one of the elements in which he liveth); a dissembler of ill parts which raigne in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done; he is passionately kynde and angry; careless either to gaine or keep; vindicative, but, if he be well answered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both. Interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with fantasie, which hath ever mastered his reason, a generall disease in many Poets. His inventions are smooth and easie; but above all he excelleth in a Translation. With due allowance for the personal feeling which pervades these memoranda, they give incomparably the most vivid portrait in existence of an Elizabethan man of letters. The man they deal with, while not the greatest poet of his time, was distinctly the most conspicuous personal figure among those whose profession was literature. An excellent scholar, according to the contemporary standard; a playwright who never deigned to sacrifice his artistic conscience to popular caprice; a lyric poet acceptable alike to the great folk who patronized him, and to the literary followers who gathered about him. at his favorite taverns; laureate; chief writer of the masques which were so characteristic a diversion of the court; he went sturdily through life with more renown than fortune. Born before the outburst of Elizabethan literature, he lived until the times of Charles I. had begun to be troublous. He lies in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey, with the epitaph "O rare Ben Jonson" cut in the pavement above his head. In 1616, the year when Shakespeare died, Jonson published in folio a collection of his plays and poems. To this he gave the characteristic title of 'Works.' There were current jokes, of course, about the absurdity of so naming a volume of obvious plays; but the name was well chosen. What Jonson achieved, he achieved by conscientious labor. Drummond was right when he wrote, "Above all he excelleth in a Translation." Jonson knew two things thoroughly: the language and literature of classical Rome, and the language and life of London under Elizabeth, James, and Charles. The former he possessed to a degree almost unique; the latter, of course, he shared to the full with the human beings about him. As his two tragedies show, as is shown by many passages in his comedies, and again and again in his lyrics, the thing he could do supremely well was to turn the lifelessness of the classics into terms of contemporary vitality. In the best sense of the word, no better translator ever lived: he never forgot that faithfulness to his original is only half the task of the translator, who adds only to the dead weight of printed matter if he fail to bear to living men, in living language, tidings that without him were to them unmeaning. The very trait which made him a consummate translator, however, made him, in spite of his vigorous personality, a less effective original writer than many of his less gifted contemporaries. Inevitably, a man who becomes saturated with classical literature becomes possessed of the chief ideal which pervades it, the ideal which maintains that there is one definite way in which things ought to be done, as distinguished from the innumerable other ways in which they ought not to be done. The general trait of the Elizabethan drama is untrammeled freedom of form. Jonson, as a dramatist, felt conscientiously bound to keep in mind the laws of classical composition. In this respect, his work is more analogous to that which has prevailed on the stage of France and of Italy than to that which has characterized the stage of England. "Shakspeer," he told Drummond, "wanted art." No one ever admired Shakespeare more sturdily than did Ben Jonson. All the same, he could never forget that Shakespeare broke every rule of dramatic art maintained by the authorities of Greece and Rome. By the same token, Jonson's own plays never achieved the full vitality of Elizabethan England. This fact has been generally remarked. Another trait of his, which greatly affected his dramatic writing, has hardly been recognized. He told Drummond, we may remember, that he had seen his dead child in a vision; and that he had lain awake watching strange figures battling about his great toe. In modern terms, this means that he was gifted with an exceptional visual imagination. The chief imaginative trait of the Elizabethan drama is sympathetic insight: whatever else the dramatists knew of their characters, they knew how those characters must have felt; they were in full touch not with their physical life, but with their emotional. In Jonson's case, all this was reversed; one often doubts whether he were in deep emotional sympathy with his characters, but one is sure that he knew precisely how those characters looked and moved. When one has been reading Shakespeare, or almost any of his other contemporaries, Jonson's plays often seem obscure and puzzling. If in such case one turn for an hour to Hogarth, the whole thing is explained. Jonson's imagination was primarily visual; though his vehicle was poetry, his conception was again and again that of painting. Ask yourself not what Jonson's characters felt, but what they looked like, and they will spring into life. The analogy between Jonson and Hogarth, indeed, is very suggestive. Not only were both gifted with singular fertility of visual imagination, but both alike instinctively expressed themselves in such exaggerated terms as in our time would be called caricature, and as in Jonson's time were called humorous. Both seized upon some few characteristic traits of the personages with whom they dealt, and so Both were emphasized these traits as to make them monstrous. stirred by conscious moral purpose; both had a crude but wholesome sense of fun; both knew London to the core. In spite of the century and more which separates them, they may well be studied together. Whoever understands the one will understand the other. For both alike were really artists. In the color and the texture of Hogarth's paintings, one feels, for all their seeming ugliness of purpose, a genuine sense of what is beautiful. In Jonson's verses, from beginning to end, one feels, as surely as one feels the occasional limitations of pedantry, that higher, purer spirit of classical culture, which maintains that whatever a poet utters should be phrased as beautifully as his power can phrase it. In some lyrics, and in certain lines and passages of his plays, Jonson fairly excels. A scholar and a Londoner, vigorous, sincere, untiring, he stands in our literature as the great type of a sturdy British artist. In the selections which follow, an attempt has been made to give some slight evidence of his purposes and his achievement. The two passages from his posthumous 'Timber, or Discoveries' may suggest at once his literary method and the temper in which he regarded his chief contemporary. His well-known verses on Shakespeare repeat in more studied form the latter views, and at the same time show his mastery of English verse. The prologue to 'Every Man in His Humour states his dramatic creed. The passage from Sejanus' shows his great, if superficial, mastery of Roman life and manners. The passage from the 'Silent Woman' shows at once his "humorous » manner, and his consummate power of translation; for the tirade against women is taken straight from Juvenal. Finally, the necessarily few fragments from his other plays, and selections from his lyrics, may perhaps serve to indicate the manner of thing which his conscientious art has added to permanent literature. DR ON STYLE From Timber, or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter > E STILO, ET OPTIMO SCRIBENDI GENERE. For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries, to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style. In style, to consider what ought to be written, and after what manner, he must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words, and examine the weight of either. Then take care, in placing and ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely; and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be labored and accurate; seek the best, and be not glad of the forward conceits or first words that offer themselves to us: but judge of what we invent, and order what we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside that it helps. the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it quickens the heat of imagination, that often cools in the time of setting down, and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back. As we see in the contention of leaping, they jump farthest that fetch their race largest; or as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back our arms to make our loose the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favor of the gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in the conception of birth, else we would never set it down. But the safest is to return to our judgment, and handle over again those things the easiness of which might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their beginnings: they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly; they obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to them more plentifully; their words answered, their composition followed; and all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing. Yet when we think we have got the faculty, it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse a check sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course as stir his mettle. Again, whither a man's genius is best able to reach, thither it should more and more contend, lift, and dilate itself; as men of low stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown. and able writers to stand of themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavor by their own faculties; so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study others and the best. For the mind and memory are more sharply exercised in comprehending another man's things than our own; and such as accustom themselves and are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon find somewhat of them in themselves: and in the expression of their minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter something like theirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes it is the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man fitly; and though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another, yet he must exercise all. For as in an instrument, so in style, there must be a harmony and consent of parts. DR ON SHAKESPEARE From Timber, or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter› E SHAKESPEARE NOSTRAT[1].-I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand; which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so too. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE NO DRAW no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, T Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such As neither man nor Muse can praise too much. |