wrote, yet we read him to-day to find that, while he made the language of his predecessors obsolete, his vocabulary * has withstood the assaults of time, and is still fresh and vigorous.

His writings are often censured on account of their obscenity. With but one or two exceptions his plays, as they are placed upon the modern stage, are much expurgated. The apology for this defect is plain and satisfactory. He was writing at a time when, in every circle of society, there was license in language. What is to us shockingly obscene in many of his passages, was no transgression of propriety in his day. In this very particular he is remarkably pure in comparison with his contemporary dramatists. That he could not have been grossly indelicate is evident to all who appreciate the tenderness with which he guards purity in his impersonations.

The Sonnets of Shakespeare (88) possess a peculiar interest, not only from their intrinsic beauty, but also from the fact that they contain carefully veiled allusions to the personal feelings of their author, allusions which point to some deep disappointment in love and friendship. They were first printed in 1609, though, from allusions found in contemporary writings, it is clear that many of them had been composed previously. They are one hundred and fiftyfour in number. Some of them are evidently addressed to a man, while others are as plainly intended for a woman. Throughout all of them there flows a deep current of sadness, discontent, and wounded affection, which bears every mark of being the expression of a real sentiment. No clew, however, has as yet been discovered by which we may hope to trace the persons to whom these poems are addressed, or

* "An examination of the vocabulary of Shakespeare will show that out of the fifteen thousand words which compose it, not more than five or six hundred have gone out of currency or changed their meaning, and of these, some no doubt are misprints, some borrowed from obscure provincial sources, and some, words for which there is no other authority, and which probably never were recognized as English."-Marsh-Lectures on English Language, p. 264

the painful events to which they allude. Had his dramatic works been unwritten, these sonnets, together with his early amatory poems, would have given him rank among the most brilliant poets of his age; but the superior glory of his dramas overshadows the minor works.

Of his plays, sixteen were printed during his lifetime, probably without his sanction. He was regardless of the fate of his works, leaving them to the mercy of speculating publishers. This indifference to the preservation of his most famous writing, his early abandonment of the stage, and some allusions in his sonnets, give much reason for thinking that he was not well pleased with his calling. The first edition of his plays, a folio edited by his former comrades, Heminge and Condell, appeared in 1623. A second edition followed in 1632, and a third in 1663. Another folio in 1685 supplied the demands of his English readers, until Nicholas Rowe published the first critical edition in 1709.

The works which he has left show such stores of knowledge, such powers of discrimination, such resources of wit, such pathos, such exhaustlessness of language, such scope of imagination, as can be found in no other English poet. Moreover, he seems to have been a symmetrical man. The fact that, working in a defamed profession, he commanded the respect of the worthiest; the fact that, being the most eminent of poets, he was at the same time successful in practical affairs; and the fact that, out of the resources of his mind, he has drawn every phase of humanity, indicate his own completeness and balance of character.

In the large library of volumes which discuss the life and the literature of Shakespeare, the following works and brief papers will be of special interest to the student who is beginning to form an opinion of the dramatist:-The first volume of White's edition of Shakespeare, Hudson's Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Characters, Whipple's essay in The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, Taine's English Literature, Vol. I., p. 296, seq., Reed's British Poets, Vol. I., Lecture V., De Quincey's Works, Vol. II., Coleridge's Works, Vol. IV., Giles's Human Life in Shakespeare, J. R. Lowell's essay in My Study Windows.

CHAPTER X.

THE SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATISTS.

THE age of Elizabeth and James I. produced a galaxy of great

dramatic poets, the like of whom, whether we regard the nature or the degree of excellence exhibited in their works, the world has never seen. In the general style of their writings they bear a strong resemblance to Shakespeare; and, indeed, many of the peculiar merits of their great prototype may be discovered in his contemporaries. Intensity of pathos hardly less touching than that of Shakespeare, may be found in the dramas of Ford; gallant animation and dignity in the dialogues of Beaumont and Fletcher; deep tragic emotion in the sombre scenes of Webster; noble moral elevation in the graceful plays of Massinger; but in Shakespeare, and only in Shakespeare, do we see the consummate union of all the most opposite qualities of the poet, the observer, and the philosopher.

BEN JONSON.

"He did a little too much Romanize our tongue."-John Dryden. "Jonson possessed all the learning that was wanting to Shakespeare, and wanted all the genius which the other possessed."-David Hume.

"Then Jonson 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."-Samuel Johnson.

"Many were the wit-combats betwixt him [Shakespeare] and Ben Jonson; which two I behold 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. Shakespeare, 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."-Thomas Fuller, 1662.

"I was yesterday invited to a solemn supper by Ben Jonson, where there was good company, excellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial welcome. One thing intervened which almost spoilt the relish for the rest—that Ben began to engross all the discourse; to vapour extremely of himself; and by vilifying others to magnify his own name. T. Ca. [Thomas Carew] buzzed me in the ear, that Ben had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet it seems he had not read the ethics, which, amongst other precepts of morality, forbid self-commendations, declaring it to be an ill-favored solecism in good manners."-James Howell, 1636.

"There are people who cannot eat olives; and I cannot much relish Ben Jonson, though I have taken some pains to do it, and went to the task with every sort of good-will. I do not deny his power or his merit; far from it; but it is to me a repulsive and unamiable kind."— William Hazlitt.

B. 1573.]

The name which stands next to that of Shakespeare D. 1637.] in this list is that of Ben Jonson, a vigorous and solid genius (89). Although compelled by his step-father to follow the trade of a bricklayer, he succeeded in making himself one of the most learned men of the age.* After a short service as a soldier in the Low Countries, where he distinguished himself by his courage in the field, he began his theatrical career at about twenty years of age, when we find him attached as an actor to one of the minor theatres called the Curtain. His success as a performer is said to have been very small; probably on account of his unattractiveness of person. Having killed a fellow-actor in a duel, while still a young man, he was (to use his own words) "brought near the gallows." While in prison awaiting his trial he was converted to the Roman Catholic faith; but twelve years afterwards he returned to the Protestant Church.

Jonson, like Shakespeare, probably began his dramatic work by recasting old plays. His first original piece, the comedy Every Man in His Humor, is assigned to the year 1596. As first represented it was a failure, and Shakespeare, then at the height of his popularity, is said to have interested himself in behalf of the young

*The story is told of Jonson that his fondness for study tempted him to carry books in his pocket while working at his trade, in order that he might improve leisure moments by refreshing his memory upon his favorite passages in classical authors, and that one day, while working on the scaffolding of a building at Lincoln's Inn, a lawyer heard him recite a passage of Homer with surprising appre ciation, was attracted to him, and, upon discovering his thirst for learning, gave him opportunities for renewing his studies at the University of Cambridge.

aspirant, suggesting changes in the play, securing its acceptance by the managers of the Globe, and himself taking a prominent part, when, two years later, it was brought out with triumphant success. Thus, probably, was laid the foundation of that sincere and enduring attachment between the two poets, which is commemorated by many pleasant anecdotes of their genial social intercourse, as well as by that enthusiastic eulogy in which Jonson has honored the genius of his friend.

Jonson's literary reputation was established by this second representation of his comedy. Henceforward for more than a quarter of a century, though the success of individual plays may have fluctuated, he held rank as the most prominent figure in the literary society of the day. His faults were the typical faults of the conceited man; his virtues were his own. Egotistical to the last degree, self-willed and overbearing, he was yet frank, generous, and social in temper, and truly upright and earnest in purpose. At the famous "wit-combats" of the Mermaid Tavern he was the selfconstituted autocrat. He scrupled not to lay down the laws of the drama to Shakespeare himself. In Every Man Out of His Humor, and in Cynthia's Revels, he proclaimed his mission as a dramatic reformer; and he satirized “the ragged follies of the time" with such savage acrimony as provoked a storm of recrimination from his lampooned contemporaries. Dekker and Marston were his chief opponents in the literary war that ensued. They accused him of plagiarism, they mocked his sublimity, they questioned his learning. The Poetaster, The Tale of a Tub, and many passages in Jonson's other plays, attest the vigor with which he bore his part. Yet the same egotism which rendered him insensible to Shakespeare's influence guarded him against servile imitation, and made him, next to Shakespeare, the most original dramatist of the era; and the intrepid self-confidence which would guide, not follow, popular taste, kept his works pure from the gross immorality which stains the brightest pages of Beaumont and Fletcher. Doubtless his resolute self-assertion aided him in winning recognition for the admirable qualities of his heart and head. There is reason to believe that his social position was superior to Shakespeare's; and in an age when play-writing was hardly considered " a creditable employ," Clarendon affirms that "his conversation was very good, and with men of the best note."