We are so accustomed to think of Ben Jonson presiding, atten tive to his own applause, over a circle of younger followers and admirers that we are apt to forget the hard struggle which he had passed through before gaining the crown now universally acknowl edged to be his. Howell records, in the year before Ben's death, that a solemn supper at the poet's own house, where the host had almost spoiled the relish of the feast by vilifying others and magnifying himself, "T. Ca." (Thomas Carew) buzzed in the writer's ear "that, though Ben had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet it seemed lie had not read the Ethics, which, among other precepts of morality, forbid self-commendation." Jonson's quarrels do not appear to have entered deeply into his soul, or indeed usually to have lasted long. He was too exuberant in his vituperations to be bitter, and too outspoken to be malicious. He loved of all things to be called "honest," and there is every reason to suppose that he deserved the epithet. The old super stition that Jonson was filled with malignant envy of the greatest of his fellow-dramatists, and lost no opportunity of giving ex pression to it, hardly needs notice. Those who consider that Shakespeare was beyond criticism may find blasphemy in the say ing of Jonson that Shakespeare "wanted art." Occasional jesting allusions to particular plays of Shakespeare may be found in Jonson, among which should hardly be included the sneer at "mouldy" Pericles in his Ode to Himself. But these amount to nothing collectively, and to very little individually; and against them have to be set, not only the many pleasant traditions con cerning the long intimacy between the pair, but also the lines, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, as noble as they are judi cious, dedicated by the survivor to "the star of poets," and the adaptation, clearly sympathetic notwithstanding all its buts, de Shakespeare nostrat. in the Discoveries.
Exclusively of the few lyrics in Jonson's dramas his non dramatic works are comprised in the Epigrams (published in the first folio of 1616), the lyrics and epistles of The Forest (also in the first folio) ; and the miscellaneous poems in Underwoods (published collectively in the 2nd folio). To these pieces in verse should be added the Discoveries—Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matters, a commonplace book of aphorisms noted by the poet in his daily readings—thoughts adopted and adapted in more tranquil and perhaps more sober moods than those which gave rise to the outpourings of the Conversations at Hawthornden. As to the critical value of these Conversations it is far from being only negative ; he knew how to admire as well as how to disdain. For these thoughts, though abounding with biographical as well as general interest, Jonson was almost en tirely indebted to ancient writers, or to the humanists of the Renaissance.
tragedies are only two in number—Se /anus his Fall and Catiline his Conspiracy. Of these the earlier, as is worth noting, was produced at Shakespeare's theatre, in all probability before the first of Shakespeare's Roman dramas, and still contains a con siderable admixture of rhyme in the dialogue. In both plays the action is powerfully conducted, and the care bestowed by the dramatist upon the great variety of characters introduced cannot, as in some of his comedies, be said to distract the interest of the reader. Both these tragedies are noble works, but both were alike too manifestly intended by their author to court the goodwill of what he calls the "extraordinary" reader. It is difficult to imagine that (with the aid of judicious shortenings) either could altogether miss its effect on the stage ; but, while Shakespeare causes us to forget, Jonson seems to wish us to remember, his authorities. He has had to pay the penalty incurred by too obvious a desire to underline the learning of the author.
The strength of Jonson's dramatic genius lay in the power of depicting a great variety of characters, and in comedy alone he succeeded in finding a wide field for the exercise of this power. There may have been no very original or very profound discovery in the idea which he illustrated in Every Man in his Humour, and, as it were, technically elaborated in Every Man out of his Humour —that in many men one quality is observable which so possesses them as to draw the whole of their individualities one way, and that this phenomenon "may be truly said to be a humour." By re fusing to apply the term "humour" (q.v.) to a mere peculiarity or affectation of manners, and restricting its use to actual or implied differences or distinctions of character, he broadened the whole basis of English comedy after his fashion, as Moliere at a later date, keeping in closer touch with the common experience of human life, with a lighter hand broadened the basis of French and of modern Western comedy at large. It is a futile criticism to con demn Jonson's characters as a mere series of types of general ideas; on the other hand, it is a very sound criticism to object, with Barry Cornwall, to the "multitude of characters who throw no light upon the story, and lend no interest to it, occupying space that had better have been bestowed upon the principal agents of the plot." Dryden, when criticizing Ben Jonson's comedies, thought fit, while allowing the old master humour and incontestable "pleasant ness," to deny him wit and those ornaments thereof which Quin tilian reckons up under the terms urbana, salsa, faceta and so forth. Such wit as Dryden has in view is the mere outward fashion or style of the day, the euphuism or "sheerwit" or chic which is the creed of Fastidious Brisks and of their astute purveyors at any given moment. In this Ben Jonson was no doubt defective ; but it would be an error to suppose him, as a comic dramatist, to have maintained towards the world around him the attitude of a philosopher, careless of mere transient externalisms. It is said that the scene of his Every Man in his Humour was originally laid near Florence ; and his Vo/pone, which is perhaps the darkest social picture ever drawn by him, plays at Venice. But the real atmosphere of his comedies is that of London town; and Ben Jonson's times live for us in his men and women, his country gulls and town gulls, his alchemists and exorcists, his "skeldring" cap tains and whining Puritans, and the whole ragamuffin rout of his Bartholomew Fair, the comedy par excellence of Elizabethan low life. He described the pastimes, fashionable and unfashionable, of his age, its feeble superstitions and its flaunting naughtinesses, its vapouring affectations and its lying effronteries, with an odour as of "divine tobacco" pervading the whole.