were his next most important works: Volpone, or the Fox, appearing in 1605, Epicéne, or the Silent Woman, in 1609, and The Alchemist in 1610. Between 1605 and 1609 Jonson produced, sometimes for the court, sometimes for the civic bodies, a number of the representations known as pageants or masques, so popular in his time. In 1611 appeared his second classical tragedy Catiline; and in 1612 he went abroad, but how long he remained is not known. He was in London again in 1614, in which year appeared his Bartholomew Fair, and in 1616 his comedy of The Devil is an Ass. Either in this year or in 1619, Jonson was created poet-laureate, with a salary of 100 merks. In 1618 he made a journey to Scotland on foot, and appears to have been well received by the Scottish gentry. The last visit he paid was to the poet Drummond of Hawthornden, who took copious notes of the conversations he had with Jonson, which were afterwards given to the world. How far these notes can be depended on for faithfulness it is difficult to say: one would fain hope that Drummond was guilty of considerable exaggeration, as he presents Jonson in no very agreeable light, as full of bitterness and spite towards his brother authors. The following is Drummond's character of Ben : 'Ben Jonson was a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived: a dissembler of the parts which reign in him; a bragger of some good that he wanted; thinketh nothing well done but what either he himself or some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind and angry, careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if he be well answered at himself; interprets best sayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both; oppressed with fancy which hath overmastered his reason, a general disease in many poets: his inventions are smooth and easy, but above all he excelleth in a translation.' 'This character,' says one of Jonson's biographers, it must be confessed, is far from being a flattering one; and probably it was, unconsciously, overcharged, owing to the recluse habits and staid demeanour of Drummond.. We believe it, however, to be substantially correct. Inured to hardships and to a free boisterous life in his early days, Jonson seems to have contracted a roughness of manner and habits of intemperance which never wholly left him. Priding himself immoderately on his classical acquirements, he was apt to slight and condemn his less learned associates; while the conflict between his limited means and his love of social pleasures rendered him too often severe and saturnine in his temper. Whatever he did was done with labour, and hence was highly prized. His contemporaries seemed fond of mortifying his pride, and he was often at war with actors and authors. When his better nature prevailed, and exorcised the demon of envy or spleen, Jonson was capable of a generous warmth of friendship, and of just discrimination of genius and character. His literary reputation, his love of conviviality, and his high colloquial powers, rendered his society much courted, and he became the centre of a band of wits and revellers. Sir Walter Raleigh founded a club, known to all posterity as the Mermaid Club, at which Jonson, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, and other poets exercised themselves with "wit combats," more bright and genial than their wine. One of the favourite haunts of these bright-minded men was the Falcon Tavern, near the theatre in Bankside.' After his return to London in 1619, Jonson continued writing, producing a few inferior dramas, a great many masques, and one or two prose works, including an English Grammar and a translation of Aristotle's Poetics. His best days were however past, his pen had lost much of its vigour and cunning; but as his extravagant living kept him very poor, he was compelled to write hurriedly what would pay best. In 1625 he was attacked by palsy, which enfeebled both his body and mind. In 1630, nevertheless, he produced the comedy of The New Inn, which shows a lamentable falling off from his earlier productions, and which proved unsuccessful on the stage. King Charles, however, sent him a present of £100, and raised his salary as laureate to the same sum, adding a yearly tierce of canary wine. Even this, however, did not suffice to supply his necessities, as we find him shortly after begging assistance from the Lord Chancellor. In 1632 he produced The Magnetic Lady, and, the year after, The Tale of a Tub. His last work, which he left unfinished, was the Sad Shepherd, which is much superior to anything he wrote for years before. He died in 1637, and was buried in West minster Abbey, a plain stone being placed over his remains, with the short inscription, 'O Rare Ben Jonson.' To quote again the biographer above referred to: 'Jonson founded a style of regular English comedy, massive, well compacted, and fitted to endure, yet not very attractive in its materials. His Roman tragedies may be considered literal impersonations of classical antiquity, "robust and richly graced," yet stiff and unnatural in style and construction. They seem to bear about the same relation to Shakespeare's classic dramas that sculpture does to actual life. The strong delineation of character is the most striking feature in Jonson's comedies. Generally his portraits of eccentric characters-men in whom some peculiarity has grown to an egregious excess-are ludicrous and impressive. His scenes and character show the labour of the artist, but still an artist possessing rich resources; an acute and vigorous intellect; great knowledge of life, down to its lowest descents; wit, lofty declamation, and a power of dramatising his knowledge and observation with singular skill and effect. His pedantry is often misplaced and ridiculous. . . . His comic theatre is a gallery of strange, clever, original portraits, powerfully drawn, and skilfully disposed, but many of them repulsive in expression, or so exaggerated as to look like caricatures or libels on humanity. We have little deep passion, or winning tenderness, to link the beings of his drama with those we love or admire, or to make us sympathize with them as with existing mortals. The charm of reality is generally wanting, or, when found, it is not a pleasing reality. When the great artist escapes entirely from his elaborate wit and personified humours into the region of fancy, we are struck with the contrast it exhibits to his ordinary manner. He thus presents two natures-one hard, rugged, gross, and sarcastic, “a mountain belly and a rocky face," as he describes his own person; the other airy, fanciful, and graceful, as if its possessor had never combated with the world and its bad passions, but nursed his understanding and his fancy to poetical seclusion and observation.' The selections we have made are two of his three best comedies, The Alchemist, and Epicone, or The Silent Woman, with neither of which have we deemed it necessary to take much liberty in the way of emasculation; also Every Man in his Humour, not only on account of its intrinsic excellence as a comedy, but as serving to illustrate the use of the word humour so common in Jonson's time, and as containing one of his most celebrated creations, Captain Bobadill.] THE ALCHEMIST:1 A COMEDY. ACTED IN THE YEAR 1610 BY THE KING'S MAJESTY'S SERVANTS. THE AUTHOR B. J. London: Printed by William Stansby, 1616. TO THE LADY MOST DESERVING HER NAME AND BLOOD, MADAM,-In the age of sacrifices, the truth of 1 By this expression, says Whalley, is meant one who pretends to the knowledge of what is called the philosopher's stone, which was supposed to have the faculty of transmuting baser metals into gold. Alchemy bears the same relation to chemistry that astrology does to astronomy. Our poet in the choice of his subject was happy; was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely forth that thing so full of authority or example, but by assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This, yet, safe in your judgment (which is a SIDNEY'S) is forbidden to speak more, lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious faces of the time, who, the more they paint, are the less themselves. Your ladyship's true honourer, BEN JONSON. for the age was then extremely addicted to the pursuit of alchemy, and favourable to the professors of it. The following comedy was therefore no unseasonable satire upon the reigning foible, since, among the few real artists, there was undoubtedly a far greater number of impostors. TO THE READER. Ir thou beest more, thou art an understander, | times their own rudeness is the cause of their 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 cozened, 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 point 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 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 some time happen on some thing 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, than 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 worse would find more suffrages: because the most favour 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 unskilful, to think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed. PROLOGUE. Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours, We wish away both for your sakes and ours, Judging spectators; and desire, in place, To the author justice, to ourselves but grace. Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known, No country's mirth is better than our own: No clime breeds better matter for your whore, Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more, Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage; And which have still been subject for the rage Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen Did never aim to grieve but better men; Howe'er the age he loves in doth endure They are so natural follies, but so shown, Face. Why, I pray you, have I Face. Not of this, I think it. But I shall put you in mind, sir;-at Pie-corner, Face. When you went pinn'd up in the several rags You had raked and pick'd from dunghills, before day; Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes; * Face. When all your alchemy, and your algebra, Could not relieve your corps with so much linen I gave you countenance, credit for your coals, Sub. Your master's house! Face. Where you have studied the more thriving skill Of bawdry since. Sub. Yes, in your master's house. You and the rats here kept possession. Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep The buttery-hatch still lock'd, and save the chippings, Sell the dole beer" to aqua-vita men; 6 The which, together with your Christmas vails' Face. You might talk softlier, rascal. I'll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung, Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee Dol. Gentlemen, what mean you? Sub. Slave, thou hadst had no name Dol. Will you undo yourselves with civil war? Sub. Never been known, past equi clibanum,3 The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars, Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been lost Dol. Nay, general, I thought you were civil. Face. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud. Sub. And hang thyself, I care not. Face. Hang thee, collier, And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will, Dol. Oh, this will o'erthrow all. Face. Write thee up bawd in Paul's, have all thy tricks Of cozening with a hollow cole, dust, scrapings, 1 rails at post-and-pair, &c.- Vails was money given to servants. Post-and-pair was a card game played with three cards each, wherein much depended on tying or betting on the goodness of your own hand; somewhat like brag. The servants received a small gratuity for the letting out of counters' to count with at play. 2 scarab-beetle; Lat. scarabeus, 3 equi clibanum-horses oven,' whatever that may mean. 4 cozening with a hollow cole, &c.-cheating the simple by pretending to conjure with a bit of charcoal having a hole in it, in which was put the dust and scrapings of gold and silver. Searching for things lost, &c.-this method of divination, says Gifford, of remote antiquity, yet retains its credit among the vulgar. 5 Erecting figures, &c.-delineating schemes of the different positions of the planets, with respect to the several constellations. House, in astrology, is the twelfth part of the zodiac-GIFFORD, taking in, &c.-this was a common mode of divination. The glass was a globular crystal, or beryl, into Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee, Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey's.2 Dol. Are you sound? Have you your senses, masters? Face. I will have A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures, Shall prove a true philosopher's stone to printers. Sub. Away, you trencher-rascal! Face. Out, you dog-leach! Your own destructions, gentlemen? For lying too heavy on the basket.3 We are ruin'd, lost! have you no more regard To your reputations? Where's your judgment? 'slight, Have yet some care of me, of your republic Face. Away, this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio Of Harry the Eighth: ay, and perhaps, thy neck Within a noose, for laundring gold and barbing it. Dol. [Snatches FACE's sword.] You'll bring your head within a cockscomb, will you? And you, sir, with your menstrue [Dashes SUBTLE's vial out of his hand. 'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards, You will accuse him! you will bring him in [TO FACE. Within the statute! Who shall take your word? A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain, Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust So much as for a feather: and you too, [To SUBTLE. Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult, which the angels Gabriel, Uriel, &c, entered and gave responses, as Lilly says, 'in a voice, like the Irish, much in the throat.' This was one of the most artful and impudent modes of imposture, and was usually conducted by confederacy. 1 Told in red letters-i.e. all these tricks were to be printed in red letters, and hung up by Face in St. Paul's. 2 Gamaliel Ratsey was a notorious highwayman, who always robbed in a mask, no doubt, as hideous as pos sible. 3 For lying, &c.-i.e. for eating more than his share of the broken provisions, collected and sent in for the prisoners.-GIFFORD. brach-any fine-nosed hound; here used as a mannerly name for a bitch.' 5 By this statute all witchcraft and sorcery were declared to be felony without benefit of clergy. 6 laundring-washing; hence laundry, from the same root as lave; barbing-clipping. 7 menstrue, or menstruum-solvent. 8 dog-bolt-see p. 45, note 5. col. 1. 9 Blackfriars was the favourite residence of Puritans at the time; the principal dealers in feathers and other vanities of the age. K |