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.
EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR
TO THE NOBLEST NURSERIES OF HUMANITY AND LIBERTY IN THE KINGDOM
THE INNS OF COURT
I UNDERSTAND you, Gentlemen, not your houses: and a worthy succession of you, to all time, as being born the judges of these studies. When I wrote this poem, I had friendship with divers in your societies; who, as they were great names in learning, so they were no less examples of living. Of them, and then, that I say no more, it was not despised. Now that the printer, by a doubled charge, thinks it worthy a longer life than commonly the air of such things doth promise, I am careful to put it a servant to their pleasures, who are the inheritors of the first favour born it. Yet, I command it lie not in the way of your more noble and useful studies to the public: for so I shall suffer for it. But when the gown and cap is off, and the lord of liberty reigns, then, to take it in your hands, perhaps may make some bencher, tincted with humanity, read and not repent him.
By your true honourer,
BEN JONSON.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ASPER, the Presenter. MACILENTE. PUNTARVOLO, -- his Lady. -- Waiting Gent. -- Huntsman. -- Servingmen. -- Dog and Cat. CARLO BUFFONE. FASTIDIOUS BRISK, -- Cinedo, his Page. DELIRO, FALLACE, -- Fido, their Servant. -- Musicians. SAVIOLINA. SORDIDO. -- His Hind. FUNGOSO. -- Tailor, Haberdasher, Shoemaker SOGLIARDO. SHIFT. -- Rustics. NOTARY. CLOVE, ORANGE. -- A Groom. -- Drawers. -- Constable, and Officers. GREX. -- CORDATUS -- MITIS.
THE CHARACTERS OF THE PERSONS
ASPER, he is of an ingenious and free spirit, eager and constant in reproof, without fear controlling the world's abuses. One whom no servile hope of gain, or frosty apprehension of danger, can make to be a parasite, either to time, place, or opinion.
MACILENTE, a man well parted, a sufficient scholar, and travail'd; who, wanting that place in the world's account which he thinks his merit capable of, falls into such an envious apoplexy, with which his judgment is so dazzled and distasted, that he grows violently impatient of any opposite happiness in another.
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 despite of public derision, to stick to his own fashion, phrase, and gesture.
CARLO BUFFONE, a public, scurrilous, and profane jester, that more swift than Circe, with absurd similes, will transform any person into deformity. A good feast-hound or banquet-beagle, that will scent you out a supper some three miles off, and swear to his patrons, damn him! he came in oars, when he was but wafted over in a sculler. A slave that hath an extraordinary gift in pleasing his palate, and will swill up more sack at a sitting than would make all the guard a posset. His religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry.
FASTIDIOUS BRISK, a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears tersely and with variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man's horse to praise, and backs him as his own. Or, for a need, on foot can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur, and the jerk of his wand.
DELIRO, a good doting citizen, who, it is thought, might be of the common-council for his wealth; a fellow sincerely besotted on his own wife, and so wrapt with a conceit of her perfections, that he simply holds himself unworthy of her. And, in that hood-wink'd humour, lives more like a suitor than a husband; standing in as true dread of her displeasure, as when he first made love to her. He doth sacrifice two-pence in juniper to her every morning before she rises, and wakes her with villainous-out-of-tune music, which she out of her contempt (though not out of her judgment) is sure to dislike.
FALLACE, Deliro's wife, and idol; a proud mincing peat, and as perverse as he is officious. She dotes as perfectly upon the courtier, as her husband doth on her, and only wants the face to be dishonest.
SAVIOLINA, a court-lady, whose weightiest praise is a light wit, admired by herself, and one more, her servant Brisk.
SORDIDO, a wretched hob-nailed chuff, whose recreation is reading of almanacks; and felicity, foul weather. One that never pray'd but for a lean dearth, and ever wept in a fat harvest.
FUNGOSO, the son of Sordido, and a student; one that has revelled in his time, and follows the fashion afar off, like a spy. He makes it the whole bent of his endeavours to wring sufficient means from his wretched father, to put him in the courtiers' cut; at which he earnestly aims, but so unluckily, that he still lights short a suit.
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 learn to take tobacco, and see new motions. He is in his kingdom when in company where he may be well laughed at.
SHIFT, a thread-bare shark; one that never was a soldier, yet lives upon lendings. His profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul's, and his warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oaths, till doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. He way-lays the reports of services, and cons them without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life before. He usurps upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never did, only to get him a name. His chief exercises are, taking the whiff, squiring a cockatrice, and making privy searches for imparters.
CLOVE and ORANGE, an inseparable case of coxcombs, city born; the Gemini, or twins of foppery; that like a pair of wooden foils, are fit for nothing but to be practised upon. Being well flattered they'll lend money, and repent when they have done. Their glory is to invite players, and make suppers. And in company of better rank, to avoid the suspect of insufficiency, will inforce their ignorance most desperately, to set upon the understanding of any thing. Orange is the most humorous of the two, (whose small portion of juice being squeezed out,) Clove serves to stick him with commendations.
CORDATUS, the author's friend; a man inly acquainted with the scope and drift of his plot; of a discreet and understanding judgment; and has the place of a moderator.
MITIS, is a person of no action, and therefore we afford him no character.
THE STAGE. After the second sounding.
ENTER CORDATUS, ASPER, AND MITIS.
COR. Nay, my dear Asper.
MIT. Stay your mind.
ASP. Away! Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake? To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips seal'd up? Not I: my soul Was never ground into such oily colours, To flatter vice, and daub iniquity: But, with an armed and resolved hand, I'll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth --
COR. Be not too bold.
ASP. You trouble me -- and with a whip of steel, Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs. I fear no mood stamp'd in a private brow, When I am pleased t'unmask a public vice. I fear no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab, Should I detect their hateful luxuries: No broker's usurer's, or lawyer's gripe, Were I disposed to say, they are all corrupt. I fear no courtier's frown, should I applaud The easy flexure of his supple hams. Tut, these are so innate and popular, That drunken custom would not shame to laugh, In scorn, at him, that should but dare to tax 'em: And yet, not one of these, but knows his works, Knows what damnation is, the devil, and hell; Yet hourly they persist, grow rank in sin, Puffing their souls away in perjurous air, To cherish their extortion, pride, or lusts.
MIT. Forbear, good Asper; be not like your name.
ASP. O, but to such whose faces are all zeal, And, with the words of Hercules, invade Such crimes as these! that will not smell of sin, But seem as they were made of sanctity! Religion in their garments, and their hair Cut shorter than their eye-brows! when the conscience Is vaster than the ocean, and devours More wretches than the counters.
MIT. Gentle Asper, Contain our spirits in more stricter bounds, And be not thus transported with the violence Of your strong thoughts.
COX. Unless your breath had power, To melt the world, and mould it new again, It is in vain to spend it in these moods.
ASP. [TURNING TO THE STAGE.] I not observed this thronged round till now! Gracious and kind spectators, you are welcome; Apollo and Muses feast your eyes With graceful objects, and may our Minerva Answer your hopes, unto their largest strain! Yet here mistake me not, judicious friends; I do not this, to beg your patience, Or servilely to fawn on your applause, Like some dry brain, despairing in his merit. Let me be censured by the austerest brow, Where I want art or judgment, tax me freely. Let envious censors, with their broadest eyes, Look through and through me, I pursue no favour; Only vouchsafe me your attentions, And I will give you music worth your ears. O, how I hate the monstrousness of time, Where every servile imitating spirit, Plagued with an itching leprosy of wit, In a mere halting fury, strives to fling His ulcerous body in the Thespian spring, And straight leaps forth a poet! but as lame As Vulcan, or the founder of Cripplegate.
MIT. In faith this humour will come ill to some, You will be thought to be too peremptory.
ASP. This humour? good! and why this humour, Mitis? Nay, do not turn, but answer.
MIT. Answer, what?
ASP. I will not stir your patience, pardon me, I urged it for some reasons, and the rather To give these ignorant well-spoken days Some taste of their abuse of this word humour.
COR. O, do not let your purpose fall, good Asper; It cannot but arrive most acceptable, Chiefly to such as have the happiness Daily to see how the poor innocent word Is rack'd and tortured.
MIT. Ay, I pray you proceed.
ASP. Ha, what? what is't?
COR. For the abuse of humour.
ASP. O, I crave pardon, I had lost my thoughts. Why humour, as 'tis 'ens', we thus define it, To be a quality of air, or water, And in itself holds these two properties, Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration, Pour water on this floor, 'twill wet and run: Likewise the air, forced through a horn or trumpet, Flows instantly away, and leaves behind A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude, That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity, As wanting power to contain itself, Is humour. So in every human body, The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood, By reason that they flow continually In some one part, and are not continent, Receive the name of humours. Now thus far It may, by metaphor, apply itself Unto the general disposition: As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour But that a rook, by wearing a pyed feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tye, or the Switzer's knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous.
COR. He speaks pure truth; now if an idiot Have but an apish or fantastic strain, It is his humour.
ASP. Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time's deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.
MIT. Asper, (I urge it as your friend,) take heed, The days are dangerous, full of exception, And men are grown impatient of reproof.
ASP. Ha, ha! You might as well have told me, yond' is heaven, This earth, these men, and all had moved alike. -- Do not I know the time's condition? Yes, Mitis, and their souls; and who they be That either will or can except against me. None but a sort of fools, so sick in taste, That they contemn all physic of the mind, And like gall'd camels, kick at every touch. Good men, and virtuous spirits, that loath their vices, Will cherish my free labours, love my lines, And with the fervour of their shining grace Make my brain fruitful, to bring forth more objects, Worthy their serious and intentive eyes. But why enforce I this? as fainting? no. If any here chance to behold himself, Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong; For, if he shame to have his follies known, First he should shame to act 'em: my strict hand Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls, As lick up every idle vanity.
COR. Why, this is right furor poeticus! Kind gentlemen, we hope your patience Will yet conceive the best, or entertain This supposition, that a madman speaks.
ASP. What, are you ready there? Mitis, sit down, And my Cordatus. Sound ho! and begin. I leave you two, as censors, to sit here: Observe what I present, and liberally Speak your opinions upon every scene, As it shall pass the view of these spectators. Nay, now y'are tedious, sirs; for shame begin. And, Mitis, note me; if in all this front You can espy a gallant of this mark, Who, to be thought one of the judicious, Sits with his arms thus wreath'd, his hat pull'd here, Cries mew, and nods, then shakes his empty head, Will shew more several motions in his face Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh, And, now and then, breaks a dry biscuit jest, Which, that it may more easily be chew'd, He steeps in his own laughter.
COR. Why, will that Make it be sooner swallowed?
ASP. O, assure you. Or if it did not, yet as Horace sings, Mean cates are welcome still to hungry guests.
COR. 'Tis true; but why should we observe them, Asper?
ASP. O, I would know 'em; for in such assemblies They are more infectious than the pestilence: And therefore I would give them pills to purge, And make them fit for fair societies. How monstrous and detested is't to see A fellow that has neither art nor brain, Sit like an Aristarchus, or start ass, Taking men's lines with a tobacco face, In snuff still spitting, using his wry'd looks, In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn The good aspect of those that shall sit near him, From what they do behold! O, 'tis most vile.
MIT. Nay, Asper.
ASP. Peace, Mitis, I do know your thought; You'll say, your guests here will except at this: Pish! you are too timorous, and full of doubt. Then he, a patient, shall reject all physic, 'Cause the physician tells him, you are sick: Or, if I say, that he is vicious, You will not hear of virtue. Come, you are fond. Shall I be so extravagant, to think, That happy judgments, and composed spirits, Will challenge me for taxing such as these? I am ashamed.
COR. Nay, but good, pardon us; We must not bear this peremptory sail, But use our best endeavours how to please.