Fletcher without Beaumont, Massinger, and some others, among whom we may now name Ford, were the powers in possession of the stage. Against these, or against most of them, Jonson had already measured himself; and now that some of the greatest stars of the first cluster were gone, and that he had in the mean while matured his own art by practice, it might have been supposed that his dramatic activity would be more constant than ever. The Poetaster, produced in 1601, is the last play of Ben's to the character of which we have made any distinct allusion. It was a merciless satire, in which, by making the poets of the day in general, and Decker and Marston in particular, feel how dangerous he could be, if provoked, he sought to establish his literary reputation against the opposition which had attended his former appearances. In this, as we have seen, he had succeeded. Marston and he had become very good friends, after all; and Chapman and others wrote laudatory verses for his plays, and received similar compliments in return. In short, Ben's genius had secured him his rights, and placed him, in the opinion of all, in the very highest place after that occupied by Shakspeare. Such, however, was by no means the case. "For the long period of ten years from the death of Shakspeare," says Gifford, emphatically, "Jonson did not write one line for the stage." The statement is all but literally correct. The only regular play produced by Jonson during the period of nine years now under notice, was the comedy called The Staple of But the spirit of opposition, if outwardNews, brought on the stage in 1625, the ly overcome, still rankled within. A very very last year of the nine; and it is not large ingredient of it, doubtless, was certain that James was not dead and envy; but envy was not the sole ingrediCharles on the throne before this play ent. An innovator from the first, Ben saw the light. In the article of masques, necessarily experienced the usual fate of however, Ben was not so barren. Ten of innovators. Even the unlettered public these short performances, now printed had an instinct that Master Jonson's among his works, were written during the plays, though mighty learned, and solid period in question. Doubtless, also, many and good, were not altogether of_the of those minor miscellaneous poems and right sort. What they liked best in them scraps of critical and sententious prose, they could not thoroughly relish. Shaknow appended to his longer and more speare was their standard of comparison; elaborate compositions under the various and seizing on the prominent fact that names of Epigrams, Observations, Forest, Jonson made a show of learning in his Underwoods, and the like, were penned plays, while Shakspeare made little or during those years. The probability, none, they laid all the difference to that. indeed, is, that during the nine years in "Few of the University pen plays well," question, Jonson was voluntarily keeping says a speaker in a dramatic burlesque of aloof from the drama, and exercising his the time; "they smell too much of that genius in other directions, with a view to writer Ovid and that writer 'Metamorbecome independent of the stage alto-phosis,' and talk too much of Proserpine gether. As if to give a public advertisement to this effect, he had brought out in 1616, in folio, a collected edition of all his works, so far as he cared to have them preserved, written up to that date. By so doing, he seemed to bid farewell to the drama and to all connected with it. But why did he do so, and that at the very time when his mastery of the stage might seem to have been more secure than ever? The reason, we believe, will appear partly in a retrospect of Ben's actual relations to the stage, as determined by what he had already produced for it, partly in an account of the external circumstances of his life during the period at present under notice. and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakspeare puts them all down; ay, and Ben Jonson too." The feeling thus existing in the public mind was kept alive by the more definite criticism of Ben's literary rivals. What an absurd notion, that of Ben's, that the dramatist should at the same time be a moralist, writing for a purpose, taking his materials from contemporary society, making each play a lesson of some virtue, or a castigation of some vice, and so ordering his characters that each should represent some "humor" or exaggerated form of human nature, and that the catastrophe should result from the mutual action of the "humors" represented. Then, again, his preference for the classic model of comedy, his adhesion to the classic rule of the unities, and his habit of introducing translations from the Latin into his tragedies! Criticisms like these, caught up and repeated, widened the rupture between Ben and the public. Of course, when such criticisms presented themselves in the Mermaid Club, or other places, Ben's wrath would be fearful. But what was worse than any private onslaught on unlucky wights who were too candid in his presence, was his habit of retaliating on the public in print for presuming not to like his plays, nay, of bearding the very audiences that came to hear him, by means of passages in the plays themselves, or in their prologues or epilogues, anticipating criticism, and signifying his indifference to it. Ben, in fact, was one of those men who are always "treating insults with silent contempt;" that is, who are always making a tremendous noise about them, and never letting one pass without telling heaven and earth of the wrong. As specimens of the kind of "silent contempt" in which he indulged, take the following: From the dedication of " Volpone" to the two Universities in 1607.-"... As for those that will make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they entrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival for me. I choose rather to live graved in obscurity than share with them in so preposterous a fame. The present trade of the stage, in all their miscelline interludes, what learned or liberal soul doth not already abhor? and with such impropriety of phrase-such plenty Where nothing but the filth of the time is uttered, of solecisms-such dearth of sense-so bold prolepses-so racked metaphors, with brothelry able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy to turn the blood of a Christian to water. This it is that hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore, and by all my actions, to stand off from them; which may most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and most appear in this my latest work, which you, to my crown, approved; wherein I have labored for their instruction and amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms but the manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last the doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of living. From the address to the reader prefixed to the Alchemist" in 1610.-" Thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened than in this age in poetry, especially in plays; wherein now the con From lines appended to the "Poetaster" on its cupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, publication in 1602. "Polyposus. . . . . They say you are slow, And scarce bring forth a play a year. "Author. "Tis true; I would they could not say that I did that. That these base and beggarly conceits Should carry it by the multitude of voices Against the most abstracted work, opposed To the stuffed nostrils of the drunken rout! Oh! this would make a learned and liberal soul To rive his stained quill up to the back, And damn his long-watched labors to the fire. Since the comic muse Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try If tragedy has a more kind aspect; Her favors in my next I will pursue, Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one, So he judicious be, he shall be alone A theatre unto me; once I'll say To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains, As shall, beside the cunning of their ground, Give cause to some to wonder, some despite, And more despair to imitate their sound. I, that spend half my nights and all my days Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face, To come forth worth the ivy and the bays, And in this age can hope no other grace. Leave me! There's something come into my thought That must and shall be sung high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof." 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! [It is evident that Ben has Shakspeare chiefly in view in what follows.] I deny not but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on something 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 in a faint shadow. I speak not this out of a hope to do good to any man against his will; for I know that, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages, because the most favor common error. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those that, to gain the opinion of copy (copiousness?) utter all they can, however unfitly, and these that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskillful to think rude things greater than polished, or scattered more numerous than composed." way of taking the public by the throat. These are but mild specimens of Ben's There had been hardly one of his plays, produced between 1603 and 1616, in the prologue or epilogue to which, or in the from 1616 to 1618 cannot be ascertained; but in the summer of this latter year took place that famous foot-journey to Scotland which brought him into such close acquaintance with Drummond of Hawthornden.* He resided with Drummond some weeks, but he remained in Scotland several months in all, and visited the Highlands and various parts of the Lowlands. After his return to England in the spring of 1619, various pieces of good fortune awaited him. In July he received an invitation to Oxford, where, amid other honors, he had the degree of Master of Arts conferred on him in a full convocation; and later in the same year, he was ap pointed by the king to the dignity of Poet-Laureate. Samuel Daniel, then just dead, had virtually held this office, but on Jonson's appointment it was converted into something of substantial value by having an annual pension of one hundred merks attached to it. The reversion of the office of Master of the Revels was also conferred on Jonson by the king, and it was with some difficulty, we are informed, that his Majesty was prevented from knighting his favorite poet. It would have been done but for Ben's own reluctance to accept the honor. The reversion to the Mastership of the Revels brought Ben no increase of fortune, as he did not live to see the office vacant; but his salary as Laureate, together with what he derived from other sources, enabled him to rest from his labors for the stage without text itself, he had not, in a similar manner, | somewhat freely already, was very much said something in the odi profanum vulgus strain, or dared the public, at their peril, to dislike the play, or abused other writers, and proclaimed himself to be the only true artist. Now, if there is any one thing that the public will not put up with, it is being bullied. There was perhaps an element of unpopularity in Ben's dramas themselves; but Ben's explosions of "silent contempt" in their behalf made the case worse. In short, cabals were formed against him, and his later plays were ill received. There were, of course, manyand they were chiefly among the learned classes who stood by Ben; who liked his doctrines about poetry and the drama; liked his learned allusions, and liked his style. There were others, doubtless, who, though they saw not only the immense superiority of Shakspeare personally to Jonson, but also the intrinsic superiority of the Shakspearean theory of dramatic art to that which Jonson represented and inculcated, still recognized the service which Jonson had done to the drama by his massive understanding, and felt the truth of some of his criticisms, and liked to hear him roar. But both these classes together could not save him from the general censure. perceived this, and hence it was that in 1616, instead of persevering so as to obtain the sceptre which Shakspeare's hand had dropped, he withdrew in dudgeon from the theatre. His appeal with respect to what he had already done was from the "ignorant many" to the "judicious and learned few" of his own time, and from his contemporaries to posterity; and as for the further exertions of his genius, why these, again, were to be of that nobler kind which would be done better aloof, He *Drummond's conduct in committing to paper notes of Jonson's private conversations with him has been made the subject of much controversy. Gifford's tirade against Drummond is simply preposterous. Not that we can acquit Drummond altogether, per "Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull haps. To make notes in any case whatever of conass's hoof." After all, however, had not outward circumstances conspired to assist Ben's intention, it might have been difficult for him to keep to it. But it so happened, that, about the very time when he determined to retire among the learned, it became possible for him to do so. His wife, it appears, had recently died, and this of itself naturally induced some changes in his arrangements and mode of living. The house in Blackfriars was probably given up, and, at all events, that liberty of leaving London and moving about at plea sure among his friends which he had used fidential conversations, and more especially where bits of scandal are involved, would not, by a very strict taste, be considered honorable. The amount of the offence, however, in Drummond's case, depends very much on the intention he had. It is for those who know, independently, what kind of a man Drummond' was to say what this may have been; but, so far as appears, he had no other motive than that natural interest which a man of letters living in Scotland would have in the kind of gossip Jonson could bring from London. The notes seem to have been intended for private keeping. See the case clearly stated by Mr. David Laing, of the Signet Library, Edinburgh, in his Preface to the "Conversations," as published by the Shakspeare Society. For our part, seeing that the accuracy and truthfulwish is that Drummond had sinned more, while he was about it, and given us more of Ben's gossip. ness of the notes can hardly be doubted, our chief serious inconvenience. During the re- 3. From 1625 to 1637, or from Ben's fifty-third to his sixty-fifth year.-During these last twelve years of Ben's life, his position with respect to his contemporaries was that of a literary patriarch, retaining enough of his old fire and strength to hold the supremacy against all competitors but on the whole living chiefly on the reputation of what he had already done. One or two of his old brotherElizabethans, such as Chapman, Donne, and Drayton, survived for a time to bear him company; Massinger and Ford, out of those few newer men who had taken their places during James's reign among the Elizabethan dramatists, also survived and were in the prime of their activity; among non-dramatic poets and general writers who had made their appearance in the same reign, and still continued to be known in literary circles, were Selden, Herbert, Herrick, Quarles, Withers, Phineas Fletcher, Carew, Browne, and others; and gradually adding themselves to those out of the generation then rising into manhood, were the Shirleys, the Wallers, the Davenants, the Sucklings, the Felthams, the Clarendons, the Miltons, the Clevelands, and the Cowleys, who were in their turn to live on and be the literary powers of a new and very different era. In these last years of Ben Jonson's life, in fact, the age of Shakspeare and his contemporaries connects itself, and principally through Ben himself, with the age of which Milton is the greatest representative. Ben never knew Milton, though Milton was almost thirty years of age before he died; but that he had an instinctive sense of his function as a living link between a past time and that of which he now saw the beginning, is proved by the personal relations which he cultivated to other men who were of the same age as Milton, or even younger. The Mermaid Club, where Ben had been but one conspicuous member among others older than himself, now no longer existed; and in stead of it had arisen the even more famous Apollo Club, held at the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, of which Ben himself had been the founder, and the laws of which, written by him in pure and classical Latin, were engraved in gold letters over the firein the room where the Club met. Hither came all who, as the phrase was, "desired to be sealed of the tribe of Ben;" here from the chair, which no one else dared to occupy, he promulgated his critical dicta to his admiring disciples, showing them also by example, with the help of Canary, what true wit was, and sometimes, we fear, under the same influence singing, "Old Sir Simon the King." Not Dryden afterwards at Wills's, nor Jonson's namesake, later still, at the Literary Club, ruled with greater authority than he did at the Apollo, during the later years of his life. Among the scores of young men whom he took under his patronage here, was Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, then a student of law, for whom he showed an extraordinary partiality till the youth began to attend to business, "which he thought ought never to be preferred to his company." It was very much in consequence of the personal influence thus exerted over rising young men in his declining years, that Ben's poetry, and his theories about poetry, continued so powerfully to affect English literature throughout the whole of the seventeenth century. But while Jonson's literary influence thus remained as great as ever, his per-sonal fortunes were on the wane. The death of King James had affected them very considerably for the worse. Charles, it is true, continued to show as much kindness as he conveniently could to the poet whom his father had liked and honored; but his own tastes did not lead him to have so much personal intercourse with poets, or to take so much interest in their affairs, as his father had found agreeable. While Ben's nominal relations to the Court, therefore, were the same as before, they were, in reality, far less intimate and far less profitable to himself. He was now seldom called upon for any of those courtly entertainments, in the shape of masques and the like, which had been in so much request during the life of James, and which had brought him so considerable a part of his income. Only three masques in all of those printed among his works were produced for the Court during this period of his life-the first for Twelfth Night, 1626; the next not till 1630; and | been proof against all the excesses with the last in the same year. Something which he had tried it; but now dropsy, more, however, than a mere change in the personal tastes and habits of the sovereign was involved in this diminution of the demand for Ben's services at Court. Inigo Jones was now a far greater man at Court than he had been when he and Ben first joined their heads together in getting up masques for the late queen and her ladies. Then, according to Ben, he had been a poor youth, with a capital of "thirty pounds in pipkins ;" but now he was nothing less than court-architect and courtsurveyor, moving about as a grandee, talking familiarly of Euclid, Archimedes, Vitruvius, and Architectonics, and betraying himself occasionally by misquotations in Latin. This portrait, it must be remembered, is drawn by Ben in his spleen, and as we cannot enter into particulars, the simple fact for us is, that here again, whether with right or wrong on his side, Ben had got into one of his quarrels. During James's life, Inigo and he had managed to coöperate harmoniously and with mutual compliments; but not long after the accession of Charles, the architect and the poet came to a deadly strife on a point of precedence-the architect insisting that the essential part of the masques was his machinery, and the poet maintaining that the masque was naught without his verses. The quarrel came to a height when Ben, in publishing one of his masques, placed his own name before the architect's in the title-page. Inigo, using his influence at Court, was able to show his sense of the wrong done to his dignity, by having Ben's services dispensed with in future at court masques, and having other poets, among whom was one Aurelian Townshend, called in as substitutes. Ben, on his side, took his revenge in those lampoons on Inigo which are printed with his other works. Those who are interested in the "quarrels of authors," will find the history of this one related at length in Gifford and elsewhere. Deprived of a portion of his emoluments from the Court, Ben, among whose virtues prudence had been one of the least, began to be really in want, and that at a time when his bodily powers were failing him. Though of a scorbutic habit of body from his boyhood, and of late years grown so enormously corpulent as to be the wonder of Fleet Street, his health had hitherto palsy, and a complication of other dis- |