace(The gaping Rabbles dull delight,And more the actor’s than the Poet’s Wit)Such did she enter on thy Stage,And such was represented to the wond’ring Age:Well wast thou skill’d, and read in human kind,In every wild fantastick Passion of his mind,Didst into all his hidden Inclinations dive,

What each from Nature does receive,Or Age, or Sex, or Quality, or Country give;What Custom too, that mighty Sorceress,Whose pow’rful Witchcraft does transformEnchanted Man to several monstrous Images,Makes this an odd, and freakish Monky turn,And that a grave and solemn Ass appear,And all a thousand beastly shapes of Folly wear:Whate’re Caprice or Whimsie leads awryPerverted, and seduc’d Mortality,Or does incline, and byass itFrom what’s Discreet, and Wise, and Right, andGood, and Fit;All in thy faithful Glass were so express’d,As if they were Reflections of thy Breast,

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As if they had been stamp’d on thy own mind,And thou the universal vast Idea of Mankind.

VII.

Never didst thou with the same Dish repeated cloy,Tho every Dish, well-cook’d by thee,Contain’d a plentiful VarietyTo all that could sound relishing Palats be,Each Regale with new Delicacies did invite,Courted the Tast, and rais’d the Appetite:Whate’re fresh dainty Fops in season wereTo garnish, and set out thy Bill of fare(Those never found to fail throughout the year,For seldom that ill natur’d Planet rules,That plagues a Poet with a dearth of Fools)What thy strict Observation e’re survey’d,From the fine, luscious Spark of high, and courtlyBreed,Down to the dull, insipid Cit,Made thy pleas’d Audience entertainment fit,Serv’d up with all the grateful Poignancies of Wit.

VIII.

Most Plays are writ like Almanacks of late,And serve one only year, one only State;Another makes them useless, stale, and out of date;But thine were wisely calculated fitFor each Meridian, every Clime of Wit,For all succeeding Time, and after-age,And all Mankind might thy vast Audience sit,And the whole world be justly made thy Stage:Still they shall taking be, and ever new,Still keep in vogue in spite of all the damning Crew;Till the last Scene of this great Theatre,Clos’d, and shut down,The numerous Actors all retire,And the grand Play of human Life be done.

IX.

Beshrew those envious Tongues, who seek to blastthy Bays,Who Spots in thy bright Fame would find, orraise,And say, it only shines with borrow’d Rays;Rich in thy self, to whose unbounded storeExhausted Nature could vouchsafe no more,Thou could’st alone the Empire of the Stage

BEN JONSON 309

maintain,Couldst all its Grandeur, and its Port sustain,Nor neededst others Subsidies to pay,Neededst no Tax on forein, or thy native Countrylay,To bear the charges of thy purchas’d Fame,But thy own Stock could raise the same,Thy sole Revenue all the vast Expence defray:Yet like some mighty Conqueror in Poetry,Design’d by Fate of choice to beFounder of its new universal Monarchy,Boldly thou didst the learned World invade,Whilst all around thy pow’rful Genius sway’d,Soon vanquish’d Rome, and Greece were madesubmit,Both were thy humble Tributaries made,And thou return’dst in Triumph with their captiveWit.

X.

Unjust, and more ill-natur’d those,Thy spiteful, and malicious Foes,Who on thy happiest Talent fix a lye,And call that Slowness, which was Care, andIndustry.Let me (with Pride so to be guilty thought)Share all thy wish’d Reproach, and share thyshame,If Diligence be deem’d a fault,If to be faultless must deserve their Blame:Judg of thy self alone (for none there wereCould be so just, or could be so severe)Thou thy own Works didst strictly tryBy known and uncontested Rules of Poetry,And gav’st thy Sentence still impartially:With rigor thou arraign’dst each guilty Line,And spar’dst no criminal Sense, because ’twasthine:Unbrib’d with Favour, Love, or Self-conceit,(For never, or too seldom we,Objects too near us, our own Blemishes can see)Thou didst no small’st Delinquencies acquit,But saw’st them to Correction all submit,Saw’st execution done on all convicted Crimes ofWit.

XI.

310 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Some curious Painter, taught by Art to dare(For they with Poets in that Title share)When he would undertake a glorious FrameOf lasting Worth, and fadeless as his Fame;Long he contrives, and weighs the bold Design,Long holds his doubting hand e’re he begin,And justly then proportions every stroke, and line,And oft he brings it to review,And oft he does deface, and dashes oft anew,And mixes Oyls to make the flitting Colours dure,To keep ’em from the tarnish of injurious Timesecure;Finish’d at length in all that Care, and Skill can doThe matchless Piece is set to publick View,And all surpriz’d about it wond’ring stand,And tho no name be found below,Yet strait discern th’unimitable hand,And strait they cry ’tis Titian, or ’tis Angelo:So thy brave Soul, that scorn’d all cheap, and easieways,And trod no common road to Praise,Would not with rash, and speedy Negligence proceed,(For who e’re saw Perfection grow in haste?Or that soon done, which must for ever last?)But gently did advance with wary heed,And shew’d that mastery is most in justness read:Nought ever issued from thy teeming Breast,But what had gone full time, could write exactlybest,And stand the sharpest Censure, and defie therigid’st Test.

XII.

‘Twas thus th’Almighty Poet (if we dareOur weak, and meaner Acts with his compare)When he the Worlds fair Poem did of old design,That Work, which now must boast no longer datethan thine;Tho ’twas in him alike to will, and do,Tho the same Word that spoke, could make ittoo,Yet would he not such quick, and hasty methodsuse,Nor did an instant (which it might) the great effectproduce,But when th’ All-wise himself in Council sate,Vouchsaf’d to think and be deliberate,

BEN JONSON 311

When Heaven consider’d, and th’Eternal Wit, andSense,Seem’d to take time, and care, and pains,It shew’d that some uncommon Birth,That something worthy of a God was coming forth;Nought uncorrect there was, nought faultythere,No point amiss did in the large voluminous Pieceappear,And when the glorious Author all survey’d,Survey’d whate’re his mighty Labours made,Well-pleas’d he was to findAll answer’d the great Model, and Idea of his MindPleas’d at himself He in high wonder stood,And much his Power, and much his Wisdom didapplaud,To see how all was Perfect, all transcendent Good.

XIII.

Let meaner spirits stoop to low precarious Fame,Content on gross and coarse Applause to live,And what the dull, and sensless Rabble give,Thou didst it still with noble scorn contemn,Nor would’st that wretched Alms receive,The poor subsistence of some bankrupt, sordidname:Thine was no empty Vapor, rais’d beneath,And form’d of common Breath,The false, and foolish Fire, that’s whisk’d aboutBy popular Air, and glares a while, and then goesout;But ’twas a solid, whole and perfect Globe of light,That shone all over, was all over bright,And dar’d all sullying Clouds, and fear’d no darkningnight;Like the gay Monarch of the Stars and Sky,Who wheresoe’re he does displayHis sovereign Lustre, and majestick Ray,Strait all the less, and petty Glories nighVanish, and shrink away,O’rewhelm’d, and swallow’d by the greater blazeof Day;With such a strong, an awful and victorious BeamAppear’d, and ever shall appear, thy Fame,View’d, and ador’d by all th’ undoubted Race ofWit,Who only can endure to look on it.

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The rest o’recome with too much light,With too much brightness dazled, or extinguish’dquite:Restless, and uncontroul’d it now shall passAs wide a course about the World as he,And when his long repeated Travels ceaseBegin a new, and vaster Race,And still tread round the endless Circle of Eternity. (69–86)

BEN JONSON 313

314

88.John Dryden, low farce in Volpone

1683

From the portions added by Dryden to Sir William Soame’s translation of Boileau’sL’Art Poétique, The Art of Poetry (1683).

A note to Jacob Tonson’s 1708 edition of the translation statesthat the idea of giving examples from English writers wasDryden’s, as was its execution (the note is reprinted inMacdonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography, p. 36). Soame hadapparently asked Dryden to revise his translation. The extractbelow is from Canto iii; it corresponds to Chant iii, ll.389–400 in the original.

Your Actors must by Reason be control’d;Let young men speak like young, old men like old:Observe the Town, and study well the Court;For thither various Characters resort:Thus ’twas great Johnson purchas’d his renown,And in his Art had born away the Crown;If less desirous of the Peoples praise,He had not with low Farce debas’d his Playes;Mixing dull Buffoonry with Wit refin’d,And Harlequin with noble Terence joyn’d.When in the Fox I see the Tortois hist,I lose the Author of the Alchymist. (51–2)

316

89.Edward Howard on Jonson’s allegory and on a

statue of Jonson1689

From Edward Howard, Caroloiades, Or, The Rebellion of Forty One. In Ten Books. AHeroick Poem (1689).

For Howard, see No. 78, above.

(a) From the preface.

[Howard’s preface defends the fictional elements which must be added to the‘known story’ to make a proper epic. He has just cited Tasso’s inclusion inGerusalemme Liberata of supernatural characters and events.]

And this our famous Ben. Johnson well understood, whose mature Judgement gave as littleroom to extravagancies of the Brain as any that preceded him, by his introducing Sylla’sGhost whereby to infuse on the wicked Genius of Cataline a more Hellish and IrresistableTemptation of perfect his Impious design, which could not have been so execrablyInsinuated by any other Method.

An example that enough assures us that he approv’d the Allegorical part of Invention,and that it is as Legitimately ours, as it could be claim’d by any of the Ancients, whenproperly apply’d. I held it convenient to instance these particulars, that the Reader maynot wonder if I have in some passages and fictions follow’d the example of so great a Poet,as well as others that famously preceded him in that manner of Contrivement. (Sig. A4v–[A5]r)

(b) From Book v.

[The hero Dornland has visited the wise Polyaster to learn the truth of a prophecymade about him; Polyaster first shows him a pantheon in wood and stone of the mostlearned of the British; among the poets Chaucer and Spenser are the first.]

Near these in Statue witty Shakspere stood,Whose early Plays were soonest next to Good.And Like a vast Dramatick Founder show’dBounties of Wit from his large Genius flow’d.Whose worth was by this Learned duely weigh’d,

As in Effigie there he stood display’d.But more stupendious to his Soul appear’dProportions which great Johnsons Form declar’d,Whose deep Effigies he wish’d longer dateThen Polish’d art in stone cou’d Celebrate.Admiring next the wit that Crown’d his Bays,Whose Scenes were works, when most fell short of Plays.So aptly by him Characters exprest,That shew’d his artfull hand and Learning best.Whilst other Dramaticks like Planets were,Rambling to find their Center near his Sphere.A Province Phœbus did on him bestow,When made his Wits Lieutenancy below. (137–8)

318 BEN JONSON

90.Gerald Langbaine, notes on Jonson

1691

From Gerald Langbaine the younger, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets(Oxford 1691).

Langbaine (1656–92) was the son of a Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford; in1687 he published Momus Triumphant: or, the Plagiaries of the English Stage (alsopublished with the title A New Catalogue of English Plays), a listing of plays by authorwith comments on their sources, including instances of what Langbaine in hispreface calls ‘Thefts’ or ‘Plagiaries’ (Sig. [A4v]). Here, as in the 1691 Account, hedistinguishes between the ancients’ methods of borrowing—they used their prede cessors as models, not just as quarries; they took only the best from their sources;and they acknowledged their borrowings—from those of certain moderns, andespecially of Dryden. Whereas Shakespeare and Jonson borrowed from theancients to provide plots and to beautify the language, Langbaine says, writers likeDryden serve up ‘empty French Kickshaws’ as their own creations, while at thesame time pouring scorn on French wit, and condemning predecessors like Jonsonfor their borrowings (Sig. ar–a2r). The Jonson listing notes classical sources forCatiline, Poetaster, Epicoene, and Sejanus (pp. 12–13), notes which form the basis forthe comments on sources in the 1691 Account.

Langbaine’s 1691 work, from which extracts are given here, is far more than acatalogue, offering brief biographies of his playwrights, miscellaneous verse andprose excerpts relating to their works and reputations, and lists of the playwrights’known plays with details from their title-pages and an occasional additionalcomment. Copies of the Account annotated by successors like Bishop Percy, WilliamOldys, Steevens, and Malone, have themselves become important sources for literaryhistory.

(a) From the entry on Dryden.But to wave this digression, and proceed to the Vindication of the Ancients; which that

I may the better perform, for the Readers Diversion, and that Mr. Dryden may not tellme, that what I have said is but gratis dictum, I shall set down the Heads of his Depositionsagainst our ancient English Poets, and then endeavour the Defence of those great Men,who certainly deserv’d much better of posterity, than to be disrespectively treated as hehas used them. (134)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Having dealt with Dryden’s comments on Shakespeare, and on Fletcher,Langbaine quotes Dryden’s ‘Defence of the Epilogue’ (No. 82 (c), above) to showhow he praises Jonson in one page, and ‘wipes it out in another’ (p. 136); hedefends first Shakespeare and Fletcher, then Jonson.]

To come lastly to Ben Johnson, who (as Mr. Dryden affirms,⋆) has borrow’d more from theAncients than any: I crave leave to say in his behalf, that our late Laureat has far out-done himin Thefts, proportionable to his Writings: and therefore he is guilty of the highestArrogance, to accuse another of a Crime, for which he is of most men liable to bearraign’d.

Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querenteis?1

I must further alledge that Mr. Johnson in borrowing from the Ancients, has only follow’dthe Pattern of the great Men of former Ages, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Plautus, Terence,Seneca, &c. all which have imitated the Example of the industrious Bee, which sucksHoney from all sorts of Flowers, and lays it up in a general Repository.

[Describes how all these authors borrowed from their predecessors.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆I could enumerate more Instances, but these are sufficient Precedents to excuse Mr.

Johnson.Permit me to say farther in his behalf, That if in imitation of these illustrious Examples,

and Models of Antiquity, he has borrow’d from them, as they from each other; yet that heattempted, and as some think, happily succeeded in his Endeavours of surpassing them:inasmuch that a certain Person of Quality† makes a Question, ‘Whether any of the Wit ofthe Latine Poets be more Terse and Eloquent in their Tongue, than this Great andLearned Poet appears in ours.’

Whether Mr. Dryden, who has likewise succeeded to admiration in this way, or Mr.Johnson have most improv’d, and best advanc’d what they have borrow’d from theAncients, I shall leave to the decision of the abler Criticks: only this I must say, in behalfof the later, that he has no ways endeavour’d to conceal what he has borrow’d, as theformer has generally done. Nay, in his Play call’d Sejanus he has printed in the Margentthroughout, the places from whence he borrow’d: the same he has practic’d in several ofhis Masques, (as the Reader may find in his Works;) a Pattern, which Mr. Dryden wouldhave done well to have copied, and had thereby sav’d me the trouble of these followingAnnotations.

There is this difference between the Proceedings of these Poets, that Mr. Johnson has byMr. Dryden’s Concession‡ Design’d his Plots himself; whereas I know not any One Play,whose Plot may be said to be the Product of Mr. Dryden’s own Brain. When Mr. Johnsonborrow’d, ’twas from the Treasury of the Ancients, which is so far from any diminutionof his Worth, that I think it is to his Honor; at least-wise I am sure he is justified by hisSon Cartwright in the following Lines…

[Quotes ll. 127–42 from Cartwright’s elegy in Jonsonus Virbius, No. 49(i), above,and attacks Dryden for borrowing not only from the ancients but also from theItalians, the Spanish, the French and even from his own countrymen, but reservesdetailed comment for his accounts of individual plays.]

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⋆ ⋆ ⋆…in the mean time, give me leave to say a word, or two, in Defence of Mr. Johnson’s

way of Wit, which Mr. Dryden calls Clenches.There have been few great Poets which have not propos’d some Eminent Author for

their Pattern, (Examples of this would be needless and endless.) Mr. Johnson propos’dPlautus for his Model, and not only borrow’d from him, but imitated his way of Wit inEnglish. There are none who have read him, but are acquainted with his way of playingwith Words: I will give one Example for all. which the Reader may find in the veryentrance of his Works; I mean the Prologue to Amphitruo.

Justam rem & facilem oratum a vobis volo:Nam juste ab justis sum Orator datus.Nam injusta ab justis impetrare non decet:Justa autem ab injustis petere insipientia ’st.2

Nor might this be the sole Reason for Mr. Johnson’s Imitation, for possibly ’twas hisCompliance with the Age that induc’d him to this way of writing, it being then as Mr.Dryden observes$ the Mode of Wit, the Vice of the Age, and not Ben Johnson’s: and besidesMr. Dryden’s taxing Sir Philip Sidney for playing with his Words, I may add that I find itpractis’d by several Drammatick Poets, who were Mr. Johnson’s Cotemporaries: and notwithstanding the Advantage which this Age claims over the last, we find Mr. Drydenhimself as well as Mr. Johnson, not only given to Clinches; but sometimes a Carwichet, aQuarter-Quibble, or a bare Pun serves his turn, as well as his friend Bur in his Wild-Gallant;and therefore he might have spar’d this Reflection, if he had given himself the liberty ofThinking.

As to his Reflections on this Triumvirate in general: I might easily prove, that hisImproprieties in Grammar, are equal to theirs: and that He himself has been guilty ofSolecisms in Speech, and flaws in Sence, as well as Shakespear, Fletcher, and Johnson: but thiswould be to waste Paper and Time…. (145–51)

(b) From the article on Jonson.

I have already drawn some strokes of this Great Man’s Character, in my Defence of himagainst the Attempts of Mr. Dryden; and therefore shall less need to make a curious andexact Description of all his Excellencies; which otherwise are very Great, Noble, andVarious; and have been remark’d in parcells by several Hands, but exceed my small Capacityto collect them into one full View. I shall therefore rather let them lye dispers’d, asScaliger did Virgil’s praises, thro’ his whole Book of Poetry; contenting my self at presentwith giving the Reader an Account of the private occurrences of his Life.

[Gives brief biography.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆He was a Man of a very free Temper, and withal blunt, and somewhat haughty to

those, that were either Rivals in Fame, or Enemies to his Writings: (witness his Poetaster,wherein he falls upon Decker, and his answer to Dr. Gill, who writ against his MagneticLady,) otherwise of a good Sociable Humour, when amongst his Sons and Friends in theApollo: from whose Laws the Reader may possibly judge of his Temper….

BEN JONSON 321

[Quotes Jonson’s Leges Conviviales; refrains from giving any judgement on Jonson’spoetry, since it deserves ‘somewhat above what my faint Praise can reach, ordescribe’, referring the reader to Fuller and Anthony à Wood in prose, andCartwright and Oldham in verse.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆…to the foregoing, I might add Mr. Dryden’s Dramatick Essay, which had it been writ

after his Postscript to Granada, might have atoned for that unbecoming Character, and hadserv’d for a Palinode; but since he has not that I know of thought fit to retract it, give meleave to insert an old Copy of Verses, which seems to wipe off the Accusations of Mr.Johnson’s Enemies.

[Quotes Fitzgeffrey’s Latin epigram in praise of Jonson (No. 8, above). Then afterresisting the temptation to retail a ‘pleasant Story or two’ about Jonson for fear ofDryden’s condemnation, Langbaine gives a catalogue of the plays and masques.](281–7)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[From the notes on Catiline:]

This Play is still in Vogue on the Stage, and always presented with success. It was so wellapprov’d of by the Judicious Beaumont, that he writ a Copy of Verses in praise of it, whichthe Reader may find before our Authors Works. Nevertheless I must take notice that Mr.Johnson has borrow’d very much from the Ancients in this Tragedy; as for Instance, part ofSylla’s Ghost, in the very Entrance of the Play, is copy’d from the Ghost of Tantalus, in thebeginning of Seneca’s Thyestes. Thus our Author has translated a great part of Salust’sHistory, (tho’ with great Judgement and Elegance) and inserted it into his Play. For thePlot, see Salust. Plutarch in the Life of Cicero. Florus Lib. 4 C. 1. (288)

[From the notes on The Devil is an Ass:]

Tho’ our Author seldome borrows any part of his Plot; yet in this Play, if I mistake not,Wittipol’s giving his cloak to Fitz-dotterel to court his Wife one quarter of an Hour, isfounded on a Novel in Boccace, Day 3. Nov 5. (289)

[From the notes on Poetaster:]

…I must further add, I heartily wish for our Author’s Reputation, that he had not beenthe Agressor in this Quarrel; but being altogether ignorant of the Provocations given him,I must suspend my Judgment, and leave it to better Judges to determine the Controversy.Our Author has adorn’d this play with several Translations from the Ancients, as OvidAmor. lib. 1 Eleg. 15. Horatii Sat. lib. 1. Sat. 9. lib. 2. Sat. 1. Virgilii Aeneid. lib. 4. withothers. (294–5)

[From the notes on Epicoene:]

322 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Part of this Play is borrow’d from the Ancients, as Act 1. Sc. 1. part from Ovid de ArteAmandi. Act 2. Sc. 2. part from Juvenal. Sat. 6. Act 2. Sc. 5. part from Plautus’s Aulularia Act.3. Sc. 5. with other passages. Notwithstanding which, this Play is Accounted by all, Oneof the best Comedies we have extant; and those who would know more, may be amplysatisfied by the perusal of the Judicious Examen of this Play made by Mr. Dryden.|| (296)

[From the notes on The Staple of News:]

The Author introduces four Gossips on the Stage, who continue during the Action, andcriticise on the Play. This was practised more than once; witness, Every Man out of hisHumor, and Magnetick Lady: and herein he was follow’d by Fletcher…in his Knight of theBurning-pestle. (297)

[From the notes on Volpone:]

This Play is writ in Imitation of the Comedy of the Ancients, and the Argument is form’dinto an Acrostick, like those of Plautus, which are said to be writ by Priscian, or some otherEminent Grammarian. It is still in vogue at the Theatre in Dorset-Garden, and its value issufficiently manifested by the verses of Mr. Beaumont, and Dr. Donne. (297–8)

[From the notes on The Case is Altered:]

…a pleasant Comedy…. In this Comedy our Author hath very much made use of Plautus,as the Learned Reader may observe by comparing His Aulularia, and Capteivei, with thisComedy. (298)

[Langbaine’s catalogue of the plays and masques ends with The New Inn, after whichhe quotes Jonson’s ‘Ode to Himself’.]

This Ode sufficiently shews what a high Opinion our Author has of his own Performances;and like Aristotle in Philosophy, and Peter Lombard (The Master of the Sentences) in School-Divinity; our Ben. lookt upon himself as the only Master of Poetry; and thought it the Dutyof the Age, rather to submit to, than dispute, much less oppose his Judgement. ’Twasgreat pity, that he that was so great a Master in Poetry, should not retain that old Axiom inMorality, Nosce Teipsunt…. He had then prevented that sharp reply made by the IngeniousMr. Feltham, to this Magisterial Ode; and which could not chuse but vex a Person of ourAuthor’s Haughty Temper: but he was a Man, and subject to Infirmities, as well as others;tho’ abating for his too much abounding in his own Sence, (an Epidemical Distemperbelonging to the Fraternity of Parnassus) he had not his Equal in his time for Poetry.

Having presented the Reader with Mr. Johnson’s Ode, it may not be improper for meperhaps to transcribe, nor unpleasant to him, to peruse Mr. Feltham’s Answer.

[Prints Felltham’s ‘Answer to the Ode’: see No. 36(d), above.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆This Haughty Humour of Mr. Johnson was blam’d, and carpt at by other, as well as Mr.

Feltham: amongst the rest, Sir John Suckling, that Neat Facetious Wit, arraign’d him at the

BEN JONSON 323

Sessions of Poets;¶ and had a fling at this Play [i.e. The New Inn]: tho’ we may say,compar’d to the former, He did only circum praecordia ludere;3 laugh at, and railly hisunreasonable Self-opinion; as you may see in the following Lines….

[Quotes them.] (301–4)

(c) From the article on Shakespeare.’Tis true Mr. Dryden⋆⋆ has censured him very severely, in his Postscript to Granada,

but in cool Blood, and when the Enthusiastick Fit was past, he has acknowledged him (inhis Dramatick Essay) Equal at least, if not Superiour, to Mr. Johnson in Poesie. I shall not hererepeat what has been before urged in his behalf, in that Common Defence of the Poets ofthat Time against Mr. Dryden’s Account of Ben Johnson; but shall take the Liberty to speakmy Opinion, as my predecessors have done, of his Works; which is this, That I esteem hisPlays beyond any that have ever been published in our Language: and tho’ I extreamlyadmire Johnson, and Fletcher, yet I must still aver, that when in competition with Shakespear,I must apply to them what Justus Lipsius writ in his Letter to Andraeas Schottus, concerningTerence and Plautus, when compar’d; Terentium amo, admiror, sed Plautum magis.4 (454)

NOTES

• Pref. Mock Astrol. [No. 76, above].† Poems and Essays, By Mr. Edw. Howard, p. 24 [No. 84, above].‡ Pref. Mock Astrol. [No. 76, above].$ Postscript to Granada, p. 148 [No. 82(c), above].

|| Dramatick Essay, p. 50 [No. 67, above].¶ Suckling’s Poems, p. 7 [No. 45, above.].

•• See Mr. Dryden’s Account [No. 82(c), above].1 ‘Who could endure the Gracchi railing at sedition’: Juvenal, Satires, 2.24.2 ‘It is a just and trifling request I wish you to grant: for I am sent as a just pleader pleading

with the just for what is just. It would be unfitting, of course, for unjust favours to beobtained from the just, while looking for just treatment from the unjust is folly’: Amphitruo,prologue, ll. 33–6.

3 ‘Sport with his feelings’.4 ‘I love Terence, admire him, but Plautus more.’

324 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

91.Thomas Rymer on Catiline

1692

From A Short View of Tragedy (1692).Rymer (? 1643–1713) was at Cambridge as late as 1662, though there is no

record of his having taken a degree. He first appeared as a critic in the long prefaceto his translation of Rapin’s Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie (1674). There hecomments that while in the earlier part of the century criticism flourished inFrance, in England ‘many great Wits flourished, but Ben Johnson, I think, had all theCritical learning to himself; and till of late years England was as free from criticks,as it is from Wolves, that a harmless well-meaning Book might pass without anydanger’ (Sig. A3v). In 1677 he published his own heroic tragedy, Edgar, and hiscommentary on The Tragedies of the Last Age. A Short View of Tragedy followed in1692; in the same year, on the death of Shadwell, Rymer became historiographerroyal, and began his monumental collection of records of treaties entered into bythe English crown, Foedera, which occupied him up to his death.

At the beginning of The Tragedies of the Last Age Rymer had announced that hewould examine ‘the choicest and most applauded English Tragedies of this last age’,listing Rollo, A King and No King, The Maid’s Tragedy (all by Fletcher or Beaumontand Fletcher), Othello, Julius Caesar, and Catiline (pp. 1–2). Having dealt with the firstthree, he finds he has made up a volume, but promises comments on the rest, withsome reflections on Paradise Lost (pp. 141, 143). Meanwhile he closes byanticipating what he wishes to say on behalf of Catiline:

…that though the contrivance and œconomy is faulty enough, yet we there find(besides what is borrow’d from others) more of Poetry and good thought, more ofNature and of Tragedy, then peradventure can be scrap’t together from all thoseother Plays.

Nor can I be displeas’d with honest Ben, when he rather chooses to borrow aMelon of his Neighbour, than to treat us with a Pumpion of his own growth, (p. 143)

In A Short View of Tragedy Rymer keeps his promise to give a critical account ofOthello—this occupies about a third of the volume—but his comments on Catilineare briefer, and less admiring, than the remarks in The Tragedies of the Last Agewould lead one to expect. Jonson, in Rymer’s modified view, shares the absurditiesof the drama of his age rather than serves as an exception to them. He is groupedwith Shakespeare in following less fortunate models than Gorboduc, and withShakespeare and Fletcher in offering ‘bloody spectacles’ in tragedy (pp. 84–5). The

Alchemist may ‘give some shadow’ of The Clouds, but nowhere in English drama isthere as much of Aristophanes’ spirit as in Rabelais (p. 24). Remarking on the idleraptures men of business are made to spout in Shakespeare, Rymer adds: ‘It wasthen a strange imagination in Ben. Johnson, to go stuff out a Play with Tully’sOrations’ (p. 6). His extended treatment of Catiline begins with a contrast withShakespeare to Jonson’s advantage, but quickly turns to the absurdities Rymerperceives in the play.

To gain attention Aristotle told us, it was necessary that an Orator be a good Man; thereforehe that writes Tragedy should be careful that the persons of his Drama, be of considerationand importance, that the Audience may readily lend an Ear, and give attention to whatthey say, and act. Who would thrust into a crowd to hear what Mr. Iago, Roderigo, orCassio, is like to say? From a Venetian Senate, or a Roman Senate one might expect greatmatters: But their Poet was out of sorts; he had it not for them; the Senators must be nowiser than other folk.

Ben. Johnson, knew to distinguish men and manners, at an other rate. In Catiline we findour selves in Europe, we are no longer in the Land of Savages, amongst Blackamoors,Barbarians, and Monsters.

The Scene is Rome and first on the Stage appears Sylla’s Ghost.Dost thou not feel me, Rome? Not yet? [I. 1]One would, in reason, imagine the Ghost is in some publick open place, upon some

Eminence, where Rome is all within his view: But it is a surprizing thing to find that thisratling Rodomontade speech is in a dark, close, private sleeping hole of Catiline’s.

Yet the Chorus, is of all wonders the strangest. The Chorus is always present on theStage, privy to, and interessed in all that passes, and thereupon make their Reflections toConclude the several Acts.

Sylla’s Ghost, tho never so big, might slide in at the Key-hole; but how comes theChorus into Catilins Cabinet?

Aurelia is soon after with him too, but the Poet had perhaps provided her some Truckle-bed in a dark Closet by him.

In short, it is strange that Ben, who understood the turn of Comedy so well; and hadfound the success, should thus grope in the dark, and jumble things together without heador tail, without any rule or proportion, without any reason or design. Might not the Actsof the Apostles, or a Life in Plutarch, be as well Acted, and as properly called a Tragedy, asany History of a Conspiracy?

Corneille tells us, in the Examen of his Melite, that when first he began to write, hethought there had been no Rules: So had no guide but a little Common sence, with the Exampleof Mr. Hardy, and some other, not more regular than he. This Common sence (says he) whichwas all my rule, brought me to find out the unity of Action to imbroyl four Lovers by one and the sameintreague.1 Ben. Johnson, besides his Common sence to tell him that the Unity of Action wasnecessary; had stumbl’d (I know not how) on a Chorus; which is not to be drawn through aKey-hole, to be lugg’d about, or juggl’d with an hocus pocus hither and thither; nor stow’din a garret, nor put into quarters with the Breentford Army [of The Rehearsal], so must ofnecessity keep the Poet to unity of place; And also to some Conscionable time, for therepresentation: Because the Chorus is not to be trusted out of sight, is not to eat or drinktill they have given up their Verdict, and the Plaudite is over.

326 BEN JONSON

One would not talk of rules, or what is regular with Shakespear, or any followers, in theGang of the Strouling Fraternity; but it is lamentable that Ben. Johnson, his Stone and hisTymber, however otherwise of value, must lye a miserable heap of ruins, for want of Architecture, or some Son of Vitruvius, to joyn them together. He had read Horace, hadTranslated that to the Pisones:

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus interpres. —2

Ben. —Being a Poet, thou may’st feign, create,Not care, as thou wouldst faithfully translate,To render word for word—And this other precept.Nec circa vilem, patulumque morabe[r]is Orbem.3

Ben. —The vile, broad-trodden ring forsake.What is there material in this Catiline, either in the Manners, in the. Thoughts, or in the

Expression, (three parts of Tragedy) which is not word for word translation? In the Fable, orPlot (which is the first, and principal part) what see we, but the vile broad trodden ring?Vile, Horace calls it, as a thing below, and too mean for any man of wit to busie his headwithal. Patulum, he calls it, because it is obvious, and easie for any body to do as much asthat comes to. ’Tis but to plodd along, step by step in the same tract: ’Tis drudgery onlyfor the blind Horse in a Mill. No Creature sound of Wind and Limb, but would chuse anobler Field, and a more generous Career.

Homer, we find, slips sometime into a Tract of Scripture, but his Pegasus is not stabl’dthere, presently up he springs, mounts aloft, is on the wing, no earthly bounds, orbarriers to confine him.

For Ben, to sin thus against the clearest light and conviction, argues a strange stupidity:It was bad enough in him, against his Judgment and Conscience, to interlard so muchfiddle-faddle, Comedy, and Apocryphal matters in the History: Because, forsooth, —hisnam plebecula gaudet.4

Where the Poet has chosen a subject of importance sufficient and proper for Tragedy,there is no room for this petty interlude and diversion. Had some Princes come expressfrom Salankemen (remote as it is) to give an account of the battel, whilst the story was hotand new, and made a relation accurate, and distinctly, with all the pomp, and advantageof the Theatre, wou’d the Audience have suffer’d a Tumbler or Baboon, a Bear, or Ropedancer to have withdrawn their attention; or to have interrupted the Narrative; tho’ it hadheld as long as a Dramatick Representation. Nor at that time wou’d they thank a body forhis quibbles, or wit out of season: This mans Feather, or that Captains Embroidered Coatmight not be touched upon but in a very short Parenthesis. (158–64)

NOTES

1 Pierre Corneille, Writings on the Theatre, ed. H.T.Barnwell (Oxford 1965), p. 80. AlexandraHardy (? 1569–1632) wrote numerous tragedies and tragi-comedies.

2 ‘Do not seek to render word for word as a slavish translator’: Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 133–4.3 ‘Do not linger along the easy and open pathway’: Ars Poetica, l. 132.4 ‘’Tis in such things the rabble delights’: Horace, Epistolae, 2.1.186.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 327

328

92.Nahum Tate, farce in Jonson

1693

From the preface to A Duke and No Duke.Tate (1652–1715) is chiefly remembered for his adaptation of King Lear (1681),

which saved Lear at the end of the play and married off Cordelia and Edgar; hisversion held the stage well into the next century. The farce A Duke and No Duke(adapted from Aston Cokayne’s Trappolin Supposed a Prince) was performed in 1684and printed the next year; for the 1693 edition, Tate wrote a preface in the form ofan ‘Enquiry’ into farce, a subject he says is ignored in Italian and French discussionsof the stage, though there is enough for his purpose in the ‘Syntagm. of Marischott’(Sig. a2r-v): what follows is largely translated from De Personis, et Larvis, EarumqueApud Veteres usu, & origine Syntagmation (1610), by Agesilao Mariscotti, asA.H.Scouten shows in ‘An Italian Source for Nahum Tate’s Defence of Farce’,Italica (1950), xxvii, 238–40.

Tate says (following Mariscotti) that he cannot understand why farce is despised;it is a particularly difficult kind of drama to write well, since it takes ‘the bestInvention’ to find, and ‘the nicest Judgement’ to manage, those properly farcicaldepartures from the natural and probable which are ‘pleasant in theRepresentation’ (Sig. [b4]v–cr). Then at the end of his essay he turns to his ownexamples, including ones taken from Jonson.

I would not be a Heretick in Poetry, but Reason and Experience convince us, that the bestComedies of Ben. Johnson are near a-kin to Farce; nay, the most entertaining parts of themare Farce it self. The Alchymist which cannot be read by any sensible Man withoutAstonishment, is Farce from the opening of the First Scene to the end of the Intreigue.’Tis Farce, but such Farce as bequeaths that Blessing (pronounced by Horace) on him thatshall attempt the like.

—Sudet multum frustraq; laboretAusus idem.1

The whole business is carry’d on with Shuffles, Sham and Banter, to the greatest degreeof Pleasantness in the World. For Farce (in the Notion I have of it) may admit of mostadmirable Plot, as well as subsist sometimes without it. Nay, it has it’s several Species orDistinctions as well as Comedy amongst the Romans Stataria mixta, &c.2 but still ’twasComedy. So Comedy may admit of Humour, which is a great Province of Farce; but thenit might be such Humour as comes within compass of Nature and Probability: For whereit exceeds these Bounds it becomes Farce. Which Freedom I would allow a Poet, and

thank him into the Bargain, provided he has the Judgement so to manage his Excursion, asto heighten my Mirth without too grossly shocking my Senses.

[Cites Terence as an instance of pure and therefore ‘exact’ comedy, and Plautus asa comic poet who sometimes allows farce and is therefore ‘pleasant’.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Neat Terence, witty Plautus, says our greatest⋆ Maister of Comedy, who scorn’d not to

Copy sometimes from the Ancients; yet for one hint he has taken from Terence, he hasborrowed three from Plautus. I will instance only that pleasant Passage in his Alchymist,where the Confederates banter and play upon Surly disguised like a Spanish Don, notsupposing that he understood them. We find the same Humour in the Pænulus of Plautus,where the old Carthaginian speaks in the Punick language; Milphio a Roman Servant plays thewagg, and drolls upon him, under pretence of interpreting for him; the Stranger suffershim to run himself out of breath with his Ribaldry, and then surprizes him with thundringout as good Latin as the best of them could speak. Vulpone’s playing the Mountebank in theFox is Farce; and Sir Politick’s turning himself into a Tortoise. This Passage however isundiverting, which proves (as I said) the Nicety of Judgment required in managingImprobabilities. Had this been told to the Audience like other Projects which are onlyrecited, it might have made a pleasant Relation. (Sig. c2v–[c3]v)

NOTES

• [Inset marginal note:] Ben. Johnson’s Verses on Shakespear.1 ‘[He] may sweat much and yet toil in vain when attempting the same’: Ars Poetica, l. 241–2.2 ‘The quiet [kind of comedy], the mixed, etc.’

330 BEN JONSON

93.John Dryden, Jonson and Fletcher matched at last

1694

From ‘To my Dear Friend Mr Congreve, on his COMEDY, call’d The Double-Dealer’, printed with the first edition of the play (The Double-Dealer, A Comedy,1694).

Dryden here hails Congreve as the conqueror of ‘the Gyant Race, before theFlood’ —Jonson and Fletcher are named in this extract, and Shakespeare later inthe poem—and as his own worthy successor. See Introduction, p. 14.

WELL then; the promis’d hour is come at last;The present Age of Wit obscures the past:Strong were our Syres; and as they Fought they Writ,Conqu’ring with force of Arms, and dint of Wit;Theirs was the Gyant Race, before the Flood;And thus, when Charles Return’d, our Empire stood.Like Janus he the stubborn Soil manur’d,With Rules of Husbandry the rankness cur’d:Tam’d us to manners, when the Stage was rude;And boistrous English Wit, with Art indu’d.Our Age was cultivated thus at length;But what we gain’d in skill we lost in strength.Our Builders were, with want of Genius, curst;The second Temple was not like the first:Till You, the best Vitruvius, come at length;Our Beauties equal; but excel our strength.Firm Dorique Pillars found your solid Base:The Fair Corinthian Crowns the higher Space;Thus all below is Strength, and all above is Grace.In easie Dialogue is Fletcher’s Praise:He mov’d the mind, but had not power to raise.Great Johnson did by strength of Judgment please:Yet doubling Fletcher’s Force, he wants his Ease.In differing Tallents both adorn’d their Age;One for the Study, t’other for the Stage.But both to Congreve justly shall submit,One match’d in Judgment, both o’er-match’d in Wit,

In Him all Beauties of this Age we see;Etherege his Courtship, Southern’s Purity;The Satire, Wit, and Strength of Manly Witcherly.All this in blooming Youth you have Atchiev’d;Now are your foil’d Contemporaries griev’d;So much the sweetness of your manners move,We cannot envy you because we Love.Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he sawA Beardless Consul made against the Law,And joyn his Suffrage to the Votes of Rome;Though He with Hannibal was overcome.Thus old Romano bow’d to Raphel’s Fame;And Scholar to the Youth he taught, became. (ll. 1–40; Sig. a2r-v)

332 BEN JONSON

94.Béat Louis de Muralt on Jonson and Molière

1694

From Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations(1726), a translation of Lettres sur les Anglois et les François (1725), by Béat Louis deMuralt. Printed from what is described as the second edition (really a reissue) andto which was added ‘Critical Remarks on the whole Work, by Gentlemen of theEnglish and French Nations’.

De Muralt (1665–1749), a Swiss-French writer, was in England in 1694, and theletters apparently date from that year (Nicole Bonvalet, ‘Ben Jonson devant lacritique française éclairée’, Les Lettres Romanes (1978), xxxii, 202 and n).

(a) From the translator’s ‘Critical remarks’.We indeed esteem Johnson, as a good Writer, and Mr St. Evremont is of our Opinion. No

Man hath searched further into humane Nature, or hath better finished the Characters hehath introduced upon the Stage. I own, he knew nothing of Gallantry; but that, as well as allother Faults he is reproached with, must be attributed to the Manners of the Age he livedin. Women began not to appear on the English Stage, till after the Restoration of KingCharles II. (16–17)

(b) From Letter ii.

Comedy has had its highest Period in England, as well as in France: Ben. Johnson, thatlived in the Beginning of this Century, is the Poet that carried it farthest. Let it be himthat the English would prefer to Moliere, I agree to it, since they must prefer themselves tothe rest of the World on every Subject; we are however obliged to them for makingchoice of so great a Man to carry away the Prize. But if I might be dispensed with fromsubmitting to the Decision of these Gentlemen, and durst give my Opinion in theControversy, without running too great a Risque, I would say that Ben. Johnson, tho’undoubtedly a great Poet in some Respects, is yet inferior to Moliere in many Things. Inmy Opinion he had less Wit, and was less natural; he was a Stranger to every Kind ofGallantry, he brought a great Number of Mechanicks on the Stage, and among all his Playsthere are but three or four very good: He makes a Man hide himself under a greatTortoise Shell, and to pass for the Creature. Whereas the Sack with which they reproachMoliere is seen only in a Farce, and has nothing in it improbable.1 In a Word, he had notCourage enough to attack the Faults of his Country; and it may be well said of him, thathe did much good to Comedy, but none to the English. There’s one Thing however to be

offer’d in his Favour; that Moliere had more proper Materials for the Stage. The Charactersin France are general, and comprehend an entire Order or Rank of People; but in England,where every one lives according to his Fancy, the Poet can hardly find any thing butparticular Characters, which are very numerous, and can never produce any great Effect.After all, it must be acknowledged that Ben. Johnson was a very judicious Poet, and that hedistinguishes and supports his Characters to Admiration, and that his good Plays areexcellent in their Kind. But let us drop their good Poets, ’tis not those they set up againstMoliere; I am to defend him only against the Poets of our own Days, that dare pretend toexcel him…. (19–20)

NOTE

1 The translator’s note identifies this as a reference to Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671);in this play, the cunning servant Scapin persuades his enemy Géronte into a sack and beatshim, putting on voices to suggest it is Géronte’s other enemies who are attacking him.Boileau, for one, disapproved of this scene (L’Art Poétique, 3.399–400). On the reception ofthe play, see John T.Stoker (ed.), Les Fourberies de Scapin (1971), pp. 5–8.

334 BEN JONSON

95.William Wotton on Jonson’s Grammar

1694, 1697

From his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1694).Wotton (1666–1727) was the second son of Henry Wotton; an infant prodigy in

Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he graduated BA from Cambridge in 1679. TheReflections is a contribution to the controversy between the ancients and themoderns, a summary of the achievements and limitations of both. The extractbelow comes from chapter v, ‘Of Ancient and Modern Grammar’.

…in the first place, it ought to be considered, that every Tongue has its own peculiarForm, as well as its proper Words; not communicable to, nor to be regulated by theAnalogy of another Language: Wherefore he is the best Grammarian, who is theperfectest Master of the Analogy of the Language which he is about; and gives the truestRules, by which another Man may learn it. Next, to apply this to our own Tongue, it maybe certainly affirmed, that the Grammar of English is so far our own, that Skill in theLearned Languages is not necessary to comprehend it. Ben Johnson was the first Man, that Iknow of, that did any Thing considerable in it; but Lilly’s Grammar was his Pattern: and forwant of Reflecting upon the Grounds of a Language which he understood as well as anyMan of his Age, he drew it by Violence to a dead Language that was of a quite differentMake; and so left his Work imperfect. (58)

[In the second edition (1697), Wotton substitutes the following after ‘that did anyThing considerable in it’:]

…but he seems to have been too much possessed with the Analogy of Latin and Greek, towrite a perfect Grammar of a Language whose Construction is so vastly different; tho’ hefalls into a contrary Fault, when he treats of the English Syntax, where he generally appealsto Chaucer and Gower, who lived before our Tongue had met with any of that Polishing, which,within these last CC Years, has made it appear almost entirely New. (60)

336

96.John Dennis and William Congreve on Jonson’s

comedy1695

An exchange of letters printed in Dennis’s collection of Letters upon Several Occasions(1696), which also included contributions by Dryden and Wycherley.

The critic and dramatist John Dennis (1657–1734) began his literary career as amember of Dryden’s circle; his first two comedies draw heavily on Jonson’shumours comedy, as C. B.Graham shows in ‘The Jonsonian Tradition in theComedies of John Dennis’, Modern Language Notes (1941), lvi, 370–2.

William Congreve (1670–1729) had achieved success in 1693 with his first play,The Old Batchelour, and with The Double Dealer (see No. 93, above). In Congreve’sdedication of The Way of the World (1700) he explains that he has attempted torepresent ‘an affected Wit’ in the play, alluding briefly to Jonson’s character Truewitas a touchstone for genuine wit: some of the audience for his play, he says, neededthe leisure of two or three days before they could ‘distinguish betwixt theCharacter of a Witwoud and a Truewit’ (Sig. [A3]v–[A4]r).

(a) Dennis to Congreve.Dear Sir,I have now read over the Fox, in which though I admire the strength of Ben Johnson’s

Judgement, yet I did not find it so accurate as I expected. For first the very thing uponwhich the whole Plot turns, and that is the Discovery which Mosca makes to Bonario;seems to me, to be very unreasonable. For I can see no Reason, why he should make thatDiscovery which introduces Bonario into his Masters House. For the Reason which thePoet makes Mosca give in the Ninth Scene of the third Act, appears to be a very Absurdone. Secondly, Corbaccio the Father of Bonario is expos’d for his Deafness, a Personaldefect; which is contrary to the end of Comedy Instruction. For Personal Defects cannotbe amended; and the exposing such, can never divert any but half-witted Men. It cannotfail to bring a thinking Man to reflect upon the Misery of Human Nature; and into what hemay fall himself without any Fault of his own. Thirdly, the play has two Characters, whichhave nothing to do with the design of it, which are to be look’d upon as Excrescencies.Lastly, the Character of Volpone is Inconsistent with it self. Volpone is like Catiline, alieniappetens, sui profusus;1 but that is only a double in his Nature, and not an Inconsistence. TheInconsistence of the Character appears in this, that Volpone in the fifth Act behaves himselflike a giddy Coxcombe, in the Conduct of the very Affair which he manag’d so craftily inthe first four. In which the Poet offends against that Fam’d rule which Horace gives for theCharacters.

Servetur ad imum,Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.2

And Secondly, against Nature, upon which, all the rules are grounded. For so strangean Alteration, in so little a time, is not in Nature, unless it happens by the Accident ofsome violent Passion; which is not the case here. Volpone on the sudden behaves himselfwithout common discretion, in the Conduct of the very Affair which he had manag’d withso much Dexterity, for the space of three Years together. For why does he disguisehimself? Or, why does he repose the last Confidence in Mosca? Why does he cause it to begiven out that he’s dead? Why, only to Plague his Bubbles. To Plague them, for what?Why only for having been his Bubbles. So that here is the greatest alteration in the World,in the space of twenty-four hours, without any apparent cause. The design of Volpone is toCheat, he has carried on a Cheat for three years together, with Cunning and with Success.And yet he on a sudden in cold blood does a thing, which he cannot but know mustEndanger the ruining all. (73–5)

(b) Dennis to Congreve.

Dear Sir,I will not augment the Trouble which I give you by making an Apology for not giving it

you sooner. Though I am heartily sorry that I kept such a trifle as the inclos’d, and a triflewrit Extempore, long enough to make you expect a labour’d Letter. But because in theInclos’d, I have spoken particularly of Ben. Johnson’s Fox, I desire to say three or fourwords of some of his Plays more generally. The Plots of the Fox, the silent Woman, theAlchimist, are all of them very Artful. But the Intrigues of the Fox, and the Alchimist,seem to me to be more dexterously perplexed, than to be happily disentangled. But theGordian knot in the Silent Woman is untyed with so much Felicity, that that alone, maySuffice to show Ben Johnson no ordinary Heroe. But, then perhaps, the Silent Woman maywant the Foundation of a good Comedy, which the other two cannot be said to want. Forit seems to me, to be without a Moral. Upon which Absurdity, Ben Johnson was driven bythe Singularity of Moroses Character, which is too extravagant for instruction, and fit, inmy opinion, only for Farce. For this seems to me, to Constitute the most EssentialDifference, betwixt Farce and Comedy, that the Follies which are expos’d in Farce areSingular; and those are particular, which are expos’d in Comedy. These last are those,with which some part of an Audience may be suppos’d Infected, and to which all may besuppos’d Obnoxious. But the first are so very odd, that by Reason of their MonstrousExtravagance, they cannot be thought to concern an Audience; and cannot be supposed toinstruct them. For the rest of the Characters in these Plays, they are for the most parttrue, and Most of the Humorous Characters Master-pieces. For Ben Johnson’s Fools, seemto shew his Wit a great deal more then his Men of Sense. I Admire his Fops, but barelyEsteem his Gentlemen. Ben seems to draw Deformity more to the Life than Beauty. He isoften so eager to pursue Folly, that he forgets to take Wit along with him. For theDialogue, it seems to want very often that Spirit, that Grace, and that Noble Railery,which are to be found in more Modern Plays, and which are Virtues that ought to beInseparable from a finish’d Comedy. But there seems to be one thing more wanting than allthe rest, and that is Passion, I mean that fine and delicate Passion, by which the Soulshows its Politeness, ev’n in the midst of its trouble. Now to touch a Passion is the surestway to Delight. For nothing agitates like it. Agitation is the Health and Joy of the Soul, of

338 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

which it is so entirely fond, that even then, when we imagine we seek repose, we onlyseek Agitation. You know what a Famous Modern Critick has said of Comedy.

Il faut que ses acteurs badinent noblement,Que son Noeud bien formé se denoue aisement;Que l’action Marchant ou la raison la guide,Ne se perde Jamma dans une Scens vuide,Que son Stile humble et doux se releve a propos,Que ses discours par tout fertiles en bons mots,Soient pleins de passions finement maniées,Et les Scenes toujours l’une a l’autre liées,3

I leave you to make the Aplication to Johnson—Whatever I have said myself of hisComedies, I submit to your better Judgment. For you who, after Mr. Wicherly, areincomparably the best Writer of it living; ought to be allowed to be the best Judge,too…. (76–9)

(c) From Congreve to Dennis, ‘Concerning Humour in Comedy’, dated 10 July 1695.

[Congreve is discussing some things which are not humour.]

Sometimes, Personal Defects are misrepresented for Humours.I mean, sometimes Characters are barbarously exposed on the Stage, ridiculing Natural

Deformities, Casual Defects in the Senses, and Infirmities of Age. Sure the Poet must bothbe very III-natur’d himself, and think his Audience so, when he proposes by shewing aMan Deform’d, or Deaf, or Blind, to give them an agreeable Entertainment; and hopes toraise their Mirth, by what is truly an object of Compassion. But much need not be saidupon this Head to any body, especially to you, who in one of your Letters to meconcerning Mr. Johnson’s Fox, have justly excepted against this Immoral part of Ridicule inCorbaccio’s Character; and there I must agree with you to blame him, whom otherwise Icannot enough admire, for his great Mastery of true Humour in Comedy. (84–5).

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Congreve has distinguished ‘External habit’ and ‘Affectation’ from true humour.]

But as these two last distinctions are the Nicest, so it may be most proper to Explain them,by Particular Instances from some Author of Reputation. Humour I take, either to be bornwith us, and so of a Natural Growth; or else to be grafted into us, by some accidentalchange in the Constitution, or revolution of the Internal Habit of Body; by which itbecomes, if I may so call it, Naturaliz’d.

Humour, is from Nature, Habit from Custom; and Affectation from Industry.Humour, shews us as we are.Habit, shews us, as we appear, under a forcible Impression.Affectation, shews what we would be, under a Voluntary Disguise.Though here I would observe by the way, that a continued Affectation, may in time

become a Habit.The Character of Morose in the Silent Woman, I take to be a Character of Humour. And I

choose to instance this Character to you, from many others of the same Author, because Iknow it has been Condemn’d by many as Unnatural and Farce: And you have your self hinted

BEN JONSON 339

some dislike of it, for the same Reason, in a Letter to me, concerning some of Johnson’sPlays.

Let us suppose Morose to be a Man Naturally Splenetick and Melancholly; is there anything more offensive to one of such a Disposition, than Noise and Clamour? Let any manthat has the Spleen (and there are enough in England) be Judge. We see commonExamples of this Humour in little every day. ‘Tis ten to one, but three parts in four of theCompany that you dine with, are Discompos’d and Startled at the Cutting of a Cork, orScratching a Plate with a Knife: It is a Proportion of the same Humour, that makes such orany other Noise offensive to the Person that hears it; for there are others who will not bedisturb’d at all by it. Well; But Morose you will say, is so Extravagant, he cannot bear anyDiscourse or Conversation, above a Whisper. Why, It is his excess of this Humour, thatmakes him become Ridiculous, and qualifies his Character for Comedy. If the Poet hadgiven him, but a Moderate proportion of that Humour, ’tis odds but half the Audience,would have sided with the Character, and have Condemn’d the Author, for Exposing aHumour which was neither Remarkable nor Ridiculous. Besides, the distance of the Stagerequires the Figure represented, to be something larger than the Life; and sure a Picturemay have Features larger in Proportion, and yet be very like the Original. If this Exactnessof Quantity, were to be observed in Wit, as some would have it in Humour; what wouldbecome of those Characters that are design’d for Men of Wit? I believe if a Poet shouldsteal a Dialogue of any length, from the Extempore Discourse of the two wittiest Men uponEarth, he would find the Scene but coldly receiv’d by the Town. But to the purpose.

The Character of Sir John Daw in the same Play, is a Character of Affectation. He everywhere discovers an Affectation of Learning; when he is not only Conscious to himself, butthe Audience also plainly perceives that he is Ignorant. Of this kind are the Characters ofThraso in the Eunuch of Terence, and Pyrgopolinices in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus. Theyaffect to be thought Valiant, when both themselves and the Audience know they are not.Now such a boasting of Valour in Men who were really Valiant, would undoubtedly be aHumour, for a Fiery Disposition might naturally throw a Man into the same Extravagance,which is only affected in the Characters I have mentioned.

The Character of Cob in Every Man in his Humour, and most of the under Characters inBartholomew-Fair, discover only a Singularity of Manners, appropriated to the severalEducations and Professions of the Persons represented. They are not Humours but Habitscontracted by Custom. Under this Head may be ranged all Country-Clowns, Sailers,Tradesmen, Jockeys, Gamesters and such like, who make use of Cants or peculiar Dialectsin their several Arts and Vocations. One may almost give a Receipt for the Compositionof such a Character: For the Poet has nothing to do, but to collect a few proper phrasesand terms of Art, and to make the Person apply them by ridiculous Metaphors in hisConversation, with Characters of different natures. Some late Characters of this kind havebeen very successful; but in my mind they may be painted without much Art or Labour;since they require little more, than a good Memory and Superficial Observation. But trueHumour cannot be shewn, without a Dissection of Nature, and a Narrow Search to discoverthe first Seeds, from whence it has its Root and growth. (86–90)

NOTES

1 ‘Covetous of others’ possessions, he was prodigal of his own’: Sallust, Bellum Catalinae, 5.4.

340 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

2 ‘Have it kept to the end even as it came forth at first, and have it self-consistent’: Ars Poetica,ll. 126–7.

3 With well-bred Conversation you must please,And your Intrigue unravel’d be with ease:Your Action still should Reason’s Rules obey,Nor in an empty Scene may lose its way.Your humble Stile must sometimes gently rise;And your Discourse Sententious be, and Wise:The Passions must to Nature be confin’d,And Scenes to Scenes with Artful weaving joyn’d….—Boileau, L’Art Poétique, 3.405–12, translated by Sir William Soame and John Dryden

(The Art of Poetry, 1683, p. 52: see No. 88, above).

BEN JONSON 341

342

97.Jeremy Collier on Jonson as a model playwright

1698

From A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698). Theclergyman and controversialist Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) here compares thecontemporary stage unfavourably with classical and Elizabethan drama. The bookinitiated a voluminous controversy, to which No. 98, below, also belongs. Collierquotes Discoveries on corrupt language and the representation of ‘base Pleasures’ onstage (pp. 50–1) —he cited the dictum from Discoveries about the instructive partof the comic poet’s office again in his A Second Defence of the Short View of the Profanenessand Immorality of the English Stage (1700), p. 89—and in the extracts below citesJonsonian comedy as a model of modesty, propriety, and moral instruction.

(a) From chapter iii, ‘The Clergy abused by the Stage’.

[Having described the presentation of profane clergymen on the contemporarystage, Collier turns to clergymen in the plays of the older playwrights.]

Towards the End of the Silent Woman, Ben Johnson brings in a Clergy-man, and a Civilian intheir Habits. But then he premises a handsom Excuse, acquaints the Audience, that thePersons are but borrow’d, and throws in a Salvo for the Honour of either profession. In theThird Act, we have another Clergy-man; He is abused by Cutberd, and a little by Morose. Buthis Lady checks him for the ill Breeding of the Usage. In his Magnetick Lady, Tale of a Tub,and Sad Sheapherd, there are Priests which manage but untowardly. But these Plays were hislast Works, which Mr. Dryden call his Dotages. This Author has no more Priests, andtherefore we’ll take Leave. (126)

(b) From chapter iv, ‘The Stage-Poets make their Principal Persons Vitious, and rewardthem at the End of the Play’.

[Discussing Dryden’s defence of the happy endings of his villains in the preface toAn Evening’s Love (1671: see No. 76, above).]

Mr. Dryden makes Homewards, and endeavours to fortifie himself in Modern Authority.He lets us know that Ben Johnson after whom he may be proud to Err, gives him more than oneexample of this Conduct; That in the Alchemist is notorius, where neither Face nor his Masterare corrected according to their Demerits. But how Proud soever Mr. Dryden may be of

an Errour, he has not so much of Ben Jonson’s company as he pretends. His Instance of Face&c. in the Alchemist is rather notorious against his Purpose then for it.

For Face did not Council his Master Lovewit to debauch the Widdow; neither is it clearthat the Matter went thus far. He might gain her consent upon Terms of Honour forought appears to the contrary. ’Tis true Face who was one of the Principal Cheats isPardon’d and consider’d. But then his Master confesses himself kind to a fault. He ownsthis Indulgence was a Breach of Justice, and unbecoming the Gravity of an old Man. Andthen desires the Audience to excuse him upon the Score of the Temptation. But Facecontinued in the Cousenage till the last without Repentance. Under favour I conceive this is aMistake. For does not Face make an Apology before he leaves the Stage? Does he not sethimself at the Bar, arraign his own Practise, and cast the Cause upon the Clemency of theCompany? And are not all these Signs of the Dislike of what he had done? Thus careful thePoet is to prevent the Ill Impressions of his Play! He brings both Man and Master toConfession. He dismisses them like Malefactours; And moves for their Pardon before hegives them their Discharge. But the Mock-Astrologer has a gentler Hand: Wild-Blood andJacinta are more generously used: There is no Acknowledgment exacted; no Hardship putupon them: They are permitted to talk on in their Libertine way to the Last: And takeLeave without the least Appearance of Reformation. The Mock-Astrologer urges BenJohnson’s Silent Woman as an other Precedent to his purpose. For there Dauphine confesseshimself in Love with all the Collegiate Lady’s. And yet this naughty Dauphine is Crowned in theend with the Possession of his Uncles Estate, and with the hopes of all his Mistresses. This Charge, asI take it, is somewhat too severe. I grant Dauphine Professes himself in Love with theCollegiate Ladies at first. But when they invited him to a private Visit, he makes them noPromise; but rather appears tired, and willing to disengage. Dauphine therefore is notaltogether so naughty as this Author represents him.

Ben Johnson’s Fox is clearly against Mr. Dryden. And here I have his own Confession forproof. He declares the Poets end in this Play was the Punishment of Vice, and the Reward ofVirtue. Ben was forced to strain for this piece of Justice, and break through the Unity ofDesign. This Mr. Dryden remarks upon him: How ever he is pleased to commend thePerformance, and calls it an excellent Fifth Act.1 (151–3)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On the didactic function of the drama.]

Ben Johnson in his Dedicatory Epistle of his Fox has somewhat considerable upon thisArgument; And declaims with a great deal of zeal, spirit, and good Sense, against theLicentiousness of the Stage.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Quotes and paraphrases the dedication to Volpone, ll. 22–122.]

Say you so! Why then if Ben Johnson knew any thing of the Matter, Divertisment andLaughing is not as Mr. Dryden affirms, the Chief End of Comedy. This Testimony is so veryfull and clear, that it needs no explaining, nor any enforcement from Reasoning, andConsequence. (157–9)

344 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

NOTE

1 Quoting Dryden’s Essay, No. 67, above.

BEN JONSON 345

346

98.William Congreve and Jeremy Collier on profanity

in Bartholomew Fair1698

(a) From Congreve’s pamphlet Amendments of Mr. Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations(1698).

Collier quotes numerous examples of profanity from Congreve’s The DoubleDealer in A Short View. In the present pamphlet, Congreve defends himself, at timesinvoking Jonson against Collier: he likens the dispute to the controversy betweenZeal-of-the-Land Busy and the puppet in Bartholomew Fair: ‘it is profane, and it is notprofane, is all the Argument the thing will admit of on either side’ (pp. 45–6); later(pp. 97–8) he takes issue with Collier over his selective quotations from Jonson’sDiscoveries. In the extract below, Congreve defends the line ‘tho’ Marriage makes Manand Wife One Flesh, it leaves ’em still Two Fools’ (The Double-Dealer (1694), ActII, Scene i, p. 18), which Collier, misquoting, had attacked as profaning Genesis 2.24 (p. 82).

Though Marriage makes Man and Wife one Flesh, it leaves ’em STILL two Fools. Which bymeans of that little word still, signifies no more, than that if two People were Fools,before or when they were married, they would continue in all probability to be Foolsstill, and after they were married. Ben. Johnson is much bolder in the first Scene of hisBartholomew Fair. There he makes Littlewit say to his Wife—Man and Wife make one Fool;and yet I don’t think he design’d even that, for a Jest either upon Genesis 2. or St. Matthew19. I have said nothing comparable to that, and yet Mr. Collier in his penetration hasthought fit to accuse me of nothing less. (47)

(b) Collier’s answer, from his A Defence of the Short View of the Profaneness andImmorality of the English Stage. Dated 1699, though published in 1698.

Mr. Congreve says, Ben. Johnson is much bolder in the first Scene of his Bartholomew Fair.Suppose all that. Is it an excuse to follow an ill Example, and continue an Atheisticalpractice? I thought Mr. Congreve in his penetration might have seen through this Question. Ben.Johnson (as he goes on) makes Littlewit say, Man and Wife make one Fool. I have said nothingcomparable to that. Nothing comparable! Truly in the usual sense of that Phrase, Mr.Congreve, ’tis possible, has said nothing comparable to Ben. Johnson, nor it may be neverwill: But in his new Propriety he has said something more than comparable, that is a greatdeal worse. For though Littlewit’s Allusion is profane, the words of the Bible are spared. Hedoes not Droll directly upon Genesis, or St. Matthew; Upon God the Son, or God the Holy

Ghost: Whereas Mr. Congreve has done that which amounts to both. And since heendeavours to excuse himself upon the Authority of Ben. Johnson, I shall just mention whatThoughts this Poet had of his profane Liberties, at a time when we have reason to believehim most in earnest. Now Mr. Wood reports from the Testimony of a great Prelate thenpresent. ‘That when Ben. Johnson was in his last Sickness, he was often heard to repent of hisprofaning the Scriptures in his Plays, and that with Horrour.’⋆

Now as far as I can perceive, the Smut and Profaneness of Mr. Congreve’s Four Playsout-swell the Bulk of Ben. Johnson’s Folio. I heartily wish this Relation may be serviceableto Mr. Congreve, and that as his Faults are greater, his Repentance may come sooner. (53–4)

NOTE

• Athen. Oxoniens. Vol. I, p. 519.

348 BEN JONSON

99.William Burnaby, Jonson a model for the comedy

of characters and action1701

From a letter ‘Wherein are laid down general Rules to judge of Tragedy and Comedy’ inLetters of Wit, Politicks and Morality (1701). Signed ‘W.B.’.

The letter instructs a young man ‘just come from the University’ on thejudgement of drama; as authorities it recommends Aristotle and Dacier (on p. 231,and again on p. 237). Burnaby (c. 1672–1706) was (in spite of the lack of interestin comedy he declares here) the author of a number of comedies of manners,including an adaptation of Twelfth Night (Love Betrayed, 1703).

In Comedy, you will not be satisfied with the unnatural Farce of some Poets, which look likesick Men’s Dreams, compos’d of Parts that no Man can reduce to one Body, and run outof Nature to make you laugh; as if Comedy was only to make us laugh at the Folly of thePoet. I grant, Comedy does miss its Aim, if it moves not our Laughter; yet it is so tomove it, as at the same time to convey Instruction with it. In Comedy, Action is absolutelynecessary, as well as in Tragedy; and whatever is contrary to that, is to have no Place ineither. In Comedy also the chief thing is the Fable, or Plot; the Excellence of which is to bringin such Characters and Incidents, as may naturally produce Humour. There will yet beroom enough for Wit; but that Comick Poet, that makes Wit, and (what we call) Dialogue,his chief Aim, ought to write nothing but Dialogues, for he can never obtain the Name ofa Dramatick Writer, with the best Judges. Our famous Ben. Johnson’s Silent Woman; TheFox, and the Alchymist, and most of Moliere’s Plays are the surest Standards to judge ofComedy; of which I say the less, because I never bestow much Thought upon that sort ofPoem, my Taste, Genius, and Inclinations leading me to Tragedy. (235)

350

100.John Dennis on Jonson’s comedy

1702

From the ‘Epistle Dedicatory’ to Dennis’s play The Comical Gallant, or The Amours ofSir John Falstaff (1702).

The play, an adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor, had failed on stage andDennis is here answering one of the objections made to it, viz. that it lacked loveinterest. For Dennis, see Introduction p. 19, and No. 96, above.

After all, I was so willing to comply with Custom, that this Play has more of Love in itthan the Original Comedy. But I desire People to consider, that Moliere got a great deal ofReputation in France by Comedies, in which there is very little or no Love, and that by thoseComedies he very agreeably entertain’d the finest Ladies of the Court of France; thatMadam de Montausier highly approved of the Precieuses Ridicules, tho there was not one jot ofLove in it, that those Ladies were too proud to be thought to have Souls that were incapableof being pleased with an exact Imitation of Nature, tho that Imitation had nothing in it ofthe business to which they were bred; that those Persons who are for nothing butperpetual Love in our Plays, would do well to consider, whether they do not give othersan occasion to think, that this error in them, proceeds either from the narrowness of theircapacities, or the corruptness of their desires; that Humour, which was a diversion to Queen Elizabeth, and the Ladies of the Court of France, may not be thought a veryimproper one, for the most delicate Persons of the present Age; that Shakespear had littleLove in the very best of his Plays, and Johnson less in his, and yet that this last was one ofthe best Comick Poets that ever was in the World; that he was so sensible, that theRidiculum was the chief thing in Comedy, that he has always in his chief Comedies joyn’d hisLove with Humour, and so made it ridiculous. (Sig. [A4]r-v)

352

101.Jonson discussed in a critical dialogue on the theatre

1702

From the anonymous A Comparison Between the Two Stages, with an Examen of TheGenerous Conqueror; And some Critical Remarks on the Funeral, or Grief Alamode, The FalseFriend, Tamerlane, and others. In Dialogue (1702). Staring B.Wells argues persuasivelyin ‘An Eighteenth-Century Attribution’, Journal of English and German Philology(1939), xxxviii, 233– 46, that the traditional attribution of the work to CharlesGildon is incorrect. The speakers in the dialogue are Ramble and Sullen, twogentlemen, and Chagrin, ‘a Critick’. At one stage Sullen, telling the story of therivalry between the two theatres, describes how Rich, the manager of the DruryLane Theatre, invoked Jonson’s help in competing with Betterton’s Shakespearerevivals at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre (pp. 43–4).

[Sullen has lamented the fashion for music in contemporary drama.]

Cri. But this error of Musick is not Yesterdays invention; old Ben with all his exactnessstumbles here sometimes: It does not well become me to arraign so establish’d anAuthor, but I’m sure he has Faults of all kinds, and to the purpose in Hand I take theSong sung to Celia in the Fox, to be one; ’tis in the Seventh Scene of the Third Act: He bringsher in by a Stratagem to Volpone, who is supposed to be Paralytick and quite disabled forWoman’s Sport; but finding himself alone with Celia, he shakes of his Hypocrisie and hisFurs, and runs in an extasie to her Arms: She is ready to dye with the surprize, fainwou’d fly away, but he forces her to stay, and she, without saying one Word, issuppos’d to listen to an entertainment of Musick, tho’ in all the Agony that the Poetcou’d give her. One wou’d think she shou’d rend, and tear, and cry out for help, as shedid afterwards with fury enough; but that wou’d ha’ spoil’d the Song: I beg Ben’spardon for this presumption, but this being to the purpose it came into my Mind.

Ramb. Your Example of Ben is enough to justifie this practice in some Men’sOpinion…. (52–3)

354

102.Jonson returns from the shades to castigate Thomas

Baker1704

From Dialogue vi, ‘Between Ben Jonson, and Mr. Bak—r the Author of the Oxford-Act’, in the anonymous Visits from the Shades (1704).

In this work various figures return from the dead to engage in dialogue withnotable contemporary figures. In this extract Jonson rebukes Thomas Baker, whoseplay An Act at Oxford (1704) had been banned by the Lord Chamberlain. An alteredversion of the play, Hampstead Heath, was performed at Drury Lane in 1705.

Jon. I am sorry any thing that was designed for the utility of Mankind shou’d be sobarbarously perverted from its pristine Use: Your Age has strangely depress’d the Virtueof Comedy, and it only retains the Name, when in effect it’s nothing else but Abuse, andLampoon.

Ba. I deviate from your Judgement and think Poetry in a greater Perfection than everit was among the Ancients [:] take one of their Plays and you’ll find it Phlegmatic andDull, and has not half the Humour, or the Poynancy of Wit as are to be found in ModernComedy. We draw and desect at large, and read a Lecture upon each particular Folly, whenthey only skimed upon the Surface, and seldom cut deeper than the Skin.

Jon. I have heard how presumptuously you upstart Authors wou’d lessen the Glory ofthe last Age, to cry up your Tinsel, Flash and Whiptcream Wit. But I have kept aCorrespondence with your Theater for these forty Years, and cou’d never yet find anyof you come to the perfection of Shakespear; and, to speak without vaunting, any thingcomparable to my Volpone, or Silent Woman.

Ba. You and Shakespear writ well enough for the time; but your English was in the Oarand the Wit in its infancy in respect to what it’s now: We have had Waller and a Dryden,and have now a Wicherly and a Dennis, a Congreve and a Southern, who have melted downthe Barbarism of your Age, and made our Diction more refined and sparkling. Then forour Plays, the Plots are stronger and finer wove, and the Incidents more curious andsurprising.

Jon. Our Plays, say you, ha, ha, ha—sure you have not the front to rank your self inthe first Class of Wits. I own the Merits of those ingenious Gentlemen; yet let me tellyou by the by, they are indebted to their Predecessors; and I am confident they will havethe Modesty to own it. But when you wou’d include your self in the number, I recollectthe Fly upon the Cartwheel, Lord, what a Dust we raise.

Ba. And where’s the harm on’t? —I think my Comedies are not such despicable piecesthat any of them wou’d disdain to own them; and if we may argue from the success they

have had upon the Stage, I see no reason why I shou’d be debarr’d from being rank’d inthat number.

Jon. A Man in a Fever may be as good a Judge upon taste, as the Body of the Theaterupon the goodness of a Play: I found by my Cataline, and others of my Labours whatrelishes best with them, and who seeks for applause must regale their sicky Appetiteswith Mimicry and Farce; for they always puked at nervous Wit, and well-wroughtScenes; and so you may give me leave to guess by that, that your Constitution was justcut out for the Town.

Ba. You may say as much by the Author of the World well Lost, or Love for Love.Jon. Not at all, there’s no manner of comparison, unless by the way of Antitheses.

(38–9)

[In the rest of the dialogue, ‘Ben Jonson’ details indignantly the liberties taken inBaker’s play.]

356 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

103.Samuel Cobb, Jonson’s notable thefts and successful

piracies1707

From ‘Of Poetry’, in Cobb’s Poems on Several Occasions (1707). This text is from thethird edition, 1710.

Samuel Cobb (1675–1713) was a master at Christ’s Hospital and produced anumber of translations and occasional poems, as well as a modernized version ofthe Miller’s Tale, The Carpenter of Oxford (1712).

[The poet has lamented Spenser’s excessive devotion to Chaucer.]

The Coyn must sure for currant Sterling pass,Stamp’d with old Chaucer’s Venerable Face.But Johnson found it of a gross Alloy,Melted it down, and flung the Dross awayHe dug pure Silver from a Roman Mine,And prest his Sacred Image on the Coyn.We all rejoyc’d to see the pillag’d Oar,Our Tongue inrich’d, which was so poor before.Fear not, Learn’d Poet, our impartial blame,Such thefts as these add Lustre to thy Name.Whether thy labour’d Comedies betrayThe Sweat of Terence, in thy Glorious way,Or Catiline plots better in thy Play.Whether his Crimes more excellently shine,Whether we hear the Consul’s Voice Divine,And doubt which merits most, Rome’s Cicero, or Thine.All yield, consenting to sustain the Yoke,And learn the Language which the Victor spoke.So Macedon’s Imperial Hero threwHis wings abroad, and conquer’d as he flew.Great Johnson’s Deeds stand Parallel with His,Were Noble Thefts, Successful Pyracies.Souls of a Heroe’s, or a Poet’s FrameAre fill’d with larger particles of flame.Scorning confinement, for more Lands they groan,And stretch beyond the Limits of their Own. (189–90)

358

104.Richard Steele on Jonson

1709

Richard Steele (1672–1729) joined the army after leaving Oxford without a degree.He wrote three comedies in the early part of the first decade of the eighteenthcentury: The Funeral (1701), The Lying Lover (1703), and The Tender Husband (1705).The first number of the thrice-weekly The Tatler appeared on 12 April 1709; it wasto run to 271 numbers, ceasing publication on 2 January 1711.

(a) From The Tatler, no. 14, 10–12 May 1709 (The Alchemist was played at Drury Lane on11 May).

This Evening, The Alchymist was play’d. This Comedy is an Example of Ben’s extensiveGenius and Penetration into the Passions and Follies of Mankind. The Scene in the FourthAct, where all the cheated People oppose the Man that would open their Eyes, hassomething in it so inimitably excellent, that it is certainly as great a Master-piece as hasever appear’d by any Hand. The Author’s great Address in showing Coveteousness theMotive of the Actions of the Puritan, the Epicure, the Gamester, and the Trader; and that alltheir Endeavours, how differently soever they seem to tend, center only in that one Pointof Gain, shows he had to great Perfection that Discernment of Spirit, which constitutes aGenius for Comedy.

(b) From The Tatler, no. 21, 26–8 May 1709 (Volpone was played at Drury Lane on27 May).

This Night was acted the Comedy called, The Fox; but I wonder the Modern Writers donot use their Interest in the House to suppress such Representations. A Man that has beenat this, will hardly like any other Play during the Season: Therefore I humbly move, Thatthe Writings, as well as Dresses, of the last Age, should give way to the present Fashion.We are come into a good Method enough (if we were not interrupted in our Mirth bysuch an Apparition as a Play of Johnson’s) to be entertain’d at more Ease, both to theSpectator and the Writer, than in the Days of Old. It is no Difficulty to get Hats, andSwords and Wigs, and Shoes, and every Thing else, from the Shops in Town, and make aMan show himself by his Habit, without more ado, to be a Counsellor, a Fop, a Courtier,or a Citizen, without being oblig’d to make those Characters talk in different Dialects tobe distinguish’d from each other. This is certainly the surest and best Way of Writing: Butsuch a Play as this makes a Man for a Month after over-run with Criticism, and enquire,What every man on the Stage said? What had such a one to do to meddle with such a

Thing? How came t’other, who was bred after such a Manner, to speak so like a Manconversant among a different People? These Questions rob us of all our Pleasure; for atthis Rate, no one Sentence in a Play should be spoken by any one Character, which couldpossibly enter into the Head of any other Man represented in it; but every Sentiment shouldbe peculiar to him only who utters it. Laborious Ben’s Works will bear this Sort of Inquisition,but if the present Writers were thus examin’d, and the Offences against this Rule cut out,few Plays would be long enough for the whole Evening’s Entertain ment. But I don’tknow how they did in those old Times: This same Ben Johnson has made every one’sPassion in this Play be towards Money, and yet not one of them expresses that Desire, orgoes about obtaining it, in any Way but what is peculiar to him only: One sacrifices hisWife, another his Profession, another his Posterity, from the same Motive; but theirCharacters are kept so skilfully a-part, that it seems prodigious, their Discourses shouldrise from the Invention of the same Author.

360 BEN JONSON

105.Nicholas Rowe, Jonson’s evil eye on Shakespeare

1709

From ‘Some Account of the Life, etc. of Mr William Shakespeare’, in volume i ofRowe’s six-volume edition of The Works of Mr William Shakespeare (1709).

Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718) was a dramatist who achieved success with The FairPenitent (1703), and later with The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714). His slightingremarks about Jonson’s friendship for Shakespeare are the first treatment— barringDryden’s remark on Jonson’s ‘Ode’ in the dedication to his translation of theSatires of Juvenal (1693) —of what was to be a favourite theme in Shakespearecriticism. See Introduction, p. 12 (on Dryden’s comment) and p. 28 (on Rowe).

His Acquaintance with Ben Johnson began with a remarkable piece of Humanity and goodNature; Mr. Johnson, who was at that Time altogether unknown to the World, had offer’done of his Plays to the Players, in order to have it Acted; and the Persons into whoseHands it was put, after having turn’d it carelessly and superciliously over, were just uponreturning it to him with an ill-natur’d Answer, that it would be of no service to theirCompany, when Shakespear luckily cast his Eye upon it, and found something so well in itas to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Johnson andhis Writings to the Publick. After this they were profess’d Friends; tho’ I don’t knowwhether the other ever made him an equal return of Gentleness and Sincerity. Ben wasnaturally Proud and Insolent, and in the Days of his Reputation did so far take upon himthe Supremacy in Wit, that he could not but look with an evil Eye upon any one that seem’dto stand in Competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it hasalways been with some Reserve, insinuating his Uncorrectness, a careless manner ofWriting, and want of Judgment; the Praise of seldom altering or blotting out what hewrit, which was given him by the Players who were the first Publishers of his Works afterhis Death, was what Johnson could not bear; he thought it impossible, perhaps, for anotherMan to strike out the greatest Thoughts in the finest Expression, and to reach thoseExcellencies of Poetry with the Ease of a first Imagination, which himself with infiniteLabour and Study could but hardly attain to. Johnson was certainly a very good Scholar,and in that had the advantage of Shakespear, tho’ at the same time I believe it must be allow’d,that what Nature gave the latter, was more than a Ballance for what Books had given theformer; and the Judgment of a great Man upon this occasion was, I think, very just andproper. In a Conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D’Avenant, EndymionPorter, Mr. Hales of Eaton, and Ben Johnson; Sir John Suckling, who was a profess’d Admirerof Shakespear, had undertaken his Defence against Ben Johnson with some warmth; Mr.

Hales, who had sat still for some time, hearing Ben frequently reproaching him with thewant of Learning, and Ignorance of the Antients, told him at last, That if Mr. Shakespearhad not read the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any thing from ’em; (a Fault the other madeno Conscience of) and that if he would produce any one Topick finely treated by any of them, hewould undertake to shew something upon the same Subject at least as well written by Shakespear.Johnson did indeed take a large liberty, even to the transcribing and translating of wholeScenes together; and sometimes, with all Deference to so great a Name as his, notaltogether for the advantage of the Authors of whom he borrow’d. And if Augustus andVirgil were really what he has made ’em in a Scene of his Poetaster, they are as odd anEmperor and a Poet as ever met. Shakespear, on the other Hand, was beholding to no bodyfarther than the Foundation of the Tale, the Incidents were often his own, and the Writingintirely so. There is one Play of his, indeed, The Comedy of Errors, in a great measure takenfrom the Menœchmi of Plautus. How that happen’d, I cannot easily Divine, since, as Ihinted before, I do not take him to have been Master of Latin enough to read it in the Original,and I know of no Translation of Plautus so Old as his Time, (xii–xv)

[Towards the end of his account—having quoted meanwhile from Dryden’sprologue to The Tempest on Shakespeare as monarch over Jonson and Fletcher (No.68, above) —Rowe returns to Jonson.]

This is what I could learn of any Note, either relating to himself or Family: The Characterof the Man is best seen in his Writings. But since Ben Johnson has made a sort of an Essaytowards it in his Discoveries, tho’, as I have before hinted, he was not very Cordial in hisFriendship, I will venture to give it in his Words.

[Quotes Disc., ll. 647–68.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆As for the Passage which he mentions out of Shakespear, there is somewhat like it in

Julius Caesar, Vol. V. p. 2260. [i.e. 1.1.47] but without the Absurdity; nor did I ever meetwith it in any Edition that I have seen, as quoted by Mr. Johnson…. As to the Charactergiven him by Ben Johnson, there is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as wellexpress’d by what Horace says of the first Romans, who wrote Tragedy upon the GreekModels, (or indeed translated ’em) in his Epistle to Augustus.

——Natura sublimis & AcerNam spiral Tragicum satis & fæliciter Audet,Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitque Lituram.1 (xxxvii–xxxix)

NOTE

1 ‘Being gifted with spirit and vigour; for he has some tragic inspiration, and is happy in hisventures, but deeming it disgraceful, hesitates to blot’: Horace, Epistles, 2.1.165–7.

362 BEN JONSON

106.Charles Gildon on Jonson

1710

Gildon (1665–1724) earned his living by editing anthologies and by writing playsand critical essays. On his view of Jonson, see Introduction, p. 21.

(a) From The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton (1710).

[Gildon has discussed excessive volubility in oratory.]

But on the Stage indeed the Case is something different, because there are Parts, and someparticular Speeches, where such an extravagant Volubility is beautiful; as in several Placesof the Part of True Wit in the Silent Woman, and some other Parts…. (108)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On the fashion for operas on the contemporary stage.]

But there are others, who tell us, that it is the Illness of our present Plays, that excusestheir Fondness of Opera’s. But this is without the least Shadow of Reason or Truth; nor canthey in any point prove our Plays to be worse, than those of an hundred Years ago, since itwould be too palpable an Instance of their profound Ignorance or extravagant Prejudice,which is below a Man of Sense and Judgment, as may easily be made appear in Tragedy only,of which we are scarce yet arriv’d to a just Notion. Nor was there much of Comedyknown before the Learned Ben Johnson, for no Man can allow any of Shakespear’sComedies, except the Merry Wives of Windsor. There are indeed excellent Humoursscatter’d about, and interwoven in his other Plays; but Ben Johnson was the first, that evergave us one entire Comedy. Since him we have had Etheridge, Wicherly, Shadwel, and Crownin some of his Plays, with the Rest of King. Charles the IId’s Reign. Add since theRevolution, Mr. Congreve in three Plays has merited great Praise, and very well distinguish’dhis Characters and hit true Humour. Mr. Vanbrook too has shewn Abundance of rude,unconducted and unartful Nature; his Dialogue is generally dramatic and easy. Nay, afterthese our very Farce Writers deserve more Esteem, than the taking Plays of an hundredYears ago, as having as much Nature, more Design and Conduct, and much more Wit.(173–4)

(b) From Gildon’s ‘An Essay on the Art, Rise and Progress of the Stage in Greece,Rome and England’, printed in The Works of Mr William Shakespear. Volume theSeventh (1710), issued by the publisher Curll as a spurious supplement to Rowe’ssix-volume Shakespeare, published by Tonson the year before.

[He is discussing the mixture of ‘Errors’ and ‘Excellencies’ in Shakespeare’s work.]

There is likewise ever a Sprightliness in his Dialogue, and often a Genteelness, especiallyin his Much ado about Nothing, which is very surprizing for that Age, and what the LearnedBEN cou’d not attain by all his Industry; and I confess, if we make some small Allowancefor a few Words and Expressions, I question whether any one has since excell’d him in it.(v)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆It may perhaps be expected, that I shou’d say something of Comedy. But I have

insensibly swell’d this Discourse to a greater Bulk, than I at first design’d so that I shallonly say in General, that Comedy participates in many things with the Rules of Tragedy, thatis, it is an Imitation both of Action and Manners, but those must both have a great deal ofthe Ridiculum in them, and indeed Humour is the Characteristic of this Poem, withoutwhich a Comedy loses its Name; as we have many of late, who fall from the Ridiculum intoa meer Dialogue distinguish’d only by a pert sort of Chit Chat, and little Aims at Wit. BenJohnson is our best Pattern, and has given us this Advantage, that tho’ the English Stage hasscarce yet been acquainted with the Shadow of Tragedy, yet have we excell’d all theAncients in Comedy.

There is no Man has had more of this vis Comica than our Shakespear, in particularCharacters and in the Merry Wives of WINDSOR he has given us a Play that wants but little ofa perfect Regularity. Comedy in England has met with the Fate of Tragedy in Athens for thatonly has yet been cultivated, whereas the polite Athenians took first Care of Tragedy, and itwas late e’er the Magistrate took any notice of Comedy, or thought it worthy theirInspection, (lix)

364 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

107.Richard Steele on Jonson’s plays as description and

instruction1712

The first number of The Spectator—published by Addison and Steele—appeared on1 March 1711; it ran to 555 numbers.

(a) From Steele, The Spectator, 5 May 1712 (Wilkes had played Mosca, and BenjaminJohnson Corbaccio, in a production of Volpone at Drury Lane on 29 April).

When I am commending Wilks for representing the Tenderness of a Husband and aFather in Macbeth, the Contrition of a reformed Prodigal in Harry the Fourth, the winningEmptiness of a young Man of Good-nature and Wealth in the Trip to the Jubilee, theOfficiousness of an artful Servant in the Fox: When I thus celebrate Wilks, I talk to all theWorld who are engaged in any of those Circumstances…. When we come to Charactersdirectly comical, it is not to be imagined what Effect a well regulated Stage would haveupon Men’s Manners. The craft of an Usurer, the Absurdity of a rich Fool, the awkwardRoughness of a Fellow of half Courage, the ungraceful Mirth of a Creature of half Wit,might be for ever put out of Countenance by proper Parts for Dogget. Johnson, by actingCorbacchio the other Night, must have given all who saw him a thorough detestation ofaged Avarice.

(b) From Steele, The Spectator, 15 October 1712 (the essay is on the power ofwomen’s charms over men).

The Motions of the Minds of Lovers are no where so well described, as in the Works of skilfulWriters for the Stage. The Scene between Fulvia and Curius, in the second Act of Johnson’sCatiline, is an excellent Picture of the Power of a Lady over her Gallant. The Wenchplays with his Affections; and as a Man of all Places in the World wishes to make a goodFigure with his Mistress, upon her upbraiding him with want of Spirit, he alludes toEnterprizes which he cannot reveal but with the Hazard of his Life. When he is workedthus far, with a little Flattery of her Opinion of his Gallantry, and Desire to know more ofit out of her overflowing Fondness to him, he brags to her till his Life is in her Disposal.

366

108.John Dennis, Jonson no guide to Shakespeare for

tragedy1712

From An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear (1712).Dennis is discussing the great ‘Inconveniences’ under which Shakespeare wrote,

including lack of time and lack of friends to consult about his work. For Dennis, seeIntroduction, p. 19, and No. 96, above.

As for Friends, they whom in all likelihood Shakespear consulted most, were two or threeof his Fellow-Actors, because they had the Care of publishing his Works committed tothem. Now they, as we are told by Ben Johnson in his Discoveries were extremely pleas’dwith their Friend for scarce ever making a Blot; and were very angry with Ben, for sayinghe wish’d that he had made a thousand. The Misfortune of it is, that Horace was perfectlyof Ben’s mind.

——Vos O,Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod nonMulta dies, & multa litura coercuit, atq;Præsectum decies non castigavit ad unguem.1

And so was my Lord Roscommon. Poets lose half the Praise they should have got,Could it be known what they discreetly blot.2

These Friends then of Shakespear were not qualify’d to advise him. As for Ben Johnson,besides that Shakespear began to know him late, and that Ben was not the mostcommunicative Person in the World of the Secrets of his Art; he seems to me to have hadno right Notion of Tragedy. Nay, so far from it, that he who was indeed a very great Man,and who has writ Comedies, by which he has born away the Prize of Comedy both fromAncients and Moderns, and been an Honour to Great Britain; and who has done thiswithout any Rules to guide him, except what his own incomparable Talent dictated to him;This extraordinary Man has err’d so grossly in Tragedy, of which there were not onlystated Rules, but Rules which he himself had often read, and had even translated, that hehas chosen two Subjects, which according to those very Rules, were utterly incapable ofexciting either Compassion or Terror for the principal Characters, which yet are the chiefPassions that a Tragick Poet ought to endeavour to excite. (32–3)

NOTES

1 ‘Do you, O sons of Pompilius, condemn a poem which many a day and many a blot has notrestrained and refined ten times over to the test of the close-cut nail’: Ars Poetica, ll. 291–4.

2 Actually from Waller’s commendatory verse to the Earl of Roscommon’s translation ofHorace’s Art of Poetry (1680), ‘Of this Translation, And of the Use of Poetry’ (ll. 41–2).

368 BEN JONSON

109.Lewis Theobald as ‘Benjamin Johnson’

1715

From The Censor, first series. Text and numbers from the 1717 collected edition. Theobald (1688–1744) is best known for his Shakespeare Restored (1726), an

attack on Pope’s edition of Shakespeare, and for his own Shakespearean edition (seeNo. 120, below). He wrote two series of the thrice-weekly paper The Censor,adopting the pseudonym ‘Benjamin Johnson’.

(a) From no. 1 (1st series), 11 April 1715.

[Theobald introduces himself as the heir of a Jonson conceived as a stern enemy tosocial and literary abuses.]

BEING lineally descended from Benjamin Johnson of surly Memory, whose Name as well asa considerable Portion of his Spirit, without one Farthing of Estate, I am Heir to; I took upa Resolution to let the World know, that there is still a poor Branch of that ImmortalFamily remaining, sworn and avow’d Foes to Nonsense, bad Poets, illiterate Fops,affected Coxcombs, and all the Spawn of Follies and Impertinence, that make up andincumber the present Generation.

When I found this Spirit of my great Ancestor growing too powerful to be suppress’d,and strugling within my Bosom for Vent; when I observ’d my Resentments to be rather aPunishment to my self, than a Correction of the Vices of others; I determin’d to let myHeart breath more freely, and give a Loose to my Indignation, (i, 1–2)

(b) From no. 14 (1st series), 11 May 1715. ‘Benjamin Johnson’ proposes that poetsmore than any other group are ‘indebted to the Grape’, and cites the examples ofHomer, Ennius, and Horace. He prints certain ‘Memorandums’ allegedly writtenby Jonson and connecting his literary output with his alcoholic consumption. The‘Memorandums’ had a second life as authentic Jonson remains when copies of themwere discovered in Dulwich College Library in the nineteenth century and in aCatiline quarto in the twentieth century. They even figure in H & S, i, 188–9, andiii, 608. See Mark Eccles, ‘Memorandums of the Immortal Ben’, Modern LanguageNotes (1936), li, 520–3.

That my Reader may see, our English Poets have used the same Privilege with as goodSuccess, I shall present him with a few short Memorandums of my great Ancestor BenJohnson, which have been preserved with great Care in our Family.

Mem. I laid the Plot of my Volpone, and wrote most of it, after a Present of Ten Dozenof Palm Sack, from my very good Lord T—r; That Play I am positive will last toPosterity, and be acted when, I and Envy are Friends, with Applause.

Mem. The first Speech in my Cataline, spoken by Scylla’s Ghost, was writ after I partedfrom my Boys at the Devil-Tavern; I had drunk well that Night, and had brave Notions.There is one Scene in that Play which I think is Flat; I resolve to mix no more Waterwith my Wine.

Mem. Upon the Twentieth of May, the King, Heaven reward him, sent me oneHundred Pounds; I went often to the Devil about that Time, and wrote my Alchymistbefore I had spent Fifty Pounds of it.

Mem. At Christmas my Lord B—took me with him into the Country; There was greatPlenty of excellent Claret-wine, a new Character offered it self to me here, upon which Iwrote my Silent Woman. My Lord smiled, and made me a noble Present upon reading thefirst Act to him, ordering at the same time a good Quantity of the Wine to be sent toLondon with me when I went, and it lasted me till my Work was finished.

Mem. The Tale of a Tub, the Devil is an Ass, and some others of low Comedy, werewritten by poor Ben Johnson. I remember that I did not succeed in any one Compositionfor a whole Winter; it was that Winter honest Ralph the Drawer died, and when I and myBoys drank bad Wine at the Devil.

I think that these Memorandums of the immortal Ben are sufficient to justify the Opinion ofHorace, and I do assure my Reader that they are faithfully transcribed from the Original.(i, 102–4)

370 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

110.John Dennis on suggestibility in The Alchemist

1718

From a letter by Dennis, dated 3 October 1718, printed in Original Letters, Familiar,Moral and Critical (1721), volume i. For Dennis, see Introduction, p. 19, and No.96, above.

What my Lord Rochester and the Author of Hudibras have declar’d in their Verses, ourDramatick Poets have endeavour’d to shew upon the Stage, viz. That the Eyes of theRabble of Mankind are downright Cullies to their Ears, and that they easily believe thatthey actually See what they are only impudently Told of: Witness what passes betweenVindicius and old Brutus, in the Junius Brutus of Lee1; and between Hamlet and Polonius, in theHamlet of Shakespear, which seems to be the original of the other. And has not Ben, LearnedBen, who is so great a Master of his Art, and consequently of Human life and nature,shewn us the very reverse of this in the Catastrophe of his admirable Alchimist, viz. shewnus Persons who what before they had actually seen, are made to believe that they onlyvainly imagin’d, and for no other Reason but because they are impudently told that theyonly vainly imagin’d it. (i, 39–40)

NOTE

1 Nathaniel Lee, Lucius Junius Brutus (first performed 1680).

372

111.John Dennis, Jonson invoked against Steele

1720

From Letter ii of The Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar (1720).This pamphlet takes the form of two letters to ‘Sir John Edgar’, i.e. Sir Richard

Steele, knighted by George I in 1715. It was published on or before 5 February1720; a second part, containing a third and fourth letter, followed soon after.Dennis and Steele had quarrelled over theatrical and personal affairs—the treatmentDennis’s Coriolanus adaptation, The Invader of his Country, had received at DruryLane, Steele’s playhouse, and over a loan Steele had not repaid Dennis—and theydisagreed on aesthetic matters.

Letter i casts Steele as Sir Epicure Mammon for his gullibility in investing inalchemical experiments and ill-fated get-rich-quick schemes like a patent collapsiblehooped petticoat (p. 18).

[Steele had attacked the rules of drama in a number of his periodical The Theatreshortly before The Characters and Conduct was published (no. 2, 5 January 1720).]

I had shewn you before, that Reason is against you. For to talk of improving an Art, bydeclaring against the Rules of it, must be a Jest to every Painters and Fidlers Prentice inTown. Now let us see, whether Experience, and the Practice of the Stage, declare for you.I am afraid we shall find, upon a strict Scrutiny, that the very best of our Plays are themost Regular. Heroick Love, and the Orphan, are certainly Two of the best of ourTragedies; and they are as certainly Two of the most regular. The Fox, the Alchymist, theSilent Woman of Ben Johnson, are incomparably the best of our Comedies; and they arecertainly the most regular of them all. If you will not take my word for this; let us seewhat Ben says himself to the Matter, in his Prologue to the Fox.

Nor made he his Play from Jests stoln from each Table,But makes Jests to fit his Fable;And so presents quick Comedy refin’d,As best Criticks have design’d.The Laws of Time, Place, Persons he observeth;From no needful Rule he swerveth.

Now, do not you see by this last Line, that it was the Opinion of the greatest of all ourComick Poets, That the Rules were absolutely necessary to Perfection? (28)

374

112.Charles Gildon, Jonson the master of comedy

1721

From The Laws of Poetry, as laid down by the Duke of Buckinghamshire in his Essay onPoetry, by the Earl of Roscommon in his Essay on Translated Verse, And by the LordLansdowne on Unnatural Flights in Poetry, Explain’d and Illustrated (1721). The extractsprinted are from Gildon’s commentary on An Essay upon Poetry (1682) by JohnSheffield, first Duke of Buckinghamshire and Normanby.

For Gildon, see Introduction, pp. 21, 22, and No. 106, above. Jonson is seenhere as the consummate artist among English comic dramatists, and the onlynotable critic between Sidney and Dryden.

[Gildon, giving a history of English poetry, has just considered Shakespeare.]

Next in time we must place the immortal Ben Johnson, a man not only of compleatlearning, but of the most consummate comick genius that ever appear’d in the world,ancient or modern; but I don’t find that he met with encouragement which bore anymanner of proportion to his merit: However, the propension of the people to theatricalentertainments produc’d so considerable an emolument to the poet, as well as the player,that we find the playwrights about this time grew very numerous; but there were none elseof any great merit, not excepting Beaumont and Fletcher themselves, who at best have onlywritten two or three tolerable Comedies. (33–4)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆It was very late before criticism came into England. After that little Sir Philip Sidney has

said of it in his apology for poetry, Ben Johnson made the earliest steps towards it, not onlyin his discoveries, but in his translation of Horace’s art of poetry. After him I know not ofany thing ’till since the restoration…. (61)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On modern plays cobbled together from descriptions and odd scenes.]

But say the fautors of our stage, these pieces give pleasure, which is one considerable endof all poetry. But I must reply, that the pleasure they give is but mean, poor, and lifeless,and infinitely short of that transporting delight which a just and regular Tragedy, writtenaccording to art, excites in the soul, at the same time that it conveys lessons of the highestimportance to human life.

A Jack-pudding upon a mountebank’s stage gives pleasure to the rabble that listen to him,and perhaps more than the immortal Ben Johnson, by his admirable Comedies, from the stageof the theatre; yet certainly these gentlemen will not have the assurance to put Ben Johnsonand Jack-pudding on a foot: It is not therefore sufficient meerly to give pleasure, unlessthat pleasure be likewise rational, which is always, as I have formerly taken notice, join’dwith the profitable. (159)

[Gildon has admired the skilful exposition in the first scene of Otway’s VenicePreserved.]

The same may be said of Shakespear, in the opening of his Tempest, where all the narrationthat Prospero makes to his daughter Miranda has not the least clumsy regard to theaudience, but is absolutely necessary to the information of Miranda.

Ben Johnson, in his Comedy of the Alchymist, has the same admirable address, in letting theaudience into the knowledge of all that was necessary for them to be inform’d in, inrelation to what was antecedent to the opening of the play, by that comical quarrelbetwixt Face and Subtle, in which the sage Doll Common is the prudent moderator. (205)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Quotes Congreve on Morose from No. 96(c), above.]

From hence ’tis plain, that Morose is not a particular, but a general character, as I haveobserv’d; and the same may be said of almost all the characters of Ben Johnson, and indeedof every character of any other comic poet that is truly valuable. It is no difficult matter fora fellow of a very shallow understanding, to make sport with some particular character,and expose on the stage some particular person, that is not so great a fool as the authorwho exposes him. But it is only the talent of a great genius to form, from the variousfollies of many, one comic character truly ridiculous and useful, which, when done, willalways find applause from the judicious at least, if not from the million…. (248)

376 BEN JONSON

113.John Dennis, Jonson the authority for the comedy

of ridicule1722

From A Defence of Sir Fopling Flutter, a pamphlet published in November 1722.The Defence was directed against Steele, whose much-publicized comedy The

Conscious Lovers was about to open in London. Steele had attacked Etherege’s TheMan of Mode, or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1676) in The Spectator, no. 65, 15 May 1711, aslicentious and lacking in gentility; Dennis’s pamphlet defends the realism andmoral instruction of the older comedy against the new, which prided itself onpresenting a virtuous hero for emulation.

…either Sir George Etheridge, did design to make this a genteel Comedy or he did not. If hedid not design it, what is it to the Purpose, whether ’tis a genteel Comedy or not?Provided that ’tis a good one: For I hope, a Comedy may be a good one, and yet not a genteelone. The Alchimist is an admirable Comedy, and yet it is not a genteel one. We may saythe same of The Fox, and the Silent Woman, and of a great many more. (7)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Thus Comedy instructs and pleases most powerfully by the Ridicule, because that is the

Quality which distinguishes it from every other Poem. The Subject therefore of everyComedy ought to be ridiculous by its Constitution; the Ridicule ought to be of the veryNature and Essence of it. Where there is none of that, there can be no Comedy. It oughtto reign both in the Incidents and in the Characters, and especially in the principalCharacters, which ought to be ridiculous in themselves, or so contriv’d, as to shew andexpose the Ridicule of others. In all the Masterpieces of Ben Johnson, the principalCharacter has the Ridicule in himself, as Morose in The Silent Woman, Volpone in The Fox, andSubtle and Face in The Alchimist: And the very Ground and Foundation of all these Comediesis ridiculous. ’Tis the very same Thing in the Master-pieces of Moliere. The Mis-Antrope,the Impostor, the Avare, and the Femmes Secuanter. Nay, the Reader will find, that in most ofhis other Pieces, the principal Characters are ridiculous; as, L’Etoardy, Les precieuses Ridicules,Le Cocu Imaginaire, Le Fascheux, and Monseur de pousceaugnac, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, L’Ecolede Maris, L’Ecole des Femmes, L’Amour Medicis, Le Medicin Malgré luy, La Manage Forcé, GeorgeDandin, Les Fourberies de Scapin, Le Malade Imaginaire. The Reader will not only find, uponReflection, that in all these Pieces the principal Characters are ridiculous, but that in mostof them there is the Ridicule of Comedy in the very Titles. (21–2)

378

114.Alexander Pope on the relations between

Shakespeare and Jonson1725

From the preface to volume i of his edition of The Works of Shakespeare. In SixVolumes (1725).

Pope’s was an important non-partisan voice in the matter of Jonson’s dealingswith Shakespeare before and after the latter’s death, fast becoming a centralquestion in Jonson criticism. See Introduction, pp. 28–30.

[Pope, accounting for Shakespeare’s ‘defects’, has mentioned first the demands ofan audience ‘generally composed of the meaner sort of people’.]

It may be added, that not only the common Audience had no notion of the rules ofwriting, but few even of the better sort piqu’d themselves upon any great degree ofknowledge or nicety that way; till Ben Johnson getting possession of the Stage, broughtcritical learning into vogue: And that this was not done without difficulty, may appearfrom those frequent lessons (and indeed almost Declamations) which he was forced to prefixto his first plays, and put into the mouth of his Actors, the Grex, Chorus, &c. to remove theprejudices, and inform the judgment of his hearers. Till then, our Authors had nothoughts of writing on the model of the Ancients: their Tragedies were only Histories inDialogue; and their Comedies follow’d the thread of any Novel as they found it, no lessimplicitly than if it had been true History. (vi)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On the question of Shakespeare’s want of learning:]

In Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, not only the Spirit, but Manners, of the Romans are exactlydrawn; and a still nicer distinction is shown, between the manners of the Romans in thetime of the former, and of the latter. His reading in the ancient Historians is no lessconspicuous, in many references to particular passages: and the speeches copy’d fromPlutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, as well be made an instance of his learning, as thosecopy’d from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben Johnson’s. (ix–x)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of the Partizans

of our Author and Ben Johnson; as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expence of theother. It is ever the nature of Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that

because Ben Johnson had much the most learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakespearhad none at all; and because Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, it was retortedon the other, that Johnson wanted both. Because Shakespear borrowed nothing, it was saidthat Ben Johnson borrowed every thing. Because Johnson did not write extempore, he wasreproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakespear wrote with easeand rapidity, they cryed, he never once made a blot. Nay the spirit of opposition ran sohigh, that whatever those of the one side objected to the other, was taken at the reboundand turned into Praises; as injudiciously, as their antagonists before had made themObjections.

Poets are always afraid of Envy; but sure they have as much reason to be afraid ofAdmiration. They are the Scylla and Charybdis of Authors; those who escape one, often fallby the other. Pessimum genus inimicorum Laudantes, says Tacitus:1 and Virgil desires to wear acharm against those who praise a Poet without rule or reason.

—Si ultra placitum laudarit, baccare frontem Cingito, ne Vati noceat—2

But however this contention might be carried on by the Partizans on either side, Icannot help thinking these two great Poets were good friends, and lived on amicableterms and in offices of society with each other. It is an acknowledged fact, that Ben Johnsonwas introduced upon the Stage, and his first works encouraged, by Shakespear. And afterhis death, that Author writes To the memory of his beloved Mr William Shakespear, whichshows as if the friendship had continued thro’ life. I cannot for my own part find any thingInvidious or Sparing in those verses, but wonder Mr Dryden was of that opinion. He exalts himnot only above all his Contemporaries, but above Chaucer and Spenser, whom he will notallow to be great enough to be rank’d with him; and challenges the names of Sophocles,Euripides, and Æschylus, nay all Greece and Rome at once, to equal him. And (which is veryparticular) expressly vindicates him from the imputation of wanting Art, not enduring thatall his excellencies shou’d be attributed to Nature. It is remarkable too, that the praise hegives him in his Discoveries seems to proceed from a personal kindness; he tells us that helov’d the man, as well as honoured his memory; celebrates the honesty, openness, andfrankness of his temper; and only distinguishes, as he reasonably ought, between the realmerit of the Author, and the silly and derogatory applauses of the Players. Ben Johnsonmight indeed be sparing in his Commendations (tho’ certainly he is not so in this instance)partly from his own nature, and partly from judgment. For men of judgment think theydo any man more service in praising him justly, than lavishly. I say, I would fain believethey were Friends, tho’ the violence and ill-breeding of their Followers and Flattererswere enough to give rise to the contrary report. I would hope that it may be with Parties,both in Wit and State, as with those Monsters described by the Poets; and that their Headsat least may have something humane, tho’ their Bodies and Tails are wild beasts andserpents, (xi–xiv)

NOTES

1 ‘Those worst of enemies, the people who praise you’: Agricola, 41.1–2.2 ‘Should he praise me unduly, wreathe my brow with foxglove, least [his evil tongue] harm

the bard’: Eclogues, 7.27–8.

380 BEN JONSON

115.Alexander Pope, observations on Jonson

(?) 1728, 1733 or 1734

From the remarks collected by Spence. This text from Joseph Spence, Observations,Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men: Collected from Conversation, ed. JamesM.Osborn (Oxford 1966), 2 vols.

Spence (1699–1768), a critic and friend of Pope’s, compiled, but did notpublish, a volume of anecdotes and sayings of the literary men he knew, and ofPope in particular. It was first published, in two separate versions, in 1820. Thedates given below for the extracts are those given by Osborn. Spence also recordsthat Pope put Jonson in a list (with Etherege, Vanbrugh, Wycherley, Congreve,and Shakespeare) of the best English writers of comedy (ed. Osborn, i, 206), and ina longer list of prose writers who might form the basis of an authoritativedictionary (i, 170).

(a) From 1728 (?).It was, and is, a general opinion that Ben Jonson and Shakespeare lived in enmity against

one another. Betterton has assured me often that there was nothing in it, and that such asupposition was founded only on the two parties which in their lifetime listed under one,and endeavoured to lessen the character of the other mutually. (i, 23)

(b) From 1728 (?).

There was such a real character as Morose in Ben Jonson’s time. Dryden somewheresays so in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, and Mr. Pope had it from Betterton, and he from SirWilliam Davenant, who lived in Jonson’s time and knew the man. (i, 183)

(c) From 1728 (?).

What trash are his [Ben Jonson’s] works, taken all together! (i, 184)

(d) From 1733 or 1734.

Corneille, Racine, and Molière better than any of ours. [The] Careless Husband not ourbest comedy; Congreve has one or two better: [The] Silent Woman our best. Hard to nameanyone for our best tragedy. All for Love has been reckoned the most complete. (i, 207)

382

116. Shakespeare and the actors defended against Popeand Jonson

1729

From the anonymous An Answer to Mr. Pope’s Preface to Shakespeare, In a Letter to aFriend. Being a Vindication of the Old Actors who were the Publishers and Performers of thatAuthor’s Plays…. By a Stroling Player (it is signed at the end ‘Anti-ScriblerusHistrionicus’). Traditionally attributed to the actor John Roberts, though BrianVickers suggests on internal evidence that the author may be Theobald (Shakespeare:The Critical Heritage (1974–81), ii, 449).

Pope had quoted Jonson’s remark in Discoveries on the players’ commendation ofShakespeare for never blotting a line, and had cited Heminge and Condell’s FirstFolio preface (No. 114, above). Pope returned to the topic in 1742 in a note to theDunciad in Four Books, 1.134. Later in the pamphlet there are brief references to Jonsonas ‘Malevolent BEN’ (p. 17), and as one ‘who libels all the Fraternity’ (p. 38).

In the end I don’t find any Necessity for either of their Speeches; either JOHNSON’S Wou’dhe had blotted out a Thousand! Or POPE’S There never was a more groundless Report! The first Ideclare with those mis-judging Players was a malevolent Speech; and as to the latter, I deny,the undeniable Evidences to the Contrary. They are both Malevolent enough to the Actors; forJohnson inclines to say it as much in direct Opposition of Opinion to the Players, as inDetraction of Shakespear; and Pope pronounces his, for no other View or Reason, than togive the Players in general, the positive Lye. (9)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆I cannot give into the Opinion, that Johnson’s Friendship to Shakespear continu’d through

Life, or even was faithfully preserv’d any part of it, and therein beg Pardon, that I oncemore dissent from this infallible EDITOR: If it is an acknowledg’d Fact that Ben. Johnsonwas introduc’d upon the Stage, and his first Works encourag’d by Shakespear, How mean,how base, and malevolent does it appear in him, to pick out a single Sentence from all hisWritings, and misquote it after his Friend’s Decease in order to reproach him withWeakness of Judgment, and expose him to Ridcule and Laughter?1 It wou’d have greatlyproved his Gratitude, and Honour of his Memory, if he had carefully revis’d the Volumeof his Plays, and other Impressions, and purged them from all the Absurdities of thePrinters and Players; For he had Learning, Conversation, Friendship to the Man, (if you willbelieve our Prefacer) Leisure of Life long after him; right Judgment as a Poet; and Instigationsfrom the derogatory Applauses of the Players, &c. But he was too full of his own Merit,and too invidious of his Rivals, to oppose the least Thing that weaken’d the Reputation ofany one of them: And it is to be fear’d, that if he had undertaken this Task (well becoming

his Friendship profess’d!) We shou’d have seen as many Injuries from his prejudic’d Pen,as from all the Abuses, which now stand charg’d on the Players. But to return to theparticular View of this Epistle, I shall now come to that Part of the Charge impos’d on thePlayers as his EDITORS. (10–11)

NOTE

1 The reference is to Jonson’s criticism of a version of Julius Caesar, 3.1.47–8, as ‘ridiculous’ inDisc., 661–6.

384 BEN JONSON

117.William Levin, Shakespeare and Jonson a lesson to

their successors1731

From a letter in The Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal, no. 131, 10 April 1731,by ‘Crito’.

The author is identified in Henry Baker’s set of the journal as William Levin, oneof its main contributors: see Walter Graham, English Literary Periodicals (1930), pp.105–6 and 106n. The Universal Spectator had been started by Baker in 1728; the firstnumber had an introductory article by his father-in-law, Daniel Defoe. The subjectof the letter printed here is ‘our present Want of Taste’.

I shall forbear any Remarks on those Writers, who meddle only with the severer Parts ofLearning, and confine myself solely to the Poets, as the Authors more immediately underyour Consideration; and whose Works, as they are more generally read, are consequentlythe best understood, by the far greater Part of those who peruse your Papers.

SHAKESPEAR and JOHNSON were the two first Writers, who gave any Lustre to theDramatick Performances of our Nation; and tho’ we have since them, had abundance ofAuthors in that Way; yet I believe I shall hardly be contradicted in saying, that there havebeen very few, who can with any Justice be call’d their Equals, and not so much as one, whocan be said to have excell’d them.

Their distinguishing Talent consists in having always kept Nature in their View, fromwhence the Propriety of their Thoughts recommends them to those who read them withJudgment; and the entring into the Spirit of whatever Character they represent, movesalways the Passions of their Auditors, according to the excellent Observation of Horace,

Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi:1 The peculiar Excellencies of SHAKESPEAR, are the marvellous Boldness of his

Invention, and the admirable Energy of his Expression. JOHNSON’S Perfections on theother Hand, are his prodigious Art in weaving his Plots, and that nice Distinction there isbetween all his Characters. This Difference lies in them, merely thro’ the one’s Want ofKnowledge in the Antients, and the other’s perfect Acquaintance and profound Respect forthem; which is also the sole Occasion of their Mistakes, the former being often irregular,and the latter sometimes too servile an Imitator.

However, their Beauties are a great Over-ballance for their Blemishes; and one mayalways pronounce in Favour of their Writings, without Fear of being thought to have an illTaste. In the Gross of the Dramatick Poets who succeeded them, the more exaltedCharacters met with a terrible Transformation; their Monarchs either thunder’d in

tyrannical Bombast, or whin’d forth their amorous Complaints, with a Tenderness belowtheir Rank. In Comedy the Alteration was also for the worse, the grand Parts being almostcontinually a Beau or Debauchee; in fine, the Heroes of that Sett of Writers, were most ofthem Almanzors, and their fine Gentlemen Dorimants; the one a Character altogether out ofNature, and the other a Disgrace to it.

This naturally leads me to the Mention of the Sourse of their Errors, which was plainlythis, that the Poets of those Days, either thro’ Force or Inclination, comply’d with theprevailing false Taste of Mankind, rather than they would take any Pains to amend it. Mr.Dryden, if I am not much mistaken, has almost own’d this in one of his Dedications; andwhoever considers the present State of the Drama, will readily observe the Consequenceof such a Complaisance, viz. that the Town and its Authors both will grow daily worse andworse. ’Till instead of the manly Entertainments of a Julius and an Othello; the finish’dWorkings of a Vulpone, or an Alchymist; our Stages are polluted with the Conjurations of anHarlequin Faustus, or render’d yet more ridiculous, from the Feats of a Tom Thumb.

NOTE

1 ‘If you would have me weep, you must first feel grief yourself’: Ars Poetica, ll. 102–3.

386 BEN JONSON

118.Jonson’s comedy obsolete

1732

From the preface to the anonymous Memoirs of the Life of Robert Wilkes, Esq;. Textfrom the second edition (also 1732).

The writer has defended tragedy as a forceful means of amending vices, and nowdescribes how comedy exposes follies. The obscurity of Jonson’s comedies isexplained by the fact that his characters are direct copies of his contemporaries,following the story, first in Aubrey, that Volpone is based on the famous miser SirThomas Sutton (Aubrey’s Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson Dick (1949), p. 291). Thepresent age, he suggests, does not provide suitable models for comic characterssince modern fools are too witless entirely, and too far beyond reformation. He hadearlier warned that if the stage continues to be prostituted to pantomimes andballad operas ‘JOHNSON in twenty Years will be an Author as antiquated asPLAUTUS’ (in the dedication, Sig. A3r).

I flatter myself that what I have said will account in some measure for the Diversity ofHumour which is to be found especially in our English Plays; when they were wrote, theywere doubtless intended to combat the reigning Vices, Follies and Impertinences, whichlike Weeds, grew up not only among the Vulgar, but even in the midst of the Court, theCity, and the Camp. Johnson, the Father of the English Comedy, is accused by some ofhaving intended to represent particular Persons in his Plays: Every-body who knows anyThing of Dramatic Writing must have heard, That the Character of Volpone was intendedfor an old scraping Citizen, who by his great Cunning acquir’d a vast Fortune, and byleaving it to charitable Uses has acquired as large a Stock of Reputation in future Times:’Tis highly probable that this Method of Ben’s might be of great Service, as to theimmediate Fortune of his Plays, tho’ at this Day it doubtless leaves us in the Dark, as tomany Particulars which, if we had an exact Character of him against whom the Satyr ispointed, would become Beauties instead of being thought Defects; yet even wherepersonal Reproach is omitted, and the Character of the Fop, to make use of his Grace ofBuckingham’s Expression, is laid on broad,1 and takes in the whole Compass of those Foibleswhich are in Favour with the Beau Monde at the Time the Author writes; such is theVariety of Characters presented in the Space of a few Years on the publick Theatre ofLife, that in a short time the most striking grow antiquated, and the Publick by gazingcontinually on what passes in their own Times, lose all Ideas of what passed before. Henceit follows that not only Johnson’s Plays, but all the Tribe of Writers who followed him, fail

of moving a Modern Audience upon the Stage, or of entertaining them in their Closets.(vii–viii)

NOTE

1 John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, An Essay upon Poetry (1682), p. 16.

388 BEN JONSON

119.A proper reaction to Volpone

1733

From the lead article by ‘Henry Stonecastle’ in The Universal Spectator, and WeeklyJournal, no. 270, 8 December 1733. The author of this article has not beenidentified.

On this periodical, see No. 117, above. The most recent production of Volponeat Covent Garden was on 24 November 1733. On the reactions to Volponedescribed in the article, see Introduction, pp. 22–3.

From my CHAMBERS, Lincoln’s-Inn.

WEDNESDAY Evening.

THERE are no Entertainments in themselves more innocent, or to the Publick moreinstructive than those of the Theatre. I wou’d not be thought to mean the Grotesque Pantomime,or the Harlequin Productions of the present Age, but the noble Force of Tragedy, which canexcite in us an Ambition to be virtuous, or the pleasing Strokes in Comedy, which withHumour, can lash our Vices, and with Satire drive away our Follies: Comedy carries with itsuch a Vein of Mirth, mix’d with Morality, that I am not surpriz’d at the common Opinionof my Countrymen, of chusing to read Tragedy, but to have Comedy exhibited to their View.Whatever Indulgence of Mirth may be claim’d from the Nature of Comedy, yet thatWriter, who studies only to raise a Laugh, tho’ he perhaps may meet with Success, will, inthe Judgment of all Men of Sense, be esteemed but a wretched Poet. Those humorousProductions which are distinguish’d by the Name of Farce, tho’ they may have somethingentertaining, and be heigthen’d by some Strokes of Satire, cannot raise in us that Pleasurewhich true Comedy will always afford. It is not the smart Jest, the odd Drollery, or the livelyRepartee, but the natural View of Life; the Manners, the Vices, the Singularity and Humours ofMankind, pleasantly represented to our Sight, which are alone worthy to be call’d theEntertainments of Comedy. Among all the Comic Writers of our Nation, there is nonewhich has drawn Nature stronger, or put the Follies or Vices of Mankind in a clearerLight than the judicious Ben Johnson, who in all his Plays has not only exhibited Nature, butNature of the most beautiful Kind, as he not only excites Men to be good, but wou’d makegood Men better.

Sir Jasper Truby, who had not seen a Play for many Years, and never above two or three,was engag’d lately to go with us to see a Comedy, and we chose that Night on whichVolpone, or the Fox, was acted: We gave the Knight timely Notice in the Morning, and hemet us punctually at four in the Afternoon at my Chambers, from whence we proceeded

to Covent Garden Theatre. Our Party consisted of the Knight, Harry Careless and my self.When we had plac’d ourselves to the best Advantage in the Middle of the Pit, Sir Jasperbegan to discover some Signs of secret Pleasure he receiv’d in seeing the House fill: TheLights, the Musick, the Appearance of Ladies, and the whole Scene of Gaiety put the oldGentleman into an entire good Humour. The Curtain drew up, when I observ’d in theKnight’s Countenance, that earnest Attention which every Man of Sense shou’d shew atan Entertainment from which he expects to be agreeably diverted.

Volpone at the opening of the Play, makes this Harangue to his Gold;——Good Morning to my Gold!

Gold, thou dumb God, that giv’st to all Men TonguesThat can’st do nought, yet makest Men do all Things,Thou Price of Souls: Ev’n Hell, with thee to bootIs made worth Heaven: Thou art Vertue, Fame,Honour, and all Things else; who can get Thee,He shall be Noble, Valiant, Wise—— [1.1.1, 22–7]

Sir Jasper had no sooner heard him, than he whisper’d me softly, a Villain I warrant him,Hal. and as Volpone open’d his Character more to the Audience, added with a seemingPleasure, I told you so; —I knew nothing but a Rogue cou’d prefer the Love of Gold to the Love ofVirtue. At the Lawyer’s bringing a Present, in hopes to be Volpone’s Heir, the Knight by aWink on me, betray’d his Joy at seeing the Gentleman of the long Robe gull’d by Artsmore delusive than his own. The Avarice of Corbaccio in the succeeding Scene, had, Iobserv’d a different Effect on Sir Jasper from the general Part of the Audience. Corbaccioappear’d a Wretch loaded with all the Infirmities of Nature; but his Deafness, whichshew’d his Lust of Money the stronger, while it made every one laugh, Sir Jasper did notonce put on a Smile. At the End of the Act he told me, he wonder’d how the Audiencecou’d laugh at so miserable a Wretch, who shou’d move their Detestation rather than theirPleasure. On our turning round to speak to Harry Careless, who had placed himself behind us,to our Surprize we found Harry had given us the Slip. While we were studying what couldbe the Occasion of it, I saw him in one of the Side Boxes, laughing and very gallant with acouple of Ladies: Sir Jasper cry’d, an unaccountable Fellow, when the ceasing of the Musickrecall’d our Attention to the Stage.

As I was taken up more in observing my Knight than the Players, I view’d narrowly theChange of his Features, as they betray’d the Emotions of his Heart. He seem’d very littleaffected with Volpone’s turning Mountebank, and whisper’d me, he thought it was too long:But in a Scene or two after, he express’d not a little Pleasure in seeing Corvino, a JealousCovetous Wretch, work’d up by Artifices, and his own surprizing Avarice, to make avoluntary Offer of putting his Wife to bed with Volpone.

At the Beginning of the third Act, I overheard the Knight at Mosca’s Soliloquy, mutteringto himself—The cunningest Rascal I ever saw—In a following Scene, where Corvino urg’d hisWife to Volpone’s Bed, she pleading all that a Woman of Honour cou’d say, and with Tearsenforcing her Prayers, I perceiv’d in Sir Jasper’s Countenance, a deep Concern, which washeighten’d when Volpone was about to force her—But the Moment she was rescued byBonario, he with a Smile told me that he lik’d the young Spark, and that he was a veryhonest Fellow, and he hop’d now the Roguery was detected: When Mosca by a new Devicegave the whole a different Turn, Sir Jasper seem’d surpriz’d and wonder’d Where it wou’dall end.

Our Friend Harry, whom we left in the Side Boxes, was now got behind the Scenes, andhad plac’d himself in such a Posture, that the whole Audience had a full View of him. As

390 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

soon as Sir Jasper beheld him in that Situation, whispering to one of the Actresses, he shew’dsome Concern, lest in one of his whimsical, unthinking Fits he shou’d enter farther on theStage, and entertain the Audience with an amorous Interlude; but the Re-entrance of thePlayers put an End to those Fears. Thro’ the rest of the Play, the Knight by Turns waspitying the falsly accus’d Lady, and that honest young Fellow, who had defended her Honour;and very often disapproving of the Poet’s making Villany so successful. At the unravelling ofthe Plot, when the Innocence of the Lady and young Gentleman was clear’d; whenVolpone and Mosca were caught in the Trap of their own Cunning, and each of the avariciousKnaves was order’d to a proper Punishment by the Decree of the Senate, the Knight in theEcstacy of his Heart, testify’d his Joy with such a Warmth, as proclaim’d him an honestMan, and a Lover of Vertue.

BEN JONSON 391

392

120.William Warburton and Lewis Theobald on Jonson

1734

From Theobald’s seven-volume edition of The Works of Shakespeare (dated 1733, butissued early 1734).

(a) From the preface. William Warburton (1698–1779), who collaborated withTheobald on this edition, marked the whole of this passage after the first sentence(along with others in the preface and notes to the edition) as written by himself, inhis own copy of the edition, now in the Capell Library at Trinity College,Cambridge. He also used a version of it in his own edition of Shakespeare (TheWorks of Shakespear (1747), ii, 195). Warburton is warmly acknowledged in thepreface as the one to whom Theobald owes ‘no small Part of my best Criticismsupon my Author’ (p. lxvi), but the two men quarrelled shortly afterwards and theacknowledgement is omitted from Theobald’s preface to the 1740 edition of theWorks. For a list of the passages in the preface claimed by Warburton, see D.NicholSmith (ed.), Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare (Glasgow 1903), pp. xlix–xlxn.

An additional Word or two naturally falls in here upon the Genius of our Author, ascompared with that of Jonson his Contemporary. They are confessedly the greatestWriters our Nation could ever boast of in the Drama. The first, we say, owed all to hisprodigious natural Genius; and the other a great deal to his Art and Learning. This, ifattended to, will explain a very remarkable Appearance in their Writings. Besides thosewonderful Masterpieces of Art and Genius, which each has given Us; They are theAuthors of other Works very unworthy of them: But with this Difference; that in Jonson’sbad Pieces we don’t discover one single Trace of the Author of the Fox and Alchemist: butin the wild extravagant Notes of Shakespeare, you every now and then encounter Strainsthat recognize the divine Composer. This Difference may be thus accounted for. Jonson, aswe said before, owing all his Excellence to his Art, by which he sometimes strain’dhimself to an uncommon Pitch, when at other times he unbent and play’d with hisSubject, having nothing then to support him, it is no wonder he wrote so far beneathhimself. But Shakespeare, indebted more largely to Nature, than the Other to acquiredTalents, in his most negligent Hours could never so totally divest himself of his Genius,but that it would frequently break out with astonishing Force and Splendor. (i, xxxiii–xxxiv)

(b) From the notes to The Tempest. There are frequent references to Jonson’s worksin Theobald’s notes in the editon, mainly to support readings of particular passages.

Theobald’s known interest in Jonson extends from his first Censor series in 1715(see No. 109, above) to a letter to Thomas Birch in 1737 answering biographicalqueries about Jonson (see John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of theEighteenth Century (1817), ii, 654–6). In the second edition of the Works (1740) thereferences to Jonson quoted below are omitted.

Servant-Monster.] [3.2.4] The Part of Caliban has been esteem’d a signal Instance of theCopiousness of Shakespeare’s Invention; and that he had shewn an Extent of Genius, increating a Person which was not in Nature. And for this, as well as his other magical and idealCharacters, a just Admiration has been paid him. I can’t help taking notice, on thisOccasion, of the Virulence of Ben. Jonson, who in the Induction to his Bartlemew Fair, hasendeavour’d to throw Dirt, not only at this single Character, but at this whole Play. ‘Ifthere be never a Servant Monster in the Fair, who can help it, (he says,) nor a Nest ofAnticks? He is loth to make Nature afraid in his Plays, like Those that beget Tales, Tempests,and such like Drolleries, to mix his Head with other Mens Heels’ [ll. 127–31]. Shakespeare,as the Tradition runs, was the Person who first brought Jonson upon the Stage; and this isthe Stab we find given in Requital for such a Service, when his Benefactor was retreatedfrom the Scene. A Circumstance, that strangely aggravates the Ingratitude. But this surlySauciness was familiar with Ben; when the Publick were ever out of Humour at hisPerformances, he would revenge it on them, by being out of Humour with those Pieceswhich had best pleas’d them. —I’ll only add, that his Conduct in This was very contradictoryto his cooler Professions, ‘that if Men would impartially look towards the Offices andFunctions of a Poet, they would easily conclude to themselves the Impossibility of anyMan’s being the good Poet, without first being a good Man’ [Volp., preface, ll. 20–4]. (i, 44)

[Theobald has quoted EMI, 2.3.342–51, to illustrate The Tempest 3.3.48, ‘Eachputter-out of five for one’.]

…Ben. to heighten the Ridicule of those projecting Voyagers, makes Puntarvolo’s Wifeaverse to accompany him, and so he is forc’d to put out his Venture on the Return ofhimself, his Dog, and his Cat. —Let me conclude with observing on the differentConduct of the Two Poets. Shakespeare (perhaps, out of a particular Deference for SirW.Raleigh) only sneers these adventurous Voyagers obliquely, and, as it were, en passant:The surly Ben, who would be tyed up by no such scrupulous Regards, dresses up theFashion in the most glaring Colours of Comic Humour; or, rather, brings down his Satire tothe Level of Farcical Ridicule. (i, 50–1)

394 BEN JONSON

121.Alexander Pope on Jonson’s inflated popular

reputation1737

From The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated.Pope is impatient with the uncritical admiration for Jonson and other ‘classick’

authors which leaves no room for other poets. Jonson’s standing is a matter forpatriotic protestation (ll. 41–2) and his ‘Art’, and Shakespeare’s ‘Nature’, aremindless clichés (ll. 81–3) —ones which Pope had put into the mouth of theGoddess Dulness (The Dunciad (1729), 2.216). There is another (obscure)reference to ‘old Ben’ later in the imitation of Horace’s epistle (ll. 388–9). Someof Pope’s notes have been omitted in the text given below.

[‘Horace’ has been eulogizing his sovereign.]

Just in one instance, be it yet confestYour People, Sir, are partial in the rest.Foes to all living worth except your own,And Advocates for Folly dead and gone.Authors, like Coins, grow dear as they grow old;It is the rust we value, not the gold.Chaucer’s worst ribaldry is learn’d by rote,And beastly⋆ Skelton Heads of Houses quote:One likes no language but the Faery Queen;A Scot will fight for† Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green;And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,He swears the Muses met him at the‡ Devil. (ll. 31–42; p. 3)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Shakespear$, (whom you and ev’ry Play-house bill

Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)For gain, not glory, wing’d his roving flight,And grew Immortal in his own despight.Ben, old and poor, as little seem’d to heedThe Life to come, in ev’ry Poet’s Creed.Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;Forgot his Epic, nay Pindaric Art,But still I love the language of his Heart.

‘Yet surely, surely, these were famous men!What Boy but hears the saying of old Ben?In all debates where Criticks bear a part,Not one but nods, and talks of Johnson’s Art,Of Shakespear’s Nature, and of Cowley’s Wit;How Beaumont’s Judgment check’d what Fletcher writ;How Shadwell|| hasty, Wycherly was slow;But, for the Passions, Southern sure and Rowe.These, only these, support the crouded stage,From eldest Heywood down to Cibber’s age.’ (ll. 69–88; p. 5)

NOTES

• Skelton, Poet Laureat to Hen. 8. a Volume of whose Verses has been lately reprinted,consisting almost wholly of Ribaldry, Obscenity, and Billingsgate Language.

† Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green, a Ballad made by a King of Scotland.‡ The Devil Tavern, where Ben. Johnson held his Poetical Club.$ Shakespear and Ben. Johnson may truly be said not much to have thought of Immortal Fame,

the one in many pieces composed in haste for the Stage; the other in his Latter works ingeneral, which Dryden calls his Dotages.

|| Shadwell hasty, Wycherly was slow.] Nothing was less true than this particular: But thisParagraph has a mixture of Irony, and must not altogether be taken for Horace’s ownJudgment, only the common Chatt of the pretenders to Criticism; in some things right, inothers wrong: as he tells us in his answer,

Interdum vulgus rectum videt, est ubi peccat. [‘At times the public see straight; sometimes theymake mistakes’: Epistles, 2.1.63.]

396 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

122.Algernon Sidney on Catiline

1739

From a letter to The Daily Gazeteer, no. 1209, 7 May 1739.Sidney, replying to Caleb D’ Anvers in The Craftsman for 28 April 1739, aims to

demonstrate that tragedies are instructive to the present as well as reflecting thesocieties which produced them. He quotes also from Rowe’s version ofTamburlaine, Addison’s Cato, Otway’s Caius Marius, and other more recent plays.

SIR, Temple, Saturday, April 28.I am not a little pleas’d to find Mr. D’Anvers advance a Sentiment in which I can

chearfully agree with him; for it is certainly true, as he (on this Occasion very justly)observes, That the Sentiments of the Government, and of the People also, may, in a greatDegree, be traced in our Tragedies both ancient and modern; and it must be lamented, asone of the many Misfortunes of the Reign of King Charles II. that more than Half the Playsthen permitted to appear, breathe nothing but arbitrary Sway, indefeasable HereditarySuccession, &c. for Freedom; the Liberty there recommended being more properly ascandalous Licentiousness, as is but too evident from the Libertinism and Immorality thatabounds in all the favourite Plays of that Reign.

I must, nevertheless, own, that I cannot well apprehend what Mr. D’Anvers would say,by asserting, ‘That in Times of publick Prosperity, the Tragick Scenes are adorn’d withthe warmest Sentiments that publick Spirit can inspire, and the noblest Panegyrick uponthose who make the Love of Mankind the glorious Motive of their Undertakings; but ifPride and Meanness fill the Throne, then the Poet arms his Numbers with the infamousWretches of former Ages, &c.’ —Since a Tragick Hero must necessarily have an oppositeCharacter, without which he cannot appear to any considerable Advantage; and we findthis so universally the Sense of our Dramatick Writers, that scarce one Tragedy can beproduced as an Exception to this Rule: Wherefore I am apt to believe that Caleb can onlyhave said this to make his subsequent Quotations read with the more Attention; for he mustknow, whatever single Sentences he may pick out to please his prejudiced Imagination, that aVillain is, in several of our best Plays, the principal, and in many the favourite Character,especially in our old Tragedies, and more particularly in the Writings of the celebratedShakespear.

Our facetious Countryman, BEN JOHNSON, has furnished the Stage with manyLessons of lasting Use: One of which, in his well-written Tragedy of CATALINE’SCONSPIRACY, gives a most lively Representation of a desperate, disappointed Traytor in thefollowing Lines.

It is decreed. Nor shall thy Fate, O! Rome,Resist my Vow. Tho’ Hills were set on Hills,And Seas met Seas to guard thee, I would through:————I’d plough up Rocks steep as the Alps in Dust,And lave the Tyrrhene Waters into Clouds,But I would reach thy Head, thy Head, proud City!The Ills that I have done cannot be safeBut by attempting greater; and I feelA Spirit within me chides my sluggish Hands,And says they have been innocent too long. [1.73–82]

What modern Address to the People by the Conspirators of our Days can be describedwith more Strength and Exactness than in the following Lines of Cataline’s Harangue tothe Roman Mob? in which I think Ben has given us the whole modern Cajole in Epitome.

————Noblest Romans!If you were less, or that your Faith and VirtueDid not hold good that Title, with your Blood,I should not now unprofitably spendMyself in Words, or catch at empty Hopes,By airy Ways for solid Certainties.But since in many and the greatest DangersI still have known you no less true than valiant. —

When I forethink the hard ConditionsOur State must undergo, unless in TimeWe do redeem ourselves to Liberty,And break the Iron Yoke forg’d for our Necks;For what less can we call it, when we seeThe Commonwealth engross’d so by a few,The Giants of the State, that do by TurnsEnjoy her.

They have Choice of Houses, Manors, Lordships,We scarce a Fire, or a poor Houshold Lar.They buy rare Attick Statues, Tyrian Hangings,Ephesian Pictures, and Corinthian Plate! [1.326–33, 342–9, 382–5]

These Lines in the Mouth of a profligate Voluptuary, who having been employ’d one Partof his Life in ruining his own Fortune, bent his Thoughts on nothing but the Ruin of hisCountry, shew how clearly the Author saw into the Nature of such Designs, and thecommon Language on such Occasions, among the Craftsmen, and false Patriots of Rome, orany other Country; for where the Intentions are the same, the Language will always bearan Affinity; whence it is no Wonder that Cataline should speak so much in the Style of ourmodern Patriots; and such was the Influence he had among the unthinking Vulgar, that theEndeavours of this profligate Traitor would probably have involved the whole Roman Peoplein the Ruin he and his desperate Adherents intended, had not the Wisdom of CICERO,aided by Cato, and the other Friends of Virtue, Liberty, and of their Country, by mild Entreaty,and the Help of their own Examples, (though at the utmost Peril of themselves) stem’d thewide Torrent of Confusion that was on the Verge of their Freedom and Privileges, theirLiberties and Lives. Which may ever serve as a Caution to all real Friends of a Nation, to weighdeliberately the Complaints raised against the Persons intrusted with the Government of

398 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Publick Affairs, and carefully to consider who it is that raises them, and what Views theyhave in any proposed Alteration.

The Expression of Cethegus, on drinking Blood to seal their dark Contract against theirCountrymen, is perfectly agreable to Speeches of a much later Date, in which the Envy ofdesigning Traytors to the Friends of the Country they sought to destroy, has often swamuppermost, spite of all their Arts to conceal it, by their pretended Regard for the People.

———Swell me my Bowl yet fuller,Here I do drink this, as I would do Cato’sOr the new Fellow Cicero’s. [1.499–501]

The Advantages promis’d to those who would assist his black Schemes, are welldescribed by Cataline in the following Lines.

That House is yours, that Land is his; those Waters,Orchards and Walks a third’s; he has that Honour,And he that Office [1.458–60]

Cicero’s Description of the Office he enjoy’d, with a View only to the Welfare of hisCountry, well deserves our Notice;

Great Honours are great Burthens; but on whomThey’re cast with Envy, he doth wear two Loads.His Cares must still be double to his Joys,In any Dignity, where, if he err,He finds no Pardon; and for doing well,A most small Praise, and that wrung out by Force. [3.1–6]

And the Cares attending, and the Capacity necessary for the great Trusts he enjoy’d,are very beautifully and elegantly described by Cato in the same Play.

———Each petty HandCan steer a Ship becalm’d; but he that willGovern and carry her to her Ends, must knowHis Tides, his Currents, how to shift his Sails;What she will bear in foul, what in fair Weathers;Where her Springs are, her Leaks, and how to stop them;What Sands, what Shelves, what Rocks, do threaten her;The Forces and the Natures of all Winds,Gusts, Storms, and Tempests, when her Keel ploughs Hell,And Deck knocks Heaven: Then to manage herBecomes the Name and Office of a Pilot. [3.64–74]

Which Description alone is sufficient to shew how unfit an ancient or modern Cataline,led by the single View of his own Interests, and hurried on by the Impetuosity of his Passions,must be for so great a Charge.

Cicero’s Appeal to the misled Tools of the Faction is equally just and pathetick.If you would hear, and change your savage Minds

Leave to be mad; forsake your PurposesOf Treason, Rapine, Murder, Fire and Horror:The Commonwealth hath Eyes, that wake as sharplyOver her Life, as yours do for her Ruin.Be not deceived to think her LenityWill be perpetual; or, if Men be wanting,The Gods will be to such a calling Cause.Consider your Attempts, and while there’s Times,

BEN JONSON 399

Repent you of them. It doth make me trembleThere should those Spirits breathe, that when they cannotLive honestly would rather perish basely. [3.815–26]

400 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

123.Henry Fielding on Jonson

1740, 1742

(a) From the opening essay in The Champion; Or, British Mercury, no. 53, 15 March1740. Fielding goes on to discuss excesses of modesty in women, of ‘Civility orComplacence’, of friendship and love, of zeal in doctors and of exuberance inpoets.

Excessit Medecina Modum. —LUCAN1

It will be found, I believe, a pretty just Observation, that many more Vices and Folliesarrive in the World through Excess than Neglect. Passion hurries ten Men beyond theMark, for one whom Indolence holds short of it. As there never was a better Rule for theConduct of human Life than what is conveyed in that excellent short Sentence—Ne quidnimis,2 so is there none so seldom observed. No Character is oftener represented on theStage of the World than that of Justice Overdo in the Nest of Fools, Men often becomeridiculous or odious by over-acting even a laudable Part: Virtue itself by growing tooexuberant, and (if I may be allowed the Metaphor) by running to Seed changes its veryNature, and becomes a most pernicious Weed of a most beautiful Flower.

(b) From the preface to The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, published inFebruary 1742.

The only Source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is Affectation. But tho’ it arises from oneSpring only, when we consider the infinite Streams into which this one branches, we shall presentlycease to admire at the copious Field it affords to an Observer. Now Affectation proceeds from one ofthe these two Causes, Vanity, or Hypocrisy: for as Vanity puts us on affecting false Characters, in orderto purchase Applause; so Hypocrisy sets us on an Endeavour to avoid Censure by concealing our Vicesunder an Appearance of their opposite Virtues. And tho’ these two Causes are often confounded, (forthey require some Difficulty in distinguishing;) yet, as they proceed from very different Motives, sothey are as clearly distinct in their Operations: for indeed, the Affectation which arises from Vanity isnearer to Truth than the other; as it hath not that violent Repugnancy of Nature to struggle with,which that of the Hypocrite hath. It may be likewise noted, that Affectation doth not imply anabsolute Negation of those Qualities which are affected: and therefore, tho’, when it proceeds fromHypocrisy, it be nearly allied to Deceit; yet when it comes from Vanity only, it partakes of theNature of Ostentation: for instance, the Affectation of Liberality in a vain Man, differs visibly fromthe same Affectation in the Avaricious; for tho’ the vain Man is not what he would appear, or hath

not the Virtue he affects, to the degree he would be thought to have it; yet it sits less aukwardly onhim than on the avaricious Man, who is the very Reverse of what he would seem to be.

From the Discovery of this Affectation arises the Ridiculous—which always strikes the Reader withSurprize and Pleasure; and that in a higher and stronger Degree when the Affectation arises fromHypocrisy, than when from Vanity: for to discover any one to be the exact Reverse of what he affects,is more surprizing, and consequently more ridiculous, than to find him a little deficient in theQuality he desires the Reputation of. I might observe that our Ben Johnson, who of all Menunderstood the Ridiculous the best, hath chiefly used the hypocritical Affectation. (xii–xiv)

(c) From the preface and notes to Plutus, The God of Riches, a translation ofAristophanes’ play published by Fielding and the Reverend William Young (theoriginal of Parson Adams in Joseph Andrews) in May 1742. The part of the prefacefrom which this extract comes and the notes would seem to be Fielding’s: seeWilbur L.Cross, The History of Henry Fielding (New Haven, Conn. 1918), i, 364–5.

[Fielding has discussed exchanges of ‘pleasantry’ in Vanbrugh’s The ProvokedHusband. ‘Our laureate’ is Colley Cibber.]

This sort of Stuff, which is, I think, called genteel Comedy, and in which our Laureate succeeded soexcellently well both as Author and Actor, had some Years ago taken almost sole Possession of ourStage, and banished Shakespear, Fletcher, Johnson, &c. from it; the last of whom, of all our EnglishPoets, seems chiefly to have studied and imitated Aristophanes, which we have remarked more thanonce in our Notes. To such therefore of our Readers, whose Palates are vitiated with the theatricalDiet I have above-mentioned, I would recommend a Play or two of Johnson’s, to be taken as a kind ofPreparative before they enter on this Play; for otherwise the Simplicity of its Style, for want of beingsweetned with modern Quaintness, may like old Wine after Sugar-Plumbs, appear insipid, andwithout any Flavour. But our Readers of a purer Taste and sounder Judgment, will be able, weapprehend, to digest good Sense, manly Wit, just Satire, and true Humour, without thoseGarnishments which we could with infinitely greater Ease have supplied (as others have done) in theroom of our Author’s Meaning, than have preserved it in his own plain Simplicity of Stile. (xii)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On Plutus, ll. 32–8, Chremylus’ speech explaining that, for the sake of his son, hehas sought the oracle to ask if it is better to abandon morals and pursue only self-interest (and thus get rich).]

Ben Johnson, who hath founded two of his best Plays on the Passion of Avarice, seems tohave an Eye to this; for he introduces every Man pursuing Riches, on the pretence ofdoing good to others, or the Public, and disclaiming all selfish Views; one wants to buildHospitals, another for the Propagation of Religion, &c. (5–6)

[On Plutus, ll. 245–51, Chremylus’ speech assuring Plutus that he is such amoderate man that he rejoices both in frugality and in expense, and that he loveshis wife and his son more dearly than anything in the world—except Plutus.]

This whole Speech is admirable, and agreeable to the Character of Chremylus, in whichthere is a Mixture of Hypocrisy and Drollery. The Conclusion, in which this just and good

402 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Man professes to love his Wife and Child in Subordination to the Affection he bears forPlutus (or for Wealth) is a Stroke of Nature which every ordinary Reader cannot take. Hadsuch a Sentiment dropt from one of a contrary Disposition, there would be no Humour init; for true Humour arises from the Contention and Opposition of the Passions. Thus it isthe fond, jealous and Italian Husband, who, in Johnson’s Play of the Fox, sacrifices his Wifeand his Honour to his Avarice. The Behaviour of Chremylus here, is an Instance of thatInsight into Nature, which alone constitutes the true Comic Poet, and of whichnumberless Examples appear in this our Author. (23–4)

NOTES

1 ‘His surgery went beyond all bounds’: Lucan, 2.142.2 ‘Nothing in excess’.

BEN JONSON 403

404

124.Corbyn Morris, humours in Shakespeare and Jonson

1744

From An Essay Towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire andRidicule, published in May 1744.

See Introduction, p. 24. Morris (d. 1779) was a writer on economics andstatistics and became commissioner of customs.

If you put all these together, it is impossible to hate honest Jack Falstaff; If you observethem again, it is impossible to avoid loving him; He is the gay, the witty, the frolicksome,happy, and fat Jack Falstaff, the most delightful Swaggerer in all Nature—You must love himfor your own sake, —At the same time you cannot but love him for his own Talents; Andwhen you have enjoy’d them, you cannot but love him in Gratitude; —He has nothing todisgust you, and every thing to give you Joy; —His Sense and his Foibles are equallydirected to advance your Pleasure; And it is impossible to be tired or unhappy in hisCompany.

This jovial and gay Humour, without any thing envious, malicious, mischievous, ordespicable, and continually quicken’d and adorn’d with Wit, yields that peculiar Delight,without any Alloy, which we all feel and acknowledge in Falstaff’s Company. —Ben Jonsonhas Humour in his Characters, drawn with the most masterly Skill and Judgment; InAccuracy, Depth, Propriety, and Truth, he has no Superior or Equal amongst Ancients orModerns; but the Characters he exhibits are of a satirical, and deceitful, or of a peevish, ordespicable Species; as Volpone, Subtle, Morose, and Abel Drugger; In all of which there issomething very justly to be hated or despised; And you feel the same Sentiments of Dislikefor every other Character of Johnson’s; so that after you have been gratify’d with theirDetection and Punishment, you are quite tired and disgusted with their Company: —Whereas Shakespear, besides the peculiar Gaiety in the Humour of Falstaff, has guarded himfrom disgusting you with his forward Advances, by giving him Rank and Quality; from beingdespicable by his real good Sense and excellent Abilities; from being odious by his harmlessPlots and Designs; and from being tiresome by his inimitable Wit, and his new and incessantSallies of highest Fancy and Frolick.

This discovers the Secret of carrying COMEDY to the highest Pitch of Delight; Whichlies in drawing the Persons exhibited, with such chearful and amiable Oddities and Foibles, as youwould chuse in your own Companions in real Life; —otherwise, tho’ you may be diverted atfirst with the Novelty of a Character, and with a proper Detection and Ridicule of it, yet itsPeevishness, Meanness, or Immorality, will begin to disgust you after a little Reflection, and

become soon tiresome and odious; It being certain, that whoever cannot be endured as anaccidental Companion in real Life, will never become, for the very same Reasons, a favorite comicCharacter in the Theatre.

This Relish for generous and worthy Characters alone, which we all feel upon the Theatre,where no Biass of Envy, Malice, or personal Resentment draws us aside, seems to besome Evidence of our natural and genuin Disposition to Probity and Virtue; tho’ the Mindsof most Persons being early and deeply tinged with vicious Passions, it is no wonder thatStains have been generally mistaken for original Colours.

It may be added, that Humour is the most exquisite and delightful when the Oddities andFoibles introduc’d are not mischievous or sneaking, but free, jocund, and liberal; and such asresult from a generous Flow of Spirits, and a warm universal Benevolence. (29–31)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆To return—Johnson in his COMIC Scenes has expos’d and ridicul’d Folly and Vice;

Shakespear has usher’d in Joy, Frolic and Happiness. — The Alchymist, Volpone and SilentWoman of Johnson, are most exquisite Satires. The comic Entertainments of Shakespear arethe highest Compositions of Raillery, Wit and Humour. Johnson conveys some Lesson inevery Character, Shakespear some new Species of Foible and Oddity. The one pointed hisSatire with masterly Skill; the other was inimitable in touching the Strings of Delight.With Johnson you are confin’d and instructed, with Shakespear unbent and dissolv’d in Joy.Johnson excellently concerts his Plots, and all his Characters unite in the one Design,Shakespear is superior to such Aid or Restraint; His Characters continually sallying fromone independent Scene to another, and charming you in each with fresh Wit andHumour.

It may be further remark’d, that Johnson by pursuing the most useful Intention ofComedy, is in Justice oblig’d to hunt down and demolish his own Characters. Upon this Planhe must necessarily expose them to your Hatred, and of course can never bring out anamiable Person. His Subtle, and Face are detected at last, and become mean anddespicable. Sir Epicure Mammon is properly trick’d, and goes off ridiculous and detestable.The Puritan Elders suffer for their Lust of Money, and are quite nauseous and abominable;And his Morose meets with a severe Punishment, after having sufficiently tir’d you with hisPeevishness. —But Shakespear, with happier Insight, always supports his Characters inyour Favour. His Justice Shallow withdraws before he is tedious; The French Doctor, andWelch Parson, go off in full Vigour and Spirit; Ancient Pistoll indeed is scurvily treated;however, he keeps up his Spirits, and continues to threaten so well, that you are stilldesirous of his Company; and it is impossible to be tir’d or dull with the gay unfadingEvergreen Falstaff.

But in remarking upon the Characters of Johnson, it would be unjust to pass Abel Druggerwithout notice; This is a little, mean, sneaking, sordid Citizen, hearkening to a Couple ofSharpers, who promise to make him rich; they can scarcely prevail upon him to resign theleast Tittle he possesses, though he is assur’d, it is in order to get more; and yourDiversion arises, from seeing him wrung between Greediness to get Money, and Reluctance topart with any for that Purpose. His Covetousness continually prompts him to follow theConjurer, and puts him at the same Time upon endeavouring to stop his Fees. All thewhile he is excellently managed, and spirited on by Face. However, this Character uponthe whole is mean and despicable, without any of that free spirituous jocund Humourabounding in Shakespear. But having been strangely exhibited upon the Theatre, a fewYears ago, with odd Grimaces and extravagant Gestures, it has been raised into moreAttention than it justly deserved; It is however to be acknowledg’d, that Abel has no

406 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Hatred, Malice or Immorality, not any assuming Arrogance, Pertness or Peevishness; Andhis eager Desire of getting and saving Money, by Methods he thinks lawful, are excusablein a Person of his Business; He is therefore not odious or detestable, but harmless andinoffensive in private Life; and from thence, correspondent with the Rule already laiddown, he is the most capable of any of Johnson’s Characters, of being a Favourite on theTheatre.

It appears, that in Imagination, Invention, Jollity and gay Humour, Johnson had littlePower; But Shakespear unlimited Dominion. The first was cautious and strict, not daringto sally beyond the Bounds of Regularity. The other bold and impetuous, rejoicing like aGiant to run his Course, through all the Mountains and Wilds of Nature and Fancy.

It requires an almost painful Attention to mark the Propriety and Accuracy of Johnson,and your Satisfaction arises from Reflection and Comparison; But the Fire and Invention ofShakespear in an Instant are shot into your Soul, and enlighten and chear the most indolentMind with their own Spirit and Lustre. —Upon the whole, Johnson’s Compositions arelike finished Cabinets, where every Part is wrought up with the most excellent Skill andExactness; — Shakespear’s like magnificent Castles, not perfectly finished or regular, butadorn’d with such bold and magnificent Designs, as at once delight and astonish you withtheir Beauty and Grandeur. (33–6)

BEN JONSON 407

408

125.David Garrick, the acting of Drugger and Macbeth

1744

From An Essay on Acting (1744). On Garrick, see Introduction, p. 19. He isimpersonating one of his more obtuse critics.

If an Actor, and a favourite Actor, in assuming these different Characters with the samePassions, shall unskilfully differ only in Dress, and not in Execution; and supposing him rightin One, and of consequence absolutely ridiculous in the Other. Shall this Actor, I say, inSpite of Reason, Physicks, and common Observation, be caress’d, applauded, admir’d? But toillustrate it more by Example. —Suppose the Murder of Duncan, and the Breaking a Urinalshall affect the Player in the same Manner, and the only Difference is the blue Apron andlac’d Coat, shall we be chill’d at the Murderer, and roar at the tobacconist? Fie for shame! —As the One must be absolutely the Reverse of Right, I think the Publick, for so gross anImposition, should drive both off the Stage. When Drugger becomes Macbeth, and MacbethDrugger, I feel for the Manes of the Immortal Shakespear, and Inimitable Ben; I bemoan theTaste of my Country, and I would have the Buffoon sacrific’d to appease the Muses, andrestore us to a true Dramatick Taste, by such an exemplary Piece of Justice. I shall now, asrelative to my present Subject, describe in what Manner the two abovemention’dCharacters ought to be mentally and corporeally Agitated, under the different Circumstancesof the Dagger, and Urinal; and by that shall more fully delineate what is meant by Passionsand Humours. When Abel Drugger has broke the Urinal, he is mentally absorb’d with thedifferent Ideas of the invaluable Price of the Urinal, and the Punishment that may beinflicted in Consequence of a Curiosity, no way appertaining or belonging to the Businesshe came about. Now, if this, as it certainly is, [is] the Situation of his Mind, How are thedifferent Members of the Body to be agitated? Why Thus, —His Eyes must be revers’dfrom the Object he is most intimidated with, and by dropping his Lip at the same time tothe Object, it throws a trembling Languor upon every Muscle, and by declining the rightPart of the Head towards the Urinal, it casts the most comic Terror and Shame over all the upperPart of the Body, that can be imagin’d; and to make the lower Part equally ridiculous, his Toesmust be inverted from the Heel, and by holding his Breath, he will unavoidably give himself aTremor in the Knees, and if his Fingers, at the same Time, seem convuls’d, it finishes thecompleatest low Picture of Grotesque Terror that can be imagin’d by a Dutch Painter. —Letthis be compar’d with the modern copies, and then let the Town judge. (6–8)

[He goes on to describe Macbeth in the immediate consciousness of havingmurdered Duncan.]

410

126.Sarah Fielding, David Simple hears a critic on

Shakespeare and Jonson1744

From The Adventures of David Simple, Book ii, chapter 3.Simple has been promised by his guide Mr Spatter a sample of criticism done

entirely from memory by a man whose opinions are all borrowed from a long-suffering ‘man of sense’. Sarah was Fielding’s third sister, and wrote six novelsbefore her death in 1768. Henry revised the Adventures for a second edition, alsopublished in 1744, and added a preface.

‘Shakespeare, whose Name is immortal, had an Imagination which had the Power of Creation,a Genius which could form new Beings, and make a Language proper for them. Ben Johnson,who writ at the same time, had a vast deal of true Humour in his Comedies, and very fineWriting in his Tragedies; but then he is a laborious Writer, a great many of those beautifulSpeeches in Sejanus and Catiline are Translations from the Classicks, and he can by no meansbe admitted into any Competition with Shakespeare. But I think any Comparison betweenthem ridiculous; for what Mr. Addison says of Homer and Virgil, That reading the Iliad is liketravelling through a Country uninhabited, where the Fancy is entertain’d with a thousand savageProspects of vast Desarts, —wide uncultivated Marshes, —huge forests, —mis-shapen Rocks andPrecipices: — On the contrary, the Æneid is like a well-order’d Garden, where it is impossible tofind out any Part unadorn’d or to cast our Eyes upon a single Spot that does not produce somebeautiful Plant or Flower.1 is equally applicable to Shakespeare and Ben Johnson; so that to saythat the one or the other writes best, is like saying of a Wilderness, that it is not a regularGarden; or, of a regular Garden, that it does not run out into that Wildness which raises theImagination, and is to be found in Places where only the Hand of Nature is to be seen. In myOpinion, the same thing will hold as to Corneille and Racine: Corneille is the French Shakespeare,and Racine their Ben Johnson. The Genius of Corneille, like a fiery Courser, is hard to berestrain’d; while Racine goes on in a majestick Pace, and never turns out of the Way,either to the Right or Left.’ (i, 162–3)

NOTE

1 From The Spectator, no. 417, 28 June 1712.

412

127.William Guthrie, Jonson the Poussin of drama

1747

From An Essay upon English Tragedy (1747).The Essay is mainly a defence of what Guthrie calls ‘the sterling merit of

Shakespear’ against ‘the tinsel ornaments of the French academy’ (p. 10).Guthrie (1708–70) reported Parliamentary debates for The Gentleman’s Magazine

(which Samuel Johnson then revised), and later published histories of England(1744–51), of the world (1764–7), and of Scotland (1767).

Long before the French had illuminated all Europe with the true rules of the drama, ourJohnson knew and practised them to a greater perfection than the most distinguishingacademician ever wrote of them in speculation—Johnson, at a time when critical learningwas as strange in France as in Barbary, did what no Frenchman ever was able to do. Heproduced regular plays of five acts, complete in the unities of place and characters, and socomplete in the unity of time, that they are acted upon the stage in the same time whichthe same story would have taken up in real life. Where then is the merit of the French criticaldiscoveries when an Englishman has so much the start of their academy, and suchadvantages in the execution?

But Johnson had an understanding which raised him next to genius. He was in the dramawhat Pousin is in painting. He studied the works of the antients to so much perfection,that his drawing, though dry, is always correct; and his attitudes, however uncouth, arealways just. Hence, whatever he took from living manners, (of which he was sparing) wascomplete in its kind; while his force of judgment, and observation of proportion, give awarmth, sometimes, to his colouring, as pleasing as when it is the result of nature itself.

Pardon this digression in favour of a poet, whom I admire rather than love: But who isso unequal to himself, that when he rambles from that severity which is so peculiar tohimself, you cannot find in Johnson the smallest vestige of his merit; so entirely was hesupported upon the stilts of close observation of nature, and strict application to study.

Even the bird of nature, Shakespear, when he neither soars to elevation, not sinks tomeanness, flies with balanced pinions; he skims the level of dramatic rules; and his MerryWives of Windsor demonstrates how much he acted against his better judgment, when hestretched his wings into the extravagance of popular prepossessions. (6–7)

414

128.Unsigned review of La Place’s Catiline

1747

In the Journal de Trévoux for August 1747. Translated.The translation of Catiline appears in volume v of Pierre Antoine la Place’s Le

Théâtre Anglois (‘Londres’ 1746–9). On La Place’s much abridged version of theoriginal, see Nicole Bonvalet, ‘Adaptations et traductions de Ben Jonson au XVIIIe

siècle’, Les Lettres Romanes (1981), xxxv, 205–12.

In the first four volumes, M. de la Place has acquinted us perfectly with the genius ofShakespeare. The plays of Othello, Henry VI, Cymbeline, etc. have left us with a veryelevated impression of this founder of the British stage. In spite of his faults, his lack oforder, of education, this man has appeared to us very remarkable. If he is dismal in hisfailures, in his high points he is sublime; in his coups de théâtre he is admirable. But can onesay the same thing of his successors, and in proportion as art has polished the English drama,has not the genius of its authors cooled? Once again this is a question which our readerscan resolve for themselves, when we have described the plays contained in this volume.

The first is by Ben Jonson, who only ever wrote two tragedies, Catiline and Sejanus. M.de la Place gives an analysis of the first; that is to say, he translates most of its scenes, andsimply gives the plan and groundwork of some others. This is the judicious methodadopted throughout his work.

Ben Jonson was without doubt more learned and better instructed in the rules thanShakespeare. In creating his tragedy about Catiline, he had his eye on Sallust and onCicero. He took pains to reduce the action to the duration of a day or so. Although thescene is not always restricted to the same building, it remains fixed in Rome. Of coursethe art of implications, of situations, of interested motives was not unknown to thisauthor, and for all these reasons, the play deserves true praise; but does it ever rise as highas Shakespeare? Does it give to its principal characters that elevation of sentiments whichis the soul of a tragic scene? Does it terrify, does it transport with its catastrophes all ofaction, all of terror? Let us follow a little of Catiline through the analysis of M. de la Place.We do not think that it is necessary to describe at length the play’s subject: it is theconspiracy of this evil citizen. He appears with his confidants Lentulus and Cethegus; he isbetrayed by Fulvia, who reveals the whole plot to Cicero. This consul here acts the samecharacter as in his Catiline orations. Cato and Caesar are depicted here according toSallust’s account. The dénouement is that Lentulus and Cethegus are punished by deathand Catiline is defeated by Anthony.

M. de la Place only translates into verse the the first scene of the first act, and it is oneof the finest. The ghost of Sylla appears, it laments the peace which reigns in Rome, itbreathes its terrors into Catiline.

[Quotes 1.1.1–10 from the translation.]

If Shakespeare had to depict an illustrious Roman, lost in debauchery, ambitious, a villain,powerful, enemy of his country, in a word Catiline, what superiority would he not havegiven to this character over that of Cethegus who was only there as a follower, who isonly in the capacity of an accomplice! However here we see Cethegus the most decided,the most urgent of all the conspirators. He is the first at the rendezvous, he accuses theothers of laziness, he forces Catiline himself into action.

[Cites the action of 1.5.499–502 and 3.4.174–96.]

It will be admitted that there Cethegus is active, quite unlike Catiline, who neverthelessought to be the hero of the play; and it is the same thing everywhere. Catiline haranguestoo much, he is almost as much of a talker as Cicero; and Cicero is here of a prolixity to makethe spectators die of boredom. This is another fault of this play; the author has translatedthe Catiline orations almost whole; the Quosque tandem1 and all that follows. Cethegus,exasperated by the length of his harangues, says somewhere to the Consul: if theconspiracy had not been discovered, ‘your role would not have been as long as it is now: Iwould have cut the flow of your brilliant rhetoric from the first sentence’.2 This is a littlecomic; but as he is depicted here, Cicero also merits this attack; he even merits the title of‘talker’ which Sempronia gives him (Act II Scene ii [l. 108]).

Let us touch on a third fault of this tragedy. Lentulus, another friend of Catiline, is aman without resolution, without a soul. He amuses himself (Act I Scene iv [ll. 254–86])by discussing the prophecies and the responses of Auruspices. However it is to him thatCatiline assigns the Roman Empire, he is content, for himself and for his otheraccomplices, with dividing up the distant provinces. Is that really in the nature of things?History, it is true, has hinted that such was Catiline’s policy; but should not a dramaticpoet change some traits of his characters?

There are some other characters in the same play who are not adequately depicted: inSallust Sempronia is a famous intriguer, full of tricks and boldness, abusing a thousandtalents to satisfy her passions, knowing how to use crime and the appearance of virtue, etc.In the historian this portrait is a finished one; here in the play everything is feeble, andpoorly nuanced; the character of Fulvia seems better sustained. The latter is a greedy andskilful woman: she dupes Quintus Curius, she discovers the secret of the conspiracy, andthis fellow Curius shows himself to be as he really is, lascivious and stupid.

[Cites 2.3.312–21.]

There we see an indiscreet man who lays himself open to the questions of a very subtlewoman; thus the whole plot is soon exposed; and Fulvia, for whom a secret is aninsupportable weight, will tell everywhere the circumstances of the plot.

Cicero, let us say once again, does not make a great enough impression in this play. Hisdiscoursing as far as the eye can see stifles feeling and action. But it is doubtless ridiculous

416 BEN JONSON

that, in Act III Scene xv, when the conspirators come to stab him, he shows himself at thewindow and from there makes a harangue which obliges Cato to tell him, ‘You talke toomuch to ’hem, MARCUS’ [l. 827]. Does a Consul have to throw in his lot withscoundrels? Does he not have lictors who can arrest them? Cato has also something of theburgomaster about him. He says to Cicero, ‘raise the city’ [l. 834]; and where is thecharacter to be placed? Cicero is at the window: the conspirators are making a row at thedoor: the porter refuses to open it; the Consul gives his harangue, and Cato tells him tohave the wretches arrested. So he is also at the window, because in the street he wouldhave run the risk of being killed by Catiline’s accomplices. But are all these situationsreally dramatic, really worthy of the buskin? We pass over other places which would behissed at with us. Let us agree however that there is something fine in Act V Scene ivwhere the Allobroges confront Cethegus and the other conspirators; that the harangues ofCaesar and of Cato are magnificent; that the character of the former, above all, is wellhandled. Also the author had an excellent model in Sallust. To us Ben Jonson seems ingeneral not to be an inventive author, to be hardly capable of moving an audience: M. dela Place does a service in suppressing licentious passages and platitudes, not to mentionthat this play is as well written in our language as it is possible to be. (1543–54)

NOTES

1 ‘In heaven’s name, how long’: Cicero, In Catilinam, 1.1.1.2 Cp. Cat. 5.272–7.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 417

418

129.Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare and Jonson

1747

From the ‘Prologue Spoken by Mr. Garrick’, printed in Prologue and Epilogue Spokenat the Opening of the Theatre in Drury Lane 1747.

Judging by the quotations in his Dictionary, Johnson was familiar with Jonson’ssongs and lyrics, and with Catiline, Sejanus, Every Man in his Humour, and The New Inn,as well as his translations, but seems nowhere to have mentioned The Alchemist, TheSilent Woman or Volpone: see W.B.C.Watkins, Johnson and English Poetry Before 1660(Princeton, NJ 1936), passim. Johnson comments unfavourably on Jonson’stranslation of Horace in his life of Dryden (Lives of the English Poets, ed. GeorgeBirkbeck Hill (1905), i, 421) and in no. 69 of The Idler, 11 August 1759.

When Learning’s Triumph o’er her barb’rous FoesFirst rear’d the Stage, immortal SHAKESPEAR rose;Each Change of many colour’d Life he drew,Exhausted Worlds, and then imagin’d new:Existence saw him spurn her bounded Reign,And panting Time toil’d after him in vain:His pow’rful Strokes presiding Truth impress’d,And unresisted Passion storm’d the Breast.Then JOHNSON came, instructed from the School,To please in Method, and invent by Rule;His studious Patience, and laborious Art,By regular Approach essay’d the Heart;Cold Approbation gave the ling’ring Bays,For those who durst not censure, scarce cou’d praise.A Mortal born he met the general Doom,But left, like Egypt’s Kings, a lasting Tomb.The Wits of Charles found easier Ways to Fame,Nor wish’d for JOHNSON’S Art, or SHAKESPEAR’S Flame.Themselves they studied, as they felt, they writ,Intrigue was Plot, Obscenity was Wit.Vice always found a sympathetick Friend;They pleas’d their Age, and did not aim to mend.Yet Bards like these aspir’d to lasting Praise,And proudly hop’d to pimp in future Days.

Their Cause was gen’ral, their Supports were strong,Their Slaves were willing, and their Reign was long;Till Shame regain’d the Post that Sense betray’d,And Virtue call’d Oblivion to her Aid. (ll. 1–28; p. 2)

420 BEN JONSON

130.Charles Macklin, a forged pamphlet on Jonson

1748

A letter to The General Advertiser, 23 April 1748.Macklin (1699–1777) was one of the best-known actors of the century; his

Shylock at Drury Lane in 1741 was especially successful. His fictitious pamphlet ispart of a promotion campaign for the revival of Ford’s The Melancholy Lover whichtook place at Drury Lane on 28 April for Mrs Macklin’s benefit. There is a letter inThe General Advertiser for 19 April puffing Ford and drawing attention to theforthcoming revival. The first of the ‘Invectives’ and the poems by May and Porterare, of course, inventions. See Introduction, p. 29.

SIR,The History of the Stage before the Restoration is like a Foreign Land, in which no

Englishman had ever travelled: we know there were such things as Play-Houses, and oneShakespear a great Writer, but the Historical Traces of them are so imperfect, that theManner in which they existed is less known to us, than that of Eschylus, or the Theatres ofGreece. For this Reason, ’tis hoped, that the following Gleaning of Theatrical History willreadily obtain a Place in your Paper. ’Tis taken from a Pamphlet, written in the Reign ofCharles I. with this queint Title, Old Ben’s LIGHT HEART made heavy by Young John’sMELANCHOLLY LOVER; and as it contains some Historical Anecdotes andAltercations, concerning Ben Johnson, Ford, Shakespear, and the Lover’s Melancholly, it isimagined, that a few Extracts from it at this Juncture, will not be unentertaining to thePublic.

Those who have any Knowledge of the Theatre in the Reigns of James and Charles theFirst, must know, that Ben Johnson, from great Critical Language which was then the Portionbut of very few; his Merit as a Poet, and his constant Association with Men of Letters, did,for a considerable Time give Laws to the Stage.

Ben was by Nature splenetic and sour; with a Share of Envy, for every anxious Genius hassome, more than was warrantable in Society. By Education rather critically than politelylearn’d; all which swell’d his Mind into an Ostentatious Pride of his own Works, and anoverbearing, inexorable Judgment of his Contemporaries.

This rais’d him many Enemies, who, towards the Close of his Life, endeavoured todrive this Tyrant, as the Pamphlet stiles him, out of the Dominion of the Theatre: Andwhat greatly contributed to their Design was the Sleights and Malignances which the rigidBen too frequently threw out against the lowly Shakespear; whose Fame, since his Death, asappears by the Pamphlet, was grown too great for Ben’s Envy either to bear with or wound.

It would greatly exceed the Limits of your Paper, to set down all the Contempts andInvectives, which were uttered and written by Ben, and are collected and produced in thisPamphlet, as unanswerable and shaming Evidences to prove his Ill-Nature and Ingratitude toShakespear, who first introduced him to the Theatre and Fame.

But tho’ the whole of those Invectives cannot be set down at present, some few of theHeads may not be disagreeable, which are as follow,

‘That the Man had Imagination and Wit none could deny, but that they were ever guidedby true Judgment in the Rules and Conduct of a Piece, none could with Justice assert, bothbeing ever servile to raise the Laughter of Fools and the Wonder of the Ignorant. That he was agood Poet only in Part—being ignorant of all Dramatic Laws; —had little Latin—lessGreek’ —and speaking of Plays

To make a⋆ Child, now swaddled, to proceedMan, and then shoot up in one Beard and Weed,Past threescore Years; or with the rusty Swords,And help of some few Foot-and-half-foot Words,Fight over York and Lancaster’s long Jars;And in the Tyring-house bring Wounds to Scars.He rather prays you will be pleas’d to seeOne such To-day, as other Plays should be;Where neither Chorus† wafts you o’er the Seas — [EMI, Prologue, ll. 7–14]

This, and such-like Behaviour, brought Ben at last from being the Law-giver of theTheatre, to be the Ridicule of it; being personally introduced there in several Pieces, to theSatisfaction of the Publick, who are ever fond of encouraging Personal Ridicule, when theFollies or Vices of the Object are supposed to deserve it.

But what wounded his Pride and Fame most sensibly was, the Preference which thePublic, and most of his Contemporary Wits, gave to FORD’S Lover’s Melancholly beforeHIS New-Inn, or Light Heart; They were both brought on in the same Week and upon thesame Stage; Ben’s was damn’d—Ford’s received with uncommon Applause. And what made thisCircumstance still more galling was, that Ford was at the Head of the Partisans whosupported Shakespear’s Fame against Ben’s Invectives.

This so incens’d old Ben that, as an everlasting Stigma upon his Audience, he prefix’dthis Title to his Play—The New-Inn, or LIGHT HEART. A Comedy. As it was never acted—but most negligently play’d by some the King’s idle Servants—and most Squeamishlybeheld, and censur’d, by others the King’s most foolish Subjects. This Title is follow’d byan abusive Preface upon the Audience and Reader.

Immediately upon this, he wrote his memorable Ode against the Public, beginningCome leave the loathed Stage,

And the more loathsome Age.The Revenge he took against Ford was to write an Epigram against him as a Plagerie.Playwright, by chance, hearing some Toys I had writ,

Cry’d to my Face—they were th’Elixir of Wit.And I now must believe him, for To-dayFive of my Jests‡ pass’d him a Play. [Epig., 100]

The next charge of his against Ford was, that the Lover’s Melancholly was not his own; butpurloiz’d from Shakespear’s Papers, by the Connivance of Hemings and Condel, who, inConjunction with Ford, had the Revival of them.

422 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

The Malice of this Charge is gravely refuted, —and afterwards laugh’d at in manyVerses and Epigrams, the best of which are those that follow, with which I shall close thisTheatrical Extract.

To my Worthy Friend John Ford.’Tis said from Shakespear’s Mine your Play you drewWhat Need? —when Shakespear still survives in you;But grant it were from his vast Treasury reft,That Plunderer Ben ne’er made so rich a Theft.THOMAS MAY

Upon Ben Johnson, and his Zany, Tom RandolphQuoth Ben to Tom the Lover’s stole,’Tis Shakespear’s every Word.Indeed, says Tom, upon the whole,’Tis much too good for Ford,Thus Ben and Tom the Dead still praise,The Living to decry;For none must dare to wear the Bays,’Till Ben and Tom both die.Even Avon’s Swan could not escapeThese Letter-Tyrant Elves!They on his Fame contrived a Rape,To raise their Pedant Selves.But After-Times with full Consent,This Truth will all acknowledge,Shakespear and Ford from Heav’n were sentBut Ben and Tom from Colledge.ENDIM. PORTERThe suppos’d Author of these Verses.

NOTES

• in the Winter’s Tale,† In Harry the Fifth‡ Alluding to a Character in the Lady’s Trial, which Ben says Ford stole from him.

BEN JONSON 423

424

131.Edmund Burke, Jonson and true comedy

1748

From The Reformer, no. 2, 4 February 1748.Burke (1729–97), then in his eighteenth year and in the process of graduating

from Trinity College, Dublin, wrote and published thirteen numbers of this weeklyjournal. This number was devoted to the reform of the Dublin stage.

BEN. JOHNSON, of all the Comic-Writers is the only one in whom unite all the Graces oftrue Comedy without the monstrous Blemishes that stain and disfigure the Merit of theothers. He has Wit sufficient, Humour in abundance, and a Judgment not to be match’dby any, since or before him; his Morals are sound, and the way he takes to attack Vice,and Folly, the most efficacious that can be thought to overcome them. In short, had this Manliv’d in the times of Græcian Learning, he might have stood up for the Laurel against the mostexcellent of them; but his Writings, instead of doing Honour to our Age, will always be aProof of its Degeneracy, that could neglect such delicious Feasts as his happy Muse hasprovided for us, to feed on the Garbage of vile, and uninstructive Authors. (3)

426

132.John Upton on Jonson

1749

From Remarks on Three Plays of Benjamin Jonson (1749).The three plays are Volpone, Epicoene, and The Alchemist. In Upton’s Critical

Observations on Shakespeare (1746) he attributes Jonson’s comment in his ‘Ode’ onShakespeare’s ‘small Latin and less Greek’ to ‘jealousy’, adding in a note that ‘’Tistrue Johnson says very handsome things of him presently after: for people will allowothers any qualities, but those which they highly value themselves for’ (p. 12 andn).

(a) From the preface.These cursory remarks on three of the most celebrated Poems (as he himself is pleased to

name them) of our ancient and learned Comedian, which are here offered to the reader’sconsideration, (to his entertainment, or instruction, I dare not say) were at first writtenby me, for the most part, on the margin of an edition printed in the year 1640.

’Twas no ungrateful amusement (and this induces me to think ’twill be not less gratefulto the reader) to compare JONSON with the original authors, which he imitated; and tofind, that whenever he considered with himself, how HORACE, JUVENAL, PLAUTUS,or any other of the ancient writers, would have written on such a subject, or expressedsuch a sentiment, that then he always excelled himself. And this, perhaps, may accountfor that inequality we find in his compositions: his good genius seems to have forsaken him,whenever he forsook the guides of antiquity, and trusted to his own natural strength.

There is indeed the one thing necessary in all writings, much wanting in the writings ofJONSON, and that is, the power to touch the heart: no scholarship (as the word isvulgarly used) can absolutely teach a writer this art; for this he must go to his domesticand inward monitor, and there search for the secret springs and motives of action; what isman, whereto serveth he, what is his good, and what is his evil⋆ ? In a word, he must have theproper feeling, before he can attain to the proper expression, Methinks in this science hiscontemporary SHAKESPEARE has greatly the preeminence; nor is he at all inferior toJONSON in exhibiting, in ridiculous and various lights, the various follies of mankind.

But it ought not to be passed over, without some severer censure, how vainly full, andconceitedly satisfied with himself, we perpetually find our poet; even in such a manner asto mistake his proper talent. The Comic Muse (as he himself expresses it) proving ominous tohim, he is resolved to try if the Tragic had a more kind aspect;

‘Where if I prove the pleasure but ofone,

So he judicious be; hee shall b’ aloneA theater unto me: once, I’le ’sayTo strike the eare of time, in thosefresh strains,As shall, beside the cunning of theirground,Give cause to some of wonder, somedespight,And unto more despaire to imitatetheir sound.’ [Poet., Apologetical Dialogue, ll. 226–32]

Now the aspect of the Tragic Muse was so little favourable to our poet when in buskins,that even in the choice of his subject he failed: SEJANUS and CATILINE are historicalcharacters so well known, that no distress which befalls them, can possibly raise any kindof pity (the chiefest and noblest passion belonging to tragedy) in the breast of thebeholder. All shew of learning then becomes the worst kind of pedantry, when substitutedin the room of poetic passion, sentiment, and decorum: though in common justice be itspoken of JONSON, that he as seldom fails in the two latter, as he shines in the former.Hence comedy was his proper talent; and his knowledge seems rather to consist in beingable to expose those follies, and lesser kind of vices, which render men contemptible;than from a well conducted distress to shew the amiableness, and dignity of a virtuouscharacter.

Were the tragic and comic muses thus to preserve their proper rank, and characters,how well are they fitted to answer that great end of profit, and delight? And how absurd areall those kind of men, who blinded by their puritanical pride, and misled by ill-naturedspleen, cannot distinguish between things rightly used, and preposterously abused? —Butreflections of this nature the reader, at his own leisure, may indulge. Let us return to thesubsequent remarks.

JONSON has few passages that want correction, but many that want explanation:which is, in a great measure, owing to his allusions, and to his translations of ancientauthors. (Sig. A2r–[A4]r)

(b) From the commentary on Volpone.

[On Act II, Scene i:]

This whole Episode of Sir POLITIQUE WOULDBEE never did, nor ever can please. Heseems to be brought in meerly to lengthen out the play. Perhaps too ’tis particular satyre.(25)

(c) From the commentary on Epicoene.

[On 3.5.108:]

This is a very fine instance of the suspence of character: MOROSE, thro’ the impetuousdesire of revenge, for a while, acts out of his real character. (77)

[On 4.4.56–8:]

428 BEN JONSON

‘EPI. Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! he looks greene about thetemples! do you see what blue spots he has?’

This is a plain imitation of a passage in the Menæchmi of PLAUTUS:MUL. Viden’ tu illi oculos virere? ut viridis exoritur color, Ex temporibus atque fronte, ut oculi

suntillant, vide!1

SHAKESPEARE has this passage in his view in The Comedy of Errors. Act IV [.4.50]‘Luc. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!’JONSON is always desirous that his imitations should appear; SHAKESPEARE lies

more concealed. (88)

(d) From the commentary on The Alchemist.

[On 1.1.1–3:]

Our poet could not possibly have chosen a happier incident to open his play with: insteadof opening with a dull narration, you have action; and such action too, as cannot possiblybe supposed to happen at any other time, than this very present time. Two rogues, withtheir punk, are introduced quarrelling, and just so much of their secrets is discovered tothe audience, as is sufficient for the audience at present to know. —The reader too,perhaps, is to be informed, that our learned comedian does not deal in vulgar Englishexpressions, but in vulgar Attic or Roman expressions.

[Cites Aristophanes, Plutus, l. 618, and Horace, Satires, 1.9.70, to illustrate Subtle’s‘I fart at thee’.] (96–7)[On 2.4.31–2:]

Nothing can be finer imagined, than this change of Subtle’s behaviour. Fools always admirewhat they least understand; and characters is the least they are acquainted with. To thevoluptuous and wicked MAMMON, SUBTLE appears holiness and humility itself: to theignorant and devout ANANIAS, he appears all learning and science; to which every otherconsideration must submit. And all this, very agreeable to the rules of decorum, to excitethe admiration and wonder of these various kinds of fools. (112)

NOTES

• Ecclesiasticus xviii, 9.1 ‘Wife Do you see how green his eyes are? And that greenish colour coming over his eyes and

forehead? How his eyes glitter! Look!’: Menœchmi, ll. 828–9.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 429

430

133.Richard Hurd, on Catiline and on Shakespeare

versus Jonson1749

From the notes to Horace’s Ars Poetica in Hurd’s edition, Q. Horatii Flacci ArsPoetica. Epistola ad Pisones. With an English Commentary and Notes (1749). This textfrom the second edition of 1753.

Hurd (1720–1808) became Bishop of Worcester and a notable literary editorand commentator.

(a) Note to Ars Poetica, ll. 131ff: on Horace’s rules for imitation.In order to acquire a property in subjects of this sort, the poet directs us to observe the

three following cautions: 1. Not to follow the trite, obvious round of the original work, i.e. notservilely and scrupulously to adhere to its plan or method. 2. Not to be translators, instead ofimitators, i.e. if it shall be thought fit to imitate more expressly any part of the original, todo it with freedom and spirit, and without a slavish attachment to the mode of expression.3. Not to adopt any particular incident, that may occur in the proposed model, which either decency,or the nature of the work would reject. M.Dacier illustrates these rules, which have beenconceived to contain no small difficulty, from the Iliad; to which the poet himself refers,and probably not without an eye to particular instances of the errors, here condemned, inthe Latin tragedies. For want of these, it may be of use to fetch an illustration from someexamples in our own. And we need not look far for them. Almost every modern playaffords an instance of one or other of these faults. The single one of Catiline by B.Johnsonis, itself, a specimen of them all. This tragedy, which hath otherwise great merit, and onwhich its author appears to have placed no small value, is, in fact, the Catilinarian war ofSalust, put into poetical dialogue, and so offends against the first rule of the poet, infollowing too servilely the plain beaten round of the Chronicle. 2. Next, the speeches of Ciceroand Catiline, of Cato and Cæsar are, all of them, direct and literal translations of thehistorian and orator, in violation of the second rule, which forbids a too close attachment to themode, or form of expression. 3. There are several transgressions of that rule, which injoins astrict regard to the nature and genius of the work. One is obvious and striking. In the history,which had, for its subject, the whole Catilinarian war, the fates of the conspirators weredistinctly to be recorded, and the preceding debates, concerning the manner of theirpunishment, afforded an occasion, too inviting to be overlooked by an historian, andabove all a republican historian, of embellishing his narration by set harrangues. Hence thelong speeches of Cæsar and Cato in the senate have great propriety, and are justlyesteemed amongst the leading beauties of that work. But the case was totally different inthe drama; which, taking for its subject the single fate of Catiline, had no concern with the

other conspirators, whose fates at most should only have been hinted at, not debated withall the circumstance and pomp of rhetoric on the stage. Nothing can be more flat anddisgusting, than this calm, impertinent pleading; especially in the very heat and windingup of the plot. But the poet was misled by the beauty it appeared to have in the originalcomposition, without attending to the peculiar laws of the drama, and the indecorum itmust needs have in so very different a work. (83–5)

(b) Note to Ars Poetica, l. 408: on the debate among the ancients over whether goodpoems are made by art or by nature. Hurd suggests the cause of the dispute is theperennial tendency to deplore whatever taste prevails at the time.

Thus, in the case before us, exquisite art and commanding genius, being the two onlymeans of rising to superior literary excellence, in proportion as any age became noted forthe one, it was constantly defamed, and the preference given to the other. So, during thegrowth of letters in any state, when a sublimity of sentiment and strength of expression,make, as, under those circumstances, they always will, the characteristic of the times, thecritic, disgusted with the rude workings of nature, affects to admire only the nicerfinishings and proportions of art. When, let but the growing experience of a few yearsrefine and perfect the public taste, and what was before traduced as roughness andbarbarity, becomes at once nerves, dignity, and force. Then art, is effeminacy; andjudgment, want of spirit. All now is rapture and inspiration. The exactest moderncompositions are unmanly and unnatural, et solos veteres legendos putant, neque in ullis aliisesse naturalem eloquentiam et robur viris dignum arbitrantur (Quinct. L.X.C.I.).1 The truth ofthis observation might be justified from many examples.

[Hurd cites cases from Greek and Roman literary history.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆But the observation holds of our own writers. There was a time, when the art of

JOHNSON was set above the divinest raptures of SHAKESPEARE. The present age iswell convinced of the mistake. And now the genius of SHAKESPEARE is idolized in itsturn. Happily for the public taste, it can scarcely be too much so. Yet, should any, in therage of erecting trophies to the genius of antient poesy presume to violate the recenthonours of more correct poets, the cause of such critical perversity will be ever the same.For all admiration of past times, when excessive, is still to be accounted for the same way,

Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit.2 (213–15)

NOTES

1 ‘And think that only the ancients should be read and hold that they are the sole possessors ofnatural eloquence and manly vigour’: Quintilian, 10.1.43.

2 ‘That man does not favour and applaud the genius of the dead, but assails ours to-day,spitefully hating us and everything of ours’: Horace, Epistles, 2.1.88–9.

432 BEN JONSON

134.Thomas Seward on Jonson, Shakespeare, and

Beaumont and Fletcher1750

Preface to his edition of The Works of Mr Francis Beaumont, and Mr John Fletcher(1750), 10 vols.

Seward (1708–90) was the Canon of Lichfield and Salisbury, and father of thewriter Anna Seward. Coleridge had a low opinion of him as an editor: see the TableTalk for 17 February 1833, The Table Talk and Omniana (1917), p. 212.

These Authors are in a direct Mean between Shakespear and Jonson, they do not reach theamazing Rapidity and immortal Flights of the former, but they soar with more Ease and tonobler Heights than the latter; They have less of the Os magna sonans,1 the Vivida Vis Animi,2

the noble Enthusiasm, the Muse of Fire, the terrible Graces of Shakespear, but they have muchmore of all these than Jonson. On the other hand, in Literature they much excel the former,and are excell’d by the latter; and therefore they are more regular in their Plots and morecorrect in their Sentiments and Diction than Shakespear, but less so than Jonson. Thus far Beaumontand Fletcher are One, but as hinted above in this they differ; Beaumont studied and follow’dJonson’s Manner, personiz’d the Passions and drew Nature in her Extremes; Fletcher follow’dShakespear and Nature in her usual Dress (this Distinction only holds with regard to theirComic Works, for in Tragedies they all chiefly paint from real Life.) Which of these Mannersis most excellent may be difficult to say; the former seems most striking, the latter morepleasing, the former shews Vice and Folly in the most ridiculous Lights, the latter more fullyshews each Man himself, and unlocks the inmost Recesses of the Heart.

Great are the Names of the various Masters who follow’d the one and the other Manner.Jonson, Beaumont and Moliere list on one Side; Terence, Shakespear and Fletcher on the other.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Beaumont, we said, chiefly studied Books and Jonson; Fletcher, Nature and Shakespear, yet so

far was the first from following his Friend and Master in his frequent close and almost servileImitations of the ancient Classics, that he seems to have had a much greater Confidence inthe Fertility and Richness of his own Imagination than even Fletcher himself: The latter in hisMasterpiece, The Faithful Shepherdess, frequently imitates Theocritus and Virgil; in Rollo hastaken whole Scenes from Seneca, and almost whole Acts from Lucan in The False One. I donot blame him for this, his Imitations have not the Stifness which sometimes appears (tho’not often) in Jonson, but breathe the free and full Air of Originals; and accordingly Rollo andThe False One are two of Fletcher’s First-rate Plays. But Beaumont, I believe, nevercondescended to translate and rarely to imitate; However largely he was supplied withClassic Streams, from his own Urn all flows pure and untinctured. Here the two Friends

change Places: Beaumont rises in Merit towards Shakespear, and Fletcher descends towardsJonson. (i, x–xii)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆As I have mentioned Jonson being in Poetic Energy about the same Distance below our

Authors, as Shakespear is above them. I shall quote three Passages which seem to me in thisvery Scale. Jonson translates verbatim from Salust great part of Catiline’s Speech to hisSoldiers, but adds in the Close:

Methinks, I see Death and the Furies waitingWhat we will do; and all the Heaven at leasureFor the great Spectacle. Draw then your Swords:And if our Destiny envy our VirtueThe Honour of the Day, yet let us careTo sell ourselves at such a Price, as mayUndo the World to buy us; and make FateWhile she tempts ours to fear her own Estate.Catiline, Act V. [412–19]

Jonson has here added greatly to the Ferocity, Terror and Despair of Catiline’s Speech, butit is consonant to his Character both in his Life and Death. The Image in the three firstLines is extremely noble, and may be said to emulate tho’ not quite to reach the poeticExstacy of the following Passage in Bonduca. Suetonius the Roman General having his smallArmy hem’d round by Multitudes, tells his Soldiers that the Number of the Foes,

Is but to stick more Honour on your Actions,Load you with virtuous Names, and to yourMemoriesTie never-dying Time and Fortune constant.Go on in full Assurance, draw your SwordsAs daring and as confident as Justice.The Gods of Rome fight for ye; loud Fame calls yePitch’d on the topless Apennine, and blowsTo all the under World, all Nations, Seas,And unfrequented Desarts where the Snow Dwells;Wakens the ruin’d Monuments, and thereInforms again the dead Bones with your Virtues. [3.2.62–73]

The first four Lines are extremely nervous, but the Image which appears to excel thenoble one of Jonson above, is Fame pitch’d on Mount Apennine (whose Top is supposedviewless from its stupendous Height) and from thence sounding their Virtues so loud thatthe dead awake and are re-animated to hear them. The close of the Sentiment isextremely in the Spirit of Shakespear and Milton…. (i, xx–xxii)

NOTES

1 ‘Mouth uttering great sounds’: adapting Horace, Satires, 1.4.43–4.2 ‘Animated force of mind’: Lucretius, De rerum natura, 1.72.

434 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

135.William Guthrie, Jonson and human nature

1750

From the unsigned A Dissertation on Comedy (1750).This is normally attributed to John Hippisley (d. 1767), but it is quoted and

attributed to Guthrie in W.R.Chetwood’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of BenJonson, Esq; (Dublin 1756), p. ix; and the writer of the Dissertation refers to ‘myEssay on Tragedy’ on p. 5 (cp. No. 127, above, which see also for details ofGuthrie’s biography). The present work offers a defence of the stage againstimputations of immorality and aims to show that the ancient drama could indeed beimproved upon. Its views are clearly in the tradition of Dryden’s Essay (No. 67,above).

[Guthrie has argued that when the occasion is great, Shakespeare always rises farabove other poets.]

Ben Johnson, of whom I am next to speak, is another shining Instance of our Superiorityover the Ancients, in the Point now in Dispute: He had a thorough Knowledge of humanNature, from its highest to its lowest Gradations, was perfectly well acquainted with thevarious Combinations of Passions, and the innumerable Blendings of Vice and Virtue,which distinguish one Character from another: But what more eminently exalted himabove all comic Writers whatever, was the Art (of all others the most difficult, though notequally glaring to the vulgar Eye with those of an inferior Rank) which he possess’d in themost eminent Degree, of happily marking the different Shades of the same Colour, ofdistinguishing the Covetous from the Covetous, the Voluptuous from the Voluptuous, &c.As a further Confirmation of this Truth, I shall take the Liberty of quoting Part of a Poemof the inimitable Waller, to our Author; which though the highest Panegyric that Languageaffords, is strictly and precisely true.

[Quotes ll. 1–16 of Waller’s elegy, No. 49(f), above.]

And as he was deeply read in Men, so was he in Books, being without Dispute the mostlearned of all his Cotemporaries: Of which his Cataline and Sejanus amount to a Proof,there being scarce a Passage in any Author, anticnt or modern, who ever touch’d on thoseSubjects, which he has not translated and interwoven with the Bodies of those Pieces.

In a Word, Shakespear is the Homer, Ben Johnson the Virgil of the British Nation: The oneexcelled in Genius, the other in Judgment; the first excites our Admiration, the lastdemands our Approbation: The one fires us in an Instant, the other warms us by Degrees.The former is irregularly charming, the latter regularly delightful. (38–40)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[The first requirement for comedy is a diversity of characters, copied from natureand artfully arranged.]

Nor is it sufficient that the Characters are strongly marked and regularly disposed, theymust also have a proper Business, an interested Concernment of their own in View, to thepromoting of which their utmost Efforts are to be directed, but which must neverthelesscollaterally conduce to the Completion of the main Action or Welfare of the whole; as theplanetary Bodies turn on their own axis, and perform their Circle round the Sun at thesame Time. Of this the Silent Woman (the correctest Play on the British Stage) is aremarkable Instance, and to which I refer the Reader, as to a perfect Standard of dramaticWriting. (53–4)

436 BEN JONSON

136.Garrick’s Every Man in his Humour revival

1751

(a) Prologue, by William Whitehead. Text from The London Magazine (December 1751), xx.

Whitehead (1715–85) became poet laureate in 1757. The first performance was on29 November 1751, and the prologue was spoken by Garrick. It was revived withthe play at Covent Garden in 1800. In a later poem, A Charge to the Poets (1762)Whitehead accused the contemporary audience of admiring Garrick rather than theauthors he revived: without Garrick ‘A crude unmeaning mass had Johnson been, /And a dead letter Shakespear’s noblest scene’ (p. 15). See Introduction, p. 25.

Criticks! your favour is our author’s right—The well known scenes, we shall present to-night,Are no weak efforts of a modern pen,But the strong touches of immortal Ben;A rough old bard, whose honest pride disdain’dApplause itself, unless by merit gain’d—And wou’d to-night your loudest praise disclaim,Shou’d his great shade perceive the doubtful fame,Not to his labours granted, but his name.Boldly he wrote, and boldly told the age,‘He dar’d not prostitute the useful stage,Or purchase their delight at such a rate,As, for it, he himself must justly hate:But rather begg’d they wou’d be pleas’d to seeFrom him, such plays, as other plays shou’d be:Wou’d learn from him to scorn a motley scene,And leave their monsters, to be pleas’d with men.’Thus spoke the bard—And tho’ the times are chang’d,Since his free Muse, for fools the city rang’d;And satire had not then appear’d in state,To lash the finer follies of the great;Yet let not prejudice infect your mind,Nor slight the gold, because not quite refin’d;With no false niceness this performance view,

Nor damn for low, whate’er is just and true:Sure to those scenes some honour shou’d be paid,Which Camden patroniz’d, and Shakespear play’d:Nature was nature then, and still survives;The garb may alter, but the substance lives,Lives in this play—where each may find complete,His pictur’d self—Then favour the deceit—Kindly forget the hundred years between;Become old Britons, and admire old Ben. (xx, 568)

(b) From Arthur Murphy, The Life of David Garrick, Esq. (1801), 2 vols.

Murphy (1727–1805) was an actor and playwright as well as an essayist.September 1751, to June 1752

Garrick had such resources in himself, that the failure or cold reception of a new piecewas never prejudicial to his interest. He performed his best parts in tragedy and comedy,and was always sure of attracting crowded audiences. But still, amidst all the hurry and bustleof his business, he found leisure to search for novelty in the rich stores of ancient wit.Zealous at all times for the honour of the English drama, he turned his thoughts to BenJonson. Having by his performance of Abel Drugger, made the Alchymist a favourite play, hechose to bring forward the comedy of Every Man in his Humour. Having carefully retouchedthe play in several passages, he added an entire scene in the fourth act between himselfand Dame Kitely. To disguise his suspicions, he assumed an air of gaiety, but under thatmask the corrosions of jealousy were seen in every feature. Such was the expression ofthat various face, that the mixed emotions of his heart were strongly marked by his looksand the tone of his voice. Every Man in his Humour may be considered as one of BenJonson’s best productions. The poet does not look for a romantic story, for improbableincidents, and marvellous fictions, such as have of late taken possession of the stage. Hehad his eye on human life, and thence collected his various characters. Each of them isdistinguished by a peculiar oddity. They all move in by-walks, or underplots, but tend toone central point, and contribute to the solution of the main business. Ben Jonson, like askillful chess-player, to use Dryden’s comparison, by slow degrees draws up his men, andmakes his pawns subservient to his greater persons. Kitely’s jealousy is inflamed by a set ofrakes, who are pursuing their own pleasures, without any design to disturb his peace ofmind. Wellbred, Dame Kitely’s brother, embroils her and her husband by his account ofCobb’s house; and thus, at the end of the fourth act, the business is wound up to a crisis,but how it is to end, cannot be foreseen. The several persons, having separate grounds ofcomplaint, apply to a magistrate. They all meet before Justice Clement. Dame Kitely tells him,that Cobb’s house is a place of ill fame; and that she went thither in quest of her husband.‘Did you find him there?’ says the Justice. In that instant Kitely interposes, saying, in a sharpeager tone, ‘I found her there’. [5.1.26–8] He who remembers how Garrick uttered thosewords, slapping his hand on the table, as if he made an important discovery, mustacknowledge, trifling as it may now be thought, that it was a genuine stroke of nature.Bobadil charges Downright with an assault, but the Justice is of opinion that the soldier, whotamely received a blow, met with his deserts. All mistakes between the parties are clearedup, and Kitely is cured of his jealousy.

438 BEN JONSON

It must be added, that a comedy, so completely acted, was hardly ever seen on theEnglish stage. Garrick, Woodward in Bobadil, Yates, and Shuter, and indeed all theperformers were so correct and natural, that the play drew crowded audiences, and keptpossession of the stage during the manager’s life, (i, 205–8)

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 439

440

137.Francis Gentleman, Sejanus

1751

From the preface to Sejanus, A Tragedy. As it was intended for the Stage. With a Preface,Wherein the Manager’s Reasons for refusing it are set forth (1752). The preface is datedDecember 1751. Gentleman (1728–84) began his career in the army and thenworked as actor and playwright and critic. His Sejanus is a drastic abridgement ofJonson’s play, giving prominence to Sejanus’s seduction and abandonment of Livia,her recriminations and death and giving him guilt-ridden soliloquies at thebeginnings of Acts IV and V. See Introduction, p. 26. As noted in the title, Garrickturned it down, but Baker had heard that ‘it was acted at Bath with some Degree ofApplause’ (The Companion to the Playhouse (1764), i, under ‘Sejanus. Trag. by FrancisGentleman’). It was revised again and reprinted in 1770 as The Favourite.

It were an Imposition on the Town, and an Injustice to the Memory of the inimitable BENJOHNSON; should I publish this Play, without acknowledging that most part of the Plot, some ofthe Scenes, and many of the Speeches, are almost literally copied from a dramatic Work of his, withthe same Title. An Attempt at altering a Piece of his, is, I believe, unprecedented, and indeed bold, forone who never before, either burthen’d the Press with his Labours, or dar’d the Critic’s Censure. I wasallur’d to the Task, by a Number of very noble Sentiments, which are scattered through the Originalin many Lines, neither harsh or unmusical; wherein there seems to breath the true inspir’d Spirit ofPoetry; and fancy plays within her proper Sphere, under the Restraint of a well temper’d criticalJudgment; but much more by the strong Contrast of virtuous and vicious Characters, with which Ifound it adorn’d; which is the most useful, laudable, and consequently the fundamental Part of theDRAMA.

To reduce the Multiplicity of Characters, the Train of Incidents, to make the Parts of LIVIA, andAGRIPPINA, somewhat interesting, which in JOHNSON are very near despicable; to select hisBeauties, and by proper Means to bring about the Catastrophe; seem’d, at first, an Enterprize asdifficult, as toiling for Wealth in a Mine; and almost startled me from my Design; But however, as Ihad begun, I determined to proceed; and of my Success, the Perusal of the Piece will make you aJudge.

JOHNSON’s strict Adherence to History, in his two Plays of SEJANUS and Catiline, wouldhave been highly commendable, had it not been manifestly prejudicial to him; since he has been soscholastically nice, as scarcely to omit a single Person or Incident, mention’d in the Lives of thesegreat wicked Men; nay he has even translated literally, in his SEJANUS, several Lines fromCORNELIUS TACITUS: By this Means his Tragedies became rather dramatic Histories, thanEntertainments suited to a modern Theatre. From this I have ventur’d to deviate; I have kept

CÆSAR at ROME, to preside at the Conviction of SEJANUS; as I think it adds much Spirit, tothe closing the Catastrophe; I have drawn him of a Disposition much milder than he was in Reality.The pious Resolution of repealing the Oppressions, and healing the constitutional Wounds made bySEJANUS, which I have put into his Mouth, in the last Speech of the Play, I thought necessary topreserve Poetical Justice; to which I think History should give Way; for the real Use of dramaticPerformances is, to instil Virtue, and raise an Abhorrence of Vice. Example is a strong Argument;nothing conduces so much to our Reformation, as punishing the Wicked and rewarding the Virtuous,’tis then that the Moral is truly strong, indeed the Guiltless must sometimes fall, to heighten theDistress, and impress us with a just Pity. (v–vii)

442 BEN JONSON

138.Bonnell Thornton, review of Epicoene

1752

From The Spring-Garden Journal, no. 1, November 1752, signed ‘Miss PriscillaTermagant’.

Garrick’s carefully cast revival took place at Drury Lane on 26 October 1752.The review is presumably by Bonnell Thornton (1724–68), who edited the Journal.He had a reputation as a wit and was involved in a number of journalistic ventures,of which The Connoisseur (1754–6), written with George Colman, was the mostsuccessful.

I was induced the other Night, through a Curiosity natural to my Sex, to see the SilentWoman: The Thought of beholding a Miracle, A Silent Woman! had raised my Expectationsto the utmost Pitch; but I was very soon undeceived. The principal Design of the Playstrikes at a certain Society of Ladies, who assembled together (in Ben’s Time), and went bythe Name of Collegiates. The Intent of their Meeting was to have as little Communicationwith their Husbands as possible, having a more general Passion for Mankind: They werenot strictly pious, nor critically modest, but entertained Gallants, Wits, &c. who mostprobably were no more than what we now call pretty Fellows; and their Sports andPastimes were a Sort of Routs or Drums; they had Laws which were held sacred, and theViolation of them attended with severe Penalties; Haughty, Centaur, and Mavis, were thePrincipals of this Society.

Morose is an elderly Man, has got a large Estate, and is the most capricious Personliving; the ringing of a Bell, or the creaking of a new Shoe, distracts him; but the Noise ofa Woman’s Tongue, and the Rattling of a Coach, are two intolerable Evils. I am inclinedto think this Humourist shews some Degree of Rationality in these two Articles; for, wereour modern Ladies less noisy, and the Coaches less frequent, more Families might enjoyPeace and Tranquility, and an Affluence of Fortune….

[Gives an outline of the rest of the play.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆There are many diverting Incidents, and various odd Characters inimitably ridiculed.

Sir John Daw is a noisy, vain Writer of Madrigals, and a chattering Coxcomb: Sir Amourous-la-Foole is his Intimate, and a Fop, full of his Family, delights in feasting the Men, andmaking Presents to the Ladies; and Captain Otter is a clamorous drunken Fool.

The Character of Morose is the most extraordinary one that ever appeared upon a Stage;and I am apt to imagine, had a modern Author drawn so unnatural a Part, that theAudience would have shewn very little Complaisance to his Humour. I will take upon meto say, this Character never existed but in Imagination; and I am at a Loss to find out Mr.Garrick’s Inducement in reviving this Play; for as it is temporary, a very few of theAudience could possibly relish the Wit; and the Scene between the Doctor and Mr.Parson is improper to be represented before a polite Audience, and tho’ Every Man in hisHumour met with so general an Approbation, yet it could not insure Success to this Play. Iwill not pretend to say, Mr. Garrick regarded only the filling his House; I would ratherimpute it, for once, to his Want of Judgment: However, he has given two ingeniousyoung Fellows an Opportunity of shewing themselves to Advantage, I mean Mr. Shuterand Mr. Palmer, who have each of them more Merit than Encouragement. (12–15).

444 BEN JONSON

139.Theophilus Cibber and Robert Shiells, summary

criticism of Jonson1753

From The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753), largely compiled byShiells, and revised by Cibber.

Cibber (1703–58) had often appeared in Jonson revivals in a long career on stageand can reasonably be assigned the paragraph in the extract below on the fortunes ofthe three most popular Jonson plays in the repertory. In his Dissertations on TheatricalSubjects (1756) Cibber commends Garrick’s performance of Kitely as ‘so excellent aPiece of Nature—so truely Comic, —it makes Amends for all the Farce withwhich that indelicate Piece of low Humour abounds’ (1759 edn, p. 47). RobertShiells (d. 1753), a Scot, was at one time an amanuensis to Dr Johnson. The firstpart of the ‘Life’ includes extracts from Drummond’s Conversations with Jonson (seeIntroduction, p. 30) and quotes remarks on Jonson from Pope, Dryden, andothers.

Ben had certainly no great talent for versification, nor does he seem to have had anextraordinary ear; his verses are often wanting in syllables, and sometimes have too many.

I shall quote some lines of his poem to the memory of Shakespear, before I give a detailof his pieces.

[Quotes ll. 1–30 of Jonson’s ‘Ode’ to Shakespeare.]

He then goes on to challenge all antiquity to match Shakespear; but the poetry is somiserable, that the reader will think the above quotation long enough. (242–3)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[From the summary accounts of individual works.]

Cataline’s conspiracy, a tragedy, first acted in the year 1611. In this our author hastranslated a great part of Salust’s history; and it is when speaking of this play, that Drydensays, he did not borrow but commit depredations upon the ancients. Tragedy was not thisauthor’s talent; he was totally without tenderness, and was so far unqualified for tragedy.(244–5)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Quotes from Alexander Gill’s poem on the failure of The Magnetic Lady, No. 41,above.]

These lines are without wit, and without poetry; they contain a mean reflexion on Ben’soriginal employment, of which he had no occasion to be ashamed; but he was paid inkind, and Ben answers him with equal virulence, and in truth it cannot be said with morewit or poetry, for it is difficult to determine which author’s verses are most wretched.(246)

[Quotes U.V., 39, ‘An Answer to Alexander Gill’.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Note at the end of the account.]

The Alchymist, the Fox, and the Silent Woman have been oftner acted than all the rest ofBen Johnson’s plays put together; they have ever been generally deemed good stock plays,and been performed to many crowded audiences, in several separate seasons, withuniversal applause. Why the Silent Woman met not with success, when revived last yearat Drury Lane Theatre, let the new critics, or the actors of the New Mode, determine.

Thus have we given a detail of Ben Johnson’s works. He is allowed to have been ascholar, and to have understood and practised the dramatic rules; but Dryden proves himto have likewise been an unbounded plagiary. Humour was his talent; and he had a happyturn for an epitaph; we cannot better conclude his character as a poet, than in the nervouslines of the Prologue quoted in the Life of Shakespear. (248–9)

[Quotes Johnson’s lines on Jonson from the 1747 ‘Prologue’, No. 129, above.]

446 BEN JONSON

140.Richard Hurd, Every Man out of his Humour, The

Alchemist, Volpone1753–7

(a) From ‘A Dissertation Concerning the Provinces of the several Species of theDrama’, added to the second edition of Hurd’s annotated Ars Poetica, Q.HoratiiFlacci Epistolae ad Pisones, et Augustum: With an English commentary and Notes (1753), 2vols.

In portraits of characters, as we may call those that give a picture of the manners, the artist, ifhe be of real ability, will not go to work on the possibility of an abstract idea. All heintends, is to shew that some one quality predominates: and this he images strongly and bysuch signatures as are most conspicuous in the operation of the leading passion. And whenhe hath done this, we may, in common speech or in compliment, if we please, to his art,say of such a portrait that it images to us not the man but the passion; just as the antientsobserved of the famous statue of Apollodorus by Silarion, that it expressed not the angryApollodorus, but his passion of anger⋆. But by this must be understood only that he has wellexpressed the leading parts of the designed character. For the rest he treats his subject as hewould any other; that is, he represents the concomitant affections, or considers merely thatgeneral symmetry and proportion which are expected in a human figure. And this is tocopy nature which affords no specimen of a man turned all into a single passion. Nometamorphosis could be more strange or incredible. Yet portraits of this vicious taste arethe admiration of common starers, who, if they find a picture of a miser for instance (asthere is no commoner subject of moral portraits) in a collection, where any muscle isstrained and feature hardened into the expression of this idea, never fail to profess theirwonder and approbation of it. —On this idea of excellence, Reubens’ book of thePASSIONS must be said to contain a set of the justest moral portraits: And theCHARACTERS of Theophrastus might be recommended, in a dramatic view, as preferableto those to Terence.

The virtuosi in the fine arts would certainly laugh at the former of those judgments.But the latter, I suspect, will not be thought so extraordinary. At least if one may guessfrom the practice of some of our best comic writers, and the success which such playshave commonly met with. It were easy to instance in almost all plays of character. But ifthe reader would see the extravagance of building dramatic manners on abstract ideas, inits full light, he needs only turn to B.Johnson’s Every man out of his humour; which underthe name of a play of character is in fact, an unnatural, and, as the painters call it, harddelineation of a group of simply existing passions, wholly chimerical, and unlike to any thingwe observe in the commerce of real life. Yet this comedy has always had its admirers. And

Randolph in particular, was so taken with the design, that he seems to have formed hismuse’s looking glass in express imitation of it.

Shakespeare, we may observe, is in this as in all the other more essential beauties of thedrama, a perfect model. If the discerning reader peruse attentively his comedies with thisview he will find his best-marked characters discoursing thro’ a great deal of their parts, justlike any other, and only expressing their essential and leading qualities occasionally, and ascircumstances concur to give an easy exposition to them. This singular excellence of hiscomedy, was the effect of his copying faithfully after nature, and of the force and vivacityof his genius which made him attentive to what the progress of the scene successivelypresented to him…. (i, 238–40)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆…the perfection of comedy lying in the accuracy and fidelity of universal representation,

and farce professedly neglecting or rather wantonly transgressing the limits of commonnature and just decorum, they clash entirely with each other. And comedy must so far fail ofgiving the pleasure, appropriate to its design, as it allies it self with farce; while farce, on theother hand, forfeits the use, it intends, of promoting popular ridicule, by restraining itselfwithin the cautious rules of decency, which comedy exacts.

But there is little occasion to guard against this latter abuse. The danger is all on the theother side. And the passion for farce, has, in fact, possessed the modern poets to such adegree that we have scarcely one example of a comedy, without this impure mixture. Ifany are to be excepted from this censure in Moliere, they are his Misanthrope and Tartuffe,which are accordingly, by common allowance, the best of his large collection. Inproportion as his other plays have less or more of this farcical turn, their true value hathbeen long since determined.

Of our own comedies, such of them, I mean, as are worthy of criticism, Ben Johnson’sAlchymist and Volpone, bid the fairest for being written in this genuine unmixed manner.Yet, tho’ their merits are very great, the impartial critic will hardly allow them thisperfection. The ALCHYMIST is, I think, throughout exaggerated, and, at best, belongs tothat species of comedy, which we have before called particular and partial. The extravagantpursuit so strongly exposed in that play, hath been now, of a long time forgotten, and wetherefore find it difficult to enter fully into the humour of this highly wrought character.We may remark, in general, of such subjects, that they are a strong temptation to thewriter to exceed the bounds of truth and mediocrity in his draught of them at first, and arefurther liable to an imperfect, and even unfair sentence from the reader afterwards. For thewelcome reception, which these pictures of prevailing local folly meet with on the stage,cannot but induce the poet, almost without design, to inflame the representation: And thewant of archetypes, in a little time, makes it pass for immoderate, were it originally givenwith ever so much discretion and justice. The plan of the Alchymist is then essentiallysuch as subjects this comedy to the imputations of farce.

The VOLPONE, on the other hand, is a subject fitted for the entertainment of alltimes, and is therefore of the sort a great writer would chuse, when he wanted totransmit a monument of his art and genius to posterity. Such appears to have been thegenerous purpose of the poet in this admirable comedy, and the fate of it has beenanswerable to his intention; yet neither, I am afraid, is this a complete model. There areeven some Incidents of a farcical invention; particularly the Mountebank Scene and SirPolitique’s tortoise are in the taste of the old comedy. Besides, the humour of the dialogue issometimes on the point of becoming inordinate, as may be seen in the pleasantry ofCorbaccio’s mistakes through deafness, and in other instances. The cast of his plays indeed

448 BEN JONSON

could hardly be any other, if we attend to the character of the writer. For his nature wassevere and rigid, and this in giving a strength and manliness, gave at times too, anintemperance to his satyr. His taste for ridicule was strong but indelicate, which made himnot over curious in the choice of his topics. And lastly his style in picturing characters, tho’masterly, was without that elegance of hand, which is required to correct and allay theforce of so bold a colouring. Thus, the biass of his nature leading him to Plautus ratherthan Terence for his model, it is not to be wondered that his wit is too frequently caustic;his raillery coarse; and his humour excessive.

Some later writers for the stage have, no doubt, avoided these defects of the exactest ofour old dramatists. But do they rival his excellencies? Posterity, I am afraid, will judgeotherwise, whatever may be now thought of some more fashionable comedies. And if theydo not, neither the state of general manners, nor the turn of the public taste appears to besuch as countenances the expectation of greater improvements. To those, who are notover sanguine in their hopes, our forefathers will perhaps be thought to have furnished(what, in nature, seem linked together) the fairest example of dramatic, as of real manners.(i, 276–9)

(b) From the revised version of Hurd’s ‘Dissertation’ on drama, in the 1757 (third)edition of his Horace. Hurd finds The Alchemist to be a true comedy after all, butmoderates his enthusiasm for Volpone slightly.

Of our own comedies, of them, I mean, as are worthy of criticism, Ben. Johnson’sAlchymist and Volpone, bid the fairest for being written in this genuine unmixed manner.Yet, tho’ their merits are very great, severe Criticism might find something to object evento these. The ALCHYMIST, some will think, is exaggerated through out, and so, at best,belongs to that species of comedy, which we have before called particular and partial. Atleast, the extravagant pursuit so strongly exposed in that play, hath now, of a long timebeen forgotten; so that we find it difficult to enter fully into the humour of this highlywrought character. And, in general, we may remark of such characters, that they are astrong temptation to the writer to exceed the bounds of truth in his draught of them atfirst, and are further liable to an imperfect, and even unfair sentence from the readerafterwards. For the welcome reception, which these pictures of prevailing local folly meetwith on the stage, cannot but induce the poet, almost without design, to inflame therepresentation: And the want of archetypes, in a little time, makes it pass for immoderate,were it originally given with ever so much discretion and justice. So that whether theAlchymist be farcical or not, it will appear, at least, to have this note of Farce, ‘That theprincipal character is exaggerated.’ But then this is all we must affirm. For as to the subjectof this Play’s being a local folly, which seems to bring it directly under the denomination ofFarce, it is but just to make a distinction. Had the end and purpose of the Play been toexpose Alchymy, it had been liable to this objection. But this mode of local folly, isemployed as the means, only of exposing another folly, extensive as our Nature and coevalwith it, namely Avarice. So that the subject has all the requisites of true Comedy. It is justotherwise, we may observe, in the Devil’s an Ass; which therefore properly falls under ourcensure. For there, the folly of the time, Projects and Monopolies, are brought in to beexposed, as the end and purpose of the comedy.

On the whole, The Alchymist is a Comedy in just form, but a little Farcical in theextension of one of it’s characters.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 449

The VOLPONE, is a subject so manifestly fitted for the entertainment of all times, thatit stands in need of no vindication. Yet neither, I am afraid, is this Comedy, in allrespects, a complete model. There are even some Incidents of a farcical invention;particularly the Mountebank Scene and Sir Politique’s Tortoise are in the taste of the oldcomedy; and without it’s rational purpose. Besides, the humour of the dialogue is sometimeson the point of becoming inordinate, as may be seen in the pleasantry of Corbaccio’smistakes through deafness, and in other instances. And we shall not wonder that the best ofhis plays are liable to some objections of this sort, if we attend to the character of thewriter. (i, 304–6)

NOTE

• Non hominem ex œre fecit, sed iracundiam. (Plin. 348) [‘It represented in bronze not a humanbeing but anger personified’: Pliny, Natural History, 34.19.82].

450 BEN JONSON

141.Arthur Murphy, essays in The Gray’s Inn Journal

1754–86

Murphy published two series of The Gray’s Inn Journal, fifty-two numbers in 1752–3and another fifty-two in 1753–4. They were then issued in a two-volume edition in1756 and in altered form as volumes v and vi of Murphy’s seven-volume Works(1786), from which this text is taken.

For Murphy, see No. 136(b), above.

(a) From no. 90, 6 July 1754 (it appears as no. 49 in the original edition, and as no. 96 inthe 1756 edition, with two different dates). In the last part of the extract, Murphydevelops a contrast between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson sketched in an essay whichdisappears in the 1786 edition, numbered no. 38 (dated 7 July 1753) in the 1756 edition.Murphy there distinguishes between the ‘Humourist’ and the ‘Man of Humour’, the latterbeing the observer of the foibles of the former. Falstaff is a Man of Humour as well as aHumourist, whereas Jonson’s characters, Murphy says, ‘are always disagreeably odd; theirwhims are so extravagant, that they sometimes deserve rather the Name of Madmen, andthere is hardly any Thing in any of them, that would induce a Gentleman to spend anEvening with them’ (i, 243–4).

[Murphy has quoted Akenside’s notion of the ridiculous as ‘Some motleydissonance of things combin’d,’ from The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744), Bookiii, ll. 251–7.]

The ingenious author pursues his subject through a variety of illustrations. We see in eachof them, that the ridiculous always arises from repugnant qualities, ill-paired and blendedtogether. He tells us, in the note, that ‘the sensation of ridicule is not a bare perception ofthe agreement or disagreement of ideas, but a passion or emotion of the mindconsequential to that perception.’

The emotions here intended are laughter and contempt, and these it is the business ofcomedy to excite. To perform this in all objects which come before the comic muse, inmen and manners, in all actions and passions, requires a very delicate hand. Prior hasexpressed this with his usual elegance.

And tho’ the error may be suchAs Knaggs and Burgess cannot hit,It yet may feel the nicer touchOf Wycherly or Congreve’s wit.1

In producing portraits of mankind, it is not enough to display foibles and oddities; afine vein of ridicule must run through the whole, to urge the mind to frequent emotions oflaughter; otherwise there will be danger of exhibiting disagreeable characters, withoutaffording the proper entertainment. Ben Johnson is apt to err in this point: Morose is a surly,ill-natured, absurd humorist, whom we can hardly laugh at: he soon becomes badcompany. Many of Johnson’s characters are of the same cast; while in Shakespear’s Falstaff,the ridiculous ideas are placed in such an artful point of view, that our merriment cannever be restrained, whenever Sir John appears, (vi, 192–3)

(b) From no. 91, 13 July 1754. This essay appears for the first time in the 1786 edition.

He, who should take for the groundwork of his piece, a set of characters, in themselvsabsurd, and under the dominion of some predominant humour, without one person amongthem of sober manners, and a just way of thinking, would not, in my opinion, furnish anagreeable entertainment. The attempt has been made by some of our old poets; but, Ibelieve, their success has not encouraged many of their successors to tread in their steps.For this there seem to be two well-grounded reasons: in the first place, a collection ofmere humorists, without an intermixture of others, governed by the ordinary rules ofcommon sense and common honesty, seldom occurs in the usual course of life. Secondly,the charm of contrast would be altogether lost. The piece would want those lights andshades, which are perceived in every company, and every club. Ben Johnson’s Every Man outof his Humour may serve as a proof of what is here advanced. Old Ben was a sharp andsevere observer of the manners. The peculiar bent of his genius, as Dennis observes in aletter to Congreve, inclined him to draw deformity, rather than beauty, (vi, 197–8)

[Murphy goes on to quote from the letter, which is in No. 96 (b), above, and todiscuss the history of humours comedy, paraphrasing Jonson’s explanation of thehumours from Every Man out of his Humour and noting that his verses ‘have much ofthe rust of antiquity, and, indeed, of that uncouth phraseology, which oftendisfigures the style of that, otherwise, valuable author’ (vi, 199).]

NOTE

1 Prior, ‘Paulo Purganti and His Wife: An Honest, but a Simple Pair’, ll. 27–30.

452 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

142.David Hume, Jonson’s rude art

1754

From The History of Great Britain. Vol. I. (Edinburgh 1754).Hume (1711–76), Scottish philosopher and historian, included discussions of

developments in literature and science in his exceptionally popular History,completed in six volumes in 1762. The section on ‘Learning and arts’ under JamesI in the present volume (reprinted as volume v of the complete edition) vigorouslycondemns the ‘very bad taste’ prevailing in the period, a taste which gave rise to‘forced turns and sentiments’ and ‘distorted conceptions’ inspired by the ‘Asiaticmanner’ of Roman authors (pp. 136–7). Shakespeare’s work illustrates for Humethe dangers of relying on genius alone in the arts: ‘there may even remain asuspicion, that we over-rate, if possible, the greatness of his genius; in the samemanner as bodies often appear more gigantic, on account of their beingdisproportioned and mishapen’ (pp. 137–8).

JOHNSON possessed all the learning, which was wanting to Shakespeare, and wanted allthe genius, of which the other was possessed. Both of them were equally deficient in tasteand elegance, in harmony and correctness. A servile copist of the antients, Johnsontranslated into bad English, the beautiful passages of the Greek and Roman authors,without accommodating them to the manners of his age and country. His merit has beentotally eclipsed by that of Shakespeare, whose rude genius prevailed over the rude art ofhis cotemporary. The English theatre has ever since taken a strong tincture of Shakespeare’sspirit and character; and thence it has proceeded, that the nation have undergone, from alltheir neighbors, the reproach of barbarism, from which their many valuable productionsin other parts of learning, would otherways have exempted them. Johnson had a pensionof a hundred merks from the King which Charles afterwards augmented to a hundredpounds. He died in 1637, aged 63. (138)

454

143.Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier, Jonson’s envy of

Shakespeare1754

From The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable (1754).This three-volume allegory is in the form of a dialogue between the heroine

Portia and The Cry, an assembly of voices who represent ‘Error and all hernumerous Train’. There are frequent Shakespearean quotations as well as debts toThe Faerie Queene. For Sarah Fielding, see No. 126, above. Jane Collier was a lifelongfriend of the Fieldings, and the author of An Essay on the Art of Tormenting (1753).

The exact degrees of envy and insult, practised amongst these little children towards eachother, are generally to be discovered in some infants of so large a growth, that theirbodies are visibly arrived at maturity, whilst their minds have carefully preserved everypart of childishness, but its innocence. Mr. Pope, in his preface to Shakespear’s works, declaresit as his opinion, that Ben Johnson’s envy first gave rise to the report of Shakespear’s want oflearning, which report hath prevailed even to this day.1 The surly laureat (as Theobald, inone of his notes, judiciously calls Johnson)2 hath left behind him a very good receipt, whichgloomy malice may ever make use of, to pull down a bright contemporary genius. In thefirst place, Johnson exalted learning to a pitch beyond its value; then by making the mostglaring shew of his own learning, he endeavoured to fix the highest admiration on himself;casting at the same time an imputation on Shakespear, for want of learning, and spared nopains in exhibiting what he thought so much his own superiority in that single point.

Whoever will take the trouble of extracting from Johnson’s prologue to every man in hishumour, and from various other parts of his writings, the side-way reflexions which hefrequently casts on Shakespear, need not I think seek farther for the strongest proofs of hismalevolence and impudence of heart. I would not use such words, if softer terms couldconvey my meaning; but I cannot from complaisance, lose the use of language, and drop halfthe image I design to give.

Shakespear saw a rising genius in Johnson, and like himself, that is, like one who knew thetrue value of human learning, and its utmost boundaries, and whose genius was exalted bycandor and good-nature, prevailed on the managers of the theatre to encourage Johnson,and to exhibit his first performance on the stage. After Shakespear had nourish’d in hisbreast this young and venomous snake, now grown to maturity, and warm’d by hisfriendly bosom, Ben Johnson, like himself, that is, like one who possess’d so much ofgenius as to make him grasp at the fame of having all, spurn’d at his generous benefactor,caught the ears of the multitude by sharp expressions against him, which he call’dhumour, and I call spite, and endeavoured to throw all the obstacles he could invent in the

way of Shakespear’s race to the goal of fame. But Shakespear could never be provoked toreturn such paltry spite; he, like the strong mastiff, steadily pass’d by the whiffling cur,unheeding of his yelpings. I know the men (as Montaigne says of Plutarch, and some otherwriters) to their inmost souls; I know them by their works. Shakespear indeed had no causeto disguise himself; and Johnson’s malice was too obstreperous for his management; hecould not restrain it from breaking out, where gratitude should have with-held it, andwith the monument he hath left to posterity of his genius, he hath join’d to it a strongpicture of his unconquerable envy.

The Cry, not in the least observing what Portia had said of the character of the man,began to accuse her of a total want of humour, in not being pleased with such entertainingcharacters, as are drawn by Ben Johnson. Then some were sounding the praises of Bobadel,others of the jealous Kitely, and all joined in admiration of the diverting figure of masterStephen, when he saw his broken toledo.

Portia. Very justly, O ye Cry, have you pointed out the humour of three veryentertaining comic characters, which have lately gained such merited applause; nor isthere any one amongst you, who can admire the beauties of some of Ben Johnson’s writingsmore than I do. For, besides the foregoing ones, which by the force of inimitable actionhave made such an impression on your memories, there is Morose, Macilente, lady Woud-be,and many other strong pictures of nature, in his comedies: and for his tragedies, thespeeches are extremely fine, both in his Catiline, and his Sejanus: his just picture also of aninexorable mob, in their usage of Sejanus’s daughter, where the distress must move thehardest heart, are such proofs of genius as have often pleased my fancy, and claim’d myadmiration.

The Cry were now all agape, and as they were conscious that to give merited praise,without being blind to glaring faults, was not in themselves (notwithstanding, when itserved their purpose, they were always ready loudly to clamour for impartiality) theycould not imagine what Portia meant by bearing such testimony to Ben Johnson’s genius as awriter, since she had before condemn’d his malice.

Portia. I should be ashamed of myself, if I would not acknowledge the merit of BenJohnson as a writer; but a capacity for writing holds so very low a place in my esteem,when weigh’d in the balance with an honest heart, that with me (and I wish it was the samewith every other human creature) it hath no chance of concealing one grain of malice orenvy; had Ben Johnson known the insignificancy of genius in comparison with a benevolentheart, he had been contented with himself, had borne to have taken the second rank, hadloved his friend Shakespear instead of abusing him, had therefore been a happier man whilsthe lived, and left behind him postumous fame (if postumous fame could delight him)sufficient to have gratified the wishes of any reasonable man; and it might also have beenuntainted with that malice, which is now too visible to be concealed from observing eyes.

Altho’ (as I before said) I would willingly acknowledge all Ben’s merit as a writer; yetwould I wish to set his malignant envy in full view, that the face of such envy may beknown whenever it dares to make its odious appearance; nor would I willingly havemankind bully’d into becoming the paltry instruments to gratify the spleen of malignantenvy, by turning their eyes averse from one of the greatest glories of the human race.

The Cry toss’d up their noses, and said that they should not condemn Ben Johnson, becausePortia had pleased to abuse him; nor would they blindly admire Shakespear, because shethought proper to puff him off as something so very extraordinary: and then with thehighest insult they sneeringly threw about the word PUFF, and wittily told her she woulddo well to enlist herself in that office to some modern author. A loud laugh of triumph re-

456 BEN JONSON

echo’d through the throng; and Portia unheeding of their rude behaviour thus pursued hersubject. (i, 162–8)

NOTES

1 See No. 114, above.2 Theobald (ed.), The Works of Shakespeare (1733), vi, 162 (not printed in the selections in No.

120, above).

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 457

458

144.Peter Whalley’s edition of Jonson

1756

The Works of Ben Jonson (1756), edited by Whalley, provided the first eighteenth-century critical edition of Jonson. Whalley hoped his edition would show that ‘areader of Johnson’s plays, hath more to look for than is commonly imagined’,according to an article containing a sample of notes on Every Man in his Humour inThe Gentleman’s Magazine (1752), xxii, 4, presumably by Whalley himself. A reviewin The Critical Review (1756), i, 462–72, suggested that Whalley had not doneenough explication in the edition, given that Jonson was so imbued with the lowlife of the time that his work is ‘in a great measure unintelligible to the modernreader’. The selection of notes below is weighted towards the critical, rather thanthe exegetical. Whalley’s opinions on Jonson were quickly taken up: in the yearafter the edition had been published, the notes enthusing about ‘Queen andhuntress chaste and fair’ from Cynthia’s Revels and about the expressiveness of a linefrom The Sad Shepherd appeared in Biographia Britannica (1757), iv, 1789n, 2790n.See Introduction, pp. 19–20.

(a) From the preface.With respect to Johnson’s character as a writer, he is universally allowed to have been

the most learned and judicious poet of his age. His learning indeed is to be seen in almostevery thing he wrote; and sometimes perhaps it may appear, where we could wish it mightnot be seen, although he seldom transgresseth in this point; for a just decorum andpreservation of character, with propriety of circumstance and of language, are his strikingexcellencies, and eminently distinguish his correctness and art. What he borroweth fromthe antients, he generally improves by the use and application, and by this means heimproved himself, in contending to think, and to express his thoughts like them; andaccordingly those plays are the best, in which we find most imitations or translations fromclassic authors; but he commonly borrows with the air of a conqueror, and adorns himselfin their dress, as with the spoils and trophies of victory.

To make a proper estimation of his merits, as a dramatic writer, we are to considerwhat was the state of the drama, and the usual practice of the stage-writers in those earlytimes; and what alterations and improvements it received from the plays of Jonson.Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher, are the only contemporary writers that can beput in competition with him; and as they have excellencies of genius superior to those ofJonson, they have weaknesses and defects which are proportionably greater. If they

transcend him in the creative powers, and the astonishing flights of imagination, theirjudgment is much inferior to his; and if he doth not at any time rise so high, neitherperhaps doth he sink so low as they have done. We mean not to insinuate any thing to thediscredit of Jonson’s genius, yet his fancy had, perhaps, exerted itself with greater energyand strength, had he been less a poet, or less acquainted with the antient models. Struck withthe correctness and truth of composition in the old classics, and inflamed by passionateadmiration to emulate their beauties, he was insensibly led to imagine, that equal honourswere due to successful imitation, as to original and unborrowed thinking. Jonson wasnaturally turned to industry and reading; and as to treasure up knowledge must be theexercise and work of memory, by the assiduous employment of that faculty, he wouldnecessarily be less disposed to exert the native inborn spirit of genius and invention; andas his memory was thus fraught with the stores of antient poetry, the sentimentsimpressed upon his mind, would easily intermix and assimilate with his own; and whentransfused into the language of his country, would appear to have all the graces and the airof novelty. It is owing to these reasons, that Jonson became constrained in hisimagination, and less original in his sentiments and thoughts; but from hence he obtainedthat severity of collected judgment, and that praise of art, which have given his authoritythe greatest weight in the decisions and the laws of criticism.

Enlightened with these assistances, Jonson was enabled to see through, and effectuallyto surmount the prejudices of vulgar practice: and by a departure from the beaten track ofunreasonable custom, he struck at once into the less frequented road of probability andnature. Let us proceed then to examine what was the reigning mode in the composition ofour antient drama. In designing the plots of their several comedies, our old poetsgenerally drew them from some romance, or novel: and from thence also they derived thedifferent incidents of the various scenes; and the resemblance between the original and thecopy, was every way exact. The same wildness and extravagance of fable prevailed inboth: all the miracles and absurdities of story being faithfully transcribed into the play; andhence it is, that the scene of action is generally placed abroad; the principal characters arealso foreign; or to speak more truly, they are Englishmen disguised with foreign names:for the manners of all the different persons are intirely English, as is more particularlyobservable in the inferior characters of the play. So that whether the scene may lie atAthens, at Venice, or Vienna, all the wit, and all the humour are of British growth, andare adapted to the taste and genius of the poet’s own age. When Jonson first appliedhimself to writing for the stage, he conformed in like manner to the general practice of hiscontemporary poets. A plain instance of this appears in his comedy called The Case isAltered; and this reason concurs with other evidences, to determine that piece to have beenone of his earlier dramatic compositions. The scene is Milan, the principal personages areof the same place; and the sentiments they have occasion to use, are what nature in anyclimate, would express her thoughts in, upon a similar occasion. The droll and comic partof the drama shews itself in the manners of the servants, the mechanics, and lowercharacters of the comedy; and although these are exhibited to us under the soundingnames of Sebastian, Balthasar, and Vincentio, their whole dialogue and humour are alively copy from the homespun wit of the clowns and artisans of the poet’s native country.The same observations may be extended to the generality of Shakespear’s and Fletcher’splays, where under exotic characters and story, the authors are continually glancing atdomestic incidents, and comment on the times, skreened beneath the cover of antient orforeign fable. But Jonson was soon sensible, how inconsistent this medly of names andmanners was in reason and nature; and with how little propriety it could ever have a place

460 BEN JONSON

in a legitimate and just picture of real life: and hence as he improved in critical learning,and became acquainted with the true principles and laws of dramatic writing, he reformedthe extravagances which had universally prevailed in the times before him. His plays werereal plays of five acts, in which the continuity of the scenes, and the unities of time andplace were regularly observed. And the better to effect this, we must remark that he nolonger borrowed his fable from a well-known, or pre-invented story, but formed his plot,and drew his characters from the stores of his imagination, and his observations upon menand manners. In consequence of this, his scene was generally laid at home; his charactersand manners are equally domestic, and are uniform and congruous throughout the whole:and this was really adapting comedy to its proper end, in making it Vitæ speculum, &exemplar morum; a mirror to reflect the follies and vices of the age. That this reform wastruly the result of conscious and reflecting art, we shall demonstrate to the reader by asingular instance, which confirms the account we have laid down above, and sets thejudgment of Jonson in the fairest point of view. (i, iv–ix)

[Whalley goes on to describe the revision of Every Man in his Humour to give itEnglish characters and an English setting.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆But notwithstanding the art and care of Jonson to redress the incongruities taken notice

of, a remarkable instance of Italian manners is still preserved, which in transferring thescene he forgot to change. It is an allusion to the custom of poisoning, of which we haveinstances of various kinds, in the dark and fatal revenges of Italian jealousy. (i, xi)

[Cites the exchange between Kitely and Wellbred, 4.8.1–41.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆There are only two comedies of Jonson, where the scene is laid abroad, the Poetaster

and the Fox. The former was purposely designed as a vindication of himself, and to exposethe pretensions of his adversary Decker. This led him to make Rome his scene, and tochoose the times of Augustus Cæsar, for the period of action. His intention in this as hehath declared in the apology annexed to the play, was to shew that Virgil and Horace, andevery candidate for honest and fair fame, had their enemies and detractors, envious ofthem and of their writings; and by these examples it is insinuated to the reader, that theexcellencies and merits of Jonson were the sole occasion of the calumnies thrown outagainst him; and that he, had only the fortune to be abused, in like manner as his bettershad been before him. And here it must be said, that he is careful in the main, to observethe decorum of character, which his plan required; but as it naturally led him to allude toparticular persons and incidents of his own times, we have occasional references to boththese; disguised indeed under the cover of Roman forms, and affecting the stile andmanners of the supposed times and persons of the play. In the design of Volpone, the poethad a more generous design in view; and by his admirable execution of that design, hehath left posterity a lasting monument of his genius and art. And here he was induced, forthe sake of probability, and to give lively and strong colouring to his draught, to fix onVenice for the scene of his drama. By this choice he gained an opening for the introductionof a domestic character, which, placed upon a middle ground, gratified his favouritepassion of displaying a particular folly of his age and nation; for as the scene was thus laid

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abroad, he had the inviting opportunity in the character of sir Politic Would-be, to exposethe reigning affectation of knowing men and manners; when the youth of the kingdomwere sent, in quest of policy and knowledge, to poison their faith and morals, by theacquisition of Italian atheism and Italian deceit.

In his design and exhibition of characters, Jonson was particularly happy in delineatingthose which are generally known by the name of characters of humour; a subject which heperfectly understood, and which he executed with equal felicity and perfection. But ashumour is the excess of a particular passion, and appropriate only to a single character, ithath from hence been thought, that Jonson’s characters are only passions or affectionspersonized, and not faithful copies from living manners. But to this we might reply, thatfar from being thought to build his characters upon abstract ideas, he was really accused ofrepresenting particular persons then existing; and that even those characters which appearto be the most exaggerated, are said to have had their respective archetypes in nature andlife. It is further to be observed, that many of Jonson’s comedies are of that kind, which maybe called particular and partial: the follies they were designed to censure were moreimmediately local; and as the pursuits which they expose, are now disused or forgotten,we find it difficult to enter into the humour or propriety of the characters. Yet even atthis distance, we can perceive that truth of design, and strength of colouring in each, as highly entertain us with their representation or perusal; and render us equally sensible ofthe poet’s excellence, and art in his masterly performance: ‘But we may remark ingeneral of such subjects, as an exact critic of great taste expresseth it, that they are astrong temptation to the writer, to exceed the bounds of truth and mediocrity in hisdraught of them at first, and are further liable to an imperfect and even unfair sentencefrom the reader afterwards. For the welcome reception which these pictures of prevailinglocal folly meet with on the stage, cannot but induce the poet almost without design, toinflame the representation; and the want of archetypes, in a little time makes it pass forimmoderate, were it originally given with ever so much discretion and justice.’ [Hurd’s]HORACE’S Art of Poetry illustrated with English Notes, &c. p. 278. Add to this, that inpresenting a character on the stage, the due distance and point of view should have a placein the poet’s consideration; and this may probably require some enlargement of thelineaments and features, provided that a just proportion and symmetry of parts, beobserved in the composition of the whole. I do not mean that he should give us a distortedcaricatura, in the room of an agreeable and pleasing picture; but if it be considered thatmany diverting pleasantries or actions of ridiculous humour, with lively dialogues incommon life, would appear flat and insipid, and have little or no effect upon a generalaudience, when set before them in the plain and simple habit of nature and fact: the poetmay possibly be under the necessity of bestowing on them some relief and ornament, fromart; and of seasoning his conversations with a high poignancy of wit or repartee, adaptedto the less exquisite taste of an undistinguishing populace. These causes concurring seemto have given rise to the opinion, that Jonson, in the portraiture of his characters, forboreto copy from real life. And as the preceding observations account for this opinion, with aprobable verisimilitude, we are apt to flatter ourselves, they may be a fair representationand solution of the matter.

In the collection of Jonson’s poems there are two Tragedies; and of each of thesesomething should be said in reference to his conduct of the drama, and to his judgment inthe choice of his Subjects. The poet himself appears to have placed no small value on theseplays, and they are not without their proper share of merit; but as the piercing eye ofcriticism hath discovered errors and defects in both, let us attend to the faults which are

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objected to them. And first, it is said the poet was unfortunately mistaken in the choice ofhis fable; the characters of Catiline and Sejanus are so well known, and are so infamous inhistory, that no kind of pity, the most amiable emotion in the spectator’s breast, canpossibly be shown to the distresses which befal them; but to this, a reply is elsewheregiven in the proper place, where the objection it self is made. (i, xiii–xviii)

[Whalley then describes in full Hurd’s objections in his commentary on the ArsPoetica to Jonson’s imitations in Catiline: see No. 140, above.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆…we are likewise obliged to own that these mistakes in Jonson are in a great measure

indefensible. For although the poet was conscious of what might possibly be objected tohim upon these heads, yet he was so far from regarding them as errors, or imperfectionsin his poem, that he, in truth, considered them as beauties, and prided himself upon histranslations as so many real excellencies, and the chief ornaments of his play. But he wasmisled, as the learned critic judiciously adds, by the beauty which these speeches appearedto have in the original composition, without attending to the peculiar laws of the drama,and the indecorum it must needs have in so very different a work. It must beacknowledged, however, in justice to Jonson, that he hath discovered great art and spiritin designing and supporting his characters; and that he hath occasionally deviated from theleading thread of the story, and varied the arrangement of circumstances, in the mannerthat was most conducive to draw out his characters, and display the ruling passioninherent in the breast of each.

These remarks upon the Catiline, are in some degree applicable to the Sejanus ofJonson. In this indeed the narration from which he copied was less obvious and direct; andhence it demanded a greater share of judgment to combine and connect the distinctperiods and members, to form a regular and consistent whole; but as the story lay beforehim, from which he drew his incidents, he copied with too close an attachment to historiccomposition; and in breach of the second rule, what he hath translated from the Latin, isexpressed with too exact a conformity to the mode and letter of the original expression.And lastly, he hath adopted incidents which the law and nature of his work would reject.The play should naturally have ended with the fall and tragical death of Sejanus. For thisreason the subsequent descriptions, taken from Juvenal, of the indignities and insults,offered by the multitude, both to himself and his statues, are wholly out of place. Nor wasit less improper to describe with the attendant circumstances, the unfortunate ends of theson and daughter of Sejanus; who with brutal violence were dragged from home, andinhumanly put to death by the public executioner. But the poet intended to recount a taleof horror, and excite pity in the breast of the spectators, by relating the untimely fate ofthe innocent and tender sufferers; and this further contributed, in concurrence with themoral, to insinuate that divine vengeance would not fail to punish and exterminate thewhole race of those, who contemned the providence and power of Heaven.

The character of Jonson as a poet, may be discovered by attending to his character anddisposition as a man; which would naturally give that prevailing cast to his comedies andpoems, which in effect we find they have, (i, xx–xxii)

[Quotes Hurd’s remarks in his commentary on Jonson’s nature.]

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But it is here to be observed, that humour, which Jonson particularly aimed to express, isprincipally to be found in the inferior stations and lower classes of mankind; for as it is theexcess of a prevailing passion, its influence will be there exerted with less confinementand controul from the restraints of education. The civility and politeness of good-breedingwill keep within its due bounds that ebullition of temper, which would be apt to flow outto the annoyance and disgust of others. So that Jonson in exposing those follies, and lesserkinds of vices, which render men contemptible, was necessarily led to picture what wasinordinate in a character, that he might give the fullest and strongest image of the original.

To enter completely into the humour and propriety of Jonson’s characters, we shouldas it were drop the intervening period, and image to ourselves the manners and customs ofthe times wherein he lived, that so we may more perfectly comprehend his variousreferences and allusions to them. But as this is a matter of real difficulty, therepresentation of many of his comedies must fail to produce the same delight in thespectator, as they naturally did when first acted; and therefore a correct edition, withexplanatory notes, will give that satisfaction in the reading, which cannot be so wellattained, from their performance on the stage. It is greatly to be wished indeed, thatJonson had possessed that poetic passion, and power to touch the heart, which would havemade his dramas universal; equally felt and understood in all ages. But as in this point hemust indisputably yield to Shakespear, so few of his characters can receive the sameadvantages from the best action and expression that ever added grace and energy to thestage. And in thus wanting Mr. Garrick’s performance, he wants that living explanation,which no comment of the most learned critic can possibly give, (i, xxiii–xxiv)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Having acknowledged Garrick’s kindness in lending him the 1601 Every Man in hisHumour and the 1609 The Case is Altered quartos:]

Mr. Garrick hath always shewn great taste and judgment in doing justice to the genius ofour old dramatists; by the revival of such pieces, from which the elegance of the presenttimes could receive an agreeable entertainment. And Jonson is obliged to him for givingnew life to Every Man in his Humour, in which by the proper cast of the several parts, andhis own performance of a principal character, he hath displayed the excellencies of our oldcomic bard in their fullest and fairest glory. (i, xxv–xxvi)

(b) From ‘The Life of Benjamin Jonson’.

His person was corpulent and large; and his face, if we may believe his admirers,resembled Menander’s, as the head of that poet is represented upon antient gems andmedals: in like manner Vida is said to have resembled Virgil. His disposition was reserved,and saturnine; and sometimes not a little oppressed with the gloom of a spleneticimagination. He told Drummond, as an instance of this, that he had lain a whole nightfancying he saw the Carthaginians and Romans, Turks, and Tartars, fighting on his greattoe. He hath been often represented as of an envious, arrogant, over-bearing temper, andinsolent and haughty in his converse: but these ungracious drawings were the performanceof his enemies; who certainly were not sollicitous to give a flattering likeness in their portraits of the original. But considering the provocations he received, with the mean andcontemptible talents of those who opposed him, what we condemn as vanity or conceit,might be only the exertions of conscious and insulted merit. He was laborious and

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indefatigable in his studies, his reading was copious and extensive; his memory sotenacious and strong, that when turned of forty, he could have repeated all that he hadever wrote: his judgment accurate and solid; and often consulted by those who knew himwell, in branches of very curious learning, and far remote from the flowery paths lovedand frequented by the muses. The lord Falkland, in his elegy, celebrates him as anadmirable scholar; and saith, that the extracts he took, and the observations which hemade on the books he read, were themselves a treasure of learning, though the originalsshould happen to be lost. In his friendships he was cautious and sincere, yet accused oflevity and ingratitude to his friends: but his accusers were the criminals; insensible of thecharms, and strangers to the privileges of friendship. For the powers of friendship, not theleast of virtues, can be only experienced by the virtuous and good; and with these Jonsonwas happily connected in the bonds of intimacy and affection. Randolph and Cartwrightrevered him as the great reformer, and as the father of the British stage; and gloried in thehonorary title of his adopted sons: and Selden hath acknowledged the good offices whichJonson did him by his interest at court, when he had incurred the royal displeasure bypublishing his History of Tithes. Stern and rigid as his virtue was, this Cato of poets was easyand social in the convivial meetings of his friends; and the laws of his Symposia, inscribedover the chimney of the Apollo, a room in the Devil-Tavern near Temple-Bar, where hekept his club, shew us that he was neither averse to the pleasures of conversation, norignorant of what would render it agreeable and improving. It is true that he was sparing inhis commendations of the works of others, which probably gave occasion to accuse him ofenvy, and ill nature; but when he commends, he commends with sincerity and warmth. Aman of sense is always cautious in giving characters; nor will an honest man applaudwhere he cannot approve; and Jonson well knew the people may admire, but to praise isan act of knowledge and of judgment. (i, lv–lvi)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ By the death of Jonson his family itself became extinct, the only issue he left being his Plays

and Poems; and their fate hath in some measure resembled his. Yet such is the felicity oftheir better fortunes, that surviving the attacks of envious contemporary rivals, they havereceived from the justice of discerning unprejudiced posterity, a fair, and an increasingfame. With those, whose taste for simple and striking copies of nature, is yet uncorruptedby the fastidious delicacy of fashionable refinements, the works of Jonson stand high inesteem: and as they are read from age to age, they will perpetuate his name with all thehonours which his genius and his learning deserve, (i, lvii)

(c) From the notes to Every Mar in his Humour.

But whether his oath can bind him, yea or no,Being not taken lawfully] [3.3.107–8] The character of Kitely is extremely well

imagined, and supported with great propriety. His jealousy is constantly returning, andcreates him fresh scruples in every thing he sets about. It was a question in casuistry,whether an oath was of any force, unless taken in form before a legal magistrate: the poettherefore brings this to his imagination, to fill him with groundless objections and throw himinto the greater perplexity. Within these few years, we have seen the part of a SuspiciousHusband represented on the stage,1 and drawn with that life and nature as did the utmostcredit to the author. Yet Jonson, I believe, will be allowed to have set the pattern; and tohave been the most faithful copier, may be deemed a sufficient share to a modern writer.(i, 73)

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⋆⋆⋆You’d mad the patient’st body in the world, &c.] [4.1.21–2] I shall here take the liberty to

answer an objection, which may possibly be made to the manner in which I have printedthis, and some other speeches of the play. I found them, as I believe, plain prose; and assuch I have left them; though I am aware, that a very little alteration would have reducedthem to a hobbling kind of measure, which we often meet with in our old comedians.This, however, is not Jonson’s manner: in the more serious parts of his drama, wherecomedy is allowed to raise her voice and breathe something of the tragic sublimity, hegives us very numerous and flowing verse; but in places less interesting and of lessimportance, he drops from his poetic flight into the humbler paces of prosaic narration.The case is otherwise, indeed, with Fletcher; who affects the metre in his commondialogue, and in his scenes of humour and burlesque much more than either Shakespear orJonson. And these speeches we see happily rescued by his late very ingenious editors, fromthe deformity in which they appear in all the former copies, (i, 89–90)

(d) From the notes to Every Man out of his Humour.

Black, rav’nous ruin, with her sail-stretch’d wings.] [Induction, l. 10] There is a sublimity inthis and the preceding lines, which shews us that Jonson could have reached a nobler flightin the greater kinds of poetry, had he not cramped his genius by confining it, inconformity to the prejudices of the age, to a model unworthy of himself, and even notagreeable to his own taste. The author he copied after in his Sejanus and Catiline, wasSeneca the tragedian; as we shall shew more distinctly, when we come to those plays. (i,141)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆somewhat like VETUS COMŒDIA.] [Induction, l.232]In the Vetus Comœdia, or old comedy, the learned know that personal characters were

introduced by name, and much licence of abuse was tolerated. Jonson hath refrained fromevery thing of this nature; tho’ his enemies did not scruple to tax him with quarrellingwith his friends, and afterwards representing them on the stage; and particularly in thecharacters of this very play. In what follows we may remark the most exact knowledge ofthe progress of ancient comedy, through its several stages: and the conclusion is a satire onthe poets of the age, for their violation of the laws of writing. Our poet perfectlyunderstood the dramatic unities, and was happy in his observance of them. (i, 149)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Fast. O, the most celestial, and full of wonder, &c.] [4.8.14] This interruption of Brisk’s is

very artful in the poet: Carlo was more a man of the town, whose elysium was the insideof a tavern, or an ordinary, and not the presence-chamber at court; but Brisk, whose happiness centred in the circle of courtiers, may with great propriety break out into arapturous harangue on the pleasures of a court life. (i, 252)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Mit. Whom should he personate in this, signior?Cor. Faith, I know not sir, observe him.] [5.4.67–8] The question of Mitis is natural

enough, upon seeing so peculiar an extravagance: but the answer of Cordatus is not in theusual manner. It is rather an evasion of the question, than a satisfactory reply. He doth notattempt to clear the poet by a parallel example, either in some antient comic writer, orfrom what might be observed in common life; but puts off the inquirer’s curiosity, bydesiring him to attend to what follows. This looks as if the matter wou’d not bear a very nice

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examination, lest a discovery should be made of what the author did not chuse to havepublickly known. Hence one is induced to imagine, that the character is personal; and thatthe humour exposed in it was the humour of a particular man. An author of the followingage, places this suspicion out of all doubt. Cleaveland, in an elegy upon Jonson, refers tothis very character; he mentions what our poet’s adversaries were wont to accuse him of;and from thence we find, that he was taxed with quarrelling with the person representedunder the name of Carlo, and afterwards revenging himself by exposing his foibles on thestage. The verses of Cleaveland are as follow:

[Quotes ll. 109–12 from what is in fact Mayne’s elegy in Jonsonus Virbius, No. 49(h), above; the elegy appears in Cleveland’s Works (1699), p. 313, which Whalleyquotes here.]

Who was the real person intended by it, I cannot take upon me to determine. Our poet,in different places, purgeth himself from accusations of this sort, by professing to sparethe party, and brand only the offence; and I believe he seldom trespassed against this rule.The Poetaster indeed must be excepted, which is a personal satire against Decker the poet,who first began the attack. But these instances, and more which may be taken notice of,confute the observation which some have made, that Jonson never copied from livingmanners, and that the characters of his plays were only passions or humours personized.(i, 271)

(e) From the notes to Cynthia’s Revels.

Seated in thy silver chair,State in wonted manner keep.] [4.6.3–4] In the party-disputes between admirers of

Shakespear and Jonson, as the one was affirm’d to want learning, the other was said tohave had no imagination; but there are instances in the works of both, sufficient to refutethis opinion; and it may be observed of Jonson, that as he really possessed much readingand critical judgment, his poetry has a correctness and truth, which result from a closeattention to the antient masters. This little hymn is delicate both in the sentiment andexpression; the images are picturesque, the verse easy and flowing. Milton has a thoughtnot unlike the lines above, which from the similitude of the expression, one is tempted tobelieve he took from hence,

‘Come, but keep thy wonted stateWith even step, and musing gate.’ Il Penseroso. [ll. 37–8] (i, 412)

(f) From the notes to Poetaster.

Since the comic museHath prov’d so ominous to me, I will tryIf tragedy have a more kind aspect.] [Epilogue, ll. 222–4] But the aspect of the tragic muse,

it is said, was so little favourable to the poet when in buskins, that even in the choice ofhis subject he failed: Sejanus and Catiline are historical characters so well known, that nodistress which befals them can possibly raise any kind of pity, the chiefest and noblestpassion belonging to tragedy, in the breast of the beholder. But pity is not the onlypassion, which the tragic poet is concerned with. To excite dread and terror in the mind ofthe spectator is equally the design of tragedy, with raising the softer and more tenderemotions of the heart. Wickedness and guilt, when they are represented to an audience,

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should naturally create no other sensations but those of fear and horrour; and thecatastrophe should be designed as a monitory lesson, to deter others from perpetrating thelike crimes. Our poet is not singular in the choice of his subjects. One of them has lately beenexhibited on a stage, that is no way famous for presenting scenes of cruelty to thebeholder. The rival wits of France, monsieur Crebillon in his Catalina [1748], andmonsieur Voltaire in his Rome sauvé [1750], have actually pitched on the same event withJonson, in their contest for the dramatic laurel. (ii, 123)

(g) From the notes to Sejanus.

————The oracles are ceas’d,That only Caesar, with their tongue, might speak.] [1.503–4] The poet with great judgment

lays hold on the common opinion of the cessation of oracles about this time, and turns itinto a very artful piece of flattery. The fact may be false, but the received notions ofJonson’s age sufficiently justify the application. If the reader is desirous to know thesentiments of the learned with regard to the cessation of oracles at this time, I refer him toVandale de Oraculis, and Fontenelle’s Historie des Oracles.2 (ii, 155)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Look upon Silius, and so learn to die.] [3.349] Silius (says the historian) imminentem

damnationem voluntario fine prævertit. [Tacitus] Annal. l[iber].4 C[apitulum] 19.3 It doth notappear, however, that this happened in the Senate-house, or at the immediate time of hisaccusation: yet the liberty which the poet hath taken, is easily allowable. Afer has a part inthis transaction not assigned him by Tacitus; but it is given him with the most utmostprobability, and with the exactest preservation of character. For we may remark, to thehonour of Jonson’s judgment, that whenever he departs from the thread of the narration,it is always with an improvement of the subject, and upon the strongest ground ofpresumption. Thus, by introducing Afer as a manager of the impeachment against Silius,he hath a proper opportunity of displaying the mercenary oratory, and art of theinformers, prevalent in the reign of Tiberius, which are finely contrasted by the trulyhonest, and spirited replies of Silius. (ii, 190)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Much more to SLIGHTEN, or deny their powers.] [5.901] Slighten is the infinitive mood of the

verb slight, with a Saxon ending, for the sake of the verse. Propriety of sentiment, anddecorum of character, are what we are principally to look for in the plays of Jonson;especially in those, where the characters are known from history, and he is necessarilyobliged to draw them like. Agreeably to this, the moral of the play hath an exactconformity to the action of the chief person in the drama. Sejanus is represented withoutany principle of conscience, ambitious, and a contemner of all religion, with the powerand providence of the gods. His fall therefore, considered as a punishment for his neglectof the gods, must naturally insinuate, that obedience to them is the only foundation ofhappiness; and that lawless and irregular ambition is constantly attended with inseparabledestruction. This is inculcated in these last lines. (ii, 262)

(h) From the notes to Volpone.

Fellows, to MOUNT a BANK.] [2.2.1] …I cannot help thinking this episode to be ratheran excrescence than a beauty, as it has no sort of connection with the rest of the play: yetthe character is not destitute of humour, and possibly might be intended for some

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particular person. However, it exposes with great life the taste of that state-intriguingage, in which it was easier to find a politician, than a man. (ii, 307–8)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Avoc. 1. We well think it. Land. You may think it. Avoc. 11. Let her o’ercome.] [4.6.14–15]

There never was a character supported with more propriety, than this of Lady Would-be.She comes into the court in all the violence of passion, and having vented her rage in ahasty epithet or two, she relapses into her usual formality, and begins to compliment thejudges. Tired with her breeding and her eloquence, they are obliged not to give her areply, and proceed to the examination of the other parties. The preceding scene is a greatinstance of the power of avarice, when the poet brings the father and the husband, to beartestimony against the son and the wife. (ii, 374–5)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆I cannot now afford it you so cheap. Volp. No?] [5.12.69–70] There is true comic humour

in these dealings between Mosca and Volpone: and one cannot help observing, that at atime so critical to them both, the covetousness in their tempers defeats their severaldesigns. An instance of great decorum in the poet, whose intention was to display aninherent avarice in every human breast. I do not see why Mr. Dryden should say there aretwo actions in this play; the first naturally ending with the fourth act; the second forcedfrom it in the fifth.4 The action indeed is something varied, but it still tends to thedisappointment and mortification of the pretenders to Volpone’s wealth. Yet, as he adds,this disguise of Volpone, tho’ not suited to his character, as a crafty or covetous person,agreed well enough with that of a voluptuary: and, by it, the poet gained the end at whichhe aimed, the punishment of vice, and the reward of virtue, both which that disguiseproduced. (ii, 405)

(i) From the notes to The Alchemist.

My part a little fell in this last scene,Yet ’twas DECORUM.] [5.5.158–9] i.e. suitable to the decorum of character. The

catastrophe of the play is well managed, and the discovery of the whole not injudiciouslycontrived. Our poet could not help telling his audience he thought so too. (iii, 137)

(j) From the notes to Catiline.

————The peoples voices, and the freeTongues in the senate, bribed be.] [1.581–2] In this part of the chorus our poet had his eye

upon the specimen belli civilis by Petronius Arbiter.Nec minor in campo furor est, emptique Quirites

Ad prædam strepitumque lucri suffragia vertunt.Venalis populus, venalis curia patrum.5

The sentiments of Petronius furnished him with matter, not only in the presentinstance, but for the general design of the whole chorus. I will take leave to transcribe afew lines from the speech of Pluto to Fortune, which are made use of in the verses beforethese.

En etiam mea regna petunt, perfossa dehiscitMolibus insanis tellus; jam montibus haustisAntra gemunt: & dum varrios lapis invenit usus,Inferni manes cælum sperare jubentur.6

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 469

Was I to add more, I should copy almost the whole poem. Jonson, I think, does notappear to any great advantage in the choruses to this play. My friend Mr. Sympson is alsoof the same opinion: he says, the sentiments in them are not sufficiently great, nor hismeasures at all imitative of the ancients; that variety of numbers which runs thro’ all theGreek tragic poets, seems never once to have been his aim. But I imagine Seneca, notSophocles or Aeschylus, was what he copied after, and ’tis then no wonder that hesucceeded no better. (iii, 168)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Ful. And doth dance rarely? Gal. Excellent! so well,As a bald senator made a jest, and said,’Twas better than an honest woman need.] [2.1.49–51] The poet throughout this whole

character of Sempronia, hath his eye upon his author Sallust: he had faithfully selected theparticulars, yet varied the arrangement of them, in a manner different from the historian’srelation. Sallust, in drawing the picture of this celebrated lady, hath the following strokes:Psallere, saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ.7 Jonson has made Fulvia’s attendant expressherself in the same terms, but as coming from the dry gravity of a conscript father. Thisgives an air of humour to the whole: and is justly adapted to the vein of loquacity,characteristic of my lady’s woman.

[Goes on to quote Dryden on the mixture of comedy and tragedy in Catiline and inSejanus: see No. 67, above.] (iii, 171)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆Methinks I see death and the furies waitingWhat we will do, and all the heav’n at leisureFor the great spectacle.] [5.412–23] The image here given is extremely sublime, and

approaches very nearly to those terrible graces, which the critic has attributed to Homeramongst the antients, and which Shakespear possessed in a manner superior to anymodern whatsoever. (iii. 263)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆As if she meant to hide the NAME OF THINGS.] [5.636] Mr. Sympson conjectures that

the frame of things was the original reading: but as our poet was so adventurous a dealer inthe learned languages, I acquiesce in the expression of the text. My friend will readilyrecollect, that in those languages the names of things is equivalent to, and often means thethings themselves. The spirit of this speech is truely noble, the images of sublimity andhorrour it abounds with, are drawn with a happy mixture of poetry and judgment, anddisposed with equal exactness and art. For the honour of our poet, it must be added thatthis speech is not a translation: the whole is derived from the sources of his ownimagination, with no assistance from his classic masters. I look on it as the most capitaldescription in all the works of Jonson. (iii, 270)

(k) From the notes to Bartholomew Fair.

If there be never a SERVANT-MONSTER i’ the fair, who can help it, he says, nor a NEST OFANTIQUES?] [Induction, ll. 127–8] Our author, and who can help it, is still venting hissneers at Shakespear. The servant-monster is the character of Caliban in the Tempest: the nestof antiques is the clowns who dance in the Winter’s Tale; and, lest he should be thought notto speak plainly enough, he expressly mentions those plays in the next sentence. I amafraid the reader will think but ill either of Jonson’s judgement, or his candour, when hethus ridicules what has been generally admired by men of real taste: but I believe the

470 BEN JONSON

sneer was designed not so much to ridicule Shakespear for his invention, as the passion ofthe mob for spectacles of this kind, (iii, 282)

[The note goes on to discuss the dress and appearance of Caliban and the clowns ofTwelfth Night.]

(l) From the notes to The Sad Shepherd.———————EARINE,Who had her very being, and her name,With the first knots or buddings of the spring, &c.] [1.5.43–5] The English reader will

perhaps require to be told, that Earine is derived from a Greek word signifying the spring,which is the allusion of these lines; but I hope his sagacity does not want a monitor, topoint out the exquisite delicacy of the following lines, and indeed of the whole speech. Thesentiments are wonderfully pleasing, the verses harmonious and soft. (v, 111)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ———————Hark, hark, hark, the foulBird!] [1.5.61–2] Jonson does not appear to have had much conception of those breaks

and rests, or of adapting the sound of his verse to the sense, which are the chief beauty ofour best modern poets; but in the words above, there is an excellence of this kind, and asit seems by design too, which is extremely striking. The three long syllables preceding theIambic foot at the close of the one verse, which is immediately connected with thebeginning of the other, and the pause placed upon the first syllable, are as fully expressiveof the sentiment as can possibly be imagined.

———————H rk! h rk! h rk! th•e fōulB rd!

There is nothing finer in all Shakespear or Milton. (v, 112)⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Mar. —You do know as soonAs the ASSAY is taken] [1.6.36] To take assay or say, is to draw a knife along the belly of

the deer, beginning at the brisket, to discover how fat he is. The poet has given usinfinitely too much of this hunting jargon, which, like most other cant terms, is hardlyexplicable, and not worth the knowing. (v, 117)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Note to the end of the play.]

I cannot but lament with the reader, the loss of the remaining parts of this play, which wecould have born with the greater patience, had even this act been fortunately completed.We have no account how it came down to us in this mutilated condition; and conjecturescan be at best but precarious. Possibly it might have been in the number of those pieces,which were accidentally burnt; tho’ indeed there is no particular mention of it in theExecration upon Vulcan: or Jonson might have undertaken it in the decline of his days, anddid not live to finish it; as was the case with his tragedy of Mortimer, and to this conjecturewe are induced by the first line of the prologue,

‘He that hath feasted you these forty years.’There is indeed one reason, which might lead us to believe, that the poet left it

unfinished by design. He beheld with great indignation the ungenerous treatment, which

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 471

Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess met with from the people, at its first appearance; and he waswitness also to the small encouragement that was shewn to its revival, under thepatronage of Charles I. Possibly these circumstances deterred him from going throughwith the performance. As his composition was of a kindred nature to that of Fletcher, hemight presage the same unfortunate event, should he ever introduce it on the stage. Sothat posterity can only bewail the perversity of taste, in their injudicious ancestors, whosediscouragement of the first, contributed to deprive us of the second pastoral drama, thatwould do honour to the nation. What we now have, serveth only to increase our regret;like the remains of some ancient master, which beget in us the most inexpressible desire ofa perfect statue by the same hand. When a work is not completed by its author, ormaimed by the hand of time, one would either wish the remains to be inconsiderable, orthe beauties less exquisite and charming. In the former case the deficiency is not so muchdeplored, from our inability to judge of the perfection of the whole; and in the latter, weare very little anxious for what appears to be hardly worth preserving; but when a piece isso far advanced, as to convince us of the excellence of the artist, and of its own superiourdelicacy, we are naturally touched with concern for what is lost, and set a proper value onthe parts which still subsist. (v, 151–2)

(m) From the notes to The Case is Altered.

Jaq. Sir! God’s my life, sir! sir! call me sir!] [3.2.13] The character of Jaques is formedupon that of Euclio in the Aulularia of Plautus: and is drawn with that masterly expressionwhich distinguisheth the works of Jonson. The scene here between Christophero andJacques, and what follows between the count and him, is copied from what passesbetween Euclio and Megadorus; but with so high an improvement, as determines the palmof applause in favour of our author. The original here is, Non temerarium est, ubi dives blandeappellat pauperem.8 (vii, 334)

NOTES

1 Benjamin Hoadley, The Suspicious Husband (1747). 2 Antonius Van Dale, De Oraculis ethnicorum dissertationes duae (Amsterdam 1683); Bernard Le

Bovier de Fontenelle, Histoire des Oracles (Paris 1687).3 ‘anticipated the impending condemnation by a voluntary end’.4 See No. 67, above.5 ‘“The same madness in public life, the true-born Roman is bought, and changes his vote for

plunder and the cry of gain. The people are corrupt, the house of senators is corrupt”’:Satyricon, ch. 119.

6 ‘Aye, they grasp even at my kingdom. The earth is hewn through for their madmen’sfoundations and gapes wide, now the mountains are hollowed out until the caves groan, andwhile men turn nature’s stone to their various purposes, the ghosts of hell are bid to havehopes of winning heaven’: Satyricon, ch. 120.

7 ‘To play the lyre and dance more skilfully than an honest woman need’: Bellum Catalinae, 25.2.

8 ‘There’s something behind it when a rich man puts on smooth airs with a poor one’:Anulularia, l. 184.

472 BEN JONSON

145.Richard Hurd, Jonson’s imitations

1757

From A Letter to Mr. Mason; On the Marks of Imitation, dated 15 August 1757.Hurd proposes various rules by which imitation can be detected, and for the

typical practice of imitation. His Letter elaborates on the ideas expressed in ‘ADiscourse of Poetical Imitation’, appended to the 1753 edition of his Horace (seeNo. 140, above). There he concludes that the principal cause of the degeneracy oftaste is the ‘ANXIOUS DREAD OF IMITATION IN POLITE AND CULTIVATEDWRITERS’ (ii, 230).

You may be sure then, the writers of that period abound in imitations. The best poetsboasted of them as their sovereign excellence. And you will easily credit, for instance,that B.Johnson was a servile imitator, when you find him on so many occasions little betterthan a painful translator.

I foresee the occasion I shall have, in the course of this letter, to weary you withcitations; and would not therefore go out of my way for them. Yet, amidst a thousandinstances of this sort in Johnson, the following, I fancy, will entertain you. The Latinverses, you know, are of Catullus.

Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,Ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro,Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber,Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ.Idem, quum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,Nulli illum pueri, nullæ optavere puellæ.1

It came in Johnson’s way, in one of his masks, to translate this passage; and observewith what industry he has secured the sense, while the spirit of his author escapes him.

Look, how a flower that close in closes grows,Hid from rude cattle, bruised with no plows,Which th’air doth stroke, sun strengthen, show’rsshoot high’r,It many youths, and many maids desire;The same, when cropt by cruel hand is wither’d,No youth at all, no maidens have desir’d. [Hym. 812–17]

—It was not thus, you remember, that Ariosto and Pope have translated these fineverses. (10–11)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

…when the question is of any particular writer, how far and in what instances you maypresume on his being a profess’d imitator, much will depend on the certain knowledgeyou have of his Age, Education, and Character. When all these circumstances meet in oneman, as they have done in others, but in none perhaps so eminently as in B.Johnson,wherever you find an acknowledged likeness, you will do him no injustice to call itimitation. (14)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Hurd suggests that Shakespeare might have come by his classical imagery from theEnglish books of his time.]

…if he had never look’d into books, or convers’d with bookish men, he might havelearn’d almost all the secrets of paganism (so far, I mean, as a poet had any use of them)from the MASKS of B. Johnson; contriv’d by that poet with so pedantical an exactness,that one is ready to take them for lectures and illustrations on the antient learning, ratherthan exercises of modern wit. The taste of the age, much devoted to erudition, and stillmore, the taste of the Princes, for whom he writ, gave a prodigious vogue to theseunnatural exhibitions. And the knowledge of antiquity, requisite to succeed in them, was,I imagine, the reason that Shakespear was not over fond to try his hand at these elaboratetrifles. Once indeed he did, and with such success as to disgrace the very best things of thiskind we find in Johnson. The short Mask in the Tempest is fitted up with a classicalexactness. But it’s chief merit lies in the beauty of the Shew, and the richness of the poetry.Shakespear was so sensible of his Superiority, that he could not help exulting a little uponit, where he makes Ferdinand say,

This is a most majestic Vision, andHarmonious charming Lays— [4.1.118–19]

’Tis true, another Poet, who possess’d a great part of Shakespear’s Genius and allJohnson’s learning has carried this courtly entertainment to it’s last perfection. But theMask at Ludlow Castle was, in some measure, owing to the fairy Scenes of his Predecessor;who chose this province of Tradition, not only as most suitable to the wildness of his vastcreative imagination, but as the safest for his unlettered Muse to walk in. For here he hadmuch, You know, to expect from the popular credulity, and nothing to fear from theclassic superstition of that time. (24–5)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆B.Johnson, in his Prologue to the Sad Shepherd, is opening the subject of that poem. The

sadness of his shepherd isFor his lost Love, who in the TRENT is said

To have miscarried; ’las! what knows the headOf a calm river, whom the feet have drown’d! [ll. 23–5]

The reflexion in this place is unnecessary and even impertinent. Who besides everheard of the feet of a river? Of arms, we have. And so it stood in Johnson’s original.

Greatest and Fairest Empress, know you this,Alass! no more than Thames’ calm head doth knowWhose meads his arms drown, or whose corn o’er-flow.Dr. DONNE. [Satyres, 5.28–30]

The poet is speaking of the corruption of the courts of justice, and the allusion isperfectly fine and natural. Johnson was tempted to bring it into his prologue by the mere

474 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

beauty of the sentiment. He had a river at his disposal, and would not let slip theopportunity. But ‘his unnatural use of it detects his imitation.’ (37–8)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆The instance I am going to give, will afford you more pleasure. Is there a passage in

Milton You read with more admiration, than this in the Penseroso?Entice the dewy-feather’d sleep;

And let some strange mysterious dreamWave at his wings in airy stream;Of lively portraiture display’dSoftly on my eye-lids laid. [ll. 146–50]

Would You think it possible now that the groundwork of this fine imagery should belaid in a passage of Ben Johnson? Yet so we read, or seem to read in his Vision of Delight.

Break, Phant’sy, from thy cave of cloud,And spread thy purple wings:Create of airy forms a stream,And tho’ it be a waking dream,Yet let it like an odour riseTo all the senses hereAnd fall like sleep upon their eyesOr musick in their ear. [ll. 44–54]

It is a delicate matter to analyze such passages as these; which, how exquisite soever inthe poetry, when estimated by the fine phrenzy of a Genius, hardly look like sense whengiven in plain prose. But if You give me leave to take them in pieces, I will do it, at least,with reverence. We find then, that Fancy is here employ’d in one of her nicest operations,the production of a day-dream; which both poets represent as an airy form, or formsstreaming in the air, gently falling on the eye-lids of her entranc’d votary. So far theirimagery agrees. But now comes the mark of imitation I would point out to you. Miltoncarries the idea still farther, and improves finely upon it, in the conception as well asexpression. Johnson evokes fancy out of her cave of cloud, those cells of the mind, as itwere, in which during her intervals of rest, and when unemploy’d, fancy lies hid; and bidsher, like a Magician, create this stream of forms. All this is just and truly poetical. ButMilton goes further. He employs the dewy-feather’d sleep as his Minister in this machinery.And the mysterious day-dream is seen waving at his wings in airy stream. Johnson wouldhave Fancy immediately produce this Dream. Milton more poetically, because in moredistinct and particular imagery, represents Fancy as doing her work by means of sleep; thatsoft composure of the mind abstracted from outward objects, in which it yields to thesephantastic impressions.

You see then a wonderful improvement in this addition to the original thought. Andthe notion of dreams waving at the wings of sleep is, by the way, further justified by whatVirgil feigns of their sticking or rather fluttering on the leaves of his magic tree in theinfernal regions. But it is curious to observe how this improvement itself arose from hintssuggested by his original. From Johnson’s dream, falling, like sleep upon their eyes, Miltontook his feather’d sleep, which he impersonates so properly; And from Phant’sy’s spreadingher purple wings, a circumstance, not so immediately connected with Johnson’s design ofcreating of airy forms a stream, he catched the idea of Sleep spreading her wings, and to goodpurpose, since the airy steam of forms was to wave at them.

BEN JONSON 475

However, Johnson’s image, is, in itself incomparable. It is taken from a winged insectbreaking out of it’s Aurelia state, it’s cave of cloud, as it is finely called: Not unlike that ofMr. Pope,

So spins the Silk-worm small it’s slender store,And labours till it clouds itself all o’er.IV. Dunc. φ. 253.

And nothing can be juster than this allusion. For the antients always pictured FANCYand HUMAN-LOVE with Insect’s wings. (51–4)

NOTE

1 ‘As a flower springs up secretly in a fenced garden, unknown to the cattle, torn by noplough, which the winds caress, the sun strengthens, the shower draws forth, many boys,many girls desire it; when the same flower fades, nipped by a sharp nail, no boys, no girlsdesire it’: Poems, 62.39–42.

476 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

146.Arthur Murphy, articles in The London Chronicle

1757

From numbers of The London Chronicle for 5–8 March, 31 March–2 April, and 2–5April. Unsigned, but assigned to Murphy by John P.Emery, ‘Murphy’s Criticismsin the London Chronicle’, PMLA (1939), liv, 1099–104. Murphy completes the seriesin the number for 5–7 April with an essay comparing the character Strickland inBenjamin Hoadley’s The Suspicious Husband with Kitely.

(a) 5–8 March 1757: from ‘The Theatre. No. 20’.DRURY-LANE, March 7.

Was performed Ben Johnson’s Alchymist….

[Quotes Whalley’s definition of alchemy and his reference to a dispute in Jonson’stime about a particular alchemist, from The Works of Ben Jonson (1756), iii, 6–7.]

However, as the Circumstances of this Dispute are not interesting now, and as the Foibleridiculed in this Piece is now almost obliterated, it follows of course, that the Humourappears frequently unintelligible, and loses its Poignancy. This Play sets out finely in theMidst of Things: The Plot is admirably conducted; and the fourth Act is, perhaps, one ofthe finest, for Contrivance, in the English Drama. We may venture, notwithstanding, toassert, that the Alchymist owes its present Reception on the Stage, to the inimitablePerformance of Mr. Garrick. It is, indeed, no wonder, that all Degrees of People conspireto applaud the Performer, who has routed all the noblest Emotions of the Soul, when theysee him descending to an Imitation of Nature in her meanest Littlenesses of Action. Andyet how admirably does he exhibit the minutest Circumstances, with the exactestPrecision, without Buffoonry or Grimace: —There is no twisting of Features, noSquinting, but all is as correct as if a real Tobacco Boy were before us. It is reallysurprizing how he, who has occasionally looked unutterable Things, can present us such aFace of Inanity: The Actor who can amazingly reach the Sublime in a Lear, or Hamlet, andthen exhibit the most ridiculous Appearances, must be possessed of such two-fold andopposite Powers, as hardly ever before concentered in one Man, and are not likely to formsuch a Tragi-comic Genius again. (i, 231)

(b) 31 March–2 April, 1757: from ‘The Theatre. No. 29’.

DRURY-LANE, March 31, 1757.

This Evening was performed, to one of the most numerous and polite Audiences thathave been seen this Season (for the Benefit of Mr. Beard) Ben Jonson’s Comedy, called,Every Man in his Humour. If we consider that this Piece was exhibited in the Year 1598,being near 160 Years ago, it must be allowed that it is a Proof of an uncommon Genius toentertain us at this Time of Day with Ideas and Manners totally obliterated. It shews thatthe Painter’s Pencil must have been faithful to Nature, otherwise we should hardly pleaseourselves, at present, with Portraits whose Originals are no more; for, excepting thePicture of Jealousy in the Drawing of Kitely, there is not one Personage in the wholeGroupe known to our modern Critics. Besides, the Business lies so much in what we callmiddle Life, or perhaps low Life, and in Parts of the Town disgustful to People ofFashion, such as the Old Jewry, Lothbury, &c. that nothing but the strong Colouring ofold Ben could support the Piece. It is worth observing that the Scene of this Play was atfirst fixed in Italy, and the Names of the Dramatis Personæ were exotic, such as Lorenzo dePazzai senior, Lorenzo junior, Thorello, &c. But our Author’s Discernment soonperceived the Absurdity of giving a foreign Drapery to English Personages, and exhibitingthe Manners of Cheapside on the Rialto. He therefore, by a poetical Act of Parliament,changed their Names, and fixed their Residence in their own Country. Though thereremains still, as is judiciously observed by the ingenious Mr. Whalley in his late Edition ofthis Author, a very remarkable Absurdity.

[Quotes Whalley on the survival of the reference to poisoning in the 1616 EveryMan in his Humour: see No. 144(a), above.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆It may not be improper to take Notice, that according to the modern Acceptation of

the Word Humour, this Piece does not by any Means answer the Title. A Critic of theseDays would naturally expect a Set of Humourists, or Men deeply tinged with Habits andOddities discolouring their whole Conduct; instead of which we have but one Character ofthat cast, which is Kitely; Old Knowell having no peculiar Mark; his Son and Wellbredbeing merely young Fellows upon Town; Stephen and Matthew two contemptible Halffools; and in short, all the rest, excepting Bobadill and Brainworm having nodistinguishing Characteristic. Bobadill’s Oddities are not strong enough to denominatehim an Humourist; he has indeed a ridiculous Affectation of Courage and military Skill;and when he takes a Kicking, he affords us a very laughable Contrast. Brainworm is animpudent notable Fellow, and diverts by the various Appearances he assumes: And JusticeClement is an hearty chearful old Fellow, but has no particular Bias to the Gratification ofany prevailing Humour, or whimsical Turn of Mind. The Poet has two Passages, one inthis Play, and the other in Every Man out of his Humour, which may serve to inform us ofwhat he intended in the Title.

[Quotes EMI, 3.4.14–26, and EMO, Induction, ll. 105–9.]

In this latter Passage the Author shews us that he had formed an exact Idea of Humour inthe strict Sense of the Word: But we apprehend, when he called the Play now before usEvery Man in his Humour, he meant to be understood in the former Sense, and intended toshew us a Set of Men following their Affectations. What was usually called Manners in aPlay began now, says the above-mentioned ingenious Editor, to be called Humours; the

478 BEN JONSON

Word was new, and the Use or rather Abuse of it was excessive. We should therefore beinclined to think that Ben Johnson took Advantage of a Phrase in Vogue, and intendedmerely an Exhibition of Manners or Humours in the loose Sense of the Word, as it wascommonly used; and not a Picture of People under the Operation of one strong Foible,not vainly assumed out of Levity, or imitative Folly, but rooted in the Mind, andengrossing all their Thoughts. Kitely indeed is a Character of this latter Class, and hisSpirits and Powers all run one Way, which may be said to be a Humour. Thus much wethought proper to remark concerning the general Idea of the Manners and Characters ofthis Play. The main Action turns on the Jealousy of Kitely: To shew this Foible inridiculous Appearances, and to hold up a Mirror, where it may see itself, is the Poet’sprincipal Scope; though all the other Characters are busy in their own separate Walks, andhave their own subordinate Pursuits. How far they all conduce to forward the chiefBusiness, and how they are blended together, so as to form one coherent and entirewhole, shall be our Enquiry in our next Paper; when we shall incidentally animadvert onthe Sentiment and Diction, and shall give our Opinion of the acting of this Piece; therebeing Matters that would lead us beyond the Bounds of these occasional Criticisms, werewe to pursue them further at present. (i, 318–19)

(c) 2–5 April 1757: from ‘The Theatre. No. 30’.

Continuation of Remarks on Every Man in his Humour.Mr. Dryden has somewhere compared a well-wrought Comedy to a Country Dance,

where two or more lead off, the rest fall in by Degrees, till they all mingle in the sprightlyTumult; then they separate into several petty Divisions; detached Parties are made fromthe main Body, and at length they all meet together again, and form one entire harmoniousMovement. This Remark we think perfectly applicable to the Play now underExamination: We have already mentioned the principal Personages of the Piece, with ashort Account of their Manners or Humours. How exquisite is the Poet’s Skill in groupingthese together! While each Person has his own By-Concerns, he helps forward the mainAction, and they are all brought together, and made acquainted with each other by Meansprobable and natural. Perhaps no Writer had greater Art in the Conduct of his Plots thanJohnson: He is always sure to prepare us for every Character worthy our Notice, and thishe does, quasi aliud agens, as if minding other Business, in the Course of which we receiveaccidental Notices of the Person, who is afterwards to appear; and thus our Expectation israised before we see him engaged in any Scene of Action. Old Knowell opens this Play,and the Letter from Wellbred, who lives in Kitely’s Family, to young Knowell, gives us,casually as it were, a further Insight into the Business: It promises us more newCharacters, and the suburb Humour of Master Stephen are likely to be entertaining, whencontrasted by the City Fop. Then again, how judiciously is Bobadil described, and afterthe Account of his peculiar Oaths and assumed Valour, his mean Condition is nicelytouched by his Landlord’s saying, ‘He owes me forty Shillings, my Wife lent him out ofher Purse by Sixpence a Time.’ Bobadil’s Affectation is finely kept up, and we find toothat he is one of Wellbred’s Rioters; and he likewise prepares us for the Character ofDownright: We are thus let into a Knowledge of all the Dramatis Personæ, except Kitely,whose Jealousy being of a secret Nature, that Matter could only come from himself. Andhow finely is this developed! His Fear of being known to be jealous acquaints us with it;and Wellbred’s Followers give Occasion to all his Suspicions. It is observable that Kitelyand Othello complain of an Head-ach, when first their Wives come to them, amidst their

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 479

Suspicions. The Part Brainworm takes in thwarting Old Knowell’s Purposes, is diverting,and serves to puzzle Matters till the Business is worked up to a Crisis, which happens fromthe Rendezvous of Wellbred’s Revellers at Kitely’s House. Then, in order to favour theirseparate Schemes, how artfully is it contrived that Brainworm should send Old Knowellto Cob’s (a suspected House) in Quest of his Son, and that Wellbred should send Kitely inQuest of his Wife, and the Wife in Search of her Husband, to the same Place; whichoccasions their being all brought before Justice Clement, for whom we have beensufficiently prepared during the preceding Parts of the Play. Through Brainworm itlikewise happens that Bobadil and Downright meet at the Justice’s, where every thingbeing cleared up, Wellbred, Young Knowell, and Kitely’s Sister, are sent for to theTavern, then called the Windmill, which then stood, as Mr. Whalley tells us in a Note, atthe Corner of the Old Jewry towards Lothbury. Thus very artificially all Parties arebrought together; the Denouement is skilfully made out; Kitely is convinced of his Error,and the jolly Temper of the old Justice prevails on them to conclude the Evening inChearfulness and Good humour. If the Limits of our Paper would permit, we could withPleasure review separately the Characters of Kitely and Bobadil, the two conspicuousFigures in this Piece; but this perhaps is unnecessary, as they are both so well performedby Mr. Garrick and Mr. Woodward. The latter, in our Opinion, never conceived aCharacter better than that of Bobadil, who is the best Braggadocio on the Stage; hisAssurance has a Mixture of Modesty, and is heightened by it: While he pretends to be aconsummate Master of every Branch of military Knowledge as well as Courage, heprotests he has only some small Rudiments of the Science, ‘as to know his Distance or so.’—When he is sure his Friends will prevent Mischief, he begs them to let his Enemy comeon with ‘I won’t kill him,’ and when at last he takes a Beating, ‘he is planet-struck, fascinated,&c.’ —All this Mr. Woodward performs with such a Reserve and Gravity, and such ajudicious Jeu de Theatre, that he is justly a Favourite with the Audience all through thePiece. Were we to examine Kitely we should find the Suspicious Husband to be is someMeasure copied from it: The Scenes where both those Characters are tempted to confer withtheir own Domestics, and are yet afraid to do it, and then continue about it and about it,palpably resemble each other. Were we to give the Preference to either, we shoulddeclare the modern to have lopped Excrescences, and to have therefore rendered hisScene a juster Imitation of Nature, where there is nothing too often touched nor nothingoverdone. But the former has the Advantage of Mr. Garrick’s Performance; in this Actorevery Thing has Manners, every Thing has real Life, and whatever his Author may havedone, he does not any where exceed the natural Working of Jealousy. But thisDisquisition must be adjourned till he performs this Part again, when we shall trace Mr.Woodward and Mr. Garrick through all their various Shapes in this justly admiredComedy. (i, 327)

480 BEN JONSON

147.Thomas Wilkes on Jonson and on Jonson actors of

the day1759

From A General View of the Stage (1759).Thomas Wilkes (d. 1786) was a Dubliner and a friend of Garrick’s.

A Comedy ought to have one main design, that carries through it one or two characters ina manner more conspicuous than the rest: and to compass this design, a chain of pleasingevents should contribute, so linked as to have the appearance of accidental introduction;to wear nothing of force; nothing strained, nor seemingly artful. In Every Man in hisHumour, for example, the main design is to cure a wrong-headed husband of a ridiculous,ill-grounded jealousy; we never lose sight of the husband and wife through the wholePlay, until we find them made friends, and the husband cured of his folly in thecatastrophe. (39)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[On Garrick’s comic roles.]

It is almost impossible for us to reconcile to ourselves, that one and the same personshould vary from the sprightly Lothario,1 and the princely Hamlet, to the mean Tobacco-boy; yet in Abel Drugger he is as inimitable as in the other two. The stupid confusionwhich he shews at breaking the urinal, and his satisfaction at going out without its beingtaken notice of, are peculiar to himself. The introducing this incident was first owingentirely to accident. It happened to old Cibber, who was allowed to play this characterwell. He, while the other personages were employed, rather than stand idle, was fiddlingabout the table of the Alchymist; and by way of filling up time, took up the urinal, andheld it to the light, when it by chance slipping through his fingers, broke to pieces; and hehad presence of mind to put on an air of distress happy to the time and the place; it told toadmirable purpose. He played the part afterwards as usual; but the audience obliged himto restore the accidental addition; and it has been ever since retained by every otherperformer. Abel Drugger is certainly the standard of low comedy; and Mr. Garrick’splaying it the standard of acting in this species of comedy.

How beautifully does he paint the jealousy of common life in Kitely, in ‘Every Man inhis Humour.’ The anxiety and fears here natural to the part, and the aukward endeavourat disguising the ruling passion, are capital, both in the poet and the player, particularlywhere the husband unawares drops it that he has been,

—pointed at as oneDisturbed with jealousy.Dame Kitely. Why were you ever jealous?Kite. What? —ha! never! never! ha, ha ha!She stabs me home! —Jealous of thee!No, do not believe it—Speak low, my love.2

Garrick’s laugh here is, as his wife afterwards expresses it, ‘Seemingly without mirth,constrained, and affected to the utmost.’ His supposed detection of old Knowell, in anintrigue with his wife, at Cob’s house, is a scene which would make an exceeding goodpicture. In a few words here, before the justice, and, indeed, through the whole part, heshews a deep knowledge of the human heart; and it is equal to any acting that ever wasseen. (257–9)

[On Shuter as a comedian.]

The setness and risible turn of his features diffuse a peculiar humour thro’ all the parts heplays in low Comedy. He has a fine vacancy of look, an inexpressible and inimitablesimplicity in Master Stephen, which is finely contrasted by the blustering air of Bobadil.(300–1)

NOTES

1 In Rowe’s The Fair Penitent.2 From Act IV, Scene iii of Garrick’s adaptation of the play: Garrick, The Dramatic Works (1798),

i, 202–3.

482 BEN JONSON

148.Edward Young, Jonson and the load of learning

1759

From Conjectures an Original Composition. In a letter to the Author of Sir CharlesGrandison (1759).

Young (1683–1765) was nearly eighty when he wrote this book. He had becomefamous for his Night Thoughts (1742–5), characterized by an edifying religiousgloom. His Conjectures were admired by Klopstock, among others, and the Germanpoet wrote a poem on Young’s death.

Johnson, in the serious drama, is as much an Imitator, as Shakespeare is an Original. He wasvery learned, as Sampson was very strong, to his own hurt: Blind to the nature of Tragedy,he pulled down all antiquity on his head, and buried himself under it; we see nothing ofJohnson, nor indeed, of his admired (but also murdered) antients; for what shone in theHistorian is a cloud on the Poet; and Cataline might have been a good play, if Salust hadnever writ.

Who knows if Shakespeare might not have thought less, if he had read more? Whoknows if he might not have laboured under the load of Johnson’s learning, as Enceladusunder Ætna? His mighty Genius, indeed, thro’ the most mountainous oppression wouldhave breathed out some of his inextinguishable fire; yet, possibly, he might not have risenup into that giant, that much more than common man, at which we now gaze withamazement, and delight. Perhaps he was as learned as his dramatic province required; forwhatever other learning he wanted, he was master of two books, unknown to many of theprofoundly read, tho’ books, which, the last conflagration alone can destroy; the book ofNature, and that of Man. These he had by heart, and has transcribed many admirablepages of them, into his immortal works. These are the fountain-head, whence theCastalian streams of original composition flow; and these are often mudded by otherwaters, tho’ waters in their distinct chanel, most wholesome and pure: As two chymicalliquors, separately clear as crystal, grow foul by mixture, and offend the sight. So that hehad not only as much learning as his dramatic province required but, perhaps, as it couldsafely bear.

Dryden, destitute of Shakespeare’s Genius, had almost as much learning as Johnson, and,for the buskin, quite as little taste. (80–2)

484

149.Charles Churchill, Jonson’s judgement

1761

From Churchill’s poem The Rosciad (1761). This text from his Poems (1763).The poem describes the imaginary trial of various actors to determine who

should take the place of the famous Roman actor Roscius. Shakespeare and Jonsonare chosen as judges. (They award Garrick Roscius’ chair at the end of the poem.)The poem gained Churchill (1731–64) fame and success for its often savage satireson contemporary actors. As well as the references below to the performances ofWoodward as Bobadil and Garrick as Kitely in productions of Every Man in hisHumour, there is an admiring reference to William O’Brien’s performance asMaster Stephen in the play (ll. 415–16; p. 20).

Next JOHNSON sat, in antient learning train’d,His rigid Judgment Fancy’s flights restrain’d,Correctly prun’d each wild luxuriant thought,Mark’d out her course, nor spar’d a glorious fault.The book of man he read with nicest art,And ransack’d all the secrets of the heart;Exerted Penetration’s utmost force,And trac’d each passion to its proper source,Then, strongly mark’d, in liveliest colours drew,And brought each foible forth to public view.The Coxcomb felt a lash in ev’ry word,And fools hung out, their brother fools deterr’d.His comic humour kept the world in awe,And Laughter frightn’d Folly more than Law. (ll. 271–84; p. 14)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[The poet has criticized Woodward for his grimaces and gesticulations.]

But when bold Wits, not such as patch up plays,Cold and correct in these insipid days,Some comic character, strong-featur’d, urgeTo probability’s extremest verge,Where modest judgement her decree suspends,And for a time, nor censures, nor commends,

Where critics can’t determine on the spot,Whether it is in Nature found or not,There WOODWARD safely shall his pow’rs exert,Nor fail of favour where he shows desert.Hence he in Bobadil such praises bore,Such worthy praises, Kitely scarce had more. (ll. 383–94; p. 19)

486 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

150.Garrick as Abel Drugger

1762

Unsigned review of The Alchemist in The Universal Museum for January 1762.The review is dated 22 January, but it must refer to the performance at Drury

Lane on 23 January. Garrick had first played Abel Drugger on 21 March 1743.

To read this play without at the same time forming some idea of Mr. Garrick’sexcellency in acting the part of Abel Drugger, one would not suppose it possible that anything the least extraordinary could be made of it; and this is the strongest proof of theactor’s genius who performs the part so inimitably well. In this low part it is absolutelynecessary to exclude every idea but those which might have occurred to the tobacconist,which would take in no extensive concatination. Mr. Garrick (if I may use the expression)sinks into the character; and so wonderfully adapts every attitude and motion to it, thatwe are surprized at the close resemblance, or rather the very appearance of nature beforeour eyes. When the Doctor invents the hieroglyphic of his name, and he cries out in a mixtureof surprize and pleasure, ‘My name!’ we are at once convinced of his amazing powers ofacting. When we hear each articulate sound of his voice modulated to the sensations ofAbel Drugger himself, we cannot but allow that the deceit is perfect and amazing. Yet I mustown Mr. Garrick’s always repeating the action of breaking the bottle in the same manner,is rather an indolence in not having struck out something new in the many times he hathperformed the part, although the stroke originally was characteristic and humorous. But itwould be endless to enter into a particular criticism on his excellencies in a part in whichhe never was equalled, and in which his powerful invention is showed to an astonishingdegree. (46)

488

151.Horace Walpole on Jonson

1762–76

(a) From Walpole’s section on Inigo Jones in volume ii of his four-volume Anecdotesof Painting in England (Strawberry Hill 1762–71). The Anecdotes are based on thepapers of the antiquarian George Vertue.

[Walpole has described the various masques with which Jones was concerned.]

The harmony of these triumphs was a little interrupted by a war that broke outbetween the composers, Inigo and Ben; in which whoever was the aggressor, the turbulenttemper of Johnson took care to be most in the wrong. Nothing exceeds the grossness ofthe language that he poured out, except the badness of the verses that were the vehicle.There he fully exerted all that brutal abuse which his cotemporaries were willing to thinkwit, because they were afraid of it; and which only seems to show the arrogance of theman, who presumed to satirize Jones and rival Shakespeare. With the latter indeed he hadnot the smallest pretensions to be compared, except in having sometimes writ absolutenonsense. Johnson translated the ancients, Shakespeare transfused their very soul into hiswritings. (ii, 149–50)

(b) From an entry in a notebook dated 1771. Text from W.S. Lewis (ed.), Notes byHorace Walpole on Several Characters of Shakespeare (Farmington, Conn. 1940).

[Walpole admires the way the grave-digger scene in Hamlet hurries on thecatastrophe by rousing Hamlet’s indignation:]

In this just light the skull of his father’s jester roused the indignation of Hamlet and eggedhim on to the justice he mediatated on his uncle; and thus that rejected scene hastened onthe catastrophe of the tragedy, and more naturally than the most pompous exhortationwould have done from the mouth of Horatio. A spark falling on combustible matter maylight up a conflagration. A great master produces important events from a trifle naturallyintroduced. A piddling critic would waste his time in describing the torch with dignitythat set fire to the combustion. Compare Ben Johnson’s Catiline with Hamlet. Theformer is all pedantry and bombast. (13–14)

(c) From Walpole’s essay ‘Thoughts on Comedy’, first printed in his posthumous Works (1798).Mary Berry, the editor of that edition and Walpole’s literary executrix, heads the essay ‘Written in

1775 and 1776’, though some passages, as W.K. Wimsatt points out in his introduction to the essayin The Idea of Comedy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1969), p. 195, refer to works written as late as 1786.

Our old comedies are very valuable from their variety of characters, and for preservingcustoms and manners; but they are more defective in plans and conduct than excellent inparticular parts. Some are very pedantic, the greater part gross in language and humour,the latter of which is seldom true. Ben Jonson was more correct, but still more pedantic.Volpone is faulty in the moral, and too elevated in the dialogue: The Alchymist is his bestplay: The Silent Woman, formed on an improbable plan, is unnaturally loaded withlearning. Beaumont and Fletcher are easier than Jonson, but less happy in executing a planthan in conceiving it. (ii, 315)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Later in the essay Walpole returns briefly to Jonson.]

As the great outlines of the passions are softened down by urbanity, fashionable folliesusurp the place which belonged to criticism on characters; and when fashions are theobject of ridicule, comedies soon grow obsolete and cease to be useful. Alchymy was thepursuit in vogue in the age of Ben Jonson; but being a temporary folly, satire on it is nolonger a lesson. Fashions pushed to excess produce a like excess in the reproof; andcomedies degenerate into farce and buffoonery, when follies are exaggerated in therepresentation. The traits in The Miser that exhibit his extreme avarice are within theoperation of the passions: in The Alchymist an epidemic folly, grown obsolete, is food fora commentator, not for an audience.

In fact, exaggeration is the fault of the author. If he be master enough of his talent toseize the precise truth of either passion or affectation, he will please more, thoughperhaps not at the first representation. Falstaff is a fictitious character, and would havebeen so had it existed in real life: yet his humour and his wit are so just, that they neverhave failed to charm all who are capable of tasting him in his own tongue. (ii, 319–20)

490 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

152.Samuel Rogers, Shakespeare and Jonson

1763

‘An ars natura sit perfectior’ (‘Whether art or nature be more perfect’), printed inThe St. James’s Magazine (March 1763), ii.

In 1764 Rogers included this poem in his Poems on Several Occasions, and part of itwas printed in a review of the collection in The Critical Review (1764), xviii, 379–81.The title of the poem is from Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 408, and Hurd discussesShakespeare and Jonson in his commentary on the line in No. 133, above. Rogers,rector of Chellington, in Bedfordshire, also published an annotated Bible (1765).

Great Shakespeare, with genius disdaining all rules,Above the cold phlegm or the fripp’ry of schools,Appeal’d to the heart for success of his plays,And trusted to nature alone for the bays.Despairing of glory but what rose from art,Old Johnson applied to the head, not the heart.On the niceness of rules he founded his cause,And ravish’d from regular method applause.May we judge from the favours each poet has shar’d,Insipid is ART when with NATURE compar’d. (ii, 63)

492

153.David Erskine Baker on Jonson

1764

From The Companion to the Play-house (1764). The notes printed below are Baker’s,but the text is from Isaac Reed’s expanded and updated version of the Companion,Biographia Dramatica (1782).

The Companion is in two volumes, the first devoted to ‘A Critical and HistoricalACCOUNT of every Tragedy, Comedy, Farce, &c. in the English Language’ andthe second to biographies of writers for the theatre. The entries on Jonson’s playsmake extensive use of Langbaine, especially on Jonson’s sources. Reed in 1782added notes from Whalley and Hurd to Every Man in…and Every Man out of hisHumour and amplified Jonson’s biography and the list of his works.

Baker (1730–67), grandson of Daniel Defoe, joined a company of strollingactors after the beginnings of a scientific career inspired by his father, Henry Baker,FRS, and in 1763 published the plays The Maid of Ossian and The Maid the Mistress;the latter, a translation from the Italian, was performed in Edinburgh in the sameyear.

(a) On Bartholomew Fair.This play has an infinite deal of humour in it, and is, perhaps, the greatest assemblage

of characters that ever was brought together within the compass of one single piece. Someof the characters, and indeed the greatest part of the humour in them, may be looked onas extremely low; but the intention of the author, in rendering them so, was to satirizethe taste of the times he lived in (not greatly different from that of our own age), bypointing out, how exalted a degree of applause might be obtained by this light and lowmanner of writing, at the same time that his Catiline, a long-laboured and learned piece,although tolerably received, had not obtained that applause, which he, and every otherjudicious critic, was and must be convinced its merit had a title to. (ii, 27–8)

(b) On Catiline.

This play has great merit, but is too declamatory for the present taste. (ii, 46)

(c) On Every Man in his Humour.

This comedy is, perhaps, in point of the redundance of characters and power oflanguage, not inferior to any of our author’s works. From the character of Kitely, it ispretty evident that Dr. Hoadly took the idea of his Strictland, in the Suspicious Husband, inwhich, however, he has fallen far short of the original. This play had lain dormant and

unemployed for many years, from its revival after the Restoration, till Mr. Garrick, in theyear 1749, brought it once more on the stage, with some few alterations, and anadditional scene of his own; ever since which time it has continued to be a stock play, andto be performed very frequently every season. Yet I much doubt, if in any future periodthis piece will ever appear to the advantage it did at that time; since, exclusive of Mr.Garrick’s own abilities in Kitely, and those of Messieurs Woodward and Shuter, in therespective parts of Capt. Bobadil and Master Stephen, there was scarcely any one character,throughout the whole, that could be conceived by an audience in the strong light that theywere represented by each several performer: such is the prodigious advantage, withrespect to an audience, of the conduct of a theatre lodged in the hands of a man, who,being himself a perfect master in the profession, is able to distinguish the peculiar abilitiesof each individual under him, and to adapt them to those characters in which they are,either by nature or acquirement, the best qualified to make a figure. (ii, 108)

(d) On The New Inn.

Nothing, perhaps, can give a stronger idea of the self-opinion, haughtiness, andinsolence of this writer, whose merit, great as it was, must be greatly eclipsed by those illqualities, than his behaviour with regard to this play, which not succeeding according tothe exalted idea he had himself formed of its worth, he published it with the followingtitle-page, which I shall here transcribe at large: The New Inn; or, The Light Heart. AComedy, never acted, but most negligently played by some of the King’s Servants, and moresqueamishly beheld and censured by others the King’s Subjects, 1629. Now at last set at Liberty tothe Readers, his Majesty’s Servants and Subjects, to be judged. Nay, not satisfied with thisgeneral glance at their judgements in the title, he has annexed to the play an ode, in whichhe openly and insolently arraigns the public for want of taste, and threatens to quit thestage. Such was the resentment shewn by this opinionated genius on one single slightshewn to him by an audience from whom he had before received repeated favours. Thisode, however, drew upon him an answer from Mr. Feltham, which could not fail ofseverely wounding a mind so susceptible of feeling, and so avaricious of praise, asJonson’s. Nor do I hint this by way of casting any reflection on the memory of this trulygreat genius, whose merits in some respects are, and ever will remain, unequalled; but onlyas a hint, how greatly even the most exalted merit may degrade itself by too apparent aself-consciousness, and how vastly more amiable must have been the private characters ofthe modest Shakespeare and humble Spenser, who constantly mention themselves withthe utmost humility, and others with the highest respect, than that of the overbearingJonson; who, tender as he thus was as to any attacks made on himself, was neverthelessperpetually carping and cavilling at the works of others, the due commendations given towhich his envious disposition would not permit him to hear with patience, nor acquiesceto with unreserve or candour. But such is the frailty of human nature, and such the errorswhich persons of great abilities are perhaps more epidemically liable to than others whoseconsciousness of defect abates and antidotes the pride of nature. (ii, 252–3)

(e) On Volpone.

This comedy is joined by the critics with the Alchymist and Silent Woman, as the Chefd’Oeuvres of this celebrated poet; and, indeed, it is scarcely possible to conceive a piecemore highly finished, both in point of language and character, than this comedy. The plotis perfectly original, and the circumstance of Volpone’s taking advantage of the

494 BEN JONSON

viciousness and depravity of the human mind in others, yet being himself made a dupe tothe subtilty of his creature Mosca, is admirably conceived, and as inimitably executed.Yet, with all these perfections, this piece does and ever will share the same fate with theother dramatic works of its author, viz. that whatever delight and rapture they may give tothe true critic in his closet, from the correctness exerted and the erudition displayed inthem; yet, there still runs through them all an unempassioned coldness in the language, alaboured stiffness in the conduct, and a deficiency of incident and interest in thecatastrophe, that robs the auditor in the representation of those pleasing, thoseunaccountable sensations he constantly receives from the flashes of nature, passion, andimagination, with which he is frequently struck, not only in the writings of the unequalledShakspeare, but even in those of authors, whose fame, either for genius or accuracy, is byno means to be ranked with that of the bard under our present consideration. To write tothe judgement, is one thing, to the feelings of the heart, another; and it will consequentlybe found, that the comedies of Cibber, Vanbrugh, and Congreve, will, on the Deciesrepetitæ,1 afford an increase of pleasure to the very same audiences, who would pass overeven a second representation of any one of Jonson’s most celebrated pieces with coldnessand indifference. (ii, 396)

NOTE

1 ‘Tenth repetition’: cp. Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 365.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 495

496

154.Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg on Jonson

1765

From the notes to a translation of Whalley’s introduction to his Jonson edition,included in von Gerstenberg’s German translation of Beaumont and Fletcher’s TheMaid’s Tragedy, Die Braut (Copenhagen and Leipzig 1765).

Von Gerstenberg (1737–1823) was an early German Shakespeare enthusiast: seeKarl Schneider, ‘Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg als Verkünder Shakespeare’s’,Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft (1922), lviii, 38–45. For Whalley’sintroduction, see No. 144(a), above.

(a) On Whalley’s criticism of Jonson for allowing the reference to poisoning to remain inthe revised Every Man in his Humour.

Perhaps this criticism might seem all too strange to many a reader, especially since inthose wild times poisoning was also not unusual in England. Since, however, the author isdealing with a correct poet, who saw his best prospects in an intensely artistic imitation ofmanners and therefore must have known that here as well it was not enough to follow thetruth but to follow the highest probability, I believe that Jonson himself would have concededhim the right here. (241)

(b) On Hurd’s criticism that Jonson failed to see the difference between historicaland dramatic discourses, and so thought his translations from the sources in Catilinewould work as well in his play as they had done in the original.

If this is true, as our author conceded to Mr. Hurt [sic], then Jonson is the vilest of allcritics, which would be an obvious inconsistency. One needs only to read his Discoveries, tobe completely convinced, that no-one could have a better grasp of the Aristotelian andHoratian principles of drama, especially in respect of the scale, unity and arrangement ofthe plot, than Jonson. Thus he distinguishes the historical plan from the dramatic as well asMr. Hurt or Mr. Whalley: but when it came to the implementation, he let himself becaptivated by his favourite idea, namely to surpass the ancients in their very excellences, andfurnished a mass of passages from Salust and Cicero, not because he had an inclination totranslation, or because he lacked the capacity to be original himself, but because he soughtthe honour of showing his fellow Englishmen how one could tailor these wonderfulpassages yet more wonderfully to the drama: a remarkable contest between genius,prejudice and rules, which I have not been able to pass over in silence, for all that it may beanything but rare. (249–50)

498

155.John Brown, Bartholomew Fair revised

1765

Letters by Brown to Garrick; text from The Private Correspondence of David Garrick,ed. James Boaden (1831–2), 2 vols.

Dr John Brown (1715–66) wrote two tragedies, both staged by Garrick(Barbarossa, 1754, and Athelstan, 1756); Garrick also used him as a reader of newplays. In 1765 they corresponded about Brown’s revised Bartholomew Fair, whichwas not staged and which does not survive. The first two letters are dated byBoaden 1762, but, as Noyes points out, all three seem to have been written closetogether and the third is dated 1765 by a reference to Dr Johnson’s ‘Preface’ to hisShakespeare edition (Ben Jonson on the English Stage 1660– 1776, p. 243n).

(a) To Garrick, 10 AugustAs to the comedy, my good friend, I must brush up your memory a little. It was your

own proposal (in your garden at Hampton,) that I should try my hand at it. Its comicmerit, in point of character, is universally allowed to be of the first degree. In point ofplan, it goes well upon the whole, till the third or fourth act, and then falls into nonsenseand absurdity. This, I really think, I have removed; retaining, at the same time, every theleast scrap of what is thinly scattered through the bad parts of it, such as might be worthpreserving. This is all I pretend to: and as to the excellence of the other parts, it isgenerally allowed to be supreme. The Pig-woman certainly cannot be removed withoutspoiling the whole; for on her depend all the fine comic scenes between Busy, John Littlewit,and Justice Overdo; as well as some of Coke’s and Wasp. In short, she is the greatconnecting circumstance that binds the whole together. If the scene of her scolding be thoughtrather too coarse, it may easily be softened. But as to all these matters, I can only give myreasons: you are to judge of them. (i, 146)

(b) To Garrick, 17 August ?1765.

[Brown complains that Garrick has not told him of some MP to whom he mightinclose things to send to Garrick.]

For want of this I have been forced to send to Mr. Gray, of Colchester, two packets whichcontain a new edition of ‘Bartholomew Fair.’ I pique myself more on rectifying this plan,than on any plan I ever struck out in my life. It is amazing to think how any writer could

do so well, and so ill, at the same time, as Ben Jonson did in this comedy. However, so faras I am a judge, there are admirable materials left, enough to make out a first-rate comedyafter the trash is thrown out. But I will not anticipate. As to the little connecting sceneswhich I have added, I have made them as short as possible, because I know that my comiccomposition is nothing. As soon as you have well considered it, let me have your thoughts.I can furnish you with some songs that will be proper for the purpose: that which isinserted is the finest that ever Purcel composed; and if Miss Wright1 can act it as well asshe can sing it (for both will be necessary), that very song will draw an audience. You willsee that I have struck out four of the dramatis personæ.

[Brown then refers to Garrick’s involvement in politics, and to his own, which hasapparently led to some anger towards him. He concludes:]

But I am like honest Justice Overdo, when he was set in the stocks, and defy DameFortune to hurt my mind, come what will. (i, 147–8)

(c) To Garrick, 27 October 1765.

As to ‘Bartholomew Fair,’ my sentiment, in a word, is this: the comedy was, in itsessentials, excellent, and that it wanted nothing but a plan. This I have attempted to give it;and I wait for your decision in this point… (i, 205)

NOTE

1 An actress and singer; she married the composer Michael Arne in 1766.

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156.Edward Capell, Jonson’s borrowings

1766

From Reflections on Originality in Authors: Being Remarks on A Letter to Mr Mason on theMarks of Imitation…With a Word or Two on The Characters of Ben Johnson and Pope(1766).

Capell’s pamphlet replies to Hurd’s, which had, among other things,commended Jonson on his imitations (see No. 145, above). He corrects Hurd onthe chronology of Shakespeare’s works and Jonson’s masques (Shakespeare cannothave borrowed from the latter), but he advocates caution in detecting imitationwhere there is only resemblance, and does not regard Jonson as a copier fromShakespeare (pp. 37–8). Capell (1713–81) published an edition of Mr. WilliamShakespeare his Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, in 1768; three volumes of notes tothe plays, Notes and Various Readings to Shakespeare, were printed in 1779–80 andpublished in 1783. The masques bulk large in Capell’s references to Jonson: heseems to have regarded them as debased products of courtly fashion, andresponsible for Jonson’s literary authority in the latter part of his career (see the1768 Shakespeare edition, i, 14; and his note on The Tempest, in Notes and VariousReadings, ii, 68).

For where versifiers are notoriously defective as to their creative powers, where they arethemselves fond of proclaiming their own borrowings, there any party of theirs, whichhas a real Affinity to any thing to be met with in a preceding Work, is justly liable to thesuspicion of being thence derived, consequently of being unoriginal. We have two Poets ofthis Stamp, who have been very open in their borrowings and Imitations. These are BenJohnson and Pope: whom we may look upon as plunderers of Parnassus:

Thieves of Renown, and pilferers of Fame.1

If we regard them in this view, though they seem to have been pretty much alike in thesurliness of their tempers, and to have valued themselves both upon their learning andscholarship, yet there will however appear some difference between them. Johnson’swritings are one continued series of Imitation and allusion: where he not only literallytranslates the antients, many passages from whom are transfused into his performances,and chime in as regular and as if they were the product of his own invention; but he gleansas freely, and without reserve, from the moderns when they make for his purpose. Thusfor instance in his Epithalamion, it is plain he has derived the manner and part of thematter also from Catullus and Spenser, from the latter of whom he has inserted a distickalmost totidem verbis2 without having given the least hint of it. Again he is particularly

careful—verbum verbo reddere fidus interpres,3 when he pilfers from the antients; wehave abundant proof of this in the lines which follow,

——————They say you tax’dThe law, and lawyers; captaines; and the playersBy their particular names. Aut. it is not so.I us’d no name. My bookes have still been taughtTo spare the persons, and to speak the vices. [Poet., Epilogue, ll. 81–5]

What an exact translation is the two last lines of these in Martial!Hunc novere modum nostri servare libelli

Parcere personis dicere de vitijs.4

In a word, such a one was Johnson, that he seems to have made it his study to cull outothers sentiments, and to place them in his works as from his own mint. This surely is anodd species of improvement from reading, and savours very little of Invention or Genius:It borders nearly upon, if it is not really plagiarism. For according to Thomasius—Quifatetur per quem profecerit, reddit mutuum, qui non fatetur fur est.5 The only differencebetween the borrower and actual plagiary is but this—the one acknowledges, the otherconceals his obligations. In this respect Johnson’s character and Pope’s seem to tally: butJohnson’s is different from his in another respect, and that is in his every where aboundingwith allusions, which is a genteeler species of borrowing. One or two will serve as specimen.In the Alchemist, Act 1. Sc. 2. Face is persuading Dapper, at all events, to see the Queen ofFaerie:

It will be somewhat hard to compasse: butHowever see her. You are made, believe it,If you can see her. Her Grace is a lone womanAnd very rich, and if she take a phantsyeShe will do strange things. See her at any hand.’Slid she may chance to leave you all she has! [1.2.153–8]

He alludes here to a vulgar notion prevalent in his own time, but forgotten now. I haveheard it often, says Sir John Harington,6 among the simpler sort, that he that can please theQueene of Faeries shall never want while he lives. In the next Scene Face says to Drugger—no gold about thee?

Dru. Yes I have a Portague, I ha’ kept this half yeere. [1.3.87]Holinshead in his Description of Britaine, mentions the Portague as a Piece very

solemnly kept of dyvers.7 This Custom we are sure from hence continued in his time. Buta reader of Johnson is continually teized with these. Drugger in this same Scene is said to be—a neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no Goldsmith. A quaint distinction, and no Goldsmith!—It means possibly that he had not the Chrysosperme, i.e. that he had not the Philosopher’sstone. It is however by no means obvious that this is the real meaning of this part of hischaracter; and therefore it must remain hardly intelligible to the generality of his readers.Thus much for Johnson, considered as a Maker, and who as such has very poor pretensionsto the high place he holds among the English Bards, as there is no original manner todistinguish him, and the tedious sameness visible in his plots indicates a defect of Genius.(63–6)

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NOTES

1 Edward Young, Love of Fame, The Universal Passion, iii, l. 88: The Complete Works in Poetry andProse, ed. James Nichols (1854), i, 364.

2 ‘In just as many words’.3 ‘To render word for word as a slavish translator’: Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 133.4 ‘This measure my books learn to keep, to spare the person, to denounce the vice’: Martial

10.33.9–10.5 ‘The man who confesses from whom he has borrowed repays the debt, the man who does

not confess is a thief.’ Capell gives the reference, ‘De Plagio Literario, S. 66’.6 In the notes to his translation of Ariosto, Orlando Furioso in English Heroical Verse (1591), p.

373.7 The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Ireland (1577), Part i, fol. 117v.

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504

157.Jonson strong without passion

1767

From The Rational Rosciad (1767), a poem about the stage, dramatic writers, andactors, by ‘F—B—L—’.

The poet asks the Muses for ‘Churchill’s strength, without his spite’ (p. 3) andclearly hopes to emulate the success of The Rosciad (see No. 149, above). Theresults are generally lame, though this measured praise of Jonson goes a littlebeyond the conventional. There is an unflattering reference to Smith as Kitely onp. 28.

JOHNSON to future times his fame may trust,Who is tho’ seldom striking, always just.Tho’ cool, correct, tho’ modest, yet severe.Strong without passion, without dulness clear;Humorous with elegance, jocose with ease,Sublime to charm, satirical to please;SHAKESPEAR’s strong genius ever unconfin’d,Darts on the soul, and captivates the mind;While JOHNSON, by more regular essays,Attacks the dangerous avenues of praise. (5–6)

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158.James Beattie, Jonson’s misuse of learning

1769

From ‘Remarks on the Utility of Classical Learning’, which Beattie says was writtenin 1769; first printed in his Essays (Edinburgh 1776).

Beattie (1735–1803) was for many years Professor of Moral Philosophy andLogic at Marischal College, Aberdeen; his Essay on Truth (1770), attacking Humeand the sceptics, gained him a considerable contemporary reputation. Thediscussion of Catiline below is obviously inspired by Hurd’s in his commentary onHorace (see No. 133, above). Beattie goes on after the passage printed here toconcede that the instance of Shakespeare ‘may have induced some persons to thinkunfavourably of the influence of learning upon genius’, but argues that such aconclusion should not be reached on the basis of one instance, especially when theinstance ‘is allowed to be extraordinary, and almost supernatural’ (p. 529).

No person who understands Greek and Latin will ever admit, that these languages can bean incumbrance to the mind. And perhaps it would be difficult to prove, even by a singleinstance, that genius was ever hurt by learning. Ben Johnson’s misfortune was, not that heknew too much, but that he could not make a proper use of his knowledge; a misfortune,which arose rather from a defect of genius or taste, than from a superabundance oferudition. With the same genius, and less learning, he would probably have made a worsefigure. —His play of Catiline is an ill-digested collection of facts and passages fromSallust. Was it his knowledge of Greek and Latin that prevented his making a betterchoice? To comprehend every thing the historian has recorded of that incendiary, it is notrequisite that one should be a great scholar. By looking into Rose’s translation, any man whounderstands English may make himself master of the whole narrative in half a day. It wasJohnson’s want of taste, that made him transfer from the history to the play some passagesand facts that suit not the genius of dramatic writing: it was want of taste, that made himdispose his materials according to the historical arrangement; which, however favourableto calm information, is not calculated for working those effects on the passions and fancy,which it is the aim of tragedy to produce. It was the same want of taste, that made him,out of a rigid attachment to historical truth, lengthen his piece with supernumerary eventsinconsistent with the unity of design, and not subservient to the catastrophe; and it wasdoubtless owing to want of invention, that he confined himself so strictly to the letter ofthe story. Had he recollected the advice of Horace, (of which he could not be ignorant, ashe translated the whole poem into English verse), he must have avoided some of thesefaults:

[Quotes Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 131–5, referring the reader in a note to ‘Dr. Hurd’selegant commentary and notes’.]

A little more learning, therefore, or rather a more seasonable application of what he had,would have been of great use to the author on this occasion. (526–8)

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159.Elizabeth Montague, Jonson and Shakespeare

1769, 1770

Mrs Elizabeth Montague (1720–1800) was a leading literary hostess.

(a) From An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear (1769), an answer to Voltaire’sattack on Shakespeare.

Shakespear, in the dark shades of Gothic barbarism, had no resources but in the veryphantoms that walked the night of ignorance and superstition: or in touching the latentpassions of civil rage and discord; sure to please best his fierce and barbarous audience,when he raised the bloody ghost, or reared the warlike standard. His choice of thesesubjects was judicious, if we consider the times in which he lived; his management of themso masterly, that he will be admired in all times.

In the same age, Ben. Johnson, more proud of his learning than confident of his genius,was desirous to give a metaphysical air to his compositions. He composed many pieces ofthe allegorical kind, established on the Grecian mythology, and rendered his play-house aperfect pantheon. —Shakespear disdained these quaint devices; an admirable judge ofhuman nature, with a capacity most extensive, and an invention most happy, he contentedhimself with giving dramatic manners to history, sublimity and its appropriated powersand charms to fiction; and in both these arts he is unequalled. —The Catiline and Sejanusof Johnson are cold, crude, heavy pieces; turgid where they should be great; bombastwhere they should be sublime; the sentiments extravagant; the manners exaggerated; andthe whole undramatically conducted by long senatorial speeches, and flat plagiarisms fromTacitus and Sallust. Such of this author’s pieces as he boasts to be grounded on antiquity andsolid learning, and to lay hold on removed mysteries [Hym., ll. 16, 18–19], have neither themajesty of Shakespear’s serious fables, nor the pleasing sportfulness and poeticalimagination of his fairy tales. (150–2)

(b) From a letter to Garrick, dated 31 May 1770. Text from The PrivateCorrespondence of David Garrick, ed. James Boaden (1831–2), 2 vols.

Boaden added a note to this letter lamenting that Mrs Montague had notacknowledged that Kitely was ‘finely written’ by Jonson as well as finely acted byGarrick, and that ‘as far as comparison will lie between comedy and tragedy, thescene of Kitely and Cash is upon a par with that of King John and Hubert’ (p. 386).

Mrs Montagu is a little jealous for poor Shakspeare; for if Mr. Garrick often acts Kitely,Ben Jonson, will eclipse his fame. All the labours of the critics can do nothing by the deadletter of criticism against the living force of Mr. Garrick’s representation. King Lear in hismadness, or Macbeth led by air-drawn daggers, cannot kill what Mr Garrick has renderedimmortal. Kitely will never sink into oblivion. Fie upon Mr. Garrick! he alone could raisea rival to Shakespeare.

The epilogue was incomparable, and Mrs. M.tasted it with unmixed delight. She hasheard from Lord and Lady Chatham lately, and they are still regretting that they weredeprived of the great pleasure they had promised themselves from their incomparableKitely. (i, 385–6)

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160.Francis Gentleman, Jonson a bad writer

1770

From The Dramatic Censor (1770), 2 vols. In spite of his strictures here, Gentleman adapted Sejanus (see No. 137, above),

used The Alchemist as the basis for his farce The Tobacconist (see No. 162, below) andfor The Pantheonites (1773), and drew on Epicoene for his farce The Coxcombs (1771).

BEN JONSON, though ranked so high in literary fame, does not appear to us deserving ofso honourable a station. His tragedies are the most stiff, uncouth, laborious, unaffecting,productions we know, spun out to an intolerable length, by tedious, unessential,declamatory passages, translated from the classics; three of his comedies have justlyreceived the stamp of general approbation; VOLPONE, SILENT WOMAN, and EVERYMAN in his HUMOUR; yet even in these nature seems rather carricatur’d, and there aremany blamable intrusions upon delicacy of idea and expression, the remainder of his worksmight have dubbed any man, less lucky, with the title of a bad writer, and we areperfectly of opinion that naming him with his great cotemporary is pairing authors aspoulterers do rabbits, a fat and a lean one. (ii, 461)

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161.Charles Jenner, Sir Charles Beville at The Alchemist

1770

From the novel The Placid Man: Or, Memoirs of Sir Charles Beville (1770), 2 vols. Textfrom the second edition (1773), in which Jenner’s name appeared for the firsttime.

Jenner (1736–74) was a clergyman; he published some volumes of poems,including Town Eclogues (1772) in which a country vicar come up to town despairs ofthe taste for pageants and ‘flimsy farces’ on stage and longs to return tocommonsense judgements and to ‘Shakespear and old Ben’ (pp. 3–4)

Beville is the rival of the immensely wealthy and entirely mercenary Sir IsaacRupee for the hand of Miss Clayton, whose mother Lady Clayton favours Sir Isaac’ssuit.

Whilst he was entertaining Miss Clayton with an account of the particular manner inwhich he had become acquainted with old Mr. Barker, Sir Isaac found something or otherto say to Lady Clayton, so giving a nod with his head at Sir Charles, as much as to say, ‘Itwill be my turn when we get into Suffolk,’ he very contentedly seated himself behind her,and they settled who was who, till the curtain drew up.

The play was The Alchemist. ‘It is a stupid play,’ said Lady Clayton as the curtain drewup; ‘it is so old-fashioned,’ and ‘damned low,’ said Sir Isaac. In the third scene, however,they both laughed immoderately at Abel Drugger. ‘Excellent!’ said Sir Isaac. ‘Inimitable!’said Lady Clayton. ‘There’s some humour in this character,’ said Sir Isaac. ‘Pray, Sir,’ saidSir Charles, ‘don’t you think the humour lies a good deal in seeing Mr. Garrick in that oldwaistcoat and wig, and that green apron?’

‘Why, Sir,’ said Sir Isaac, ‘if it had not been a top character, Mr. Garrick would nothave chosen it.’ ‘Now I think,’ said Miss Clayton, ‘that he rather chose it, on purpose toshew that he could delight one with any thing; and if he had taken Dapper or Ananias, weshould have been as well pleased with them.’

Sir Charles smiled. Sir Isaac did not dare to contradict her; Lady Clayton did not thinkit worth while; and so the argument dropped.

In the second act Sir Charles laughed heartily at some strokes in the character of SirEpicure Mammon: possibly Sir Isaac thought he was drawing some parallel. ‘You seem, Sir,’said he, ‘to be much taken with this part; I cannot see where the great humour lies in cheatinga gentleman in so barefaced a manner.’ ‘My dear Sir,’ replied Sir Charles, ‘in these caseswe must feel, not reason; humour is a thing of so delicate a nature, that if it is not felt, it

is impossible to point it out.’ Sir Isaac was answered; an argument above thecomprehension of your antagonist, is just as good as a convincing one.

‘You see, Sir,’ said Sir Charles, when they came to the scene where Mammon takes somuch pains to convince Surly, ‘that all the humour does not lie in their cheating him, butin the great pains which he takes to cheat himself: and if we look attentively into humannature, we shall find that humour is not yet out of date.’ Sir Isaac took a pinch of snuff.

‘Pray, Sir Charles,’ said Miss Clayton, after the act was over, ‘don’t you think the poethas crowded into his play, with some degree of affectation, rather more of the sciencewhich he meant to ridicule than was necessary?’ ‘Excellently well said, upon my soul,’cried Sir Isaac, and laughed very loud; ‘what say you to that, Sir Charles?’ ‘Why,Madam,’ replied Sir Charles, ‘in this respect Lady Clayton’s observation upon this play isvery just, it is old-fashioned; that is to say, the science upon which the ridicule is turned,and which, at that time of day, had turned the heads of half the studious men in thenation, is now entirely exploded; and so the pains which the poet takes to expose theprinciples of the science lose great part of their effect to us, because they appear needless.But perhaps, as you very accurately observe, there may be a degree of affectation in it;Ben Johnson was a good scholar, and a man of great reading, it was not therefore to bewondered at, in an age when such people were scarce, that he was willing to seize everyopportunity of shewing his knowledge, sometimes even at the expence of his judgment. Itmust be entirely owing to this, that in the second scene of this act he has made Sir EpicureMammon, in expressing his intended luxury, have recourse to all the things in use amongstthe luxurious part of the Romans; as I dare say a Lord-mayor’s feast, even in his time,would have furnished him with dishes which would have conveyed much higher ideas ofluxury and epicurism to his audience, than the paps of a fat pregnant sow dressed with apoignant sauce, or the tongues of dormice and camels heels; but then he would have lostthe opportunity of letting you know what was Apicius’s diet against the epilepsy.’ ‘Whowas Apicius?’ said Sir Isaac. ‘Vy,’ said Lady Clayton, who was roused by the mention of aLord-mayor’s feast, ‘he is one of the people in that book that Sir Harry is so fond of,because it was written by a lord, Dialogues of the Dead;1 he, and another man with a hardname, talk all about eating.’ ‘Very true, Madam,’ said Sir Charles. Miss Clayton blushed,and inquiring who a lady was in the opposite stage-box, put an end to the criticism. ‘Whatare these; taylors?’ said Lady Clayton, when the third act opened with Tribulation andAnanias. ‘Quakers,’ said Sir Isaac. —When they came to the next scene, where Subtle isenumerating the art and absurdities of the Puritans, ‘You see,’ said Sir Charles, ‘that Mr.Foote was not the first person who made use of the stage to ridicule the vice or absurdityof a religious sect; for his Minor cannot expose the hypocrisy and enthusiasm of theMethodists more, than this play and the Bartholomew Fair of the same author do those ofthe Puritans.’ ‘I think it is a shame though,’ said Sir Isaac; ‘such things ought to be talkedof no where but at church.’ ‘Pray, Sir,’ said Sir Charles, ‘do not you think that the stageas well as the pulpit may be made to support the cause of virtue? If so, why is not one vicethe object of its censure as well as another? For my own part, I acknowledge I cannot seewhy hypocrisy and enthusiasm are to be spared a bit more than drunkenness or lying.’ SirIsaac took a pinch of snuff. The fourth act passed without much notice till they came tothe last scene; which Sir Charles observed was the most exquisite piece of satire that everwas written. ‘Why it is nothing,’ said lady Clayton, ‘but a parcel of people quarrelling.’‘Very true, Madam,’ replied he, ‘and you see they are all turned upon one poor man; andtherein lies the depth of the satire. All the people, who are cheated by Subtle and Face, arejoined together against Surly, who would open their eyes; the common fate of those who

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will give advice, and be wiser than their neighbours. You see Madam, though he only tellsthem how egregiously they are imposed upon, and begs leave only to be their best friend,and set them right, the villains have the address to give every man a separate cause toquarrel with him, till they drive him out of doors.’

‘There is nothing easier,’ said Miss Clayton, ‘than for artful people to impose uponsimple ones, except it is to persuade them to impose upon themselves.’

The denouement in the fifth act afforded them some diversion, though Miss Claytonobserved, and Sir Charles could not but acknowledge, that the poet had been deficient inpoint of poetical justice in the conclusion, for Face, the chief contriver of all the villainy, ispardoned, and taken into favour by his master, who, by the bye, is taken in to make one inthe plot, as a reward for his helping him, by means of a trick, to a foolish wife, whilst allthe injured parties are left without redress. But Ben Johnson was not so excellent in themanagement of his plots, as of his incidents and dialogue. —Miss Clayton thanked SirCharles for having made her enter more into the spirit of the play than ever she had donebefore. Lady Clayton said, that it was called a very fine play; but it was too old for her:and Sir Isaac persisted in his opinion, that it was damned low. —Sir Charles asked LadyClayton, how long Sir Harry staid in town; and said he would do himself the honour ofwaiting on him; to which she replied with rather more glee than delicacy, ‘Aye, but ve goto-morrow morning.’ Sir Charles bowed, sighed, said he was very sorry, in which hecertainly spoke truth, and having handed Miss Clayton to her coach, took a melancholyleave, went home in low spirits, supped alone, and retired to rest with that kind ofsensation which has a mixture of pleasure and pain. (ii, 38–45)

NOTE

1 By George, Lord Lyttleton; first published in 1760.

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516

162.Francis Gentleman’s The Tobacconist

1770–1

This farce, a ‘Comedy of Two Acts Altered from Ben Johnson’, was firstpublished, and possibly first performed, in Edinburgh in 1760. It consists ofexchanges between Drugger, Subtle, Face, and Sir Epicure Mammon, partlymodernized from the original and partly topical, with the addition of the up-to-dategulls Headlong and Miss Rantipole. It was first performed in London at theHaymarket Theatre on 15 October 1770, and frequently thereafter. There was aferocious attack on the farce in The London Evening Post for 13–16 October 1770,concentrating on the ‘obsolete humour and low buffoonery’ Gentleman hadintroduced.

(a) Prologue, ‘Written and spoken by Mr. GENTLEMAN’; text from The LondonChronicle, 16–18 July 1771 (it appears with an extract from the first scene). BENJOHNSON’S name, in ev’ry ear of taste,Must with respect and countenance be grac’d;No pen the lines of Nature better drew,No wit or satire ever higher flew;An early pillar of the English stage,His pieces were true pictures of the age;Time-worn they feel impair—yet still must please,Nervous and just, though void of modern ease.Fashions, in characters as well as cloaths,Change, tho’ less oft, as wav’ring fancy flows;Witches and fairies with their midnight train,No longer revel on the blasted plain;Now ev’ry simpleton of Britain’s isle,At such a fraud as Alchymy would smile;Yet being only chang’d in name and shapes,Scare one in ten the gilded bait escapes.Haste to the Hall, where law is sold like ware,How many long rob’d Alchymists ply there;What hopes to gudgeon clients they unfold,While empty quibbles turn to solid gold;See swarming quacks! —so public folly wills,Convert to gold their health destroying pills.

Change Alley view—that scene of transmutation,That base alchemic bubble of the nation;See beauty’s self resign its brightest charmsAnd turn to gold in age’s frozen arms.Search all the world, examine ev’ry part;You’ll find each man an Alchymist at heart:In ev’ry clime we find, if truth be told,The universal Deity is gold.Whate’er of merit you perceive this night,Grant your old Bard as his undoubted right;My brain has laboured—feebly I confess,Only to furnish a more modern dress.My weak endeavours let your candor raise,They hope indulgence, though they reach notpraise. (61)

(b) Notice in The London Chronicle, 13–16 July 1771.

THEATRICAL INTELLIGENCE.

The Tobacconist (acted with great applause at Mr. Foote’s Theatre last night) is foundedon the plot of Ben Johnson’s Alchymist, several of the characters being retained, which, withthe addition of two new ones, form the Dramatis Personæ of the piece. —Mr.Gentleman, who altered this comedy, seems principally to have designed to preserve thesatire and ridicule of the Alchymist, but to lop off the superfluous characters, and to let itappear without its unintelligible, pedantic language, and that quaintness of expressionwhich peculiarly distinguishes the work of Ben Johnson. —He has succeeded tolerably well;the modern dress and familiarized diction make the piece infinitely more palatable to thepresent frequenters of the Theatre, —those who admire Mr. Weston are much indebtedto Mr. Gentleman, for affording him an opportunity of still farther exerting his abilities.Abel Drugger is certainly one of the best parts Mr. Weston plays, and the applause soliberally bestowed on him last night, justifies this assertion. The two new characters, areMiss Rantipole, a gay, giddy young Lady of fortune, supported with peculiar spirit byMrs. Didier, and Headlong, a bruising, boxing blade, judiciously played by Mr.Vandermere. The other parts were done justice to by the several performers, and thewhole met with repeated shouts of approbation. Considered merely as an after-piece, theTobacconist has every necessary merit for the Stage, and is extremely laughable andentertaining. (55)

(c) Review in The London Magazine, July 1771, in the section ‘The British Theatre’(extracts from the farce follow the quoted passage).

…we now turn to the Tobacconist, a farce of two acts, altered from Ben Johnson’sAlchymist by Mr. Gentleman, a very sensible, and we are told, a very worthy man, inMr. Foote’s company of Comedians. It has been long a fashion to celebrate Ben Johnsonas an admirable comic Writer, though if we examine his pieces with the smallest degreeof critical attention, we shall find their merit to consist wholly in the strength and varietyof his characters. His fables are most lamentably uninteresting; his incidents heavy and

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unnatural; and his catastrophes wretchedly uninstructive. The comedy of the Alchymist,derived its entire support on the stage from the character of Abel Drugger, which Mr.Garrick worked into a miracle of simplicity, and in which he instructed Mr. Weston witha success that answered his warmest expectations. To give Mr. Weston a more frequentopportunity of appearing in this part, Mr. Gentleman tells us, was the chief end heproposed to himself in the present alteration; and he also tells us, that he has retained butlittle of the original, besides the general idea of alchymy, and Abel Drugger; even to AbelDrugger he has made some additions, and introduced two new characters, Miss Rantipoleand Headlong, which appear happily enough sketched, and gave us so much satisfaction,that we have extracted Headlong’s whole character for the entertainment of our readers.(361–2)

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520

163.George Colman’s revival of Volpone

1771

The revival took place at Covent Garden on 26 November.

(a) Unsigned review in The Theatrical Review, November 1771.

The early parts of the review are indebted to the entry on Volpone in The Companionto the Play-house (No. 153, above).

BEN JONSON, as a Dramatic Writer, seems, by some, to have been unjustly placed inCompetition with the immortal Shakespear. The number of his Pieces is, indeed, veryconsiderable, and some of them deserve a very high rank in literary Fame; but hisComedies are infinitely superior to his Tragedies. Of the former his Alchymist; Every Man inhis Humour; Epicæne, or the Silent Woman; and Volpone, or the Fox, are the most capital,and, indeed, the only ones now in possession of the Stage. Of these Volpone has beengenerally considered as the principal, in point of Merit; and certain it is, that with respectto Character and Language, it is very highly finished. The Plot is perfectly original; in theConduct of which, the Author has discovered great Erudition and Correctness. Thecircumstance of Volpone’s taking advantage of the depravity of human Nature in others, yetsuffering himself to be duped and over-reached by the subtility of Mosca, (a Creature of hisown raising) is happily imagined, and executed in a very masterly manner. But, with allthese perfections, it seems better calculated to afford pleasure in the Closet, than on theStage, as there is an evident deficiency of incident, and interest in the Catastrophe, whichrenders it incapable of giving that satisfaction in the Representation, it undoubtedly mustafford on a perusal. It is only for real Genius to taste that redundance of inexpressiblebeauties, which appears through the whole, and which must render it, as Hamlet says, ‘Caviareto the Multitude’ —After all, though the Piece before us will not produce those pleasingsensations on the Stage, arising from the Flashes of Nature, Passion and Genius which thePlays of Shakespear never fail to bestow, the present lamentable dearth of good ComicWriters, will sufficiently justify the revival of it. And if instances of this Nature weremore frequent, they, probably, might give a check to the temporary rage of false taste,which has had its foundation in managerial Avarice, and which has betrayed the ignorantand injudicious into a foolish admiration of the absurd extravagance of Pantomimes, Jubilees,and ridiculous Raree-show Pageantries. But as these innovations cannot long stand thebrunt of critical indignation, it is to be hoped, the time is at hand, when reason and common

sense will again re-assume their empire, so unjustly usurped by the representatives of thedisordered Inhabitants of Bedlam.

[Discusses objections to the revivals of old plays, quoting George Colman’s CriticalReflections on the Old English Dramatic Writers (1671) on the ephemeral appeal ofsome recent dramatic characters and on the timeless interest of some of the olderones.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆The truth of the above remarks, is too evident to be disputed, and is sufficiently

verified in the instance of the Piece now before us; in which, most of the Characters areperfect originals, all set forth in the strongest colours, and apparent likenesses of many wellknown existents in real life.

As this Comedy is now represented, most of the obsolete Passages, and manyblameable intrusions upon delicacy of idea, and expression in the original, are sensiblyomitted, the latter being unsuitable to the professed chastity of the present age; and someScenes are transposed, and others omitted as superfluous, by which judicious alteration,the appearance of new Characters, and the quicker succession of incidents, contributesmore agreeably to heighten and promote the progress of the main design—The Scene islaid at Venice; and it was first played in the year 1605, the principal Characters beingperformed by those old celebrated Players, Burbadge, Hemings and Condel.

[Discusses the three performers’ links with Shakespeare.]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆With respect to the Representation of this Play, the principal Characters, viz. Volpone,

Mosca, Voltore, Corvino, Corbachio, and Bonario, are well performed by Messrs. Smith,Bensley, Hull, Clarke, Shuter, and Wroughton, so well, that they appear to fill the Author’sIdeas very pleasingly and very justly, except, that Mr. Hull, who is generally natural andcorrect in his playing, rather over-acts his Part in the capacity of the Advocate, in theScenes before the Avocatori, in the Senate. With respect to Mr. Shuter, in the Character ofCorbachio, we are glad to remark, that his Performance throughout, is chaste andattentively correct, without the least taint of that over-strained luxuriancy of humour, hetoo frequently displays, and which almost perpetually runs into buffoonery. His strokes ofBye play, of endeavouring to hasten the death of Volpone, (whom he supposes to be sick,and near his end, on the Couch) by pressing his stomach with his cane, while Mosca isengaged with Voltore, are well imagined, when we consider, that in this Character, Natureis rather caricatured, which is the general, tho’ only fault of this Author, in his ComicWritings. In this particular, without naming many others, Jonson is greatly inferior toShakespear, the latter having excelled all the ancients and moderns, in the knowledge ofhuman Nature, and, therefore, it is, that all his Characters are naturally drawn, as isconspicuous by the delicate propriety of his Sentiment and Expression. In the delineationof the passions also, he is superior to all other Writers. In short, it is difficult to say, in whatPart he excells most; whether in moulding every passion to peculiarity of Character, indiscovering the Sentiments that proceed from various tones of passion, or in expressingproperly every different sentiment; he never disgusts with general declamation andunmeaning words, too common in other writers. His sentiments are adjusted, with the

522 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

greatest propriety, to the peculiar Character and Circumstances of the Speaker; and thepropriety is not less perfect between his Sentiments, and his Diction, as will be evident toevery observer of taste, upon comparing him with other writers in similar passages. Thisis a rare and wonderful faculty, and of the greatest importance in a dramatic Author; andit is this faculty which makes him surpass all other Writers in the Comic, as well as Tragicvein. —We are aware, that it may be urged, upon some occasions, he falls greatly belowhimself, in those Scenes where passion enters not; by endeavouring, in this case, to raise hisDialogue above the style of ordinary conversation, he undoubtedly sometimes deviatesinto intricate thought and obscure expression: and sometimes, to throw his language outof the familiar, he employs rhyme. But may it not in some measure excuse Shakespear, weshall not say his Works, that he had no pattern in his own, or in any living Language ofDialogue fitted for the Theatre? At the same time, it ought not to escape observation, thatthe stream clears in its progress, and that in his latter Plays he has attained the purity andperfection of Dialogue: an observation that, with greater certainty than tradition, willdirect the arrangement of his Plays, in the order of time. This ought to be considered bythose who exaggerate every blemish, that is discovered in the finest Genius for theDrama, the world ever enjoyed. They ought also, for their own sake, to consider, that itis easier to discover his blemishes which lie generally at the surface, than his beauties,which cannot be truly relished, but by those who dive deeply into human Nature. —Thusmuch we thought necessary to observe in this place, in opposition to those who haveranked Ben Jonson upon an equal footing with Shakespear as a Dramatic Writer. (i, 226–32)

(b) From James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble (1825). Boaden isdescribing the state of the theatre in London at the time of Kemble’s arrival there(1783). Robert Bensley acted Mosca in the 1771–2 Covent Garden Volpone and inthe 1783 Haymarket revival. William Parsons, who specialized in playing old men,regularly took the part of Corbaccio in the period.

In that amazing production of dramatic science, the Fox, Mr. Bensley gave to the fine fly,the parasite Mosca, what no other actor in my time could pretend to give, and seemed intruth, like the character, to come back to us from a former age. He spoke Ben Jonson’slanguage, as if he had never been accustomed to a lighter and less energetic diction, and withthe Volpone of Palmer and the Corbaccio of Parsons, presented a feast to the visitors ofColman’s theatre, which has seldom been equalled, and will I believe never be surpassed.(57)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[From the section on Parsons.]

I cannot pursue him through the long list of parts which he retained; (for whatever heonce touched became his property during life;) but I will just notice a few of his mostprominent performances, as they start up in my memory. His Foresight1 was a perfectthing; and his Corbaccio in the Fox astonished and delighted the best judges in the art. Hisdeafness in this wretched cormorant was truth itself—his eager expectation of Volpone’sdecease—his villanous temptations of Mosca, and his miserable delight at everysucceeding invention of the Parasite, were above all praise. Nor was his expressionconfined to his face, amply as the features did their office; but every passion circulated in

BEN JONSON 523

him to the extremities, and spoke in the motion of his feet or the more strikingintelligence of his hands: the latter became the claws of a harpy, when they crawled overthe parchment, which blasted all his hopes, by shewing that Mosca had become the heir ofVolpone, instead of himself. (62)

NOTE

1 In Congreve’s Love for Love.

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164.Doubts on Jonson and the old dramatists

1772

‘Jeremy Collier’ had begun writing letters to The General Evening Post attackingjudgements in the paper’s ‘Theatrical Review’ section in the number for 7–9November 1771. He was applauded soon after in a letter from ‘Longinus’ (9–12November) and letters over the two pen-names appeared, generally in alternatenumbers, for some months. All three items appear in the ‘Postscript’ section of thepaper.

(a) From a letter by ‘Longinus’ in The General Evening Post, 4–7 January 1772.

[The writer has complained that critics advocate an extravagance in plays whichpopular taste will not tolerate.]

If the extravagancies, however, of Ben Johnson, or the brilliancy of Congreve, throw allthe writers of the present period at the mortifying distance we are assured they do,whence comes it that they do not maintain their superiority on the stage, and bringcrouded audiences when they are represented in our Theatres? The town must beegregiously blind, or shamefully unjust, if these all-be-praised pieces are possessed of suchremarkable excellences; for there is not at this moment a single play of Ben Johnson’swhich keeps its theatrical ground by the mere force of its own strength; nor a comedy ofCongreve’s which is not usually exhibited to empty boxes. Indeed we sometimes see theAlchymist and Every Man in his Humour performed, but we do not see them out ofcompliment to the author; our curiosity is excited wholly by the merit of some particularactors, who have raked these heterogeous jumbles from obscurity, and stamped them withthe seal of universal admiration. When these actors, however, shall cease to be, themighty Ben must immediately sink into his former oblivion; and instead of supposing himany longer one of the first pillars which supports the stage, we shall be convinced that hehas derived his whole support from the Theatre.

(b) ‘Jeremy Collier’, letter to The General Evening Post, 1–4 February 1772.

When the Managers of our Theatres undertake the revival of any old plays which havebeen long discontinued in the acting list of performances, they should always beextremely cautious to revive such only as manifestly tend to answer the great purposes of

the drama, and have at least no positive appearance of corrupting the morale of thepeople.

Two plays have been revived this season, the one Volpone, a comedy by Ben Johnson,at Covent-garden house; the other Timon of Athens, a tragedy altered from Shakespeare,at Drury-lane; yet though a considerable share of attention has been bestowed upon theexhibition of these pieces, there is something in both so radically wrong, so obviouslyrepugnant to common sense, that I am fully persuaded they must speedily return to theoblivion from which they were called forth by the industry of our Managers.

The comedy of Volpone, like the generality of its author’s works, is founded upon aharsh, unnatural plan, crude in the idea, and odious in the execution; the hero, who isconstantly pretending to be at the point of death, and wringing magnificent presents fromthose whose avarice he plays upon, with the hope of large legacies, ‘out-herods Herod’beyond all degree of credibility; the very rage for wealth, which constitutes the principalcharacteristic of all his dupes, is the very reason why it would be utterly impossible tosucceed in his artifices; an avaricious rascal may for once or twice be imposed upon by avillain of superior capacity, and in the language of the vulgar, ‘throw away a whiting inexpectation of a cod;’ but to continue for years the unsuspecting tool of fraud, to be incessantlygiving, through a view only of obtaining; and always to exchange sterling gold for unsubstantialpromises; a conduct of this kind is to invert the immediate nature of avarice, to contradictthe universal experience of mankind, and to sacrifice conviction itself at the grossest altarof absurdity.

Those who are even but superficially read in the great volume of human life know verywell that men in general form an opinion of others by the secret standard of their ownhearts: hence he who does not mean to deceive is seldom apprehensive of deceit; and,intending no mischief, suspects no intentions of mischief in his acquaintance; whereas thewily villain, on the contrary, lives in perpetual fear of suffering by fraud, because he isperpetually meditating frauds himself upon society. The thief, according to the justobservation of Shakespeare, considers every bush an officer; of consequence the cormorants,who sought to prey upon the possessions of Volpone, measuring the minds of other menby their own, would never have borne disappointment after disappointment patiently,especially where each was sensible he had a number of rivals, and saw these rivals alsoopenly caressed before his face, though private assurances were given to him that everycompetitor for Volpone’s favour should be plundered to advance his particularemolument.

When men betray others, we have no reason to expect that they will preserve goodfaith with us. An honest man will not commit a rascality to serve the dearest friend; and afool only can believe that he will. But even admitting, in opposition to every thing which Ihave here advanced, that it is possible for all these excessively keen people to be a pack ofthe grossest idiots, still let me ask if the comedy of Volpone is an entertaining play uponthe whole? or whether it is the least calculated to give a salutary lesson to the public?Many things may be natural enough in real life, which on the stage are highly improper forrepresentation. This is the case in the piece before us, where one of the legacy-hunterscontends to prostitute his wife to the arch impostor, and even drags her into the presenceof the audience for the express purpose of violation.

All these things are disgusting to reason, and offensive to decency; yet after enduringthem through five tedious acts, the curtain falls without yielding as many minutesamusement, or affording a single sentiment of instruction. Villains indeed are punished buttheir villainies are applauded as instances of the greatest good sense, and universal

526 BEN JONSON

applause is actually demanded for those who are really held out as the objects of universaldetestation.

It is but justice to the performers in Volpone to acknowledge that they have greatmerit, if we only except Mr. Smith, who appears in the principal character; Mr. Shuter inthe old Miser is masterly beyond expression; Mr. Bensley is seen to remarkable advantagein the Parasite; nor do I recollect any other part which is not admirably executed. In mynext I shall consider Timon of Athens; and fearful of having exceeded your limits incriticising The Fox so far, conclude myself here your constant reader,

JEREMY COLLIER

(c) From an unsigned article in The General Evening Post, 26–8 November 1772, with the subheading‘Dramatic Strictures’, on Hoadley’s The Suspicious Husband.

Strickland’s jealousy in the play before us is, as the critics have repeatedly observed,borrowed obviously from Kitely in Ben Johnson’s comedy of Every Man in his Humour;but it is an improvement on the original, and is a jealousy more naturally founded andmore agreeably worked up. Kitely has no cause for suspecting his wife’s conduct; she hasnever been absent from him, nor has she any one connection either male or female, toalarm his imagination. Strickland’s wife, on the contrary, has been away from him for sometime, at a scene of fashionable dissipation; she brings a lady home with her besides, who isa total stranger to him, and whose excess of vivacity, joined to the irregularity of herhours, might reasonably enough excite the uneasiness of a sober man. Thus far the groundof Strickland’s jealousy is superior to that of Kitely’s; and then with respect to the mannerin which the passion is worked up, Hoadly exceeds Johnson beyond the possibility of acomparison; Strickland’s jealousy produces a variety of entertaining consequences,whereas the other is not attended with one; it obliges Clarinda to find a new lodging, itgives birth to Ranger’s scene with her in which she conceals her face with a mask; itenables him to alarm her about Frankly, and promotes the business of the plot with greatnicety.

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE 527

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165.Shakespeare and Jonson compared

1772

A letter from ‘Horatio’ to The Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1772.

Mr. URBAN,In those excellent verses, written by Ben Johnson, to the memory of his beloved WilliamShakespeare, and what he hath left us, the poet has, without design, fairly characterizedhimself and his friend:

‘He was not of an age, but for all time.’Ben’s reputation was partly confined to the age in which he lived, and that which

immediately succeeded to it. He delighted to catch the Cynthia of the minute; to paint thefollies of the times, which are as uncertain as the forms of court-address, and aschangeable as the fashions of our cloaths.

Nothing less than general Nature, such as she has been from the first formation ofsociety, and will remain for ever, could satisfy the comprehensive mind of Shakespeare;latest times will find him, as Leonard Digges has happily sung,

—‘Fresh to all ages! when posterityShall loath what’s new, think all is prodigyThat is not Shakespeare’s!’ —————1

This is so strictly true, that the poet seems to have written in the very spirit ofprophecy: for what has later times produced, that the public will suffer to be compared, oreven mentioned, with the master-pieces of this divine genius? in whom we find, what it isin vain to search for elsewhere, such a happy union of fine fancy and rich sense, properincident, and just character, with true situation, fit moral, and strong passion!

It would be an invidious task to run a long parallel between Johnson and Shakespeare;to do it effectually, would only show the poor stock of one writer, and the vast treasuresof the other.

Ben was rather a good satyrist than a complete poet. He pleased himself withpersonifying vices and passions; while his great cotemporary drew characters, such asNature presented to him, or such as she was capable of producing. One exalted, the otherdebased, the human species. You despise Bobadil, though he makes you laugh. You wish tospend a jolly evening with Falstaff, tho’ you cannot esteem him. In short, Ben contentshimself with the humble praise of being the gentleman-usher of Fashion, whileShakespeare is not only Nature’s companion, but sometimes her guide.

Two or three great actors, with much ado, keep alive three or four plays of Johnson;but many of Shakespeare’s dramas, after they have lain dormant above half a century, arerevived with fresh lustre, and are seen with perpetual pleasure, and repeated applause.

Beaumont, in a copy of verses written to Ben Johnson, tells him, that his sense is sodeep, that he will not be understood for a century to come;2 an unlucky and injudiciouscommendation, in my opinion; for dramatic poetry is addressed to the people in general,and demands the greatest perspicuity. Posterity will never search for meanings whichwere obscure in the author’s life-time.

To deny Johnson a great share of merit would be uncandid and unjust; his Every man inhis Humour, the Alchemist, Volpone, and the Silent Woman, are excellent pieces; butwritten with such labour and art, that Nature sometimes seems to lie buried under them.He tells us, that Shakespeare did not understand the art to blot; he too was equallyforgetful of the old adage, manum de tabula.3 For want of remembering this advice, hisplays are incumbered with useless ornaments, and are totally divested of that easie andgraceful air of negligence which distinguish the writings of Shakespeare.

HORATIO. (xlii, 522–3)

NOTES

1 ‘To The Memorie of the deceased Author Maister W.Shakespear’, ll. 7–9 (printed in theFirst Folio).

2 See No. 23(c), above3 ‘Hand off the slate’, or ‘leave well alone’.

530 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

166.George Steevens on Jonson

1773–8

From Steevens’s first (1773) and second (1778) editions of The Plays of Shakespeare. The bitter reproaches directed against Jonson for his supposed hostility and

perfidy to Shakespeare here are representative of a chorus of feeling against Jonsonexpressed through the notes of the variorum editions of these years. SeeIntroduction, p. 31.

(a) From the notes to The Tempest in the 1773 edition.The beauties of this piece could not secure it from the criticism of Ben Jonson, whose

malignity sometimes appears to have been more than equal to his wit.

[Quotes BF, Induction, ll. 127–30.] (i, 4)

(b). From the notes to the 1778 edition.

[On The Tempest, 5.1.136:]

The unity of time is most rigidly observed in this piece. The fable scarcely takes up agreater number of hours than are employed in the representation; and from the veryparticular care which our author takes to point out this circumstance in so many otherpassages, as well as here, it should seem as if it were not accidental, but purposelydesigned to shew the admirers of Ben Jonson’s art, and the cavillers of the time, that hetoo could write a play within all the strictest laws of regularity, when he chose to load himselfwith the critick’s fetters. (i, 106)

[On Twelfth Night, 1.1.2:]

…Ben Jonson, who takes every opportunity to find fault with Shakespeare, seems toridicule the conduct of Twelfth-Night in his Every Man out of his Humor, at the end of act III.sc. vi….

[Quotes 3.6.195–201.] (iv, 153)[On Cymbeline, Act V, Scene v:]

Let those that talk so confidently about the skill of Shakespeare’s contemporary, Jonson,point out the conclusion of any one of his plays which is wrought with more artifice, andyet a less degree of dramatic violence than this. In the scene before us all the survivingcharacters are assembled; and at the expence of whatever incongruity the former events mayhave produced, perhaps little can be discovered on this occasion to offend the mostscrupulous advocate for regularity: and, I think, as little is found wanting to satisfy thespectator by a catastrophe which is intricate without confusion, and not more rich inornament than in nature. (ix, 323)

[On Hamlet’s praise of the Pyrrhus play in Hamlet, 2.2.433–65. Steevens hasquoted Warburton’s note on the same passage to the effect that the play quotedwas a lost one of Shakespeare’s, an experiment in writing in imitation of Greektragedy.]

Had Shakespeare made one unsuccessful attempt in the manner of the ancients (that hehad any knowledge of their rules remains to be proved) it would certainly have beenrecorded by contemporary writers, among whom Ben Jonson would have been the first.Had his darling ancients been unskilfully imitated by a rival poet he would at least havepreserved the memory of the fact, to shew how unsafe it was for anyone who was not asthorough a scholar as himself to have meddled with their sacred remains.

‘Within that circle none durst walk but he’. He has represented Inigo Jones as beingignorant of the very names of those ancients whose architecture he undertook to correct:in his Poetaster he has in several places hinted at our poet’s injudicious use of words, andseems to have pointed his ridicule more than once at some of his descriptions andcharacters. It is true that he has praised him, but it was not while that praise could havebeen of any service to him; and posthumous applause is always to be had on easyconditions. Happy it was for Shakespeare that he took nature for his guide, and, engagedin the warm pursuit of her beauties, left to Jonson the repositories of learning: so has heescaped a contest which might have rendered his life uneasy, and bequeathed to ourpossession the more valuable copies from nature herself. (x, 352–3)

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167.Lord Camden on reading Ben Jonson

1774

From a letter to Garrick dated 7 September 1774. Text from The PrivateCorrespondence of David Garrick, ed. James Boaden (1831–2), 2 vols.

Charles Pratt (1714–94), first Baron Camden, later first Earl Camden, becameChief Justice and then Lord Chancellor. Garrick mentions in his letters borrowingfrom him a black-letter romance containing a version of the King Lear story andsharing with him an enthusiasm for Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (The Letters of DavidGarrick, ed. David M. Little, George M.Kahrl, and Phoebe de K.Wilson(Cambridge, Mass. 1963), ii, 881; iii, 1080).

I have been employed since I saw you in reading Ben Jonson; for as I have waked generallyat five o’clock in the morning, I have spent three hours every day in bed in reperusing myold favourite. I make no comparison, but I do assure you I am beyond expression charmedwith the dramatic powers of that author, and, in my opinion, the genius of the writer isequal to his art; nay, so far is he from being deficient in the first, that his own fund wouldhave supplied him with every faculty of wit, humour, and nature, though he had been noscholar. His principal fault, in my judgement, arises from a pedantic imitation of theancients. His prose dialogue is elegant; his verse hard and too much laboured, but by nomeans difficult or obscure. Read him again, as I have done, without prejudice, and forgetShakspeare while you are doing it, which is but just; for, to say the truth, he that reads anauthor with proper attention, has no leisure, while he is so employed, to think of any other.

As an orator, I should have bespoke your favour by a panegyric upon Shakespearebefore I had presumed to introduce an inferior to your notice; but that subject has been sohackneyed by all mankind, that I can say nothing new upon it. (ii, 1–2)

534

168.Francis Gentleman, notes on Jonson’s ode to

Shakespeare1774

From ‘The Life of Shakespeare’, in volume ix of the nine-volume Bell’s Edition ofShakespeare’s Plays (1773–4).

Gentleman has discussed at length the question of Jonson’s relations withShakespeare, concurring with and indeed paraphrasing Pope in finding partisans ofone side or the other responsible for extreme versions of the relationship; he thenquotes Jonson’s ‘Ode’ to Shakespeare, ‘to vindicate his character from the charge ofenvy and malevolence’.

[On ll. 3–4, ‘While I confess thy writings to be such/As neither man nor muse canpraise too much’:]

We think this couplet goes as far in panegyric as can be justified.

[On l. 12, ‘And think to ruin where it seemed to praise’:]

Johnson here points at and frees himself from the imputation which has been so ill-naturedly suggested against him.

[On l. 18, ‘The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!’:]

Is this lukewarm praise? is it a grudging compliment?

[On l. 24, ‘And we have wits to read, and praise to give’:]

Though the versification of this Poem is, in general, stiff, and uncouth; yet we perceivegreat sincerity and warmth of praise in it.

[On l. 43, ‘He was not of an age, but for all time!’:]

Could there be conceived a more comprehensive or more delicate panegyric than this? Hewho writes temporally, however striking, useful and entertaining, is but a subordinategenius; he who writes for futurity, and upon universal principles, is capital. In this light,Johnson justly draws Shakespeare; what more Dryden would have had1 we cannot say, unless

such gross daubing as he bestowed in many of his adulatory dedications upon miserablecharacters; and this would have been disgraceful to the critic and friend.

[On l. 55, ‘Yet must I not give nature all: thy art’:]

Ben, not satisfied with allowing his friend all natural powers, gives him here theadvantages of art; hence it appears he would not have willingly withheld any due point ofpraise.

[On l. 60, ‘(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat’:]

This allusion to a Smith’s forge is rather laboured, uncouth and ill applied.

[On l. 64, ‘For a good poet’s made, as well as born’:]

This observation is extremely just; for mere genius, save some very extraordinaryexceptions, is and must be rude without cultivation. A load of learning is prejudicial, butsome knowledge of letters, and an extensive intimacy with mankind, are peculiarlyrequisite for a dramatic writer.

[On l. 80, ‘And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light’:]

We know not nor can conceive a warmer compliment than this, wherein Johnson throwshimself and all other authors aside, to make Shakespeare not only the main, but the solepillar, of the stage.

[Following the poem:]

From the remarks we have offered, and we hope not unjustly, it may be inferred, that thepreceding lines have more of friendship, than fancy, in them; much more of labour thanof genius; they contain strength of thought, but want ease of expression; Ben’s constantfault, (ix, 22–5)

NOTE

1 For Dryden’s comment on the ‘Ode’, see Introduction, p. 12.

536 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

169.David Garrick on confidence tricks in The Alchemist

1774

From a letter to Herbert Lawrence, dated 10 January 1774. Reprinted bypermission from The Letters of David Garrick, ed. David M.Little, George M.Kahrl,and Phoebe de K. Wilson (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1963), 3vols.

Lawrence had sent Garrick a comedy to read which evidently revolved aroundan improbable deception. The ‘Otacousticon’ mentioned in the extract is a fantasticinstrument for amplifying sound, described in Thomas Tomkis’s adaptation ofDella Porta’s L’Astrologo, Albumazar (1615), which Garrick had adapted in his turnin 1773. Pandolpho is a character in the same play.

…we have so many Cheaters & Cheatees upon the Stage, Such as are in the Alchymist,Albumazar &c that I fear unless some very New Method & pleasant Method of galling theCredulous was found out, —an Audience would be very Squeamish—TheTYCHOTHOLICON of Feignwell would be thought an Imitation of the Otacousticon ofAlbumazar, & the transmutation of Vegetables put ’em in mind of the transmutation ofMetals in the Alchymist— Pandolpho & Sr Epicure Mammon are the old Gulls, & to beSure had their Effect when the Transformation of persons, & transmutation of Metalswere talk’d of, & believ’d by 19 in 20—even now by the force of writing they are Suffer’d—but indeed it is by a force upon the Understanding, & are but barely born, & I amcertain would be condemn’d (with all their Merit) were they now for the first time to beActed. (iii, 916–17)

538

170.Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Garrick’s Abel

Drugger1775

From a letter dated 1 October 1775, printed in Deutsches Museum (1776), i.Translation from Lichtenberg’s Visits to England by Margaret L.Mare andW.H.Quarrell (Oxford 1938), pp. 2–4.

Lichtenberg (1742–99) was a Professor of Physics at Göttingen University andspent over a year in England in 1774–5.

Among the characters I have mentioned they say that Weston equals him as AbelDrugger, as did Quin formerly as Sir John Brute; but as yet no man has set foot on theBritish stage who is his equal in the other parts; moreover, there is no one who can hopeto come up to such a man in any one part, still less to play them all with the same ease. Ishould fancy, too, that any comparison with Quin and Weston is made with duereservation. I was not able, indeed, to see Quin as Sir John Brute, and I have not yet seenWeston as Abel Drugger; but similar pronouncements on Garrick—and this, indeed, inparts where I could compare them—have rendered me very sceptical. I am, rather, moreor less convinced that in parts that he has once taken no one may absolutely surpass him whois not a Garrick, with soul and body permeated with histrionic talent; and England hasnever seen on its stage another such man. I must explain to you what bearing the opinionof those persons of Weston and Quin has on the matter, at the same time telling youmuch concerning Mr. Garrick that I might otherwise have forgotten; moreover, I shouldnot like you to conclude from all that I have said that I do not like Weston, a man atpresent the idol of the people, who made me laugh more than all the rest of the Englishplayers together. Later I will tell you more about him, but for the present the following willserve my purpose.

Weston is one of the drollest creatures on whom I have ever set eyes. Figure, voice,demeanour and all about him move one to laughter, although he never seems to desirethis and himself never laughs. Scarcely has he appeared on the stage than a large part of theaudience becomes oblivious of the play and heeds nothing but him and his antics. You see,then, that before such judges a man like this cannot play badly. People have eyes for himalone. With Garrick it is quite otherwise, for one perpetually sees him as an effective partof the whole and a faithful mirror of nature. Therefore he could play his part badly in theeyes of his England, while Weston could scarce do so. Now Ben Jonson has indicated onlya few points in Abel Drugger’s character; and if a player can once get his line from this, hecan proceed more a less à son aise with no fear of overstepping the mark. Weston has anexcellent opportunity of ridding himself of his own personality, especially in the long

intervals when Abel Drugger is dumb and in a room where there are, besides a fewastronomers and exercisers, human skeletons, crocodiles, ostrich eggs and empty vessels,in which the devil himself could sit. I can almost see him, rigid with terror at everyviolent movement of the astrologer or at the least noise of which the cause is notapparent, standing like a mummy with feet together; only when it is over does life returnto his eyes and he looks about him, then turns his head round slowly, and so forth. Mostof the audience clap and laugh, and even the critic smiles at the ridiculous fellow. Butwhen Garrick plays Abel Drugger it is the critic who leads the applause. Here we have avastly different creature, an epitome of the author’s purpose, heightened by acomprehensive knowledge of his characteristic traits, and interpreted so that he may beclearly understood from the top gallery downwards. He does not lack the language ofgesture, if I may so express it, in an indolent all-embracing torpidity, which finally,indeed, becomes unnatural; but every moment poor Abel is giving fresh indications of hischaracter; superstition and simplicity. I only mention one feature, which Mr. Westoncould not even imitate and assuredly could not have invented, and of which I do notsuppose the author himself had thought. When the astrologers spell out from the stars thename, Abel Drugger, henceforth to be great, the poor gullible creature says with heartfeltdelight: ‘That is my name.’1 Garrick makes him keep his joy to himself, for to blurt it outbefore every one would be lacking in decency. So Garrick turns aside, hugging his delightto himself for a few moments, so that he actually gets those red rings round his eyes whichoften accompany great joy, at least when violently suppressed, and says to himself: ‘Thatis my name.’ The effect of this judicious restraint is indescribable, for one did not see himmerely as a simpleton being gulled, but as a much more ridiculous creature, with an air ofsecret triumph, thinking himself the slyest of rogues. Nothing like this can be expected ofWeston. But when his own particular simplicity of demeanour suits the play, he doeswonders….

NOTE

1 A line added to Act II, Scene vi, of the play; see the printed version of Garrick’s adaptation,The Alchymist. As altered from Ben Jonson (1777), p. 40.

540 BEN JONSON

171.George Colman’s Epicoene

1776

Colman shortened the play, removed profanities and indelicate references andpostponed the revelation that Epicoene was not as mute as she first seemed, in hisown words ‘cured the injudicious anti-climax of the fable’ (unsigned review of theplay, The Monthly Review (April 1776), liv, 312). The altered play opened atGarrick’s Drury Lane Theatre on 13 January 1776. It played on only three morenights, closing on 23 January. The alteration was revived for a single performanceat Covent Garden on 26 April 1784. For an account of the alteration, see Noyes,Ben Jonson on the English Stage 1660–1776, pp. 208–13.

Colman (1732–94) was manager at Covent Garden from 1767 to 1774. He alsodrew on Epicoene for his ‘Musical Entertainment’ Ut Pictura Poesis! Or, The EnragedMusician (1789) —the enraged musician in question being tormented by asystematic campaign of cacophonous noises—and adapted The Masque of Oberon asThe Fairy Prince, performed as an afterpiece in the season of 1771–2.

(a) Colman’s prologue, from the published version of his adaptation, Epicoene; or, theSilent Woman. A Comedy, Written by Ben Jonson. As it is Acted in the Theatre Royal inDrury-Lane. With Alterations, By George Colman (1776).

Happy the soaring bard who boldly wooes,And wins the favour of, the tragic muse!He from the grave may call the mighty dead,In buskins and blank verse the stage to tread;On Pompeys and old Cæsars rise to fame,And join the poet’s to th’ historian’s name.The comick wit, alas! whose eagle eyesPierce Nature thro’, and mock the time’s disguise,Whose pencil living follies brings to view,Survives those follies, and his portraits too;Like star-gazers, deplores his luckless fate,For last year’s Almanacks are out of date.‘The Fox, the Alchemist, the Silent Woman,Done by Ben Jonson, are out-done by no man.’Thus sung in rough, but panegyrick, rhimes,The wits and criticks of our author’s times.

But now we bring him forth with dread and doubt,And fear his learned socks are quite worn out.The subtle Alchemist grows obsolete,And Drugger’s humour scarcely keeps him sweet.To-night, if you would feast your eyes and ears,Go back in fancy near two hundred years;A play of Ruffs and Farthingales review,Old English fashions, such as then were new!Drive not Tom Otter’s Bulls and Bears away;Worse Bulls and Bears disgrace the present day.On fair Collegiates let no critick frown!A Ladies’ Club still hold its rank in town.If modern Cooks, who nightly treat the pit,Do not quite cloy and surfeit you with wit,From the old kitchen please to pick a bit!If once, with hearty stomachs to regaleOn old Ben Jonson’s fare, tho’ somewhat stale,A meal on Bobadil you deign’d to make,Take Epicœne for his and Kitely’s sake!

(b) Colman’s ‘Advertisement’ to the printed version.

The Editor of the following Comedy always considered it as one of the principal duties ofa Director of a Theatre, to atone, in some measure, for the mummery which his situationobliges him to exhibit, by bringing forward the productions of our most esteemedWriters. The alterations he hazarded for this purpose having been generally approved, itis needless to point out or enforce their propriety: much less can he think it necessary tovindicate the established reputation of the Author. Writers of the most distinguished tasteand genius have honoured the SILENT WOMAN of BEN JONSON with the most lavishencomiums; but the Criticks of our day, unawed by authority, and trusting to the light oftheir own understanding, have discovered, that there is neither ingenuity nor contrivancein the Fable, nature in the Characters, nor wit nor humour in the Dialogue. The presentEditor, however, cannot pay them so high a compliment, as to suppose it incumbent onhim to defend the Author and his admirers, or to make any apology for having, with thekind assistance of Mr. Garrick, promoted the revival of Epicœne; the perusal of which herecommends in the Closet, to those acute spirits who thought it unworthy of the Stage.

We think our Fathers fools so wise we grow!Our wiser Sons, no doubt, will think us so.

(c) Diary entry on the opening night by William Hopkins. Hopkins (d. 1780) wasfor twenty years from 1760 prompter at Drury Lane, and kept a diary of events atthe playhouse, now in the Folger Library. Printed from the transcription in LS,Part iv, p. 1944. The performance was on Saturday, 13 January 1776.

Characters New Dressed in the Habits of the Times. This play is alter’d by Mr Colmanand receiv’d with Some Applause, but it don’t seem to hit the present Taste a few hissesat the End.

542 BEN JONSON

(d) Unsigned review by Henry Bate, The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, Monday,15 January 1776, headed ‘Theatrical Critique’. Henry Bate (1745–1824), one ofthe editors of the paper from 1772 to 1780, was rector of a parish in Essex butpreferred to spend most of his time in London. He attacked individuals freely in hisjournal and gained financial success for it and considerable notoriety. The reviewwas reprinted in the Westminster Magazine (January 1776), iv, 29–30, with a lessflattering account of the acting: Bensley as Morose is described there as ‘the worstOld Man we ever saw. He presents the countenance of a sickly old Woman; andthe uniform goggle of his eye, by which he means to express infirmity and distress,is the look of a man in anguish from the colic’ (iv, 30).

Drury-lane.BEN JONSON’S Comedy called Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, was revived on Saturday

evening last at this Theatre, under the immediate direction of Mr. Colman; whoconceived that if properly got up, it could not fail of affording high entertainment to amodern audience; how far this idea was well founded, will appear from a slight review ofthe comedy: —

The fable of the piece, like those of the old Bards, is trifling, broken, and confused: —that of Old Morose being gulled into a settlement of his estate upon his nephew, &c. byTrue-wit’s designs; who from the beginning to the end of the piece, is employed in themost unnatural stratagems to effect it—As to character, notwithstanding the traditionalobservation of Mr. Dryden, who tells us, ‘that a character of this whimsical nature reallyexisted in the author’s day,’1 we think Morose a most absurd caricatura, the offspring of thePoet’s own brain. —But even giving Ben Jonson his grounds in this particular, he is highlycensurable for not preserving it from the dramatic bathos, in which we frequently loseevery trait of the intended character; for at times he has forgotten to let him be affected,even by the most powerful noises. —Sir Am. La Foole and Sir John Daw, are evident copiesof Master Matthew, and Master Stephen, and Cutbeard is the shadow of Brainworm, in Every Manin his Humour: —True-wit is the only one like a finished character; and that is exceedinglyovercharged, to produce—no effect whatever. A part of Tom Otter is very humerous,particularly in the drunken scene, with his bull, bear, and horse, where he gives adescription of his wife’s taking herself to pieces over night, and next day being puttogether like a German clock: —but the merit of this part of the character is destroyed,by the absurdity of the succeeding one, where this sneaking driveller, after going offalmost dead drunk, is ordered by True-wit to come on in the habit of a Parson, and toharrangue in Latin for half an hour before Morose, with Cutbeard, (a pretended Doctor ofLaws) respecting the numberless causes and grounds for a divorce, in order further to gullthe old man. —Dauphine and Clerimont are two poor animals indeed, the mere puppets ofTrue-wit, who moves them at will: —Epicoene is of the same stamp; as for the collegeladies, which were the witty Coterie of their days, how has the poet coloured them? Whyhe has given us four insignificant females in chalks, without a single stroke to distinguishthem from any insensibles of that sex, and moves them on and off the stage, withoutproducing the least effect. Mrs. Otter is an exception; for she gives us a tolerable likenessof the virago of those times.

As to situation, the only one attempted in the play, is in that scene, where La Foole and SirJohn Daw are so far the dupes of True-wit’s waggery, as to fear the wrath of each other, andtherefore consent the one to be kick’d, the other to be hood-winked, and have his nose pulled

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by his supposed antagonist; and this for the diversion of Dauphine and True wit, whoperform the operations. —This is farcical to the highest degree, not to say improbable;but Ben Johnson never suffered his gulls once to open an eye, when he had destined themto fall into a trap.

We have ventured to speak freely of this Piece in its original state as it strikes us,uninfluenced by great names, notwithstanding Mr. Dryden himself stiles it the firstcomedy in the English language. As to the stile of Jonson’s writing, compared to hiscontemporaries, it appears much more correct and classical than theirs: —In this hetriumphed not a little, and that even personally over Shakespeare, who, in erudition, wasconfessedly his inferior: —Let it be remarked, however, that the former seldom wrote asingle page without various close imitations, from the Greek and Roman authors; —butShakespeare, having neither his learned resources, nor his pedantry, was forced to fly toNature’s simple volume, and borrow from her pages: —hence, the superior immortalityof his genius.

Let us now examine what alterations has this Comedy undergone, in order to adapt itto the taste of the present times, and as performed on Saturday evening.

Mr. Colman’s alterations of the Epicoene, consist only of several judicious cuttings, andadvantageous transpositions; for we do not find that he has given us any additions, at leastno material ones; this perhaps from the veneration he bears the memory of Old Ben: —itis to be regretted, however, that from that, or any other false delicacy, the piece shouldhave been brought out, with so much of the rust of antiquity remaining about it, when itis well known Mr. Colman is so capable of doing it infinite service, if he chose to sit downto it: What a very small part of the audience for instance knew, that Ned Whiting, andGeorge Stone [3.1.49–50], were two celebrated Bears, who went in those days by thenames of their respected owners: —we do not see the necessity of retaining the passage atall; but if Mr. Colman thought so, it was certainly as easy as necessary to make itdiscernible to the audience. —We could point out many of these obsolete phrases in thispiece, which might readily be spared, as we do not find that much wit or humour wouldbe lost in the omission: —we would recommend the next time of performance, a plentifulcutting of the civil-law consultation scene, between Cutbeard, Otter, &c. in disguise; as thefull design of the author may be answered much better in a third of the dialogue: —And itcannot be an improper intimation, that the character of Epicoene should be played by amale, if the denouement is to be brought about by any natural means, to produce the leasteffect: —the coolness with which the audience received the discovery is a proof of thepropriety of this remark.

Upon the whole we cannot esteem it a striking comedy, even with the assistances it hasnow received, the fine manner in which it is certainly got up, and the great expence whichthe Managers have been at in habiting the whole dramatis personæ, in splendid andcharacteristic old English dresses.

As to the performers they exerted every nerve; Mr. King did more than possibly couldhave been expected in La Fool: Mr. Parsons was very great in Daw; Mr. Bensley’s Morosewas capital; now and then he forgot the surly old man, and sunk into the superannuateddriveller: It must be considered as a great undertaking for a young man, and no doubt hisapprehensions on the first night, prevented a regular display of his powers: —Weconceive Mr. King should have played it. Mr. Yates’s Otter, and Mr. Baddely’s Cutbeardwere all we could expect. —Mr. Palmer was admirable in the long unprofitable part ofTrue-wit, and discovered great spirit and comic vivacity through every scene: —Cleremont,and Dauphine, altho’ trifling parts, were well performed by Mess. Brereton, and Davis.

544 BEN JONSON

The ladies in general played well. Mrs. Siddons acquired great applause in the spiritedpart of Epicoene; and Mrs. Hopkins was not behind hand in Mrs. Otter. —Upon the wholethe play had great justice done it in representation by the performers as well as themanagers.

A Prologue by Mr. Colman preceded the piece (recommending this old English dish tomodern palates) remarkable only for a happy comparison of the present bulls and bears of’Change-alley to those of Tom Otter, and the Coterie of the present ton to that of the CollegeLadies in the days of Ben Johnson.

(e) Unsigned review in The London Magazine (January 1776), xlv.

Jan. 15. On Saturday evening Ben Jonson’s comedy of the Silent Woman, as altered by Mr.Colman, was revived at Drury-Lane. This comedy was esteemed by his cotemporaries oneof the best, and by that great genius and incomparable judge, Mr. Dryden, one of themost perfect models of dramatic composition, then extant in the English language. Benwas well acquainted with the Greek and Roman Drama, and had studied with greatattention the commentaries of the ancient critics, and the rules they established. He hasgiven frequent proofs of this in almost all his plays, but in none more than in the oneunder consideration. Yet from his strong conception of the ridiculous in life, his highcolouring, and finished likenesses, it is more than probable, he would have succeededbetter in this species of writing, had he consulted his own genius more, and attended lessto the documents of those who have vainly attempted in vague phrases and loose floatingideas to embody into a system of dramatic laws, what, from their nature and mutability,can never be fixed or realized. Shakespeare, if he knew those bonds, broke them; if he didnot, he proved how much genius is superior to art. We would not be here understood tosanction the reveries of a distempered brain, or the frothy ebullitions of a luxuriantfanciful imagination and call that nature. Man is the subject, human-nature is consequentlythe source we must draw from. To describe the human heart, as actuated from within, oraffected from without, and strip it of its various coverings; to analyse and mark the humanmind in its innumerable operations; to connect those with the manners, habits, humours,and prevailing follies of the times, are the true qualifications of a dramatic writer. BenJonson was certainly possessed of those talents, but he as certainly sacrificed too much tothe opinion of others, and the prevailing taste of the age in which he wrote. On the otherhand, he too frequently indulged his genius, and gave way to the impressions he receivedat an early period of his life. As a modern author justly observes, ‘his wit was sometimeslow, and his humour excessive’ so that while his rigid notions of the Drama forbad him todraw with a masterly hand after the models which nature daily presented, his juvenilehabits led his attention to objects not always the best selected, or worthy of his pen. Benwas besides a pedant, as well as a scholar, and like his cotemporary Cervantes, wastinctured with the very folly which was the fixed object of his most pointed ridicule.

These, we take it, were some of the chief reasons, that Jonson’s plays do not bear thehigh reputation they did for almost a century after they were written; and will remain, wemay venture to predict, an insurmountable bar to their ever recovering their formerreputation, except where indeed they happen to be uncommonly well-supported in therepresentation; which, truth compels us to say, was not the case on Saturday evening.Another cause why the works of Jonson and the writers of that age will always be coolyreceived, by a great majority of the young and old folks, which usually frequent ourtheatres is, being totally ignorant of the prevailing manners of the court and city, in the

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region of Elizabeth and James. This may be readily conceived, when even the rusticity ofSir Francis Wronghead2 is almost become obsolete. There are very few members, if any,in the House of Commons, if they were to sit now for the picture, would give a tolerablelikeness, though we are perfectly satisfied that Vanbrugh copied faithfully from nature,and cloathed his portrait with manners and habits really existing in the reign of George I.

Mr. Colman seems to have executed his plan very hastily. The play in its present form,is in our opinion unskilfully mutilated, and disfigured. It is neither Ben Jonson’s, norColman’s; but remains of the doubtful gender. The parts were not judiciously cast, andthe transposition of the scenes, so highly extolled by the critics of the day, is far frombeing intitled to the commendations so lavishly bestowed on it. (xlv, 48–9)

NOTES

1 See No. 67, above.2 In The Provoked Husband, by Sir John Vanbrugh, completed by Colley Cibber.

546 BEN JONSON

172.Kitely preferred to Ford

1778

From an article by ‘Trim’, The Morning Post, 9 October 1778. No. 3 of a seriesentitled ‘The Theatre’.

The Merry Wives of Windsor and Every Man in his Humour were both in therepertoire in the 1778–9 season at Drury Lane, with William Smith (? 1730–89)taking the roles of Ford and of Kitely.

Mr. Smith (whom as an actor, and man, I respect not a little, has too much sense not toturn these remarks, if founded in truth to due account) is not sufficiently discriminating injealous characters, and assimilates Ford and Kitely so connectedly, as to produce exactlythe same ideas, though they differ not a little. Ford has some shadow of right to besuspicious, Kitely is most whimsically jealous; the latter I verily believe to have beenborrowed from the former, but the scholar for once greatly exceeds the genius. Kitely is amost masterly drawing of human imbecility in some of her most critical, and interestingsituations, and admits that prodigious variety of fine acting, that I never expect to see it,like Macbeth, and many other parts, properly performed, since the retirement of thenever-to-be-equalled Garrick. It is a tribute however due to Smith, that he is the best Kitelyat present on the stage, nor need it be wondered that he should be defective in a part,which I may term the most accurate, and best finished picture in the whole Englishdramatic exhibition, Othello not excepted.

548

173.Thomas Davies on Jonson revivals

1780

From Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq. (1780), 2 vols.Davies (c. 1712–85) was an actor and then a bookseller. He introduced Boswell

to Johnson in his shop in 1763.

[On Garrick’s comic roles:]

He was, indeed, by way of relief to his more toilsome labours, in parts of exertion,induced to divert and relax himself with some low comic parts, and particularly AbelDrugger in Johnson’s Alchymist. The younger Cibber had been for many years famous foracting Abel; but Cibber was never commended for strictly adhering to nature, in the drawingof his characters: whether he had acquired a sort of extravagant manner, from hisfrequently playing ancient Pistol with applause; or, whether he imagined that every imposition upon the understanding of an audience, which happened to be applauded, wasjustifiable, I know not, but he mixed so much grimace and ridiculous tricks in playing thispart, that although the galleries laughed and clapped their hands, the judicious part of thespectators was displeased.

Garrick’s Abel Drugger was of a different species from Cibber’s. The moment he cameupon the stage he discovered such aukward simplicity, and his looks so happily bespokethe ignorant, selfish, and absurd tobacco-merchant, that it was a contest not easily to bedecided, whether the bursts of laughter or applause were loudest. Through the whole parthe strictly preserved the modesty of nature. (i, 54–5)

[On Garrick’s casting in Every Man in his Humour:]

…all the personages were so exactly fitted to the look, voice, figure and talents of theactor, that no play which comprehends so many distinct peculiarities of humour, was everperhaps so compleatly acted; and to this care of the manager in restoring this obsolete playto the stage, may very justly be attributed its great success; for this comedy had often beenbrought upon the stage before, particularly in the time of Charles the Second, under thepatronage of the witty earl of Dorset, and other noblemen of taste, but it had never beforegreatly pleased the people. (i, 112–13)

[On the plays of Samuel Foote:]

Foote saw the follies and vices of mankind with a quick and discerning eye; hisdiscrimination of characters was critical and exact; his humour pleasant, his ridicule keen,his satire pungent, and his wit brilliant and exuberant. He described with fidelity thechangeable follies and fashions of the times; and his pieces, like those of Ben Jonson, werecalculated to please the audience of the day; and for this reason posterity will scarce knowany thing of them. Of Ben Jonson’s plays it was observed, above sixty years since, thatthey could not be represented for want of proper actors; the same may be said of theproductions of Mr. Foote. (ii, 260)

550 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

174.B.Walwyn, Falstaff and Bobadil

1782

From An Essay on Comedy (1782). At the end of the essay Walwyn printed a letterfrom ‘Philo-Drama’ —identified in Vickers (ed.), Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage,vi, 324, as Thomas Davies—and his own reply.

Walwyn (b. 1750) also wrote a novel, The Errors of Nature; or, The History ofCharles Manley (1783), a farce, and a number of musical pieces.

CHARACTERS should not be drawn with temporary traits; for such grow obsolete withthe fashion of the times. This is the fate of most of Johnson’s characters—particularlythose in Every Man in his Humour. While those in the play⋆ from whence most of themseem to have been taken, will exist with human nature, Captain Bobadil is a starvlingFalstaff, without either his wit or his humour. Master Stephen is a tolerable likeness of MasterSlender. Kitely imitates Ford in all but his sense. Downright is the testy Shallow withouthis humour. Dame Kitely is the shadow of Mrs. Ford. Thus we perceive these charactersof Shakespeare are disguised by Johnson, with an affected resemblance to some particularpersons of that period. If, therefore, this play of Johnson’s hath ever pleased since, itproves the discernment of the manager, and the abilities of the performers; the first incasting the parts, the latter in playing them so satisfactorily as we have generally seenthem. This suggests to me an observation, which may be as well applied to theatricalperformers in general, as to every other artist; —difficulty excites endeavour, which isthe parent of excellence. Thus we often find the most difficult performances morefrequently excellent than such as require but little exertion. This appears the reason of themost eminent painters failing in caricatura, and eminent writers in what they foundbeneath their abilities and attention. Tiny artists can only excel in tiny subjects. There is atone of genius as of music, which can never touch with the harmony of perfection a subjectthat is beneath its powers or compass. Therefore, the failure of artists may as often beattributed to a superior talent, as to its deficiency. So that critics would shew theirdiscernment and liberality in not condemning failing ability, until opportunity andexperience have tried its powers. To return, the difference of temporary and eternal†

characters is particularly displayed between those of Shakespeare and of Johnson. I shall,therefore, consider the traits of the one, and the tints of the other. For in Johnson thepassions are scarcely coloured, but in Shakespeare they are imitated by feeling.

ALTHOUGH it has been said—Shakespeare’s Falstaff was meant to satirize a particularperson of his day, every one who looks at human nature will find Falstaffs in abundance. But

they will never find a Bobadil. Falstaff is a voluptuous knave, gross in sense, manners, andappearance. His pleasantry depending on his sack, and his cowardice on his selfishness.Every trait is consistent with each other. Had Shakespeare given him courage, he wouldhave made him inconsistent with himself; the sordid and selfish may be desperate, butnever courageous. They dread the loss of enjoyment in their lives, and therefore neverhazard life but when emergency makes them desperate. This consistency will makeFalstaff a character of entertainment whenever it may be represented. How different is thefate of Bobadil, who never pleases but from the grotesqueness of the dress, and the outréhumour of the performer’s speech and action. The reason is, he is an empty, lyingbraggart, without any determinate view or principle of action. These traits are trifling,and not genuine. We seldom see pride without some merit, or vanity without some viewfor supporting it, or hypocrisy without design. Appearances are assumed to acquire thepossession of realities. Courage is often feigned to procure safety, love to procureenjoyment, wealth to procure credit, and friendship to procure service. But thebraggadisms of Bobadil are void of every end or intention, except vanity. Such a charactermay exist, and yet, it will rarely be found, but in Every Man in his Humour. I am aware manywill say vain-boasters are common. Let them, however, produce me one without anyprinciple of action, and I will acknowledge that one to be the Bobadil of Nature.Superficial observers may say, vanity is a means without an end. But that would be a non-entity of expression. It has no meaning. Even caprice, which seems to burlesque all principle of action, changes from a desire of novelty. Vanity only differs from pride in itsobject. We are vain of trifles, and proud of worth. Both have one final cause, or principle,which is consequence—the basis of self-complacency. But surely Bobadil can have no self-complacency, unless it be escaping with whole bones from the anger of Downright.Notwithstanding farce is the caricatura of the drama, we have a character in Garrick’sMiss in her Teens, that is of the same stamina, but far superior. It is Bobadil naturalized. Imean Captain Flash. Flash has an intention in his affected bravery. He means it to frightenhis antagonist, Fribble. He is not, like many cowards, brave through fear. He appearsbrave through policy. In both there is reason; and reason is nature. The farcical characterof Flash must be, therefore, preferred to the comic character of Bobadil. Having said so muchon these two leading characters, I trust they will be considered a sufficient specimen ofthe rest.

THUS, having elucidated the difference of SHAKESPEARE’S and BEN JONSON’Scharacters, it appears the first bear the seal of nature, and the latter that of paltrycounterfeits. Their temporary disguise only served to render them as inconsistent withthemselves, as they deviate from the beauty of their archetypes. The gauze of artifice isdrawn aside, and Johnson appears the grossest of plagiarists. (8–12)

[From Philo-Drama’s letter.]

I PERFECTLY agree with the Author that characters should be drawn with temporarytraits. I grant too, that the portraits of Shakespeare are made to last till Doomsday; whilethe lustring and fashionable shadows of the day drawn by Ben Johnson, grow obsolete inthe wearing of them. But he has unhappily mistaken his aim. The characters of Every Manin his Humour could not be taken from Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor; for theformer play was prior to the latter about three years: this he will find authenticated in thelast variorum edition of Shakespeare, published by Johnson and Stevens. We might with

552 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

equal truth, and with some plausibility, say that our divine bard borrowed his characters ofFalstaff, Ford, Slender, Shallow, and Mrs. Ford, from the Bobadil, Kitely, Master Stephen,Downright, and Dame Kitely of Johnson. For my own part, I can see no family likeness,either in the personage or conduct of the two plays. They are both strongly discriminated.Poor Old Ben is fallen so low in the opinion of the public, that it would be a charity togive him a lift where we possibly can. The Slender of Shakespeare is not, in my humblejudgment, so proper a character for Comedy, as the Master Stephen of Johnson; the latteris the Fop of Fashion, the other, the Fool of Nature; and for that reason an object of comicmirth. We may as well laugh at the lame and the blind, as the meer changling, the poorabortive escape of propagation. Though I do not entirely approve his criticism on Bobadil,I admire his masterly outline of Falstaff. (23–4)

[In his reply, Walwyn refuses to accept that Every Man in his Humour predates TheMerry Wives of Windsor, and then reiterates the similarities of Jonson’s play toShakespeare’s:]

Has not Falstaff the traits of vanity, boasting, and cowardice? Are not these the only traitsof Bobadil? Is not Ford jealous without cause, and passionate without revenge? For all thepunishment Falstaff receives is from the hurt, pride, and indignation of Mrs. Ford, andMrs. Page. Can it be said that Kitely has any other traits, or circumstances? Hisobservation in respect to the Fool of Nature not being a proper character for Comedy,does him honour; but this greatly depends in what light that fool is placed. If placed in aridiculous light, we must then despise the author, and pity the character. Should he beplaced in merely a risible light, he then becomes an innocent uninjured character toenliven the scene. Ridicule is Satire seated in the vehicle of Mirth. Risibility is Innocenceseated in the vehicle of Humour. Shakespeare’s Slender is not a character of ridicule, butof risibility; but Johnson’s Stephen, being ridiculous, blends our contempt with ourlaughter. This reply to his observations on Slender and Stephen is rather too early; but asthe character followed Ford, I could not avoid these observations. Further, indiscriminating a difference of these characters, he has omitted the leading trait of Stephen,which absolutely renders him Slender transposed from Shakespeare to Johnson. That he isthe Fool of Nature I admit; but is not Stephen the Fool of Nature, as well as the Fop ofFashion? Indeed the Fop of Fashion, although too generally the Fool of Nature, gives himtoo great a dignity. He mistakes the grotesque braggadisms, and outré actions of Bobadil,for fashion. The Fop of Fashion is he whose only merit is to be fashionable. But Stephen,being destitute of all other ideas, neither has, nor can have, any just idea of fashion. Fromthis trait of simplicity arises the only humour of his character—the aukward imitation ofBobadil; and the only difference perceptible in Shallow and Downright, is the first beingtesty with brutality—the latter with humour and pleasantry. When leading traits are thusevidently the same, it is beneath weakness not to admit of their resemblance. All theirdiscrimination is, in the plagiarist, but a superficial disguise to conceal their likeness. (30–1)

NOTES

• Merry Wives of Windsor.† If I may use the expression.

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554

175.Colman’s Volpone revived

1783

Colman’s version was first produced in 1771 (No. 163, above). It was put on againin 1785, at Drury Lane; this was the last revival of the play until 1921.

(a) Review in The Morning Chronicle, 13 September 1783. Unsigned, under theheading ‘THEATRICAL INTELLIGENCE’. The performance was at the TheatreRoyal, Haymarket, on 12 September.

Ben Johnson’s admirable Comedy, of the FOX, was last night revived at the HaymarketTheatre, and received with loud and repeated plaudits. —The play is now broughtforward with additional alterations to those made by Mr. Colman, when he revived it atCovent-Garden Theatre; and the alterations are such as manifestly improve the Stageeffect of the piece very considerably. They chiefly consist of the omission of the charactersof Sir Politick Would-be and Lady Would-be, and consequently of the several scenes inwhich these characters are employed. It is needless to dilate on the merit of the Comedy,the great art and ingenuity of the plot, the natural and strong display of characteristichumour throughout, and the power of the ridicule and satire having been long sinceuniversally felt and admired by every judge of dramatic excellence. The reviving it in sucha stile, does Mr. Colman infinite honour: —it may be considered as a classical bonnebouche to the bill of fare he has served up to the town during the past summer. Last night’srepresentation also reflects very great credit on his Theatre and performers. Thecharacters were in general well acted, but those of Corbachio and Mosca, incomparably, byParsons and Bensley; nor ought the well-worn earnestness of Corvino, the happy effronteryof Volpone, the comic manner of Voltore’s pleading, or the innocent zeal of Celia, to escapeour particular notice. Aickin, Palmer, Bannister jun. and Mrs. Inchbald, having every titleto an especial expression of our approbation.

(b) From John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian (1839), 2 vols.

Adolphus (1768–1845) was a barrister and a writer on historical subjects, amongothers. He had known Bannister well.

Mr. Colman’s revival was supported by the whole strength of his dramatic company.Palmer—in the best of his days, ardent, buoyant, and endowed with everlasting vivacity,—supported the character of the simulating voluptuary; his declamation, his malignant

mirth, his audacious love, and, in the end, his manly, uncontrollable anger, were allequally great, all irresistible. Bensley showed, in the character of Mosca, the knowledgeof stage business, and the judgment which an excellent understanding, fortified by longpractice, could supply; and, in playing this part, all those peculiarities which afforded atheme to minor critics, and a pattern to inferior mimics, seemed to be discarded. There wasno peculiar solemnity in his port, but on the contrary he was brisk and agile; his eye glarednot with its usual significancy, but was illumined with archness and satirical pleasantry;and his voice, unincumbered with his nasal twang, gave out, with sonorous vivacity, thesarcastic observations which the other characters provoked.

Addison, in the Spectator, has mentioned in terms of the highest applause Mr.Johnson’s performance of Corbaccio, but it is impossible to conceive a picture moreperfect than that displayed by Parsons; it was, notwithstanding the distaste it created,irresistibly comic. It was that of a man reduced by age to the lowest state of decrepitude,—lame, deaf, almost blind; abounding in wealth, and yet so desirous of increasing it, thathe descends to the low arts of a legacy-hunter, prepares to disinherit his virtuous son, andeven accedes to a proposal to murder the sick man, that he may shorten the period ofanxious expectation. Around this character Parsons threw the charm of his pungenthumour, and made it one of the most striking exhibitions the theatre had ever produced.Splenetic impatience, jealous irritability, hasty suspicion, were associated with stupidmisintelligence, idiotic repetition of phrases, and a blundering assent to propositionswhich he could not distinctly hear, or rightly understand. So much infirmity would nothave been comic, but for the admixture of vice; nor could so much vice have beenendured, had it not been qualified by a little pity for age, decrepitude, and a failingintellect.

To Bannister was assigned the part of Voltore the lawyer, and the impression he madewas strong and favourable. The character is not marked by any peculiar feature of vice, orany act of extraordinary flagitiousness. He takes a ticket in the Volpone lottery, and helpsto turn the wheel, in hopes of gaining the prize. In the first scene, he presents to thepretended invalid a massy piece of plate; and receives from his contrivance, and the wordsof Mosca, the assurance that he is sole heir, the will just executed, ‘the wax warm, andthe ink scarce dry.’ In this there is little scope for the exercise of Bannister’s talent; yet hedid all that could be effected, and prepared the audience to expect higher exertions. Muchof his peculiar humour was displayed in listening to the advice and promises of Mosca, andparticularly in his manner of receiving the left-handed compliment to his profession:

[Quotes 1.3.52–66]

In the progress of the comedy, events arise which call forth the exertions of the advocateto plead a cause in the scrutineo, or senate-house. In this scene or rather scenes, —forthere is a sort of supplemental hearing, —Bannister displayed his powers to the utmostadvantage. He delivered a long speech with exaggerated emphasis, marked his antitheseswith curious changes of enunciation, threw forth his abuse with thundering vehemence,and appealed to passion, pity, and feeling, with insinuating softness. In his mode ofdeclaiming he was reported to have copied in some degree the manner of Mr. Fox, then inthe vigour of his age, at the height of his renown, and a leading member of theadministration then in power, generally called ‘the Coalition Ministry.’ Mr. Fox had thehabit of striking his hat with his fist while speaking, and is said sometimes to have utterly

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ruined a new dress feathered hat in one debate. Bannister adopted this peculiarity, and laidabout him with most impressive energy.

But his triumph was yet to come. Before the second hearing, new occurrences madeVoltore desirous to undo the effect of his former pleading, and he had sent to the judges astatement in writing of the frauds which had been practised on them. While he issupporting this new statement, another change in the aspect of affairs renders it necessaryfor him to retract his confession and regain his old position. But how? After muchconfused hesitation, he adopts a mode of conduct suggested by Mosca, and pretends that hislate proceedings have been the effect of diabolical possession. At this period Bannister’svoice falters; his eyes look wild, amazed and haggard; his full, bold sentences dwindledown into ill-composed, unconnected, unintelligible phrases; and at last, in a mannerwhich he alone could attain, he throws himself on the floor, with an epileptic plunge,violent, desperate, and yet in the highest degree comic: and when Mosca, to humour thedeceit, described pretended symptoms, his vomiting crooked pins, his eyes being just likea dead hen’s in a poulterer’s shop, and the passage of the fiend through various parts of hisbody, till at length it flies out, like a blue toad with bat’s wings, —correspondingcontortions and appearances were adopted, and the audience were in an ecstasy ofdelight.

‘Volpone’ had only been played three nights when the theatre closed… (i, 9–7)

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558

176.Thomas Davies, observations on Jonson

1783–4

From Dramatic Micellanies (1783–4), 3 vols. Volume ii is dated 1783, volumes i andiii 1784.

Davies’s critical observations and his anecdotes are arranged in chapters onindividual Shakespeare plays, Every Man in his Humour, Nathaniel Lee’s Alexander theGreat, and Buckingham’s The Rehearsal, and on individual playwrights, includingJonson. Many passing comments on Jonson, and a great deal of material oneighteenth-century performances of Jonson, have been omitted here. For Davies,see No. 173, above; and see Introduction, pp. 30, 32.

(a) From chapter 21, on All’s Well that Ends Well.Ben Jonson was not averse to the use of the characters and language of comedy in his

tragedies; but Ben understood not the art of blending them so happily as not to destroythe effect of either. In his Sejanus, he introduces a scene between the principal character ofthe play and Eudemus the physician. Sejanus gravely interrogates the doctor concerningthe effect of the physic he administers to the ladies, his patients, and is anxious to knowwhich of them, during the operation, made the most wry faces: this is below farce. —Nay, so lost is this learned author to all sense of decency and decorum, that Catiline, inthe grand scene of conspirators, in Act III. threatens one of his young associates with theseverest punishment for his reluctance to submit to the most infamous of all crimes! (ii,24–5)

(b) From chapter 23.

[On Every Man in his Humour.]

Every Man in his Humour is founded on such follies and passions as are perpetuallyincident to, and connected with, man’s nature; such as do not depend upon local customor change of fashion; and, for that reason, will bid fair to last as long as many of our oldcomedies. The language of Jonson is very peculiar; in perspicuity and elegance he isinferior to Beaumont and Fletcher, and very unlike the masculine dialogue of Massinger.It is almost needless to observe that he comes far short of the variety, strength, andnatural flow, of Shakspeare. To avoid the common idiom, he plunges into stiff, quaint,and harsh, phraseology: he has borrowed more words, from the Latin tongue, than all theauthors of his time. However, the style of this play, as well as that of the Alchemist and

Silent Woman, is more disentangled and free from foreign auxiliaries than the greatestpart of his works. Most of the characters are truly dramatic: Kitely, though not equal toFord in The Merry Wives of Windsor, who can plead a more justifiable cause of jealousy,is yet well conceived, and is placed so artfully in situation, as to draw forth a considerableshare of comic distress.

Bobadil is an original. The coward, assuming the dignity of calm courage, was, Ibelieve, new to our stage; at least, I can remember nothing like him. From Bobadil,Congreve formed his Noll Bluff; a part most admirably acted by Ben Jonson thecomedian. Master Stephen is an honester object of ridicule than master Slender. One isnature’s oaf, consequently rather an object of compassion than scorn. The other is a fop offashion, and the gulled imitator of the follies which he admires in his companions. Clementand Downright are strongly marked with humour, especially the first; and Brainworm is afellow of merry and arch contrivance. In drawing this character, I believe the author hadTerence, or rather, Plautus, of whom he was acknowledged to be an imitator, in his eye.Wellbred and young Knowell are distinguished by no peculiarities. Old Knowell issomething like the anxious Simo of Terence.1 (ii, 53–5)

[On the prologue to the play in the 1616 folio.]

Jonson collected his works into one volume in the same year, and took that opportunityof indulging his posthumous malice, by fixing this introduction to his first play. This is of apiece with his general conduct through his whole life to Shakspeare. When he sat down towrite a panegyric on his beloved, prefixed to his works, as he there calls Shakspeare, hemust, for a time, have purged his brain and heart of all spleen, envy, and malevolence: fora more accurate or extensive eulogium, on the genius and writings of Shakspeare, couldnot well be conceived, (ii, 58–9)

[On Every Man out of his Humour:]

This piece has, in my opinion, a great share of comic pleasantry, and, with some judiciousalterations, would now afford rational amusement. Some of the characters, it is true, areobsolete through age; others, such as the Envious Man and the Parasite, are of all timesand all nations. Macilente and Carlo Buffone will last till doomsday: they are admirablywell drawn. The objection of Dr. Hurd, who terms the play a hard delineation of a groupeof simply-existing passions, wholly chimerical, is ill-founded. Some of these parts are tobe seen now in some shape or other; fashionable shadows of foppery and custom vary withtimes and circumstances. Who does not see every day a Sogliardo and Fungoso,differently modified, in our metropolis at this instant? In a rude unpolished age, when thepeople were just emancipated from barbarism by the renovation of literature and the lightof reformation, a groupe of new and absurd characters must naturally spring up whichwould furnish ample materials of ridicule to the comic writers; and who can deny that Jonsonhas, in this play, laid hold of many growing follies of the times in which he lived?

With submission to so justly-celebrated a writer as Dr. Hurd, I would ask, what is itthat constitutes character? Is it not that distinguished passion, or peculiar humour, whichseparates a man from the rest of his species? Characters are formed from manners, andthese are derived from passions. When they are indulged to a certain distinguishingdegree, so as to make a man ridiculous or remarkable, we then call him a character. The

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Muses’ Looking-Glass cannot be paralelled with Every Man in his Humour; because in thiswe have action, which the other wants.

Jonson has, in one part, delineated a character which did not exist perhaps in that fullforce in his own days, and with such eclat and additional force from certaincircumstances, as it has done since. Many striking features of Carlo Buffone will, if Imistake not, be acknowledged to have existed in a late shining comic genius. Let us readBuffone’s character given by Cordato:

[Quotes EMO, Induction, ll. 356–64.] (ii, 74–6)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆The Poetaster, notwithstanding the author’s predilection for it, is one of Jonson’s

lowest productions: it was conceived in malice and brought forth in anger. It is indeed acontemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Augustus Cæsar, Mecænas,Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Tibullus, are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment.The translations from the classics are meanly literal, as well as harsh and quaint, and farinferior to those of Chapman, or any other translator of those times. Jonson’s Tucca is awretched copy, or ape, of the inimitable Falstaff. This comical satire, as it is called, closeswith an apologetical address to the reader, stuffed with farther abuse upon the players,with a slender exception in favour of some better natures amongst them. There is nothing soremarkable in this dialogue as the author’s arrogance. After having laboured moststrenuously to give proofs of his importance, in a kind of poetic rapture, he thrusts hisfriends from him, by telling them, ‘He will try if Tragedy have a more kind aspect, for herfavours he will next pursue’. We must suppose, then, that he was in labour of his greatSejanus.

By the mediation of friends, and most likely by the good-offices of our gentleShakspeare, a reconciliation was effected between this surly writer and the comedians. (ii,82–3)

(c) From chapter 24.

[On Sejanus:]

Ben, notwithstanding, greatly valued himself upon this tragedy. Let any candid judgeexamine it with the second or third rate tragedies of Shakspeare, and he will find it farinferior to the spirit that reigns in the worst of them.

If, in his historical pieces, our admirable bard is sometimes blameable for overloading hisscenes with multiplicity of business, and with incidents undramatic, Ben Jonson, in theselection of historical events, is far less happy than his rival. The speeches of his principalcharacters are long and tedious, and neither interesting from sentiment, passion, orbusiness. His translations from the classics are tiresome and disgusting, and retard, ratherthan forward, the progress of the play. When the tragedy is brought, by the death ofSejanus, to its proper period, (and which is pompously and too circumstantially relatedfrom Juvenal,) the curtain is not suffered to fall till you are tortured with, what mighthave been well spared, an odious relation of the cruel deaths of his young son, and hisdaughter, a child who is first vitiated by the common executioner, to be made a legalvictim of justice to the state. This man, the frequenter of courts, the scholar of Camden,

BEN JONSON 561

the friend of Selden, and the companion of Sir Harry Savile, had no knowledge of decorumand decency.

But, that I may not be thought to view this author’s writings with a partial malignity,let me candidly confess there is something noble and affecting in the defence of Silius,whose voluntary death in the senate is striking and truly dramatic; that Tiberius’sdissembled knowledge of Sejanus’s designs, with his employing Macro to check the prideand insolence of his minion, are masterly touched; and the fine soliloquy of Sejanus, in whichhe enumerates the slaughter of his enemies, cannot be too much applauded. (ii, 86–7)

[On Catiline:]

Jonson has, besides, placed Catiline in such situations, and given sentiments socorrespondent to his ambitious and savage mind, that a good actor could not fail toimprove them to the delight of an intelligent audience. But, when we allow all this, andmore, Catiline, upon the whole, is a very languid and tedious entertainment. Nothing buta very strong prepossession in the author’s favour could have induced an audience to hearwith patience the speeches of Cicero, which, bating the interruptions of a line or two, areextended to the immeasurable length of one hundred and seventy lines. A great deal ofSallust, and almost the whole of Cicero’s Catilinarian orations, are translated verbally.This, in Jonson’s age, was more unnecessary perhaps than in our own: the classics were inevery body’s hands. The last editors of Shakspeare have, with singular diligence, given alist of all the translations from the Greek and Roman authors published in the reigns ofElizabeth and James; and it is almost astonishing to think what floods of science andlearning were poured in from these classic fountains.

The part of Cicero must have been an intolerable burden to an actor of Stentorianlungs, unless the orations were considerably curtailed. Major Mohun, who is celebratedby my Lord Rochester for the wonder of actors, rejected Cicero, and took a much shorterpart, that of Cethegus, his acting of which the same nobleman much applauds. Themanners of this play are, in one place particularly, more censurable than those of Sejanus.In the grand meeting of the conspirators, one of them, by action, tempts a young lad tosubmit to his infamous passion; upon his unwillingness to comply, Catiline threatens himwith instant death if he persists to refuse gratifying the other’s more than brutalinclination. This, I suppose, Ben would call the truth of history and highly characteristical.But surely he must have read and translated Horace’s Art of Poetry with little taste whocould be guilty of such indecency. Jonson’s women are, in general, disagreeablecompany; they are vicious and vulgar, and make the author smell too much of lowcompany and the brothel. We have indeed one modest Celia, and my good Dame Kitely,to counterbalance his large number of rampant ladies. The scene, in Catiline, betweenCurius and Fulvia, by the conduct of which the conspiracy is brought to light, is naturallyimagined and dramatically conducted. —Jonson, by his knowledge of Roman manners,customs, attires, &c. avoids tolerably well the common fault of our old dramatists, whoare sure to travel with the manners of our metropolis to all parts of the globe. (ii, 89–92)

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

[Quotes Digges on the relative popularity of Shakespeare and Jonson, ll. 49–59 andll. 45–7 from No. 38, above.]

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And this seems to be a fair and just account of the regard in which Jonson was generallyheld. He was never supported by the public voice, though kept alive by the critics and theexcellent performance of the actors. He had bullied the authors of his own times into anextraordinary opinion of his vast merit; and, when he died, he left such a frown behindhim, that he frightened all succeeding dramatic poets and critics, who were afraid tocensure, what, in their hearts, they neither admired nor approved. I have already givenmy opinion that some of our leading nobility, and other court critics, made it theirbusiness to stimulate the players to revive their favourite author, though, I am persuaded,the greatest part of the audiences had no appetite for him. The duke of Buckingham hasfound room in his Rehearsal to give praise to Ben Jonson,2 though he no where mentionsShakspeare. But the duke, it seems, conversed with Ben when his grace was a boy of aboutthirteen, and the poet was near his grand climacterique, and thence conceived such aveneration for him, that it never left him afterwards.

It was a constant complaint of the old actors, who lived in Queen Anne’s time, that ifJonson’s plays were intermitted for a few years, they could not know how to personatehis characters, they were so difficult, and their manners so distant, from those of all otherauthors. To preserve them required a kind of stage learning, which was traditionallyhoarded up. Mosca, in Volpone, when he endeavours to work upon the avarice ofCorvino, and to induce him to offer his wife to the pretendedly sick voluptuary,pronounces the word think, seven or eight times: there is a difficulty arises here in variouspause and difference of sound. Many niceties of this kind were observed by the oldcomedians, which are now absolutely lost to the stage. (ii, 93–5)

(d) From chapter 25.

[On Volpone:]

The fable of Volpone is chosen with judgement, and is founded upon avarice and luxury.The paying obsequious and constant courtship to childless rich people, with a view toobtain from them bountiful legacies in return, has been a practice of all times, and in allnations.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆In the comedy of The Fox, there is not much to be censured, except the language,

which is so pedantic and stuck so full of Latinity, that few, except the learned, canperfectly understand it. ‘Jonson’, says Dr. Young, ‘brought all the antients upon his head:by studying to speak like a Roman, he forgot the language of his country.’3

The conduct of the plot in the first four acts, except the mountebank scene, is trulyadmirable. The last act is, in my opinion, quite farcical. That a man of Volpone’s sagacityshould venture to appear in public, in the disguise of a mountebank, to be an eye-witnessof a lady’s beauty, of which he had heard only from report, and after escaping from theapprehended consequences of this exorbitant frolic, which had brought him within thecensure of a court of judicature, upon the bare declaration of the judges in his favour, andagainst those he had caused to be unjustly accused; that he should again assume anothershape, that of an apparitor or tipstaff; make a pretended will; leave all his money, jewels,and effects, pretendedly to so wretched a fellow as a pimp and parasite; and all this withno other view than to mortify, insult, and abuse, those whom he had gulled, while yet thesentence of the court was depending, is a matter as absurd and improbable as any thingacted at the Italian comedy. (ii, 98–9)

BEN JONSON 563

[On Epicoene:]

Mr. Dryden, in his Essay on dramatic Poetry, has given a very advantageous character ofthis play. After all the panegyric bestowed upon it, the play is of that number which needsmuch forgiveness, if it really has a title to much commendation. The great licentiousnessof its dialogue was no obstacle to its success when originally performed; nor, in the reignof Charles II. when revived. But, as the age advanced in decency of manners, the lesscould the Silent Woman be tolerated. When it was revived, about thirty years since,under the management of Mr. Garrick, with perseverance it was dragged on for a fewnights. The managers acquired neither profit nor reputation by the exhibition of it. Someexpressions met with severe marks of the spectators displeasure. The character ofMorose, upon whose peevish and perverse humour the plot of the comedy depends, isthat of a whimsical recluse, whose disposition can bear no sound but that which he uttershimself. If this were the whole of his character, he would still be a good object for comicsatire, but the melancholy of Morose degenerates into malice and cruelty. In extreme oldage, to disinherit a worthy young man, his nephew, he enters into the bonds ofmatrimony. The schemes therefore which are contrived to disturb his repose and tormenthis mind, are proper medicines for such a man, and justified by the strictest morality.

But, besides the licentiousness of the manners, and quaintness of expression, in theSilent Woman, the frequent allusions to forgotten customs and characters render itimpossible to be ever revived with any probability of success. To understand Jonson’scomedies perfectly, we should have before us a satirical history of the age in which helived. I question whether the diligence of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone could dig up avery complete explanation of this author’s allusions. Mr. Colman, after all the pains andskill he could bestow on this comedy, found that it was labour lost; there was no revivingthe dead. The audience were as much disgusted with Jonson’s old ruffs and bands, as thewits of James I. were with Hyeronimo’s old cloak and the Spanish tragedy.

It must yet be confessed, that the gentlemen of this comedy, though perhaps toolearned for the present day, converse with an easy gaiety and liberal familiarity, superiorto any of this writer’s productions. In the first act there is a sonnet, which, for the vivacityand elegance of its turn of thought, I cannot forbear transcribing:

[Quotes the song from Act I (1.1.91–102).] (ii, 101–3)[On The Alchemist:]

This play is, I think equal to any of this author’s, in plot, character, and comic satire. Thecatastrophe is surely a bad one; a gentleman of fortune joining with his knavish servant, tocheat a parcel of bubbles of their money and goods, is equally mean and immoral. Thisplay kept possession of the stage long after the imposture it was written to detect hadceased. It is worked up with amazing art; and, as its foundation is laid in avarice andimposition, it affords a groupe of comic characters and variety of stage-business. However,it must be owned, that, for these last forty years, it has been supported by the action of afavourite Abel Drugger. Mr. Garrick freed the stage from the false spirit, ridiculoussquinting, and vile grimace, which, in Theophilus Cibber, had captivated the public forseveral years, by introducing a more natural manner of displaying the absurdities of afoolish tobacconist. At the same time, justice calls upon us to allow, that the simplicity ofWeston almost exceeded the fine art of a Garrick, whose numberless excellences may

564 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

spare a tribute of praise to this genuine child of nature. I cannot omit, in this place, toobserve, that Mr. Garrick, by his own authority, intrenched upon the part of Kastril,acted incomparably by Mr. Yates, in the 4th act of the play; for the challenging of Surly,and driving him off the stage, belongs properly to the angry boy, and not to Abel, who,instead of being an auxiliary, took the field to himself. (ii, 107–8)

NOTES

1 In The Woman of Andros.2 In Act II, Scene i; The Rehearsal, ed D.E.L.Crane (Durham 1976), p. 16.3 See No 148, above.

BEN JONSON 565

566

177.George Colman, Jonson’s intentions in The Sad

Shepherd1784

From an unsigned review of Francis Waldron’s 1783 continuation of The SadShepherd, in The Monthy Review (1784), lxx.

For Colman, see No. 171, above.

The fragment of the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson, like the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, isa stronger proof of the poetical genius, than of the dramatic art of its author. Fletcher’sPastoral Dialogue was condemned on its first representation; and, though afterwardsrevived by royal sunshine, soon languished again, and fell into decay upon the stage.Contemporary poets, and succeeding critics, have reprobated the tasteless age, thatlistened, with the ears of Midas, to the work of Apollo; yet the continued neglect of thatpastoral, which no one has attempted to restore to the theatre, seems to have ratified theoriginal sentence of its inefficience as a drama, however excellent it may appear as a poem.Had Jonson ever put the last hand to the Sad Shepherd its fate would most probably besimilar; for that it was destined to the stage, we cannot, with the present editor, consideras doubtful. The prologue testifies its intended representation.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆The author of the work before us discovers, in his continuation, as well as in his notes and

appendix, an intimate acquaintance with the productions of our old English poets. Hiscontinuation, of which he speaks so modestly, is by no means contemptible; though wethink it, in point of style, as well as conduct, liable to exception. The language, duly allowingfor the obsolete cast of it, is easy and flowing; but rather in the manner of Allan Ramsay,than of Jonson. In speaking of the fable, we would not wish to ‘turn what should be graveto farce;’ yet we could not help observing on the perusal, that it seemed to be constructedtoo nearly on the principles of the Humane Society. The whole doctrine of the recovery ofpersons, that appear to be drowned, is so clearly laid down, and we are inspired with suchearly hopes of the revival of Æglamour, that we are in little or no pain for this voluntarylover’s leap into the Trent. The rest of the incidents also are, in our opinion, still moreforeign to the manner, and probable intention, of Jonson. Even the new part of the thirdact is not, as the continuator professes, ‘written agreeably to the plan laid down byJonson.’ His argument to the third act gives no authority for the scene of Robin Hood’sbower in the continuation, containing the loves of Amie and Karolin, Lionel andMellifleur. The remainder of the piece strays, we think, still wider from the tract of theoriginal. The sternness and severity of Old Ben accords but ill with the overflowing good-nature of the imitator, whose chief wish seems to have been to promote the present and

future happiness of all his personages, by reforming every body, and marrying every body. Allthe characters, good or evil, ordinary or preternatural, had Jonson completed the piece,would probably have been continued, as they were begun, to the conclusion, according tothe precept of his master Horace; and the knot of the drama, if we may judge from thehint in his list of persons, would have been united by Reuben, the Reconciler. According to asimilar hint in the same list, we may conclude that Maudlin, Douce, Lorell, and PuckHairy, would have sustained their original characters, and have constantly appeared, asThe Troubles unexpected.

The notes and appendix, though rambling and desultory, contain many sensible andjudicious observations, and much curious matter; particularly the extracts from the ‘oldprose morality of William Bulleyn,’ as well as the quotations from ‘the poems of RobertSouthwell.’

From the dedication to Mr. King, and from some extravagant encomiums on otherliving performers at our theatres, we should conclude the author himself to be an humbleretainer to the stage. His work, however, in spite of some peculiarities, abounds withinstruction and entertainment; and we think him entitled, like the old comedians, to takeleave with an invocation of favour and applause,

Valete, et plaudite1. (lxx, 48–51)

NOTE

1 ‘Farewell, and applaud.’

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178.Richard Cumberland on Jonson

1786–8

From volumes iii and iv of Cumberland’s five-volume collection of essays, TheObserver (1785–91). Volume iii appeared in 1786, volume iv in 1788. Text fromthe fourth edition (1791).

Cumberland (1732–1811), a prolific dramatist and a novelist, made his namewith The Brothers (1769), The West Indian (1771), and The Fashionable Lover (1772),each in its turn a notable stage success. After Cambridge he had been privatesecretary to Lord Halifax, President of the Board of Trade, and later (1775) he wasappointed Secretary to the Board. In other references to Jonson in The Observer,Cumberland concludes that Jonson treated audiences ‘with the dictatorialhaughtiness of a pedant’, while Shakespeare treated his ‘with the carelessness of agentleman who wrote at his ease’ (iii, 231); he quotes from the witches in Macbethand The Masque of Queens to show that ‘Jonson dwells upon authorities withoutfancy, Shakespeare employs fancy and creates authorities’ (iii, 139–47); and heprints parallel passages from the ‘Song To Celia’ and Philostratus’ Epistles to showthat Jonson had been ‘poaching’ (iv, 136–8).

(a) From no. 3.When I compare the state of flattery in a free country with that, which obtains in

arbitrary states, it is a consolation to find that this mean principle is not natural tomankind; for it certainly abates in proportion as independency advances. This will be veryevident to any one, who compares the flattery of Elizabeth’s and James’s days with thepresent. Ben Johnson for instance was a surly poet, yet how fulsome are his masques! Inhis News from the New World he says of James—

‘Read him as you would do the bookOf all perfections, and but lookWhat his proportions be:No measure that is thence contriv’d,Or any motion thence deriv’d,But is pure harmony.’ [ll. 340–5]

This poet, though he was rather a clumsy flatterer of his prince, was ingenious enoughin the mode he took for flattering himself, by introducing a kind of chorus, wherein hetakes occasion to tell his hearers, that careless of all vulgar censure, as not depending on commonapprobation, he is confident his plays shall super-please judicious spectators, and to them he leaves itto work with the rest by example, or otherwise. It is remarkable that this passage should be

found in his Magnetic Lady [Induction, ll. 122–5], and that he should speak with suchconfidence of one of his worst productions, as if he was determined to force a bad comedyupon the hearers by the authority of his own recommendation. This is an evident imitationof Aristophanes, who in his comedy of The Clouds holds the same language to his audience,fairly telling them he shall estimate their judgment according to the degree of applause they shallbestow upon his performance then before them: in conclusion he inveighs against certain of hiscontemporaries, Eupolis, Phrynichus, and Hermippus, with whose comedies if any of hisaudience is well pleased, that person he hopes will depart from his dissatisfied; but if they condemnhis rivals, and applaud him, he shall think better of their judgment for the future. Act 1. Sc. 6. [ll.518–62] (iii, 20–2)

(b) From no. 20.

In modern times the philosopher’s stone seems to have been found by our adventurersin the East, where beggars have become princes and princes have become beggars; if BenJohnson was now living, could he have painted these upstart voluptuaries more to the life,than by the following animated description?

[Quotes an abridged version of Alch. 2.2.41–96.]

These are strong colours; and though he has dipped his pencil pretty liberally into thepallet of the ancients, he has finely mixed the composition with tints of his own; to speakin the same figure, we may say of this sketch, that it is in the very best stile of the master.(iii, 187–9)

(c) From no. 86.

[On Pistol:]

Shakespear founded his bully in parody, Jonson copied his from nature, and the palm seemsdue to Bobadil upon a comparison with Pistol; Congreve copied a very happy likenessfrom Jonson, and by the fairest and most laudable imitation produced his Noll Bluff, oneof the pleasantest humourists on the comic stage. (iii, 246)

(d) From no. 110

Usus vetusto genere, sed rebus novis.1

PROLOG. PHAED[RUS] FAB[ULAE]. lib. [i]v. [l. 13]BEN JONSON in his prologue to the comedy of The Fox says that he wrote it in the

short space of five weeks, his words are— To these there needs no lie but this his creature,

Which was two months since no feature;And tho’ he dares give them five lives to mend it,’Tis known five weeks fully penn’d it. [ll. 13–16]

This he delivers in his usual vaunting stile, spurning at the critics and detractors of hisday, who thought to convict him of dulness by testifying in fact to his diligence. The magicmovements of Shakespear’s muse had been so noted and applauded for their surprisingrapidity, that the public had contracted a very ridiculous respect for hasty productions ingeneral, and thought there could be no better test of a poet’s genius than the dispatch and

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facility with which he wrote; Jonson therefore affects to mark his contempt of the publicjudgment for applauding hasty writers in the couplet preceding those above quoted—

And when his plays come out, think they can flout ’emWith saying, He was a year about them. [ll. 11–12]

But at the same time that he shews this contempt very justly, he certainly betrays adegree of weakness in boasting of his poetical dispatch, and seems to forget that he hadnoted Shakespear with something less than friendly censure for the very quality, he isvaunting himself upon.

Several comic poets since his age have seemed to pride themselves on the little timethey expended on their productions; some have had the artifice to hook it in as an excusefor their errors, but it is no less evident what share vanity has in all such apologies:Wycherley is an instance amongst these, and Congreve tells of his expedition in writingthe Old Bachelor, yet the same man afterwards in his letter to Mr. Dryden pompouslypronounces that to write one perfect comedy should be the labour of one entire lifeproduced from a concentration of talents, which hardly ever met in any human person.2

After all it will be confessed that the production of such a drama as The Fox in the spaceof five weeks is a very wonderful performance; for it must on all hands be considered asthe master-piece of a very capital artist, a work, that bears the stamp of elaborate design,a strong and frequently a sublime vein of poetry, much sterling wit, comic humour, happycharacter, moral satire and unrivalled erudition; a work—

Quod non imber edax, non aquilo impotensPossit diruere, aut innumerabilisAnnorum series et fuga temporum.3

In this drama the learned reader will find himself for ever treading upon classic ground;the foot of the poet is so fitted and familiarized to the Grecian sock, that he wears it not withthe awkwardness of an imitator, but with all the easy confidence and authoritative air of aprivileged Athenian: Exclusive of Aristophanes, in whose volume he is perfect, it is plainthat even the gleanings and broken fragments of the Greek stage had not escaped him; inthe very first speech of Volpone’s, which opens the comedy, in which he rapturouslyaddresses himself to his treasure, he is to be traced most decidedly in the fragments ofMenander, Sophocles and Euripides, in Thèognis and in Hesiod, not to mention Horace.To follow him through every one would be tedious, and therefore I will give a sample ofone passage only; Volpone is speaking to his gold—

Thou being the best of things and far transcendingAll stile of joy in children, parents, friends—Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe,They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids,Such are thy beauties and our loves— [1.1.16–21]

Let the curious reader compare this with the following fragment of Euripides’sBellerophon and he will find it almost a translation.

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Cicero made a selection of passages from the Greek dramatic authors, which he turnedinto Latin verse for the purpose of applying them, as occasion should offer, either in hiswritings or pleadings, and our learned countryman seems on his part to have made thewhole circle of Greek and Roman poets his own and naturalized them to our stage. If anylearned man would employ his leisure in following his allusions through his comedy only,I should think it would be no unentertaining task.

The Fox is indubitably the best production of it’s author, and in some points ofsubstantial merit yields to nothing, which the English stage can oppose to it; there is abold and happy spirit in the fable, it is of moral tendency, female chastity and honour arebeautifully displayed and punishment is inflicted on the delinquents of the drama withstrict and exemplary justice: The characters of the Hæredipetæ,5 depicted under the titles ofbirds of prey, Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino, are warmly coloured, happily contrasted andfaithfully supported from the outset to the end: Volpone, who gives his name to the piece,with a fox-like craftiness deludes and gulls their hopes by the agency of his inimitableParasite, or (as the Greek and Roman authors expressed it) by his Fly, his Mosca; and inthis finished portrait Jonson may throw the gauntlet to the greatest masters of antiquity;the character is of classic origin; it is found with the contemporaries of Aristophanes, thoughnot in any comedy of his now existing; the Middle Dramatists seem to have handled itvery frequently, and in the New Comedy it rarely failed to find a place; Plautus has itagain and again, but the aggregate merit of all his Parasites will not weigh in the scaleagainst this single Fly of our poet: The incident of his concealing Bonario in the gallery,from whence he breaks in upon the scene to the rescue of Celia and the detection ofVolpone, is one of the happiest contrivances, which could possibly be devised, because atthe same time that it produces the catastrophe, it does not sacrifice Mosca’s character inthe manner most villains are sacrificed in comedy by making them commit blunders,which do not correspond with the address their first representation exhibits and which theaudience has a right to expect from them throughout, of which the Double Dealer [byCongreve] is amongst others a notable instance. But this incident of Bonario’s interferencedoes not only not impeach the adroitness of the Parasite, but it furnishes a very brilliantoccasion for setting off his ready invention and presence of mind in a new and superiorlight, and serves to introduce the whole machinery of the trial and condemnation of theinnocent persons before the court of Advocates: In this part of the fable the contrivance isinimitable, and here the poet’s art is a study, which every votarist of the dramatic musesought to pay attention and respect to; had the same address been exerted throughout, theconstruction would have been a matchless piece of art, but here we are to lament thehaste of which he boasts in his prologue, and that rapidity of composition, which heappeals to as a mark of genius, is to be lamented as the probable cause of incorrectness, orat least the best and most candid plea in excuse of it: For who can deny that nature is violatedby the absurdity of Volpone’s unseasonable insults to the very persons, who had witnessedfalsely in his defence, and even to the very Advocate, who had so successfully defendedhim? Is it in character for a man of his deep cunning and long reach of thought to provokethose, on whom his all depended, to retaliate upon him, and this for the poor triumph of asilly jest? Certainly this is a glaring defect, which every body must lament, and which canescape nobody. The poet himself knew the weak part of his plot and vainly strives tobolster it up by making Volpone exclaim against his own folly—

I am caught in my own noose— [5.10.13–14]And again—To make a snare for mine own neck, and run

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My head into it wilfully with laughter!When I had newly ’scap’d, was free and clear,Out of mere wantonness! Oh, the dull devilWas in this brain of mine, when I devis’d it,And Mosca gave it second——These are my fine conceits!I must be merry, with a mischief to me!What a vile wretch was I, that cou’d not bearMy fortune soberly! I must have my crotchets,And my conundrums! — [5.11.1–6, 13–17]

It is with regret I feel myself compelled to protest against so pleasant an episode, asthat which is carried on by Sir Politic Wou’d-be and Peregrine, which in fact produces a kindof double plot and catastrophe; this is an imperfection in the fable, which criticism cannotoverlook, but Sir Politic is altogether so delightful a fellow, that it is impossible to give avote for his exclusion; the most that can be done against him is to lament that he has notmore relation to the main business of the fable.

The judgment pronounced upon the criminals in the conclusion of the play is so justand solemn, that I must think the poet has made a wanton breach of character and gainedbut a sorry jest by the bargain, when he violates the dignity of his court of judges bymaking one of them so abject in his flattery to the Parasite upon the idea of matching himwith his daughter, when he hears that Volpone has made him his heir; but this is anobjection, that lies within the compass of two short lines, spoken aside from the bench,and may easily be remedied by their omission in representation; it is one only, and that avery slight one, amongst those venial blemishes—

—quas incuria fudit.6

It does not occur to me that any other remark is left for me to make upon thiscelebrated drama, that could convey the slightest censure; but very many might be madein the highest strain of commendation, if there was need of any more than generaltestimony to such acknowledged merit. The Fox is a drama of so peculiar a species, that itcannot be dragged into a comparison with the production of any other modern poetwhatsoever; it’s construction is so dissimilar from any thing of Shakespear’s writing, thatit would be going greatly out of our way, and a very gross abuse of criticism to attempt tosettle the relative degrees of merit, where the characters of the writers are so widelyopposite: In one we may respect the profundity of learning, in the other we must admirethe sublimity of genius; to one we pay the tribute of understanding, to the other wesurrender up the possession of our hearts; Shakespear with ten thousand spots about himdazzles us with so bright a lustre, that we either cannot or will not see his faults; hegleams and flashes like a meteor, which shoots out of our sight before the eye can measureit’s proportions, or analyse it’s properties—but Jonson stands still to be surveyed, andpresents so bold a front, and levels it so fully to our view, as seems to challenge thecompass and the rule of the critic, and defy him to find out an error in the scale andcomposition of his structure.

Putting aside therefore any further mention of Shakespear, who was a poet out of allrule, and beyond all compass of criticism, one whose excellencies are above comparison,and his errors beyond number, I will venture an opinion that this drama of The Fox is,

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critically speaking, the nearest to perfection of any one drama, comic or tragic, which theEnglish stage is at this day in possession of. (iv, 147–56)

NOTES

1 ‘Using the old form but treating new themes’.2 Congreve, letter to Dennis, in Dennis’s Letters On Several Occasions (1695), p. 95.3 ‘One that no wasting rain, no furious north wind can destroy, or the countless chain of years

and the ages’ flight’: Horace, Odes, 3.30.3–5.4 ‘O gold, most wonderful gift to mankind, a mother does not have such pleasures, nor are

children or a dear father such pleasure to mankind; and if Aphrodite sees a thing like that inthe eyes, it is no wonder that she creates thousands of loves’: Euripides, Fragmenta, 324.

5 ‘Legacy-hunters’.6 ‘Which a careless hand has let drop’: Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 352.

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179.Henry Sampson Woodfall, Jun., Jonson’s vain

contention with Shakespeare1788

From the prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s A King and No King, altered byThomas Harris. The revival took place at Covent Garden on 14 January. Text fromThe European Magazine (1788), xiii.

Woodfall (1739–1805) was also responsible for prologues to ElizabethInchbald’s The Midnight Hour and her All on a Summer’s Day (both 1787). He tookover The Public Advertiser from his father in 1758 and continued to be responsible forit until 1793; the letters by ‘Junius’ attacking the crown appeared in its columns.

To equal Shakespeare vainly Jonson tried,Nor classic lore avail’d, nor critic pride.In vain his scenes as rules direct he rear’d,In vain his various characters appear’d:By Humour’s hand in glowing tints pourtray’d,While quaint Quotation lent her learned aid;Genius for Shakespeare bore a willing part,And Nature triumph’d o’er contending Art.The fabric thus by human efforts rais’d,Admir’d for grandeur, and for firmness prais’d;Yet boasts not firmness to withstand the rageOf whirlwinds, flames, and undermining age.While the vast rock, by nature form’d, defiesSuccessive ages, and inclement skies:The whirlwind’s fury without danger braves,And sternly frowns upon the roaring waves;And mountains raise their hoary heads sublimeIn Heav’n, nor die but with the death of Time.Beaumont and Fletcher nearest Shakespeare cameIn wit, in genius, in dramatic fame.To please the judgment while they charm’d the heart,With Shakespeare’s fire they blended Jonson’s art.But the rude joke, for modest ears unfit,(The porter’s pleasure, and the carman’s wit)Too oft each comic character exprest,Nor blush’d the audience at th’ indecent jest:

While we, more nice, because more knowing grown,To find allusions never meant too prone,At ev’ry grossness feel a gen’rous rage,And hoot the graceless ribbald from the stage. (ll. 30–59; xiii, 105)

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180.Philip Neve on Jonson

1789

From his Cursory Remarks On Some Of the Ancient English Poets, Particularly Milton(1789).

Neve also wrote A Narrative of the Disinterment of Milton’s Coffin (1790), and wasan important early Milton scholar; little is known of his life.

JONSONOf Ben Jonson, who died in 1637, though justly allowed a great scholar and perfect

master of dramatic rule, there are not many pieces, among all the volumes he has left,that can be pointed out to a reader of taste, for his amusement, or approbation. As adramatist, it seems to have been his fault, that he studied books, where he should havestudied men. Every Man in his Humour, a comedy, in which Shakspeare used to act; thedescription of the battle, at the conclusion of Catiline; the imperfect drama of the SadShepherd, or, Tale of Robinhood; and the Alchymist, seem to form the chief mass of his poeticbeauties. In the first act of the Sad Shepherd, the death of Earine is related with a fancy andassemblage of poetical images, scarcely any where equalled: nor is this the only beauty ofthe piece. Yet so fatally did books associate with all combinations in Jonson’s mind, that hehas, two pages afterwards, made his shepherds read Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, andother Greek romances.

Of the Alchymist the fame is indeed deservedly established. The course of human eventsaffords few juster subjects for the drama, than the censure of superstitious practices andopinions, and the ridicule of popular errors. As such follies tend to the subversion of truephilosophy, a pen that, like Jonson’s, holds them up to derision, is very commendablyemployed in the cause of truth. Chaucer’s Chanones Yemannes Tale had, long before, strucka hard blow at the pretenders to the philosopher’s stone: which tale, it appears in Jonson’stext, he had consulted in forming his drama. That the opinion of transmuting andmultiplying metals was fixed in the general belief, at the time when Jonson wrote this play,is commonly known: but it has its merit not from that circumstance only, and as a satireof temporary application alone; it is, and will be, a satire of distinguished excellence, aslong as this deep and rooted persuasion of a philosopher’s stone shall any where exist. Whilstreason shall be insufficient for all the purposes of conviction to the human mind, it willperhaps be quite hopeless that superstition and vain opinions should be wholly eradicated:and, as long as the passions shall prevail against any of the cardinal constituents of virtue,avarice will follow them, or rather a greedy thirst after a source to supply theirenormities. This fondness therefore for the opinion of transmutation is not likely to be the

last folly, that will die; and, as long as it shall exist, the application of the Alchymist willremain. Of the characters, Sir Epicure Mammon is excellently chosen: a glutton anddebauchee, whose judgment is weakened by his passions, and who thereby becomes a fitsubject to be the dupe of Subtle, and, his helpmate, Face. Jonson’s play was first acted in theyear 1610; and, four years afterwards, was performed by the scholars of Trinity-College,Cambridge, before the King, a comedy, entitled Albumazar (an astrologer): a play, of whichthe plot is excellently contrived, conducted with a variety of entertaining incidents, andbrought to a just and perfect conclusion. The restitution of Antonio’s goods by Albumazarimpeaching the thieves, renders the conclusion of this piece more perfect, than that ofJonson’s Alchymist, where Face keeps his gains. (39–42)

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181.Ludwig Tieck on Shakespeare and Jonson

1794

Translated from Das Buch über Shakespeare, ed. Henry Lüdeke (Halle 1920).Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853) was a leading light in the early Romantic

movement in Germany, and a prolific writer and critic. He had planned from earlyin his career to write a book on Shakespeare, but never completed it. The followingextracts are translated from the commentary on Shakespeare that the editor ofTieck’s papers on Shakespeare, Henry Lüdeke, dates about 1794. Tieck’s interestin Jonson was second only to his interest in Shakespeare; in 1793 he had adaptedVolpone for the German stage, the play being first published in Berlin in 1798 underthe title Ein Schurke über den andern, oder die Fuchsprelle (‘One Rascal againstAnother, or The Baiting of the Fox’). Walther Fischer, ‘Zu Ludwig Tieckselisabethanischen Studien: Tieck als Ben Jonson-Philologe’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch(1926), lxii, 130, records that between 1793 and 1817 Tieck went throughJonson’s work systematically, once in Whalley’s text and twice in Gifford’s. In hisBriefe über Shakespeare, first published in Das Poetisches Journal (1800), Tieckdescribes his fascination with Jonson as the great alternative to Shakespeare,demonstrating in his ‘strange, almost painfully exact works’ ‘the most completeexample of the unfolding of a false trail’ in the drama (Tieck, Kritische Schriften(Leipzig 1848–52), i, 183–4). See Introduction, pp. 33–4.

(a) From the note on Falstaff in the commentary on Henry IV, Part 1.Shakespeare created his characters directly from Nature and from his genius, so that

they have always a grace which is lacking in the creations of most poets, we love themalways, however faulty they may be, just because the poet was closer to Nature. Jonson’scharacters always remain a little base; they betray study of the ancients, one notices hisattention to other works, his practice of abstraction from them, and for that reasonremains colder and less drawn into illusion. (163–4)

(b) From the general comment on The Merchant of Venice.

The age was so lacking in delicacy that the far more modest geniuses Jonson,Beaumont, Massinger, and Chapman ventured other kinds of curiosities, depicting thestrangest characters, the most peculiar events: Beaumont mixes the comic and the seriousin the most untoward way, Jonson’s comedies often consist of intricacies created from thestrangest occurrences and the grossest caricatures. His better plays have more the merit ofa good plot, than of finely nuanced characters. (178)

(c) From the commentary on All’s Well that Ends Well.

Shakespeare creates comic characters more in and for themselves. Beaumont creates acaricature out of individual foolishnesses, but Jonson often puts down individuals of histime with comic forcefulness (individuals who admittedly for just this reason, that they aretoo much individuals, are often inartistic). From him one gets to know better customs andabuses which other poets have not shown; thus one sees especially from his Every Man outof his Humour that a kind of affectation was beginning to be almost universal, everyonepiqued themselves that they spoke the language of the Court, then very stiff and affected.Everyone, who had the least opportunity, rushed to Court and boasted of the style ofacquaintance that he had there. In the play in question there is even a character who hashimself taught to smoke tobacco according to courtly customs and in gallant style. Thisscene is among the most humorous of the play. Naturally, individual expressions andstyles of speaking were the particular favourites of a certain period, and belongedparticularly to a refined way of life: among these is answering a great many questions with‘O God’ in different nuances of tone. In this play of Jonson’s this obsession is also madecomic; for it really is a discovery that seems to be made for fools, for they do indeed payattention to everything. —Clove and Orange, two foolish fellows, find themselves in thenave of St. Paul’s Cathedral, then used for walks; it occurs to them, to play scholars forthe benefit of the rest of those present.

[Quotes EMO, 3.4.6–31.] (211–12)

(d) From the commentary on Twelfth Night.…in many very good plays the action is quite subsidiary and, as it were, only gives the

characters opportunity to express themselves— or the action is the main thing, indeed isquite completely so and the characters disappear altogether: one can distinguish betweencharacter-comedy and intrigue-comedy. In the latter it is a question merely ofextraordinary and lively combinations of circumstances, an intrigue that is unravelled injust as comic a fashion as it was created. The older English theatre had hardly any idea ofthe comic or of this kind of comedy; two plays excepted, which to me seem by virtue oftheir true comic direction to stand above all more recent products in which the poet isquite in the native tradition: they are, Shakespeare’s Merry Wives and Jonson’s The Fox. —Here the poets have chosen a comic action, and carried it through with comic characters,have done both of what in more recent comedies is only done singly. Jonson’s othercomedies are indeed also pure comedies, but they do not have the great merit of plot, stillless its outstanding character drawing, for in this comedy he departs from his habit ofpresenting individual whole Humours, whole genera of characters, and individualising themtoo little. (324–5)

(e) From the commentary on As You Like It, Act IV, Scene i.

Jaques: Shakespeare certainly intended to make this character a comic one, but comic heis not; in Ben Jonson similar people often appear, but the latter poet makes themlaughable in the highest degree through exaggeration. The rage for travel, and the passionfor marking oneself out through a mood, especially that of melancholy, seem to have beenfairly general at that time. Jaques is probably intended to be a comic version of whatHamlet is in tragedy; the character is finely drawn, only the poet has quite missed the comic,if that was his intention; but in the same way Othello is a very tragic character, but Ford,

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his opposite, is, in spite of some fine depiction, not comic; on the other hand Downrightin Ben Jonson’s ‘Every Man [in his Humour]’ is a genuinely comic character, while withJonson an Othello would probably not have succeeded. In this way each poet has a sidewhere he is strong, and one where he is weaker. Even in Shakespeare not every aspect iscombined. (338–9)

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582

182.Nathan Drake, Jonson’s inferior genius

1798

From ‘On the Poetry of the Ages of Elizabeth and the Charleses, and of the presentreign’, no. 26 of Drake’s Literary Hours Or Sketches Critical and Narrative (Sudbury1798).

The essay argues that the poetry of the last half-century is superior to ‘the entireprevious body of our poetry’, Shakespeare excepted (p. 445). Drake (1766–1836)practised medicine in Suffolk and published numerous volumes of essays and twocollections of Shakespeare materials, Shakespeare and his Times (1817) and Memorialsof Shakespeare (1828).

There was a period when the productions of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher werepreferred to those of Shakespeare. We are now astonished at the miserable taste of ourancestors, for of Jonson, the celebrated but pedantic Jonson, if we except two or three ofhis comedies, there is little commendatory to be said. His tragedies are tame and servilecopies from the ancients, and though in his comedies of the Fox, the Silent Woman and theAlchemist the characters are strongly cast, and have both wit and humour, they are of akind by no means generally relished or understood, nor would they now, nor probablywill they hereafter, have any popularity on the stage.

Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher have certainly many beauties, but I questionwhether they possess a single piece which a correct taste could endure without very greatalteration, and they are loaded with such a mass of obscenity and vulgar buffoonery, thatcompared with them Shakespeare is chaste and decorous in the extreme. It may justly besaid, I think, that their tragedies fall far, very far short indeed, of the energy and all-commanding interest of Shakespeare’s, and their comedies, I suspect, are even greatlyinferior to Jonson’s both in plot and humour. They are certainly however superior ingenius to Jonson1: they have more simplicity and pathos, and their blank verse has veryfrequently a peculiar felicity of construction. (449–50)

NOTE

1 There is a similar comment on p. 463: ‘the plays of Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcherabound with the wildest incongruities both in matter and form, and though Jonson wasinfinitely more regular yet he wanted the essential of genius’.

584

Bibliography

A select list of the most useful books, articles, andtheses on Jonson criticism up to 1800

586

BIBLIOGRAPHY

JUDKINS, D.C., The Non-Dramatic Works of Ben Jonson: A Reference Guide (Boston, Mass. 1982).

588

COLLECTIONS OF CRITICISM AND ALLUSIONS

BARISH, J.A. (ed.), Ben Jonson: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1963).BARISH, J.A. (ed.), Jonson: ‘Volpone’: A Casebook (1972).BENTLEY, G.E., Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared (Chicago

1945), 2 vols. Bentley’s conclusions are challenged in FROST, D.L., ‘Shakespeare in theSeventeenth Century’, Shakespeare Quarterly (1965), xvi, 81–9, and there are comments andadded allusions in reviews of Bentley’s work by BALDWIN, T.W., Journal of English and GermanPhilology (1946), xlv, 232–4; HARBAGE, A., Modern Language Notes (1945), lx, 414–17;MAXWELL, B., Philological Quarterly (1945), xxiv, 91–3; SISSON, C.J. Modern LanguageReview (1946), xli, 73–4; and WILSON, F.P., Library (1945), xxvi, 199–202.

BRADLEY, J.F. and ADAMS, J.Q., The Jonson Allusion-Book (New Haven, Conn. 1922).HERFORD, C.H., SIMPSON, P., and SIMPSON, E. (eds), Ben Jonson, ix (Oxford 1950), 163–258,

‘The Stage History of the Plays’, and xi (Oxford 1952), 305–569‘Jonson’s Literary Record’.HOLDSWORTH, R.V. (ed.), Jonson: ‘Every Man in his Humour’ and ‘The Alchemist’: A Casebook (1978).

590

THE RESPONSE TO JONSON BY INDIVIDUAL CONTEMPORARIES ANDSUCCESSORS

BLANSHARD, R.A., ‘Carew and Jonson’, Studies in Philology (1955), lii, 195–211.DONALDSON, I., ‘Fathers and Sons: Jonson, Dryden, and Mac Flecknoe’, Southern Review (1985),

xviii, 314–27.FREEHAFER, J., ‘Leonard Digges, Ben Jonson, and the Beginning of Shakespeare Idolatry’,

Shakespeare Quarterly (1970), xxi, 63–75.GRAHAM, C.B., ‘The Jonsonian Tradition in the Comedies of John Dennis’, Modern Language Notes

(1941), lvi, 370–2.GRAHAM, C.B., ‘The Jonsonian Tradition in the Comedies of Thomas D’Urfey’, Modern Language

Quarterly (1947), viii, 47–52.HONIGMANN, E.A.J., John Weever: A Biography of a Literary Associate of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson,

Together with a Photographic Facsimile of Weever’s ‘Epigrammes’ (1599) (Manchester 1987), chs 3–5.

SHARPE, R.B., ‘Jonson’s “Execration” and Chapman’s “Invective”: Their Place in Their Authors’Rivalry’, Studies in Philology (1945), xlii, 555–63.

WARREN, A., ‘Pope and Ben Jonson’, Modern Language Notes (1930), xlv, 86–8.

592

GENERAL STUDIES OF JONSON’S RECEPTION IN HIS OWN TIME

HELGERSON, R., Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser, Jonson, Milton and the Literary System (Berkeley, Calif.1983), ch. 3.

KAY, W.D., ‘The Shaping of Ben Jonson’s Career: A Reexamination of Facts and Problems’, ModernPhilology (1970), lxvii, 224–37.

OMANS, S., ‘The War of the Theaters: An Approach to its Origins, Development and Meaning’,Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1969.

PATTERSON, A., Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early ModernEngland (Madison, Wisc. 1984), 49–58.

SHARPE, R.B., The Real War of the Theatres: Shakespeare’s Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral’s Men, 1594–1603 (Boston, Mass. 1935).

SMALL, R.A., The Stage-Quarrel Between Ben Jonson and the So-called Poetasters (Breslau 1899).

594

GENERAL STUDIES OF JONSON’S LATER REPUTATION

BONVALET-MALLET, N., ‘Ben Johnson devant la critique française éclairée’, Les Lettres Romanes(1978). xxxii, 197–214.

BONVALET-MALLET, N., ‘Adaptations et traductions de Ben Jonson au xviiie siècle’, Les LettresRomanes (1981), xxxv, 199–234.

DONALDSON, I., ‘Damned by Analogies: OR, How to Get Rid of Ben Jonson’, Gambit (1973), vi,38–46.

DONALDSON, I., ‘Jonson and the Moralists’, in KERNAN, A. (ed.), Two Renaissance Mythmakers:Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson (Baltimore, Md. 1977), 146–64.

GRAVES, T.S., ‘Jonson in the Jest Books’, in The Manly Anniversary Studies in Language and Literature(Chicago 1923), 127–39.

GRAY, C.H., Theatrical Criticism in London to 1795 (New York 1931).LAREGINA, G., ‘Ben Jonson e la sua fortuna nel Seicento’, English Miscellany (1965), xvi, 37–86.NOYES, R.G., ‘Volpone; Or, the Fox—the Evolution of a Nickname’, Harvard Studies and Notes in

Philology and Literature (1934), xiv, 161–75.RIDDELL, J.A., ‘Seventeenth-Century Identifications of Jonson’s Sources in the Classics’, Renaissance

Quarterly (1975), xxviii, 204–18.SCHOENBAUM, S., ‘Shakespeare and Jonson: Fact and Myth’, in David Galloway (ed.), The

Elizabethan Theatre II (1970), 1–19.SHARPE, R.B., ‘Title-Page Mottoes in the Poetomachia’, Studies in Philology (1935), xxxii, 210–20.SIRLUCK, E., ‘Shakespeare and Jonson among the Pamphleteers of the First Civil War’, Modern

Philology (1955–6), liii, 88–99.SWEENEY, J.G., III, Jonson and the Psychology of Public Theater (Princeton, NJ 1985).TEAGUE, F., The Curious History of ‘Bartholomew Fair’ (1985).TEN HOOR, G.J., ‘Ben Jonson’s Reception in Germany’, Philological Quarterly (1935). xiv, 327–43.WASSERMAN, E.R., Elizabethan Poetry in the Eighteenth Century (Urbana, Ill. 1947).

596

STUDIES OF JONSON ON STAGE

DIRCKS, R.J., ‘Garrick and Gentleman: Two Interpretations of Abel Drugger’, Restoration andEighteenth-Century Theatre Research (1968), vii, 48–55.

NICHOLLS, G.W., ‘Aspects of Stage Productions of Ben Jonson 1660–1776’, Ph.D. thesis, St David’sCollege, Lampeter, 1972.

NICHOLLS, G.W., ‘Jeremy Collier and the Jonson Revivals of 1700’, Trivium (1975), x, 51–61.NOYES, R.G., Ben Jonson on the English Stage, 1660–1776 (Cambridge, Mass. 1935).RULFS, D.J., ‘Reception of Elizabethan Playwrights on the London Stage 1776–1833’, Studies in

Philology (1949), 54–69.SORELIUS, G., ‘The Giant Race before the Flood’: Pre-Restoration Drama on the Stage and in the Criticism

of the Restoration (Uppsala 1966).

598

INDEX

Addison, Joseph 15 411Adolphus, John 555Aesop 285Akenside, Mark 451Alchemist, The 10 143 167 229 325 370 490

adaptations 511 515allusions in 502audience reactions to 297 511 7conclusion 275 343 406 469 514 564 577with Epicoene and Volpone as Jonson’s best173 229 301 349 373 494 511 541farce in 13 329 449Garrick’s revival of 12 16 16opening scene 376 428too particular and thus obsolete 448 448490 513 514 541plot and construction 229 246 338 357 477prologues to 101 9 174 222satire in 405 514 517 577success on stage 156 190 192 219 445and Tomkis’s Albumazar 255 577tricks and illusion in 237 283 371 536see also under individual characters

Anacreon 140Ananias (in The Alchemist) 428 514Anton, Robert 115Ariosto, Ludovico 473Aristophanes 48 212 250 325 402Aristotle 325Aubigny, Lord see Stuart, Esmé, Seigneur d’

Aubigny

Baker, David Erskine 14 491Baker, Henry 385Baker, Thomas 353

Bannister, John see under VoltoreBartholomew Fair 301

Brown’s revision of 16 499characters 251 279 340 493prefatory matter 109profanity in 344puppets in 11 225puritans in 11 204 225 263 514reactions to performances of 11 234reality transformed in 261variety and unity of 238 246 499

Basse, William 5Bate, Henry 542Baxter, Richard 226Beattie, James 15 505Beaumont and Fletcher 233 248 275 375 395

575 583compared with Jonson 7 432 5 459 490559folio 194 215grouped with Jonson 222 230 232The Maid’s Tragedy 246 282 325 495Rollo 282 325 433The Scornful Lady 248 259wit in 281 299

Beaumont, Francis 6 193 198 201 579 579Knight of the Burning Pestle 322as writer of documents 4 95 105 120 5 322529

Beaumont, Sir John 184Behn, Aphra 6 8 10 285 297Bensley, Robert see under MoscaBenson, John 208Berney, Thomas 10Betterton, Thomas 17 351 381Bew, William 204

599

Boaden, James 522Bobadil (in Every Man in his Humour, 1616

version) 455 478 479 481 542 553 559compared to Congreve’s Noll Bluff 559570compared to Falstaff 15 529 551compared to Pistol 13 570Woodward as 16 438 480 485 493

Boccaccio, Giovanni 322Bodenham, John 69Boileau, Nicholas, L’Art Poétique 313 338Bolton, Edmund, 4 6 95 127Bonario (in Volpone) 14 337 390Brainworm (in Every Man in his Humour, 1616

version) 478 479 540Breton, Nicholas 2 41Brome, Richard 140 148Brown, John see under Bartholomew FairBrown, Tom 11Buckingham, Duke of see Sheffield, John, Duke

of BuckinghamBuffone, Carlo (in Every Man out of his Humour)

6 190 193 560Burke, Edmund 423Burnaby, William 348Burton, Robert 4 217Butler, Samuel 8 241

Calamy, Edmund 226Caliban (in The Tempest) 393 470Camden, Lord see Pratt, Charles, Baron (later

Earl) CamdenCamden, William 437 561Capell, Edward 15 500Carew, Thomas 143Cartwright, William 193 215 320 322 464Cary, Lucius, Second Viscount Falkland 143

149 173 180 189 190 464Case is Altered, The 2 67 322 460 471Catiline 103 182 191 219 3 325 396 413 509

individual scenes 245 327 364 416 557 562popular on stage 322solecisms in 9 9 292use of sources 322 327 411 431 441 469483 497 509speeches in 431 455 463stagecraft in 8 246 261 291

whether true tragedy 282 301 427 445 467507 509unpopular on stage 4 11 156 263 270 297355 493verse in 262 282see also under individual characters

Catiline (character) 146 198 203 357 397 415433 561

Catullus 473 501Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle

229Cavendish, William, Earl (later Duke) of

Newcastle 175 229 273Celia (in Volpone) 14 390 555Cethegus (in Catiline) 291 399 415Chalmers, George 20Chapman, George 69 83 117 127Charles I 184Chaucer, Geoffrey 335 380 577Chettle, Henry 69Churchill Charles 483 502Cibber, Colley 402 495Cibber, Theophilus 444 481

see also under Drugger, AbelCicero (author) 33Cicero (in Catiline) 398 415 416

his orations, defended or commended 105187 198 203 357 399his orations, as literal translations 293 325415 431 561

Clarendon see Hyde, Edward, Earl of ClarendonClement, Justice (in BartholomewFair) 559Cleveland, John 466Clun, Walter see under SubtleCob (in Every Man in his Humour) 340Cobb, Samuel 356Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 21 23Collier, Jane 18 453Collier, Jeremy 6 340Colman, George 16 519 540 564

see also underEpicoene and Volpone

Comedy of Errors. The 362Common, Dol (in The Alchemist) 223 376Congreve, William 330 363 381 495 525 570

572as writer of documents 335 344 376see also under Bobadil

600

Corbaccio (in Volpone) 364 522acted by Johnson 364 556acted by Parsons 523 555ridicule of his deafness misplaced 11 14337 338 390 448 449

Corneille, Pierre 247 250 251 326 411Coriolanus 379Corvino (in Volpone) 390 555Coventry, Henry 5Cowley, Abraham 267 395Cumberland, Richard 13 568Cutbeard (in Epicoene) 543Cymbeline 531Cythia’s Revels 4 21 34 283 285 467

Daniel, George 205Daniel, Samuel 71 91 117D’Anvers, Caleb 396Dauphine (in Epicoene) 275 344 543 544Davenant, Sir William 169 225 361 381Davies, Thomas 15 20 547 557Daw, Sir John (in Epicoene) 279 340 443 543Dekker, Thomas 2 41 69 74 221 461

Satiromastix 2 3 51 65 69de Muralt, Béat Louis 11 333Dennis, John 12 349 365 371 376

letters toCongreve 11 12 335 452

Devil is an Ass, The 225 283 285 322 370 449Dibdin, Charles 21Digby, Sir Kenelme 169Digges, Dudley 96 188Digges, Leonard 5 155 529 562Donne, John 4 95 322 474Downright (in Every Man in his Humour, 1616

version) 551 559 580Drake, Nathan 17 21 580Drugger, Abel (in The Alchemist) 405 406 481

502 518Garrick’s 12 13 16 17 437 477 513 518Garrick’s changes to 16 564Garrick’s, compared to Weston’s 537Garrick’s, compared to Cibber’s 547 564Garrick’s stage business as 407 481

Dryden, John 9–18 passim, 16 23 285 285 288435

answers to 6 9 241 270 277 319 19 343469documents by 243 259 273 291 296 301313 330as playwright 275 291 335 344 355 381483quoted 362 381 385 438 445 470 479 542543 563his view of Jonson’s ‘Ode’ to Shakespeare8 360 380 535

Drummond, William see under Jonson, Bendu Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste, Seigneur 81Duppa, Bishop Bryan 180 193

Earles, John 139Eliot, T.S. 22Elizabeth I 183Epicoene 120 259 343 370 381 405 543

adaptations 511 541Collegiate Ladies in 275 441 542dialogue 251 564as model play 8 248 250 544plot 246 251 338 435 542revivals, by Colman 16 20 540 26 564revivals, by Garrick 12 441 563revivals, by others 11 225 234 241 263satire and topical allusions in 405 544 564sources 322 428 490see also under individual characters and underThe Alchemist

Etherege, Sir George 303 376Euripides 107 571Every Man in his Humour 248 269 459 465 477

511 519characters 551 559as humours play 2 59 159 437 478Jonson’s revision of 461 478 497language of 241 294 559plot 438 478 481revivals, by Garrick 12 16 16 437 443 464476 493 525 549revivals, by others 267 2 546see also under individual characters

Every Man out of his Humour 9 29 159 294 322466

characters 13 447 560humours in 31 34 452 478 579

601

as satire 2 32 59see also under Buffone, Carlo

Face (in The Alchemist) 223 283 343 377 406Falkland, see Cary, Lucius, second Viscount

FalklandFalstaff 14 274 405 451 490 561

humours in 250 259 450see also under Bobadil

Farquhar, George 14Felltham, Owen 4 142 198 323 494Fennor, William 115Field, Nathaniel 106Fielding, Henry 15 399Fielding, Sarah 18 411 453Fitzgeffrey, Charles 65 322Flecknoe, Richard 6 7 9 232 270 301Fletcher, John 7 12 215 252 274 295 466

characters and dialogue 247 274 331comparedwith Jonson 215 233 274 301compared with Shakespeare 248 253 324The Faithful Shepherdess 106 247 253 433471 564grouped with Jonson 7 9 271 325 402incorrect 248 293 321as writer of document 105

Foote, Samuel 17 549Ford (in The Merry Wives of Windsor) 580

see also under KitelyFord, John, The Melancholy Lover 421Fox, Charles 556Fuller, Thomas 8 11 230 322

Garrick, David 12 13 15 17 441 464his Captain Flash 552The Jubilee Garrick (contd)364letters to 499 509 533as writer of documents 16 407 536see also under The Alchemist; Drugger, Abel;Epicoene; Every Man in his Humour, Kitely

Gay, John 15Gayton, Edmund 219Gentleman, Francis 16 17 438 509 515 533Gifford, William 21Gilchrist, Octavius 21Gildon, Charles 13 14 169 351 363 373Gill, Alexander 162 213 321 445

Godolphin, Sidney 190Godwin, William 21 144Goodwin, R. 145Gorboduc, by Thomas Norton and Thomas

Sackville 325Gower, John 335Greg, W.W. 22Greville, Fulke 81Guilpin, William 37Guthrie, William 14 16 411 435

Hales, John see under Shakespeare, WilliamHamlet 371 489 532 580Harington, Sir John 502Hawkins, Sir Thomas 186Hayward, Edward 119Hazlitt, William 21Heath, Robert 11Henry IV, Part 1 297 364Herbert, Sir Edward (later Lord) 79 143 211Herford and Simpson (C.H. Herford and Percy

Simpson) 22Herrick, Robert 217Heywood, Thomas 269Hippisley, John 435Hoadley, Benjamin, The Suspicious Husband 16

see also under KitelyHobbes, Thomas 15Holiday, Barton 211Holland, Hugh 127Homer 87 187 273 327 470

see also under Shakespeare, WilliamHooke, William 226Hopkins, William 542Horace (Jonson as) 3 41 47 51 69 81 461Horace (poet) 29 140 185 198 305 322 394

his Ars Poetica cited 99 327 329 337 385507see also under Hurd, Richard

Howard, Edward 6 8 10 23 259 320documents by 281 297 4 317

Howard, Sir Robert 259 259Howell, James 16 167 186Hume, David 452Hunt, Leigh 22Hurd, Richard:

602

dissertation on drama 13 18 23 446 462493 560letter on imitation 13 472 500notes to Horace 429 491 497 505

Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon 149 264

Ireland, William Henry 20Isle of Dogs, The, by Ben Jonson and Thomas

Nashe 2

Jaques (in As You Like It) 580Jenner, Charles 511Johnson, Benjamin see under CorbaccioJohnson, Samuel 417Jones, Inigo 222

document by 123Jonson’s attack on 17 489 167 201as Jonson’s enemy 4 165

Jonson, Ben:The Art of Poetry (translated from Horace)79 83 209 327 417 562Conversations with William Drummond, 2 79123 170 444Discoveries, in general 22 340 344 375 497Discoveries, on Shakespeare 19 20 362 380381The English Grammar, 131 335epigrams, as a group 59 112 121 127 167epigrams, individual 20 29 79 422‘Execration upon Vulcan’ 41 127 471Leges Conviviales 321 464lyrics and songs 12 21 168 459 467 474569masques and entertainments 22 73 89 97175 229 541(see also under Jones, Inigo);masques, and Shakespeare 474 500 569‘Ode to Himself’ 4 139 323 422‘Ode’ to Shakespeare 8 379 444 529 533560(see also under Dryden, John);Workes (1616) 7 113 117 347see also under individual characters and plays

Jonsonus Virbius 5 10 167 180Julius Caesar 288 362 379 385Juvenal 48 274 322

Killigrew, Tom 235King, Henry 186King John 509Kitely (in Every Man in his Humour, 1616

version) 455 477 478 478 502 542compared to Ford in The Merry Wives ofWindsor 546 551 552 553 559compared to Othello 479 547compared to Strickland in The SuspiciousHusband 476 480 527Garrick’s 12 438 444 480 481 493 509Smith’s 505 547

Knepp, Elizabeth 241Kyd, Thomas, The Spanish Tragedy:

additions to 22Horace-Jonson an actor in 57

Kynaston, Edward 225

La Foole, Sir Amorous (in Epicoene) 279 443543 544

Langbaine, Gerald 6 9 317 493Lee, Nathaniel, Lucius Junius Brutus 371Lentulus (in Catiline) 415Levin, William 17 385Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph 537Lucan 198Lucy, George 4

Macbeth 16 292 364 407 547Macilente (in Every Man out of His Humour) 3

455Macklin, Charles 18 20 419Magnetic Lady, The 11 159 167 213 322 343 569Jonson’s defence of 321 569

stagecraft in 14 162 246Malone, Edmund 13 18 passim, 319Mammon, Sir Epicure (in The Alchemist) 193

406 428 513 536 570 577see also under Steele, Sir Richard

Marmion, Shackerley 199Marston, John 2 29 37 41 45 passim;

documents by 75 87 89Histriomastix 2 3 202

Martial 501Massinger, Thomas 559 583Mayne, Jasper 10 190 466Meade, Robert 203

603

Medbourne, Matthew 269Meres, Francis 1Merry Wives of Windsor, The 13 248 363 363 413

551 579Milton, John 5 467 474Mohun, Major Michael 562Molière 251 349 377 448

compared with Jonson 238 333 433Montague, Elizabeth 509Morison, Sir Henry 149 180Morose (in Epicoene) 377 405 428 455 543 544

563as farcicalcharacter 11 338as humours character 14 339 443 451whether based on a real character or not 1023 250 285 285 376 381 542

Morris, Corbyn 14 405Mosca (in Volpone) 23 337 390 494 521 556

572acted by Bensley 522 523 555acted by Wilkes 364

Mucedorus 99Much Ado About Nothing 363Munday, Anthony 69Murphy, Arthur 15 16 437 450 476

Nashe, Thomas 2Neve, Philip 575Newcastle, Earl of see Cavendish, William, Earl

(later Duke) of NewcastleNew Inn, The 4 16 138 159 159 493Numps (in Bartholomew Fair) 283

O’Brien, William 483Oldham, John 6 10 303 322Oldisworth, Nicholas 137Othello 325 385 547 580Otter, Thomas (in Epicoene) 443 543Otway, Thomas, Venice Preserved 375Ovid 47 241 274 322

Metamorphoses 69 285

Palgrave, Francis 21Palmer, John 544 555Parnassus plays 69Parsons, William, see under CorbaccioPembroke, William, Earl of 103 121 183

Pepys, Samuel 11 223 234 241 259 262Pericles 4 140 142Persius 48Petronius 469Phillips, Edward 11 299Philostratus 569Pindar 140 198Pistol (Shakespeare character) 406

see also under BobadilPlautus 34 119 212 275 329 387

Jonson’s debts to 67 241 322 329 340 362471as Jonson’s model 320 448 559

Poetaster 3 41 301 322 361 561Apologetical Dialogue, 2 45 427 561epilogue, 7 467as personal satire 321 322 461 466 561sources 319 322 561

Poetomachia 2 69Pope, Alexander 381 455 473 475 501 533

documents by 379 394Porter, Endymion 361Portland, Richard, Lord Weston, Earl of 183Poussin, Nicholas 413Pratt, Charles, Baron (later Earl) Camden 17

533Purcell, Henry 499

Quintilian 292

Racine, Jean 411Ramsay, Henry 203Randolph, Thomas 13 139 159 447 464Ravenscroff, Edward 285Reed, Isaac 16Rich, Christopher 351Roberts, John 381Rochester, Lord see Wilmot, John, Earl of

RochesterRogers, Samuel 491Rowe, Nicholas 17 18 169 360Rubens, Peter Paul 447Rymer, Thomas 11 325

Sackville, Charles, Lord Dorset 267The Sad Shepherd 170 343 459 470 474 564

among Jonson’s best 21 22 577

604

Waldron’s continuation of 14 567Saint-Evremond, Charles de Saint-Denis, Sieur

de 8 235 333Sallust 127

as Jonson’s model for Catiline 415literal translations in Catiline from 297 445483 497 507 509variations in Catiline from 322 433 470

Savile, Sir Henry 561Schlegel, A.W. 21Scory, Edmund 97Sejanus 19 83 167 198 455 561

comic scenes in 245 470 557Gentleman’s adaptation 16 438craftsmanship in 246 246 468reception on stage 4 11 84 87 115 121 156270rhymed verse in 247 262 282as tragedy of state, 182 202 463translations in 83 84 249 320 411 435 441463 511 561sources 319 466whether true tragedy 83 95 301 427 462467 509see also under individual characters

Sejanus (character) 151 561as nickname 14

Selden, John 4 107 117 191 267 464Sempronia (in Catiline) 416 470Seneca 198 212 322 470Settle, Elkanah 9Seward, Thomas 432Shadwell, Thomas 9 263 273 301 395

as writer of documents 6 9 257 277Shakespeare 69 291 351 395 405 417 427 460

characters 447 529 579 579compared to Beaumont and Fletcher andJonson, 432 459compared to Jonson 1 5 passim, 193 232247 289 385 411 432 489 509 531 573defended by Hales 169 248 361as entertainment 201 215Homer to Jonson’s Virgil 249 411 435incorrect 293 295 321his learning 59 453 483 505 544Jonson preferred to 6 8 241Jonson’s criticisms of 1 8 393 425 470 531

533

Jonson’s malevolence towards 360 393 421455as natural 7 233 545as pioneer 232 317popularity of plays 155 297 529preferred to Jonson, 1 8 253 324 450 522559 561 568 583relations with Jonson 69 367 379 381 494561 574sources of his plays 275 319 428sublime 573see also under individual characters and plays,and under Jonson, Ben

Sharpe, Lewis, The Noble Stranger 7Sheffield, John, Duke of Buckingham 237 373

387The Rehearsal 326 563

Shiells, Robert 444Shift (in Every Man out of His Humour) 193Shirley, James 4 174 215

The Cardinal, The Traitor 282Shuter, Edward 481 493 522 526Sidney, Algernon 396Sidney, Sir Philip 81 205 295 320 375Smith, G.Gregory 22Smith, Sir Thomas 81Smith, William see under KitelySoame, Sir William 313Sorbière, Samuel 243Spence, Joseph 381Spenser, Edmund 205 380 494 501Sprat, Thomas 243Stanhope, Charles, second Lord 125Stanton, William 194Staple of News, The 133 322Steele, Sir Richard 14 15 357 364 373 376

as Sir Epicure Mammon 14 373Steevens, George 18 529Stephen, Master (in Every Man in his Humour,

1616 version) 455 478 479 481 483 493 543compared to Slender 551 553 559

Strode, William 139Stuart, Esmé, Seigneur d’Aubigny 121 183Stutvile, George 177Subtle (in The Alchemist) 223 377 405 406 428

514 515

605

acted by Clun 264 264Suckling, Sir John 5 168 233 248 321

‘A Session of the Poets’ 7 172 323Sutton, Sir Thomas 387Swinburne, Algernon 22Sylla’s Ghost (in Catiline) 6 203 305 317 322

326 370Sympson, J. (editor) 470

Tale of a Tub, The 125 343 370Tasso, Torquato, Gerusalemme Liberata 317Tate, Nahum 11 327Tempest, The 111 375 393 470 474 531Tennyson, Alfred Lord 21Terence 212 275 313 340 433 448

Jonson’s debts to 329 357 559Theobald, Lewis 14 367 381 390 455Thornton, Bonnell 441Theophrastus 447Tiberius (in Sejanus) 561Tieck, Ludwig 21 577Timon of Athens 525Tomkis, Thomas, Albumazar see under The

AlchemistTownley, Zouch 213Truewit (in Epicoene) 274 275 295 335 363 542

544Tucca (in Poetaster and Satiromastix) 41 51 56

561Twelfth Night 33 531

Upton, John 16 425 469

Vanbrugh, Sir John 363 495The Provok’d Husband 402 546

Virgil (in Poetaster) 43 461Virgil (poet) 47 190 241 273 274 322 475

see also under Shakespeare, William

Volpone 4 13 93 229 370 448 570Act V and ending 14 16 95 246 337 344390 468 563 572characters 359 522Colman’s revival 519 553imperfections 21 494 521learned 159

mountebank scene 330 390 448 449 468563plot and construction 8 96 335 338 525563prologue 373 570reactions to revivals 14 17 235 359 364387 525Saint-Evremond’s adaptation 237satire in 93 387 405scene of Volpone and Celia 13 353sources 322 571setting 461success on stage 16 156 190 192 445tortoiseshell episode 10 11 313 330 448449verse in 261see also individual characters and under TheAlchemist

Volpone (character) 23 337 377 387 390 405555 572

as nickname 14Voltore (in Volpone):

Bannister as 555Von Gerstenberg, H.W. 495

Waldron, Francis see under The Sad ShepherdWaller, Edmund 6 189 435Walpole, Horace 17 487Walpole, Sir Robert 14Walwyn, B. 551War of the Theatres see PoetomachiaWarburton, William 16 390Webster, John 4Weever, John 29 37 51West, Richard 6 201Weston, Thomas see under Drugger, AbelWhalley, Peter 12 16 17 23 459

quoted by later writers 476 478 480 493497

Wilkes, Robert see under MoscaWilkes, Thomas 481Whitehead, William 437Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester 8 9 562Winter’s Tale, The 470Wood, Anthony à, 322Woodfall, Henry Sampson, Jr. 574Woodward, Henry see under Bobadil

606

Wotton, William 335Would-Be, Lady (in Volpone) 468 555Would-be, Sir Politick (in Volpone) 428 461

555 572Wycherly, William 338 395

Young, Edward 15 483 563

607