Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

THE American lady who insists upon merging the existence of Shakspeare in the philosophy of Bacon, is not entirely without excuse for her infatuation. Shakspeare is an impalpable sort of being. Among the men of his own time, he shows like tradition does by the side of history. He was born at Stratford-on-Avon. Did he poach some deer? He went to London. Perhaps he was a link-boy; undoubtedly he was a player. He used to be witty at the Mermaid. He married a wife. He died, and is buried. He disliked the idea of his bones being disturbed, or somebody else disliked it for him. There is a bust of him; we wonder if it

[blocks in formation]

WORKS.*

is like. He wrote a vast number of personal sonnets, which tell us nothing of his own life; of many of the best of them we can not say whether they are addressed to man or woman. We want to know how his name is spelled, and find he spelled it different ways himself. The most persevering bloodhounds of biography have been on his trail for a hundred yearsevery clue has been unraveled, every hint exhausted; and the result has been a few minute details which in every other case would have been considered unworthy the chronicling. Many ingenious suppositions have been vented; but the sum of the matter is, we know nothing about him. Of what the man himself was, "in his habit as he lived," we can form no him of cheerful companionship and genidea beyond a certain faint lustre about tle equanimity. Of the sort of temperament and genius he must have possessed

1

[ocr errors]

his works give us a sufficient idea; but as to the actual human character, as displayed in life, we are utterly in the dark. Far different is the case with Jonson. Shakspeare is the name of a number of plays. Ben Jonson is the name of a man in the flesh-a burly man, who wrote The Fox, and Drink to me only with thine eyes.

compiled, were in the grasp of a tenacious
memory. Some men owe their preëmi-
nence to fineness of intellect and delicacy
of organization-characteristics not incon-
sistent with strength and pliancy, and
which are the attributes of the highest
genius; but there are others, who work
out effects scarcely inferior by heavier
blows with a blunter tool. The power of
unremitting labor, the strength of unfail-
ing self-reliance, the independence of cal-
lousness, are among the advantages such
men possess.
Jonson was a man of
coarse fiber; so was Cromwell, so was
Milton, so was Samuel Johnson, so was
Clive, so, in a still greater degree, was
Luther.

Jonson began life near the bottom; for though his grandfather was a gentleman and came from Carlisle, his father lost his estate by forfeiture under Queen Mary, and died early; and his mother married again in a lower rank. Her second husband was a bricklayer, and her son, after having been educated at Westminster School, was destined to his stepfather's craft. It is told he worked in the building of Lincoln's Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket. But he was of those men who shoulder their way through the world as a giant does through

It is of the very essence of the two men's genius that they should be thus distinguished. The one was like a mountain-large, strong, deep-rooted-which all the world's changes leave unmoved in its massive independence: the other was like the light-diffused, all-penetrating, setting forth all shapes, displaying all hues, a vesture of interpretation to the world; really ever the same in itself, yet so adapting itself to every new condition as to seem to melt into the nature of things with which it comes in contact. The mountain fixes our attention on itself. By the light we see all things; but what it is itself, we neither see nor know. The one was Ajax, mighty in his strength; the other Proteus, powerful in his changes. Shakspeare lived in the world, and absorbed without effort all the knowledge that came across him; Jonson conquered knowledge by persevering and strenuous effort. He was learned and observant; a crowd. He left his hod and trowel to Shakspeare was wise and penetrating. The one retires behind the screen of his works; the other thrusts forward his own individuality on every possible occasion-adventure. in prologues, in epilogues, in dialogues; he is his own critic, and his own approver; he is the hero of one of his own plays, and trumpets to the world his enmities and his friendships-his merits, his vices, his repentances, his wrongs, his sufferings, his needs, down to the very deformities of body that years bring with them-his stooping shoulders, his "mountain belly," and his "hundreds of gray hairs."

Yet, contrasted as he stands with the greatest genius of all times, Jonson justly claims something of a fellowship in greatness. He was a large man altogether, massive and somewhat unshapely both in mind and body; "solid but slow in his performances;" of a bold spirit and jovial temperament. His countenance, harsh and rugged "rocky," as he himself calls it was the index of an intellect which, though not remarkable for depth either of insight or thought, was strong, aggressive, and capacious; and its stores, laboriously

serve in the army in Flanders; whence he soon returned to London, to throw himself on the support of a life of literary

There he found means to prosecute his studies, and to live-precariously enough at first, no doubt-as a playwright, and probably partly also as actor. From these humble beginnings, he raised himself to a higher social standing than any dramatic poet of his day. In King James's time he was a frequenter of the court, and tells us that for twenty years he had

"Eaten with the beauties and the wits And braveries of court, and felt their fits Of love and haste."

His convivial talents were great, and no doubt recommended him not less than his learning and genius. He was intimate with many of the nobility; and though his connection with them probably partook in great measure of the relation of client to patron, there were some young men both of genius and noble birthamong whom he who was afterwards known as Lord Falkland may be instanced

[ocr errors]

-who viewed him with affection and ven- | transcended all that art had hitherto ateration as their literary father. The great writers of his time were his familiar associates: Shakspeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Donne, and Beaumont ranked among his nearest friends; Selden loved him, and asked his judgment on his Titles of Honor; and he speaks of Lord Bacon as if he had personally known him. He was Master of Arts in both the Universities "by their favor, not his study." Altogether, it is clear that in his prime he stood in the very first rank of the men of letters of his day. If not the greatest, he was esteemed the most perfect playwriter of the time; but high as was his reputation, it was supported rather by the opinion of the judges than by the applause of the people. He insisted so strenuously and passionately that he was master of the true rules of art, and wrote nothing which was not excellent and admirable, if the hearers could but learn to understand, that the world in general seems to have been content to believe him rather than enter on the arduous task of contradicting him. Still the belief was rather a cold one. The learned critics admitted his plays to be miracles of art; but, with two or three exceptions, the people did not very much care to see them acted. Nor is this to be wondered at, when we consider how different his compositions were from all they had hitherto been accustomed to admire. He stood alone in his own times, as indeed he stands alone in the whole history of English lit

erature.

The mass of the plays of his time were remarkable for their utter disregard of scenic proprieties: they made no regard of place and time. The French code of dramatic unities had not as yet been deduced from the ancient models. Each man, under the sole limitation of a few general rules of practice, followed the bent of his own taste, and the suggestions of his own knowledge. Plays consisted for the most part of alternating scenes of passion and humor, carelessly connected and huddled into some sort of plot, and mingled with dances and scenic display to catch the eyes of the spectators. Shakspeare was by nature a law unto himself; his plays are symmetrical and harmonious not from study or the observance of ascertained rules, but from the insensible moulding of a genius whose native sense of symmetry and harmony

tained to. But setting Shakspeare aside, nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the headlong conduct and distorted proportion of the minor Elizabethan plays. Exceptions there are, no doubt; but we are speaking of the broad features which distinguished them. As we have said, to express passion is their aim; and passion has received at their hands a more vivid, natural, and often terrible utterance, than from any other literature. Its milder and every-day manifestations have been recorded in the language of tenderness and beauty; and its wildest vagaries, its profoundest horrors, its most fierce and its most unnatural delinquencies, have been dragged from their native darkness and thrust naked upon the scene. The poetry of these plays shines in fitful gleams of splendor; human nature is at times laid bare by some strange and startling revelation of masterly insight, and at times. burlesqued by some ridiculous caricature; the humor, much of which is lost upon us, often degenerates into the purest folly and buffoonery. In the midst of the men rioting in this unrestrained liberty appeared Jonson, with an intellect naturally orderly, and trained by a long course of attentive and self-imposed study. Thoroughly conversant with the dramatic productions of the ancients, and the critical rules connected with them, he made them his models and his tests of excellence. But he was much too great to imitate them without discrimination. He adapted them in the most skillful manner to modern conditions, and shows himself at once deeply versed in the ancient forms and modes of expression, and thoroughly and personally acquainted with the manners of his own times. Instead of loosely linking scenes of passion, he makes it the glory of his art to build up well-proportioned plays, and to manifest skill and judgment in arrangement of scene, and choice of fable, action, and language. His plays may be said, with very little exaggeration, to be absolutely destitute both of passion and feeling; but they contain powerful pictures of vice, and most witty pillorying of the prevailing absurdities in conduct and manners-the

"Folly and brainsick humors of the times."

In the advertisement to the reader, prefixed to The Alchymist, he sets forth

very clearly, and somewhat more modestly | the orderly, classical, sensible side of art, than is his wont, the relation in which he to which both his nature and his studies conceives himself to stand towards his contemporaries :

"TO THE READER.

"If thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a Pretender, beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity: for thou wert never more fair in the way to be cosened than in this age, in Poetry, especially in Plays: wherein, now the concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from Nature, and be afraid of her, is the only part of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers, as they do fencers or wrestlers; who, if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may sometime happen on something that is good and great, but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness, that a faint shadow. I speak not this out of a hope to do good to any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worst would find more suffrages: because the most favor common errors. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those that, to gain the opinion of copy,* utter all they can, however unfitly and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskillful, to think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed."

:

The new style did not at once gain favor; but Jonson was not the sort of man to have any hesitation where the fault lay. He was always "the first best judge. in his own cause." No man ever believed more implicitly in himself, or insisted more pertinaciously that others should do so too. He extravagantly over estimated

* That is, copia—to gain credit for fertility.

drew him; and being here clearly unapproached, he measured his relations to other men by his own rule, and set himself far above them. He was wont in his pleasant hours to call himself " the poet.” He told Drummond "he was better versed, and knew more in Greek and Latin than all the poets in England, and quintessence their brains." So far was he from submitting his plays to the judgment of the public, that he exactly reversed the process, and regarded an unhesitating approbation of what he had written as the test of intellect in his audience. A competent critic was one who praised him. If you did not like what he wrote, it was a proof you did not comprehend him, and were therefore not capable of judging him. To hiss him off the stage, was to be below the beasts in understanding. Censure did not humble him or affect him otherwise than as an irritation, because he had a genuine heart-felt contempt for the capacity of any person who thought he wrote amiss.

A few extracts from his prologues will show that we have not overstated his own self-estimate, or his scorn for popular criticism. In the prologue to the The Alchymist he boldly asks for mere justice.

66

Fortune, that favors fools, these two short hours

We wish away, both for your sake and ours, Judging spectators; and desire i' th' place To th' author justice."

For the Staple of News (a very indifferent play) he makes a much bolder claim:

"Great noble wits, be good unto yourselves,
And make a difference 'twixt poetic elves
And poets; all that dabble in the ink
And defile quills, are not those few can think,
Conceive, express, and steer the souls of

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

"MY LORD: In so thick and dark an ignorance, as now almost covers the age, I crave leave to stand near 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 a legitimate poem. I call it so against all noise of opinion; from whose crude and airy reports I appeal to the great and singular faculty of judgment in your lordship, able to vindicate truth from error. It is the first of this race, that ever I dedicated to any person; and had I not thought it the best, it should have been taught a less ambition. Now it approacheth your censure cheerfully, and with the same assurance that innocency would appear before a magis

trate.

[blocks in formation]

66 TO THE READER IN ORDINARY.

"The Muses forbid that I should restrain your meddling, whom I see already busy with the title, and tricking over the leaves: it is your own. 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 can affect me. Though you commend the two first acts, with the people, because they are the worst, and dislike the oration of Cicero, in regard you read some pieces of it at school, and understand them not yet: I shall find the way to forgive you. Be any thing you will be at your own charge. Would I had deserved but half so well of it in translation, as that ought to deserve of you in judgment, if you have any. I know you will pretend, whosoever you are, to have that, and more: but all pretensions are not just claims. The commendation of good things may fall within a many, the approbation but in a few; for the most commend out of affection, selftickling, uneasiness, or limitation: but men judge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty and to those works that will bear a judge, nothing is more dangerous than a foolish praise. You will say, I shall not have yours therefore; but rather the contrary all vexation of censure. If I were not above such molestations now, I had great cause to think unworthily of my studies, or they had so of But I leave you to your exercise. Begin.

me.

:

"TO THE READER EXTRAORDINARY.

"You I would understand to be the better man, though places in court go otherwise : to you I submit myself and work. Farewell. "BEN JONSON."

Often he invents critics of his own to stand on the stage, and to rebuke and inform those in the body of the theater. Thus in many of his plays he introduces a special set of personages, who appear in the intervals of the acts, and discuss what has gone before. These either wisely applaud, or are brought to condign ridicule for their censures. They form a sort of modern chorus, not uncommon in the plays of the time, and used generally for the explication of the story; but by Jonson devoted to his own vindication and glorification.

When

In The Magnetic Lady we have an 66 induction" continued in this manner through the play. The stage is occupied by Master Probee and Master Damplay, who are represented as a sort of delegates from the people, and are met by a boy of the house, who engages to stand for the poet, and tells the others he will venture the play, so they will undertake for the hearers "that they shall know a good play when they hear it, and will have the conscience and ingenuity [ingenuousness] beside to confess it." The poet, he says, "careless of all vulgar censure, as not depending on common approbation, is confident it shall super-please judicious spectators." The boy is learned in the forms of comedy, and a thorough-going advocate of the cause intrusted to him. poor Master Damplay who exists only to be confuted, and is created only for the humiliating confession that "the boy is shrewd and has him every where "-when he ignorantly objects to the first act, that there is " nothing done in it, or concluded," he is instantly extinguished by his young antagonist. "A fine piece of logic!" cries he; "do you look, Master Damplay, for conclusions in a protasis? I thought the law of comedy had reserved them to the catastrophe; and that the epitasis, as we are taught, and the catastasis, had been intervening parts to have been expected. But you would have it all come together, it seems; the clock should strike five at once with the acts." So the learned young gentleman goes on with his confutations of all adverse criticism. Master Damplay, in spite of his angry claim to take out his two-shillings admittance-money in censure, is contemptuously bidden to limit himself to so much, and not talk twenty-shillings worth; his ignorance is exposed, his remonstrances peremptorily silenced, and himself con

« PreviousContinue »