6 scrag." It is evident from all this abuse, which we transcribe as the passages occur in Dekker's Satiro-Mastix,' that the poverty, the personal appearance, and, above all, the original occupation of Jonson, exposed him to the vulgar ridicule of some of those with whom he was brought into contact at the theatre. They did not feel as honest old Fuller felt, when, describing Jonson, being in want of maintenance, as "fain to return to the trade of his father-in-law," the old chronicler of the Worthies says "Let not them blush that have, but those who have not, a lawful calling." We can understand what Henslowe means when he says "Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." In the autumn of 1598 the bricklayer-poet was lying in prison. At the Christmas of that year 'Every Man in his Humour,' greatly altered from the original sketch produced by Henslowe's company, was brought out by the Lord Chamberlain's company at the Blackfriars. The doors of Henslowe's theatre on the Bankside were probably shut against the man who had killed Gabriel, "whose sword was ten inches longer than his." There seems to have been an effort on the part of some one to console the unhappy prisoner under his calamity. He was a writer for a rival theatre, receiving its advances up to the 13th of August, 1598. His improved play was brought out by the company of a theatre which stood much higher in the popular and the critical estimation a few months afterwards. There was an act of friendship somewhere. May we not believe that this proud man, who seems to have been keenly alive to neglect and injurywho says that "Daniel was at jealousies with him "-that "Drayton feared him"that "he beat Marston, and took his pistol from him"-that "Sir William Alexander was not half kind to him"-that "Markham was but a base fellow"-that "such were Day and Middleton"-that "Sharpham, Day, Dekker, were all rogues, and that Minshew was one "-that "Abraham Francis was a fool"*-may we not believe that some deep remembrance of unusual kind *All these passages are extracted from his 'Conversations with Drummond.' ness induced him to write of Shakspere, "I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature?" We have no hesitation in abiding by the common sense of Gifford, who treated with ineffable scorn all that has been written about Jonson's envy, and malignity, and coldness towards Shakspere. We believe with him "that no feud, no jealousy ever disturbed their connection; that Shakspere was pleased with Jonson, and that Jonson loved and admired Shakspere." They worked upon essentially different principles of art; they had each their admirers and disciples; but the field in which they laboured was large enough for both of them, and they each cultivated it after his own fashion. With the exception of such occasional quarrels as those between Jonson and Dekker, the poets of that time lived as a generous brotherhood, whose cordial intercourse might soften many of the rigours of their worldly lot. Jonson was by nature proud, perhaps arrogant. His struggles with penury had made him proud. He had the inestimable possession of a well-educated boyhood; he had the consciousness of great abilities and great acquirements. He was thrown amongst a band of clever men, some of whom perhaps laughed, as Dekker unworthily did, at his honest efforts to set himself above the real disgrace of earning his bread by corrupt arts who ridiculed his pimpled face, his one eye lower than t' other," and his "coat like a coachman's coat, with slips under the arm-pits." So Aubrey describes him who laid down laws of criticism, and married music and painting to the most graceful verse. But when the bricklayer had the gratification of seeing his first comedy performed by the Lord Chamberlain's company, to "Sport with human follies, not with crimes," there was one amongst that company strong enough to receive with kindliness even the original prologue, in which the romantic drama, perhaps some of his own plays, were declaimed against by one who belonged to another school of art. Shakspere could not doubt that a man of vigorous understanding | intercourse of some of the illustrious band had arisen up to devote himself to the exhibition of "popular errors," - humours— passing accidents of life and character. He himself worked upon more enduring materials; but he would nevertheless see that there was one fitted to deal with the comedy of manners in a higher spirit than had yet been displayed. Not only was the amended 'Every Man in his Humour' acted by Shakspere's company, Shakspere himself taking one of the characters; but the second comedy from the same satirist was first produced by that company in 1599. When the author, in his Induction, exclaims "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,” the poet who " was not for an age, but for all time,"-he, especially, who never once comes before the audience in his individual character, might gently smile at these high pretensions. But he would stretch out the hand of cordial friendship to the man; for he was in earnest-his indignation against vice was an honest one. Though a little personal vanity might peep out-though the satirist might "venture on the stage when the play is ended to exchange courtesies and compliments with gallants in the lord's rooms, to make all the house rise up in arms and to cry,―That's Horace, that's he, that's he, that's he, that pens and purges humours and diseases,"* Shakspere's congratulations on the success of Asper-for so Jonson delighted to call himself-would come from the heart. The things "done at the Mermaid" were not as yet. Francis Beaumont, who has made them immortal by his description, was at this period scarcely sixteen years of age. His 'Letter to Jonson' may, however, give us the best notion of the earlier convivial *Satiro-Mastix.' to whom the young dramatist refers :— "Methinks the little wit I had is lost Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtile flame, Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past-wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd: and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone : Sociality was the fashion of those days-in moderation, not a bad fashion. Gifford has noticed this with great justness; "Domestic entertainments were, at that time, rare; the accommodations of a private house were ill calculated for the purposes of a social meeting and taverns and ordinaries are therefore almost the only places in which we hear of such assemblies. This, undoubtedly, gives an appearance of licentiousness to the age, which, in strictness, does not belong to it. Long after the period of which we are now speaking, we seldom hear of the eminent characters of the day in their domestic circles." Jonson laughs at his own disposition to conviviality in connection with his habitual abstemiousness: "Canary, the very elixir and spirit of wine! This is that our poet calls Castalian liquor, when he comes abroad now and then, once in a fortnight, and makes a good meal among players, where he has caninum appetitum; marry, at home he keeps a good philosophical diet, beans and buttermilk; an honest pure rogue, he will take you off three, four, five of these, *Memoirs of Ben Jonson,' p. cxc. one after another, and look villainously when he has done, like a one-headed Cerberus."* He puts these words into the mouth of a buffoon. In his own person he speaks of himself in a nobler strain: "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."+ The alternations of excessive labour and joyous relaxation belong to the energies of the poetical temperament. Jonson has been accused of excess in his pleasures. Drummond ill-naturedly says, "Drink is one of the elements in which he liveth." But no one affirmed that in his convivial meetings there was not something higher and better than sensual indulgence : "Ah, Ben! Shall we thy guests The Dog, the Triple Tun? And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."+ George Chapman, as Anthony Wood tells us, was a person of most reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet." Anthony Wood has a low notion of the poetical character, as many other prosaic people have. He tells us of an unhappy verse-maker of small merit who was 'exceedingly given to the vices of poets." Chapman was, however, the senior of the illustrious band who lighted up the close of the sixteenth century, and might be more reverend than many of them. He was seven years older than Shakspere, being born in 1557. Yet his inventive faculties were brilliant to the last. Jonson told Drummond, in 1619, that "next himself only Fletcher and Chapman could make a masque." He said also, what was more important, that "Chapman and Fletcher were loved of him," No one can doubt the vigour of the poet who translated twelve books of * Every Man out of his Humour.' the Iliad in six weeks,-the daring fiery spirit of him who, in the opinion of the more polished translator, gave us a Homer such as he might have been before he had come to the years of discretion. This is meant by Pope for censure. Meres, in 1598, enumerates Chapman amongst the " tragic poets," and also amongst the "best poets for comedy." We have no evidence that he wrote before the period when Shakspere raised the drama out of chaos. He had not the power to become a great dramatist in the strict sense of the word; for his genius was essentially didactic. He could not go out of himself to paint all the varieties of passion and character in vivid action; but he could analyze the passion, exhibit its peculiarities, describe its current, with wondrous force and originality, throwing in touches of the purest poetry, clothed in the most splendid combinations of language. Dryden has not done justice to him, when he says that "a dwarfish thought dressed up in gigantic words is his characteristic." There are the gigantic words, but the thought is rarely dwarfish. Had he become a dramatist ten years earlier, as he well might from the period in which he was born, we should have found more extravagance and less poetical fire. Shakspere rendered the drama not so easy of approach by inferior men, as it was in the early days of the Greenes and Peeles. Chapman with his undramatic mind has done wonders in his own way. JOHN FLETCHER was born in 1576. His father, the Bishop of London—he who poured into the ears of the unhappy Mary of Scots on the scaffold that verbosam orationem, as Camden has it, which had more regard to his own preferment than the Queen's conversion-he who, marrying a second time, fell under his royal mistress's displeasure, and died of grief and excessive tobacco, in 1596, seeking to lose his sorrow in a mist of smoke," he left his son John to carry his "sail of phantasy" into the dangerous waters of the theatre. The union of real talent with fashionable pretension, which in time made him one of the most popular 66 *Fuller's Worthies.' "The wise, and many-headed bench, that sits Lady, or pucelle, that wears mask or fan, That may judge for his sixpence) had, before more: Their motives were, since it had not to do I, that am glad thy innocence was thy guilt, A glorified work to time, when fire Or moths shall eat what all those fools admire." The diary of Henslowe during the last three years of the sixteenth century contains abundant notices of MICHAEL DRAYTON as a dramatist. According to this record, of which we have no reason to doubt the cor of dramatists, and the lyrical genius which will place him for ever amongst the first of English poets, were budding only at the close of the sixteenth century. We can scarcely believe that his genius was only called out by the "wonderful consimility of fancy" between him and Francis Beaumont; and that his first play was produced only in 1607, when he was thirty-one and Beaumont twenty-one. It is possible that in his earlier days he wrote in conjunction with some of the veterans of the drama. Shakspere is held to have been associated with him in the 6 Two Noble Kinsmen.' We shall discuss that question elsewhere. At the end of the sixteenth century, Fletcher would be gathering materials, at any rate, for some of those pictures of manners which reveal to us too much of the profligacy of the fine people of the early part of the seventeenth century. The society of the great minds into which he would be thrown at the Falcon, and the Mermaid, and the Apollo Saloon, would call out and cherish that freshness of his poetical nature which survives, and indeed often rides over, the sapless conventionalities and frigid licentiousness of his fashionable ex-rectness, there were extant in 1597 'Mother perience. In the company of Shakspere, and Jonson, and Chapman, and Donne, he | would be taught there was something more in the friendship, and even in the mere intercourse of conviviality, of men of high intellect, than the town could give. He would learn from Jonson's 'Leges Conviviales,' that there was a charm in the social hours of the "eruditi, urbani, hilares, honesti," which was rarely found amidst the courtly hunters after pleasure; and that a festival with them was something better than even the excitement of wine and music. A few years after this Fletcher ventured out of the track of that species of comedy in which he won his first success, giving a real poem to the public stage, which, with all its faults, was a noble attempt to emulate the lyrical and pastoral genius of Shakspere. To our minds there is as much covert advice, if not gentle reproof, to Fletcher, as there is of just and cordial praise, in Jonson's verses upon the condemnation of 'The Faithful Shepherdess' by the audience of 1610:— Red Cap,' written by him in conjunction 1601, 'The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' by Munday, Drayton, Chettle, and Wentworth Smith. In 1602, 'Two Harpies,' by Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Webster, and Munday. This is a most extraordinary record of the extent of dramatic associations in those days; and it is more remarkable as it regards Drayton, that his labours, which, as we see, were not entirely in copartnership, did not gain for him even the title of a dramatic poet in the next generation. Langbaine mentions him not at all. Philipps says nothing of his plays. Meres indeed thus writes of him: "We may truly term Michael Drayton Tragediographus, for his passionate penning the downfalls of valiant Robert of Normandy, chaste Matilda, and great Gaveston." But this praise has clearly reference to the 'Heroical Epistles' and the 'Legends.' If 'The Merry Devil of Edmonton' be his, the comedy does not place his dramatic powers in any very striking light; but it gives abundant proofs, in common with all his works, of a pure and gentle mind, and a graceful imagination. Meres is enthusiastic about his moral qualities; and his testimony also shows that the character for upright dealing which Shakspere won so early was not universal amongst the poetical adventurers of that day: "As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported among all writers to be of an honest and upright conversation, so Michael Drayton (quem toties honoris et amoris causa nomino), among scholars, sol diers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-governed carriage, which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness is counted the cleanest wit and soundest wisdom." The good wits, according to Meres, are only parcel of the corrupt and declining times. Yet, after all, his dispraise of the times is scarcely original: "You rogue, here's lime in this sack too. There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous Drayton that "he esteemed not of him." That Shakspere loved him we may readily believe. They were nearly of an age, Drayton being only one year his elder. They were born in the same county-they had each the same love of natural scenery, and the same attachment to their native soil. Drayton exclaims "My native country then, which so brave spirits hath bred, If there be virtues yet remaining in thy earth, Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth, Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of thee; Of all thy later brood th' unworthiest though It is his own Warwickshire which he invokes. They had each the same familiar acquaintance with the old legends and chronicles of English history; the same desire to present them to the people in forms which should associate the poetical spirit with a just patriotism. It was fortunate that they walked by different paths to the same object. However Drayton might have been associated for a few years with the minor dramatists of Shakspere's day, it may be doubted whether his genius was at all dramatic. Yet was he truly a great poet in an age of great poets. Old Aubrey has given us.one or two exact particulars of his life :-" He lived at the bay window house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." Would that bay window house were standing! Would that the other house of precious memory close by it, where Izaak Walton kept his haberdasher's shop, were standing also! He "who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) without honourable mention; and has animated hills and streams with life and passion above the dreams of old mythology;" he who delighted to sit and sing under the honeysuckle hedge while the shower fell so gently upon the teeming earth,—they loved ."* and not the hills and streams and verdant mea dows the less because they daily looked upon *Charles Lamb. |
