Part 3
But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben."
Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods," including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction.
When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey:
"O rare Ben Jonson."
FELIX E. SCHELLING.
THE COLLEGE,
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
The following is a complete list of his published works:--
DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.
To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.
POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works.
PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640.
Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.
WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.
SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906.
LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.
***
THE ALCHEMIST
TO THE LADY MOST DESERVING HER NAME AND BLOOD:
LADY MARY WROTH.
Madam,
In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal of the sacrificers: else what could a handle of gums have done in the sight of a hecatomb? or how might I appear at this altar, except with those affections that no less love the light and witness, than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what I offer bear an acceptable odour, and hold the first strength, it is your value of it, which remembers where, when, and to whom it 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.
TO THE READER.
If thou beest more, thou art an understander, 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 times their own rudeness is the cause of their 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.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
SUBTLE, the Alchemist.
FACE, the Housekeeper.
DOL COMMON, their Colleague.
DAPPER, a Lawyer's Clerk.
DRUGGER, a Tobacco Man.
LOVEWIT, Master of the House.
SIR EPICURE MAMMON, a Knight.
PERTINAX SURLY, a Gamester.
TRIBULATION WHOLESOME, a Pastor of Amsterdam.
ANANIAS, a Deacon there.
KASTRIL, the angry Boy.
DAME PLIANT, his Sister, a Widow.
Neighbours.
Officers, Attendants, etc.
SCENE,--LONDON.
ARGUMENT.
T he sickness hot, a master quit, for fear, H is house in town, and left one servant there; E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know
A Cheater, and his punk; who now brought low, L eaving their narrow practice, were become C ozeners at large; and only wanting some H ouse to set up, with him they here contract, E ach for a share, and all begin to act. M uch company they draw, and much abuse, I n casting figures, telling fortunes, news, S elling of flies, flat bawdry with the stone, T ill it, and they, and all in fume are gone.
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 lives in doth endure The vices that she breeds, above their cure. But when the wholesome remedies are sweet, And in their working gain and profit meet, He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased, But will with such fair correctives be pleased: For here he doth not fear who can apply. If there be any that will sit so nigh Unto the stream, to look what it doth run, They shall find things, they'd think or wish were done; They are so natural follies, but so shewn, As even the doers may see, and yet not own.
## ACT 1. SCENE 1.1.
A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE.
ENTER FACE, IN A CAPTAIN'S UNIFORM, WITH HIS SWORD DRAWN, AND SUBTLE WITH A VIAL, QUARRELLING, AND FOLLOWED BY DOL COMMON.
FACE. Believe 't, I will.
SUB. Thy worst. I fart at thee.
DOL. Have you your wits? why, gentlemen! for love--
FACE. Sirrah, I'll strip you--
SUB. What to do? lick figs Out at my--
FACE. Rogue, rogue!--out of all your sleights.
DOL. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?
SUB. O, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks With good strong water, an you come.
DOL. Will you have The neighbours hear you? will you betray all? Hark! I hear somebody.
FACE. Sirrah--
SUB. I shall mar All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
FACE. You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave, Dare you do this?
SUB. Yes, faith; yes, faith.
FACE. Why, who Am I, my mungrel? who am I?
SUB. I'll tell you., Since you know not yourself.
FACE. Speak lower, rogue.
SUB. Yes, you were once (time's not long past) the good, Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept Your master's worship's house here in the Friars, For the vacations--
FACE. Will you be so loud?
SUB. Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain.
FACE. By your means, doctor dog!
SUB. Within man's memory, All this I speak of.
FACE. Why, I pray you, have I Been countenanced by you, or you by me? Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
SUB. I do not hear well.
FACE. Not of this, I think it. But I shall put you in mind, sir;--at Pie-corner, Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls, Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk Piteously costive, with your pinch'd-horn-nose, And your complexion of the Roman wash, Stuck full of black and melancholic worms, Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard.
SUB. I wish you could advance your voice a little.
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; A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloke, That scarce would cover your no buttocks--
SUB. So, sir!
FACE. When all your alchemy, and your algebra, Your minerals, vegetals, and animals, Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades, Could not relieve your corps with so much linen Would make you tinder, but to see a fire; I gave you countenance, credit for your coals, Your stills, your glasses, your materials; Built you a furnace, drew you customers, Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside, A house to practise in--
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-vitae men, The which, together with your Christmas vails At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters, Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks, And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs, Here, since your mistress' death hath broke up house.
FACE. You might talk softlier, rascal.
SUB. No, you scarab, I'll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you How to beware to tempt a Fury again, That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
FACE. The place has made you valiant.
SUB. No, your clothes.-- Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung, So poor, so wretched, when no living thing Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse? Rais'd thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots, Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee In the third region, call'd our state of grace? Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains Would twice have won me the philosopher's work? Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit For more than ordinary fellowships? Giv'n thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions, Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards, Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else? Made thee a second in mine own great art? And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel, Do you fly out in the projection? Would you be gone now?
DOL. Gentlemen, what mean you? Will you mar all?
SUB. Slave, thou hadst had no name--
DOL. Will you undo yourselves with civil war?
SUB. Never been known, past equi clibanum, The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars, Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been lost To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters, Had not I been.
DOL. Do you know who hears you, sovereign?
FACE. Sirrah--
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, Since thou hast moved me--
DOL. O, 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, Searching for things lost, with a sieve and sheers, Erecting figures in your rows of houses, And taking in of shadows with a glass, Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee, Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey's.
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-leech! The vomit of all prisons--
DOL. Will you be Your own destructions, gentlemen?
FACE. Still spew'd out For lying too heavy on the basket.
SUB. Cheater!
FACE. Bawd!
SUB. Cow-herd!
FACE. Conjurer!
SUB. Cut-purse!
FACE. Witch!
DOL. O me! 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.] Gather it up.-- 'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards, Leave off your barking, and grow one again, Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats. I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal, For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both. Have you together cozen'd all this while, And all the world, and shall it now be said, You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves? [TO FACE.] You will accuse him! you will "bring him in 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: [TO SUBTLE.] and you, too, Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult, And claim a primacy in the divisions! You must be chief! as if you only had The powder to project with, and the work Were not begun out of equality? The venture tripartite? all things in common? Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs, Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly, And heartily, and lovingly, as you should, And lose not the beginning of a term, Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too, And take my part, and quit you.
FACE. 'Tis his fault; He ever murmurs, and objects his pains, And says, the weight of all lies upon him.
SUB. Why, so it does.
DOL. How does it? do not we Sustain our parts?
SUB. Yes, but they are not equal.
DOL. Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope Ours may, to-morrow match it.
SUB. Ay, they MAY.
DOL. May, murmuring mastiff! ay, and do. Death on me! Help me to throttle him.
[SEIZES SUB. BY THE THROAT.]
SUB. Dorothy! mistress Dorothy! 'Ods precious, I'll do any thing. What do you mean?
DOL. Because o' your fermentation and cibation?
SUB. Not I, by heaven--
DOL. Your Sol and Luna [TO FACE.] --help me.
SUB. Would I were hang'd then? I'll conform myself.
DOL. Will you, sir? do so then, and quickly: swear.
SUB. What should I swear?
DOL. To leave your faction, sir, And labour kindly in the common work.
SUB. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside. I only used those speeches as a spur To him.
DOL. I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we?
FACE. 'Slid, prove to-day, who shall shark best.
SUB. Agreed.
DOL. Yes, and work close and friendly.
SUB. 'Slight, the knot Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me.
[THEY SHAKE HANDS.]
DOL. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours, That scarce have smiled twice since the king came in, A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals, Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride, Or you t' have but a hole to thrust your heads in, For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree. And may don Provost ride a feasting long, In his old velvet jerkin and stain'd scarfs, My noble sovereign, and worthy general, Ere we contribute a new crewel garter To his most worsted worship.
SUB. Royal Dol! Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself.
FACE. For which at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph, And not be styled Dol Common, but Dol Proper, Dol Singular: the longest cut at night, Shall draw thee for his Doll Particular.
[BELL RINGS WITHOUT.]
SUB. Who's that? one rings. To the window, Dol: [EXIT DOL.] --pray heaven, The master do not trouble us this quarter.
FACE. O, fear not him. While there dies one a week O' the plague, he's safe, from thinking toward London. Beside, he's busy at his hop-yards now; I had a letter from him. If he do, He'll send such word, for airing of the house, As you shall have sufficient time to quit it: Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter.
[RE-ENTER DOL.]
SUB. Who is it, Dol?
DOL. A fine young quodling.
FACE. O, My lawyer's clerk, I lighted on last night, In Holborn, at the Dagger. He would have (I told you of him) a familiar, To rifle with at horses, and win cups.
DOL. O, let him in.
SUB. Stay. Who shall do't?
FACE. Get you Your robes on: I will meet him as going out.
DOL. And what shall I do?
FACE. Not be seen; away! [EXIT DOL.] Seem you very reserv'd.
SUB. Enough.
[EXIT.]
FACE [ALOUD AND RETIRING]. God be wi' you, sir, I pray you let him know that I was here: His name is Dapper. I would gladly have staid, but--
DAP [WITHIN]. Captain, I am here.
FACE. Who's that?--He's come, I think, doctor.
[ENTER DAPPER.]
Good faith, sir, I was going away.
DAP. In truth I am very sorry, captain.
FACE. But I thought Sure I should meet you.