་ share in the composition of the piece, and was, besides, in such favour, that he would not have been molested; but this did not satisfy him,' says Gifford; and he, therefore, with a high sense of honour, voluntarily accompanied his two friends to prison, determined to share their fate.' We cannot now ascertain what was the mighty sat re that moved the patriotic indignation of James; it was doubtless softened before publication; but in some copies of Eastward Hoe' (1605), there is a passage in which the Scots are said to be dispersed over the face of the whole earth;' and the dramatist sarcastically adds: But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on't, in the world than they are; and, for my part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [in Virginia] for we are all one countrymen now, you know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.' The offended nationality of James must have been laid to rest by the subsequent adulation of Jonson in his court-masks, for he eulogised the vain and feeble monarch as one that would raise the glory of England more than Elizabeth! Jonson's three great comedies- Volpone, or the Fox;''Epicene, or the Silent Woman;' and the 'Alchemist'-were his next serious labours; his second classical tragedy, Catiline,' appeared in 1611. His fame had now reached its highest elevation: but he produced several other comedies, and a vast number of court entertainments, ere his star began sensibly to decline. In 1618, Jonson made a journey on foot to Scotland, where he had many friends. He was well received by the Scottish gentry, and was so pleased with the country, that he meditated a poem, or drama, on the beauties of Loch Lomond. The last of his visits was made to Drummond of Hawthornden, with whom he lived three weeks; and Drummond kept notes of his conversation, which, in a subsequent age, were communicated to the world. In conclusion, Drummond entered on his journal the following character of Ben himself: 'He is 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 liveth; a dissembler of ill parts which reign in him; a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done; he is passionately kind and angry; carcless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if well answered, at himself; for any religion, as being versed in both ;* interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst; oppressed with * Drummond here alludes to Jonson having been at one period of his life a Roman Catholic. When in prison, after killing the actor, a priest converted him to the Church of Rome, and he continued a member of it for twelve years. At the expiration of that time, he returned to the Protestant communion. As a proof of his enthusiastic temperament, it is mentioned that Jonson drank out the full cup of wine at the communion-table, in token of his reconciliation with the Church of England. fantasy, which hath ever mastered his reason, a general disease in many poets.' This character, 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 li.e 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 conteinporaries seemed fond of mortifying his pride, and he was often at war with actors and authors. With the celebrated Inigo Jones, who was joined with him in the preparation of the court-masks, Jonson waged a long and bitter feud, in which both parties were to blame. When his better nature prevailed, and exorcised the demon of envy or spleen, Jonson was capable of a geuerous warmth of friendship, and of just discrimination of genius and character. In 1619, on the death of Daniel, Jonson was appointed poet-laureate, and received a pension of a hundred merks. 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 had founded a club, known to all posterity as the Mermaid Club, at which Jonson, Shakspeare, Beaumont and 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, Southwark, of which a sketch has been preserved. The latter days of Jonson were dark and painful. Attacks of palsy coufined him to his house, and his necessities compelled him to write for the stage when his pen had lost its vigour, and wanted the charm of novelty. In 1630, he produced his comedy, the New Inn,' which was unsuccessful on the stage. The king sent him a present of £100, and raised his laureate pension to the same sum per annum, adding a yearly tierce of Canary wine. Next year, however, we find Jonson, in an Epistle Mendicant,' soliciting assistance from the lord-treasurer. He continued writing to the last. *Many were the wit-combats betwixt Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, which two I beho'd like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid. but slow in his performances. Shakspeare. with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighterin sailing. could turn with all tides. tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention. -uller's Worthies Besides the Mermaid, Jonson was a great frequenter of a club called the Apollo, at the Old Devil Tavern. Temple Bar, for which he wrote rules-Leges Conviviales-and penned a wolcome over the door of the room to all those who approved of the 'true Phœbian liquor.' Ben's rules, it must be said, discountenanced excess. Dryden has styled the later works of Jonson his dotages; some are certainly unworthy of him, but the Sad Shepherd, which he left unfinished, exhibits the poetical fancy of a youthful composition. He died in 1637, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a square stone, marking the spot where the poet's body was disposed vertitically, was long af erwards shewn, inscribed only with the words, "O RARE BEN JONSON! Jonson founded a style of regular English comedy, massive, well compacted, and fitted to endure, yet not very attractive in its materials. His works, altogether, consists of about fifty dramatic pieces, but by far the greater part are masks and interludes. His principal comedies are: Every Man in his Humour,' 'Volpone,' the 'Silent Woman,' and the 'Alchemist.' His Roman tragedies may be considered literal impersonations of classic antiquity, 'robust and richly graced,' yet stiff and unnatural in style and construction. They seem to bear about the same resemblance to Shakspeare's classic dramas that sculpture does to actual life. The strong delineation of character is the most striking feature in Jonson's comedies. The voluptuous Volpone is drawn with great breadth and freedom; and generally his portraits of eccentric characters-men in whom some peculiarity has grown to an egregious excess-are ludicrous and impressive. His scenes and characters shew 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 dramatizing his knowledge and observation with singular skill and effect. His pedantry is often misplaced and ridiculous; when he wishes to satirise his opponents of the drama, he lays the scene in the court of Augustus, and makes himself speak as Horace. In one of his Roman tragedies, he prescribes for the composition of a mucus, or wash for the face! 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 sympathise with them as with existing mortals. The charm of reality is generally wanting, or, when found, is not a pleasing reality. When the great artist escapes entirely from his elaborate wit and personified humours into the region of fancy-as in the lyrical passages of Cynthia,'' Epicene,' and the whole drama of the 'Sad Shepherdwe arc 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 described 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 in poetical seclusion and contemplation. The Fall of Catiline. PETREIUS. The straits and needs of Catiline being such His countenance was a civil war itself; His frighted horse, whom still the noise drove backward: Consumed all it could reach, and then itself, Had not the fortune of the commonwealth Come, Pallas-like, to every Roman thought; Which Catiline seeing, and that now his troops Covered the earth they'd fought on with their trunks, Ambitious of great fame, to crown his ill, Collected all his fury, and ran in Armed with a glory high as his despair Into our battle, like a Libyan lion Upon his hunters, scornful of our weapons, Careless of wounds, plucking down lives about him, Then fell he too, t'embrace it where it lay. Grow marble at the killing sight; and now, Almost made stone, began to inquire what flint, With those rebellious parts. CATO. A brave bad death! Had this been honest now, and for his country, As 'twas against it, who had e'er fallen greater? Love.-From the 'New Inn.' LOVEL and HOST of the New Inn. Catiline, Act V, sc. 6. LOVEL. There is no life on earth but being in love! There are no studies, no delights, no business, Stilk like a ghost that haunted 'bout a treasure; HOST. But is your name Love-ill, sir, or Love-well? Lov. I do not know't myself Whether it is. But it is love hath been The hereditary passion of our house, My gentle host, and, as I guess, my friend; To express it in my person to her. HOST. How then? Lov. I have sent her toys, verses, and anagrams, Trials of wit, mere trifles, she has commend d, But knew not whence they came, nor could she guess. Lov. I oft have been, too, in her company. And looked upon her a whole day, admired her, Loved her, and did not tell her so; loved sti!!, Looked still, and loved; and loved and 'ooked and sighed; And unregarded. HOST. Could you blame her, sir, When you were silent, and not said a word? Lov. Oh, but I loved the more; and she might read it Best in my silence, bad she been HOST. As melancholic As you are! Pray you, why would you stand mute, sir? Did you e'er know or hear of the Lord Beaufort, Who served so bravely in France? I was his page, And, ere he died, his friend: I followed him First in the wars, and in the times of peace He had no Arthurs, nor no Rosicleers, No Knights of the Sun, nor Amadis de Gauls, |