bore off no spoils, but was himself badly hurt in the arm, and, as he says, 'brought near the gallows,' being thrown into prison on a charge of manslaughter. There a Romish priest converted him to the ancient faith. In due time he became again a Protestant, and for this variableness has been roughly handled by some who think that they never honour Shakspeare so much as by picking holes in Benjamin's coat. Yet neither selfish nor worldly ends can have moved Jonson to this departure from his father's faith. On the contrary, at this particular moment, 1593-4, nothing can have been more likely to irritate his judges against him than the renunciation of it. For just then all Protestant England was incensed at certain real or alleged plots, emanating from the party of Rome, against the life of their beloved Elizabeth; and several seminary priests were then lying in prison charged with designs to poison her. At such a moment conversion may have been honest, but cannot have been prudent. To whose influence Jonson owed deliverance from prison is unknown perhaps his case, when examined, lost somewhat of its gravity. He was not the challenger: his adversary had dealt unfairly; and duels, though unlawful, were common at a time when every gentleman carried rapier and dagger, and looked on a fencing-master as indispensable as a chaplain. We suspect that manager Henslowe did not lend his actor-author a helping hand in his straits. In a letter, addressed to his sonin-law Alleyn, dated September 26, 1598, he writes: 'I have lost one of my company, which hurteth me greatly, that is Gabriel (Spenser), for he is slain in Hoxton Fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer.' Now Benjamin had not laid a brick for nearly eight years, but he had written one if not more plays, and, according to Meeres, was already coupled in reputation with Marlowe, Peele, and Shakspeare. The designation accordingly savours, in our opinion, of policy on Master Henslowe's part, and the supposition is strengthened by an entry in his diary, later than the bricklayer' letter, yet previous to Jonson's trial. Lent unto Shaw and Jewby, to lend unto Mr. Chapman on his book, and two acts of a tragedy of Benjamin's plot, 31. Clearly good Master Henslowe, who came to be one of the churchwardens of St. Saviour's parish some years later, thought it not wholesome for him to be familiar just then with Benjamin, a bricklayer.' We have the authority of Mr. Samuel Weller for saying that whenever folks are in particular trouble they rush from their homes and eat oysters. But there is another remedy for sorrow, to which those who are 'perplexed in the extreme' often resort. They take a wife. Jonson may have tried oysters first, but he certainly married about this time. The marriage, though there were sons and daughters, ended in separation. Mrs. Benjamin, her husband told Drummond, was 'honest, and a good housewife, but had a shrill tongue and a good notion of using it.' For thrift she had doubtless occasion and it was probably all on one side, for when Jonson kept house for himself, in his widower's estate, both butcher and vintner had a good time of it. But if Ben were a rugged spouse, and his partner uncongenial, they appear to have been tender parents. Twice affliction visited their dwelling, bereaving them of a son and daughter, whose untimely deaths are recorded by the father's pen. The girl died in infancy, and the epitaph composed on that occasion shows that Jonson was still a member of the Romish Church. 'Here lies to each her parent's ruth Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months' end she parted hence With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven's Queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother's tears, Hath placed amongst her virgin-train : Where while that, severed, doth remain, This grave partakes the fleshly birth, Which cover lightly, gentle earth!' The boy had time to entwine himself around his father's heart; and Jonson's utterance of grief reminds us of Southey's when his darling Herbert was taken from him. 'Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy: O, could I lose all father now! for why To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage, And, if no other misery, yet age! Rest in soft peace, and ask'd, say, here doth lie For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, These 'seven years' wrought an important change in Jonson's fortunes. Shakspeare, it is said, and we are willing to believe, lent a helping hand to 'Every Man in his Humour,' now transferred to English ground, and in 1599 it was followed by the comedy of 'Every Man out of his Humour.' This was, in our Hence opinion, the first step in Jonson's downward career. forward he selected subjects of temporary fashion and interest as the groundwork for the displays of his humour instead of resorting to those qualities of mind, which, however they may vary with circumstances, belong to universal nature, and are therefore permanent in themselves and matters of interest to all men. Henceforward Jonson, pleasing only a section of the public, and irritated by the cool or hostile reception of his plays, assumed a defiant and arrogant tone towards both spectators and critics:— 'Ex illo fluere ac retro sublapsa referri Spes Danaum, fractæ vires, aversa deæ mens.' The epitome of the characters prefixed to this comedy shows the author's curious infelicity in preferring abstract humours to concrete life. The descriptions are shrewd and pithy, but are much better fitted to essays like Overbury's Characters,' or Bishop Earle's Microcosmography' than to a portrait of manners instructive and amusing to all times. Had Shakspeare dealt generally in Don Adriano de Armados, his comedies, like those of Jonson, would have been shelved as literary curiosities, notwithstanding much good and beautiful writing, a great deal of wit and humour, and abundance of sententious aphorisms. The following sketches of some of the dramatis personæ in this comedy may suffice to show the author's aberration from the right path: Puntarvolo, a vain-glorious knight, over-Englishing his travels, and wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself to the floutage of his own family. He deals upon returns and strange performances, resolving, in spite of public derision, to stick to his own particular fashion, phrase, and gesture. 'Sordido, a wretched hob-nailed chuff, whose recreation is reading of almanacs; and felicity, foul weather. One that never prayed but for a lean dearth, and ever wept in a fat harvest. 'Sogliardo, an essential clown, brother to Sordido, yet so enamoured of the name of a gentleman that he will have it, though he buys it. He comes up every term to take tobacco and see new motions. He is in his kingdom when he can get himself into company where he may be well laughed at.' Yet Every Man out of his Humour' was well liked by Queen Elizabeth, and Jonson was now rising in the world. Some plays acted about this time, among them one entitled "The Scot's Tragedy,' are mentioned in Henslowe's journal, but were not included by Jonson in the first folio of his collected works. VOL. II. No. IV. 2 F BEN JONSON: HIS LIFE AND WORKS. We next come to Cynthia's Revels' (1600), a strange medley of classical mythology and personal satire. at Blackfriars by the children of the Queen's chapel, and is It was acted dedicated To the special fountain of manners-the Court.' Jonson's face was now evidently turned to the sun. 'comical satire' however, as he termed it, was too pungent This and personal to be well liked. more especially Marston and Dekker, took umbrage at passages His brother playwrights, and in it which they conceived to be aimed at themselves, though they did not whet their arrows against its author until he had aggravated the offence by the direct attack of 'Poetaster, or the Arraignment.' With Cynthia's Revels' began that indiscreet display of arrogance and self-assertion which exposed Jonson to so much obloquy and rejoinder at the moment, and which even now grates on the ears of readers not predetermined, like editor Gifford, to see in Jonson only the perfect man and the upright. In the prologue he says that his muse shuns the print of any beaten path; And proves new ways to come to learned ears: Or foamy praise that drops from common jaws: In the epilogue he defies the audience :- 6 The play, might tax the maker of self-love. I'll only speak what I have heard him (the author) say, Marston and Dekker had not kept secret their dissatisfaction at Cynthia's Revels,' and accordingly Jonson, whose soul was ever in arms and eager for the fray, attacked them directly in The Poetaster, or the Arraignment." Into this piece the author poured gall and learning in nearly equal proportions. Cæsar and his courtiers are depicted with the grace and intimacy of one nurtured on Virgil and Horace, while some of the shafts aimed at Crispinus (Marston) and Demetrius (Dekker) are borrowed from the quivers of Lucian and Juvenal. Small critics have carped at the anachronisms of the unclassical Shakspeare-the seacoast of Bohemia, Aristotle cited by Hector of Troy, the clock in Macbeth, and the existence of a university at Wittenberg in the days of Hamlet the Dane. The anachronisms of the classical Jonson are less venial and more astounding. A Roman citizen in Poetaster' talks of andirons and cushions for the parlour window-seats, and his wife comes in with whalebone boddice and a muff.' This, indeed, is a trifling fault in comparison with the bad taste of turning an entire satire of Horace into a scene of the play, and causing Virgil to read a portion of his Fourth Æneid done into' very bald English.' Jonson in this comedy overshot his mark and really got into the scrape in which Horace fancied himself when he wrote 'Sunt, quibus in Satira videor nimis acer et ultra Legem tendere opus.' He had borne hard upon the army and the law, and his play was prohibited by authority. To the gown and sword he offered an apology, and his 'virtuous and worthy friend, Mr. Richard Martin,' to whom the Poetaster' is dedicated, made his peace with the Master of the Revels. But he was not forgiven so soon by authors and actors, and Dekker replied to the Satire by a counter-attack entitled 'Satiro-mastix, or the Untrussing of a Humorous Poet.' If the rejoinder be less humorous, it is quite as bitter as the original arraignment: and Jonson felt that he had now received a home-thrust, since he proposed to address himself in future to the serious muse and since the comic muse Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try Marston was subsequently reconciled to Jonson, and in 1604 dedicated to him the fine, though unequal play of "The Malecontent.' Satire for satire, however, was not the only product of this pretty quarrel between the brother-bards, since Jonson cudgelled his respondent in requital for Satiro-mastix,' and Marston reviewed Sejanus' with an asperity of which neither Dennis nor even Mr. Gifford need have been ashamed. With Sejanus' we commence a new era in the poet's career. An aspirant to dramatic honours brought Mr. Garrick a comedy, and was informed by the courtly manager that his genius did not lie in that vein. A tragedy was then tried, and meeting with a similar response, the bewildered Caledonian asked, 'Then whar the deil, mon, does it lie?' Jonson's vein did not lie in tragedy. 'Sejanus,' in its original form, was acted at the |