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house. Mr. Fowler, his father-in-law, did not or affected not to understand the ambitious wishes of the high-spirited youth, and employed him as a helper in his trade. "He could not, in his own words, endure the craft;"*) accordingly, he quitted his home, and turned adrift upon the world, enrolled himself, as a volunteer, in the army which was then serving in the Low-Countries. **)

We learn from Drummond, that Jonson signalized himself in his service by "killing, in the view of both the armies, an enemy, and taking the opima spolia from him," but we know of no recompense or preferment conferred upon him for this gallant deed. After a campaign or two he returned home, whether disgusted with the military service in general, or mortified at his disappointments, remains uncertain: only this we may justly infer, that he was not guided home by any prospects of happiness. He does not seem to have found after his return an employment that fitted him, for it was not long before he betook himself to the stage (1593). This profession was then, as now-a-days, the last refuge of scholars who had failed in their literary career; as for Ben Jonson, he seemed destined for anything but a player. It is asserted by some, that he acted badly, and considering his rigidity and surliness of disposition, the austerity of his countenance, and his athletic frame, this account more than seems probable. At least, there is no statement to the contrary. He succeeded, however, as a writer, in getting a footing at the theatres, and was employed to revise, and make additions to, old plays. But he could not long escape his evil destiny. "Being appealed to a duel thus he related the melancholy event to Mr. Drummond ke killed his adversary, who had hurt him in the arm, and whose sword was ten inches longer than his. For this crime he was imprisoned and almost at the gallows." How his mind was disordered by his misfortune, we may infer from his becoming a temporary convert to the church of Rome.***) But far from restoring his

*) See the "Heads of a Conversation betwixt the famous Poet Ben Jonson, and William Drummond of Hawthornden, January, 1619," in the collected edition of Drummonds' Works, Edinburgh, 1711, p. 224.

**) Compare Gifford's and Cornwall's Memoirs.

***) “Then he took his religion on trust of a priest, who visited him in

peace of mind, this step of his was productive of very lamentable consequences. He fell into a state of mind bordering on insanity, his imagination conjured up a thousand frightful images, which he believed in even when conversing, more than twenty years after, with Drummond; he fancied that spies were set to catch him, that it was intended to put him under an accusation of hightreason, that he was, in short, at enmity with all world. Being, at length, restored to freedom (1595), all the enthusiasm and frankness of promising youth seemed to be stripped off for ever: with a withered heart and a poisoned imagination, he resumed his former profession - poetry!

What with this life of hardships and disappointments, his natural bent to witticism, and the vulgar error, that a discontented and rancorous disposition of mind is the most proper for satiric poetry, because it is the most inclined to see the worst side of things, we shall not wonder, that Jonson should have applied himself to this sort of theatrical composition. To his first as well as best plays not other name is suitable but satires. He would perhaps have protested against this denomination: assuredly, he pretended no claim to it; but since it was the bitterest sarcasms alone that came from his heart, he became a satirist unconsciously to himself. As such he ridiculed almost all that was within his reach, and it has been maintained by some, that also Shakspeare's person and art are very frequently and maliciously hinted at in his dramas. In the opinion of these accusers he was wholly unable or unwilling to comprehend and appreciate the genius of Shakspeare, and this sufficed to pronounce on him a sweeping sentence of literary unworthiness.

The personal and literary relations, in which Ben Jonson stood to Shakspeare, have been the occasion of too violent assaults upon the former, as not to require a brief and authentic statement of the matter. We do not mean to enter into any particulars, or to expatiate upon the frivolous and ungrounded reproaches of Mr. Tieck and his unthinking followers, but all critical enquiry concerning our subject is so closely connected

prison: he was 12 years a papist, but after this he was reconciled to the church of England, and left off to be a rccusant." Brummond.

with the present question, as to render it impossible to pass it wholly over. After what the learned Mr. Gifford has compiled, our task need only be to set off the principal points and general results of his researches.

Firstly, then, it admits of no doubt but that Ben Jonson well knew the peculiar way and working of poetic genius. In his "Discoveries", a collection of aphorisms literary and philosophical, he says: "First, we require in our poet or maker (for that title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness of natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the treasure of his mind; and as Seneca says, Aliquando secundum Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands the poetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, Frustra poeticas fores sui compos pulsavit. And of Aristotle, Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid, et supra caeteros loqui, nisi mota mens. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft, and flies away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast, Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo; Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit.” — — He does not fail to repeat in several passages of his works that hackneyed axiom, that poets are born, not made, and declaims with great warmth against such as had been led by want or some other as unbecoming motive to contend for the laurel. I am not of opinion that these cant-phrases rife in everybody's mouth indicate a poet that feels really inspired; but they bear testimony, nevertheless, that Jonson looked up to something above him, which he might perhaps, in his vainer hours, persuade himself to have attained.

As for Shakspeare, in the second place, it could not escape Ben Jonson, that this was exactly the poet whom Aristotle defines; neither was he, as shall be seen by and by, reluctant to acknowledge it. But do what he could, the very cotempo

Ges. Abh. v. Dr. Aler. Schmidt.

7

rariness and personal connection with Shakspeare, interfered with his literary success, and therefore an intimate friendship between these men was quite out of the question.

In the year 1598, Jonson, having already come before the world as the author of "Every Man in his Humour," became acquainted with Shakspeare, and it was through his medium the said play was brought out at the theatre of Blackfriars, Shakspeare being one of the actors and performing, in all likelihood, the part of the elder Knowell. We know of no obligations of later times received by Jonson at Shakspeare's hands, but that one bestowed upon him on his outset must be thought unredeemable.

Notwithstanding the friendly support of Shakspeare and, perhaps, of other persons to whom he was introduced, Ben Jonson met, as should appear, with a very indifferent reception with the public. At this he felt extremely mortified, the more especially as other poets, who were, or whom he at least thought to be, his inferiors in wit and learning, as Decker, Marston, Taylor, courted popular applause with better success. To this bad humour he gave vent by the-,,Poetaster," a comedy written in 1601, in which two bad rhymers, Crispinus and Demetrius, plan base intrigues against Horace, the favourite poet of Augustus, and are, after all, most shamefully defeated. There is not an intimation in this play, no single trait of character, that would, in the eyes of an unprepossessed reader, have a malevolent reference to Shakspeare; on the contrary, one might view the whole as a panegyric on him, were it not professedly designed for a eulogy on the author himself.*) And yet some

* Read the following passage of the Epilogue:

Fellows of practised and most laxative tongues,
Whose empty and eager bellies, in the year,
Compel their brains to many desperate shifts,
(I spare to name them, for their wretchedness
Fury itself would pardon). These, or such;
Whether of malice, or of ignorance,
Or itch t'have me their adversary, I know not,
Or all these mixt; but sure I am, three years
They did provoke me with their petulant styles
On every stage: and I at last unwilling,

have asserted that Shakspeare was sneered at in this satire as one of

the poet apes,

That come with basilisk's eyes, whose forked tongues
Are steep'd in venom, as their hearts in gall.

Many other misinterpretations of this kind I will not mention, since nearly all argumentation in this matter is founded merely on conjecture, and it ought to be an established law in literary causes as well as in civil, to decide, in doubtful cases, for the defendant. A warm and disinterested friendship, such as existed between Horace and Virgil, Goethe and Schiller, did not, to be sure, take place between Shakspeare and Jonson, and will never be likely to do but by virtue of a certain tuning and "mutual ordering" of the respective characters. We may add that Jonson's mind was not framed for the nice considerations of friendly intercourse. In the company of Shakspeare, moreover, his personal situation must have become painful and distressing to him. He loved to make show of his eminent and most meritoriously acquired knowledge, and season his discourse and writings with frequent quotations from ancient and modern literature, whereas Shakspeare always stood upon his own ground, and casting aside all book-learning unprofitable to him, did not make use of his admirable literary acquirements but for the purposes of poetry. We have a notice upon record of the meetings at the Mermaid tavern, which the choice spirits of London in Elizabeth's time frequently resorted to, the accomplished Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, among the number. The "wit-contests" carried on there between Jonson and Shakspeare, our

But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,

Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em;

And therefore chose Augustus Caesar's times,

When wit and arts were at their height in Rome,

To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest

Of those great master-spirits, did not want
Detractors then, or practicers against them:
And by this line, although no parallel,

I hoped at last they would sit down and blush;
But nothing I could find more contrary.

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