the greatest of english dramatists except shakespeare the first literary dictator and poet laureate a writer of verse prose satire and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of english letters such was ben jonson and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled at least in his age ben jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world thomas carlyle for jonson s grandfather was of annandale over the solway whence he migrated to england jonson s father lost his estate under queen mary having been cast into prison and forfeited he entered the church but died a month before his illustrious son was born leaving his widow and child in poverty jonson s birthplace was westminster and the time of his birth early in 1573 he was thus nearly ten years shakespeare s junior and less well off if a trifle better born but jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage his mother married beneath her a wright or bricklayer and jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade as a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary william camden then usher at westminster school and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning jonson always held camden in veneration acknowledging that to him he owed all that i am in arts all that i know and dedicating his first dramatic success every man in his humour to him it is doubtful whether jonson ever went to either university though fuller says that he was statutably admitted into st john s college cambridge he tells us that he took no degree but was later master of arts in both the universities by their favour not his study when a mere youth jonson enlisted as a soldier trailing his pike in flanders in the protracted wars of william the silent against the spanish jonson was a large and raw boned lad he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky in chat with his friend william drummond of hawthornden jonson told how in his service in the low countries he had in the face of both the camps killed an enemy and taken opima spolia from him and how since his coming to england being appealed to the fields he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his jonson s reach may have made up for the lack of his sword certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling obviously jonson was brave combative and not averse to talking of himself and his doings in 1592 jonson returned from abroad penniless soon after he married almost as early and quite as imprudently as shakespeare he told drummond curtly that his wife was a shrew yet honest for some years he lived apart from her in the household of lord albany yet two touching epitaphs among jonson s epigrams on my first daughter and on my first son attest the warmth of the poet s family affections the daughter died in infancy the son of the plague another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived we know nothing beyond this of jonson s domestic life how soon jonson drifted into what we now call grandly the theatrical profession we do not know in 1593 marlowe made his tragic exit from life and greene shakespeare s other rival on the popular stage had preceded marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before shakespeare already had the running to himself jonson appears first in the employment of philip henslowe the exploiter of several troupes of players manager and father in law of the famous actor edward alleyn from entries in henslowe s diary a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us we know that jonson was connected with the admiral s men for he borrowed 4 pounds of henslowe july 28 1597 paying back 3s 9d on the same day on account of his share while later on december 3 of the same year henslowe advanced 20s to him upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at christmas next in the next august jonson was in collaboration with chettle and porter in a play called hot anger soon cold all this points to an association with henslowe of some duration as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise from allusions in dekker s play satiromastix it appears that jonson like shakespeare began life as an actor and that he ambled in a leather pitch by a play wagon taking at one time the part of hieronimo in kyd s famous play the spanish tragedy by the beginning of 1598 jonson though still in needy circumstances had begun to receive recognition francis meres well known for his comparative discourse of our english poets with the greek latin and italian poets printed in 1598 and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of shakespeare by title accords to ben jonson a place as one of our best in tragedy a matter of some surprise as no known tragedy of jonson from so early a date has come down to us that jonson was at work on tragedy however is proved by the entries in henslowe of at least three tragedies now lost in which he had a hand these are page of plymouth king robert ii of scotland and richard crookback but all of these came later on his return to henslowe and range from august 1599 to june 1602 returning to the autumn of 1598 an event now happened to sever for a time jonson s relations with henslowe in a letter to alleyn dated september 26 of that year henslowe writes i have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly that is gabriel for he is slain in hogsden fields by the hands of benjamin jonson bricklayer the last word is perhaps henslowe s thrust at jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time it is fair to jonson to remark however that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire eater who had shortly before killed one feeke in a similar squabble duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player this duel is the one which jonson described years after to drummond and for it jonson was duly arraigned at old bailey tried and convicted he was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had were forfeited it is a thought to give one pause that but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead as it was called the benefit of clergy jonson might have been hanged for this deed the circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him and he received only a brand of the letter t for tyburn on his left thumb while in jail jonson became a roman catholic but he returned to the faith of the church of england a dozen years later on his release in disgrace with henslowe and his former associates jonson offered his services as a playwright to henslowe s rivals the lord chamberlain s company in which shakespeare was a prominent shareholder a tradition of long standing though not susceptible of proof in a court of law narrates that jonson had submitted the manuscript of every man in his humour to the chamberlain s men and had received from the company a refusal that shakespeare called him back read the play himself and at once accepted it whether this story is true or not certain it is that every man in his humour was accepted by shakespeare s company and acted for the first time in 1598 with shakespeare taking a part the evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of jonson s works 1616 but it is a mistake to infer because shakespeare s name stands first in the list of actors and the elder kno well first in the dramatis personae that shakespeare took that particular part the order of a list of elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters every man in his humour was an immediate success and with it jonson s reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all this could have been by no means jonson s earliest comedy and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of our best in tragedy indeed one of jonson s extant comedies the case is altered but one never claimed by him or published as his must certainly have preceded every man in his humour on the stage the former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the latin plays of plautus but the pretty story of the beggar maiden rachel and her suitors jonson found not among the classics but in the ideals of romantic love which shakespeare had already popularised on the stage jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as rachel although in other respects the case is altered is not a conspicuous play and save for the satirising of antony munday in the person of antonio balladino and gabriel harvey as well is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of jonson every man in his humour probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the curtain is commonly regarded as an epoch making play and this view is not unjustified as to plot it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to london and there observe his life with the gallants of the time the real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived ben jonson had theories about poetry and the drama and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays this makes jonson like dryden in his time and wordsworth much later an author to reckon with particularly when we remember that many of jonson s notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of english poetry first of all jonson was a classicist that is he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible renaissance spirit jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients to confine our attention to the drama jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays and set himself to do something different and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours as jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter let us quote his own words as to humour a humour according to jonson was a bias of disposition a warp so to speak in character by which 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 but continuing jonson is careful to add but that a rook by wearing a pied feather the cable hat band or the three piled ruff a yard of shoe tie or the switzers knot on his french garters should affect a humour o it is more than most ridiculous jonson s comedy of humours in a word conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion and placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast struck the spark of comedy downright as his name indicates is a plain squire bobadill s humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally and with delightfully comic effect a coward brainworm s humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody of course he is fooled in the end himself but it was not jonson s theories alone that made the success of every man in his humour the play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the london of the day jonson was neither in this his first great comedy a supine classicist urging that english drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions he says as to the laws of the old comedy i see not then but we should enjoy the same licence or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they did and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few who are nothing but form would thrust upon us every man in his humour is written in prose a novel practice which jonson had of his predecessor in comedy john lyly even the word humour seems to have been employed in the jonsonian sense by chapman before jonson s use of it indeed the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life viewed at a satirical angle and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language none the less jonson s comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run to mention only shakespeare s falstaff and his rout bardolph pistol dame quickly and the rest whether in henry iv or in the merry wives of windsor all are conceived in the spirit of humours so are the captains welsh scotch and irish of henry v and malvolio especially later though shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage it was not jonson s fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated that is degrade the humour into an oddity of speech an eccentricity of manner of dress or cut of beard there was an anonymous play called every woman in her humour chapman wrote a humourous day s mirth day humour out of breath fletcher later the humourous lieutenant and jonson besides every man out of his humour returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in the magnetic lady or humours reconciled with the performance of every man out of his humour in 1599 by shakespeare s company once more at the globe we turn a new page in jonson s career despite his many real virtues if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes jonson it is his arrogance and to this may be added his self righteousness especially under criticism or satire every man out of his humour is the first of three comical satires which jonson contributed to what dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it this play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time proceeding by means of vivid caricature couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire as a realisation in short of the classical ideal of comedy there had been nothing like jonson s comedy since the days of aristophanes every man in his humour like the two plays that follow it contains two kinds of attack the critical or generally satiric levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract and the personal in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others jonson s contemporaries the method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama aristophanes so lampooned euripides in the acharnians and socrates in the clouds to mention no other examples and in english drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again what jonson really did was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency with the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn vituperation and invective it is no wonder that jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow authors the circumstances of the origin of this poetomachia are far from clear and those who have written on the topic except of late have not helped to make them clearer the origin of the war has been referred to satirical references apparently to jonson contained in the scourge of villainy a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by john marston a fellow playwright subsequent friend and collaborator of jonson s on the other hand epigrams of jonson have been discovered variously charging playwright with scurrility cowardice and plagiarism though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty jonson s own statement of the matter to drummond runs he had many quarrels with marston beat him and took his pistol from him wrote his poetaster on him the beginning of them were that marston represented him on the stage the best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of poetaster and satiromastrix by j h penniman in belles lettres series shortly to appear see also his earlier work the war of the theatres 1892 and the excellent contributions to the subject by h c hart in notes and queries and in his edition of jonson 1906 here at least we are on certain ground and the principals of the quarrel are known histriomastix a play revised by marston in 1598 has been regarded as the one in which jonson was thus represented on the stage although the personage in question chrisogonus a poet satirist and translator poor but proud and contemptuous of the common herd seems rather a complimentary portrait of jonson than a caricature as to the personages actually ridiculed in every man out of his humour carlo buffone was formerly thought certainly to be marston as he was described as a public scurrilous and profane jester and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss of the time apparently we must now prefer for carlo a notorious character named charles chester of whom gossipy and inaccurate aubrey relates that he was a bold impertinent fellow a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room so one time at a tavern sir walter raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth with hard wax from him ben jonson takes his carlo buffone in every man in his humour is it conceivable that after all jonson was ridiculing marston and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of the grand scourge or second untruss with the scurrilous and profane chester we have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels we are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of jonson s enmity in the case is altered there is clear ridicule in the character antonio balladino of anthony munday pageant poet of the city translator of romances and playwright as well in every man in his humour there is certainly a caricature of samuel daniel accepted poet of the court sonneteer and companion of men of fashion these men held recognised positions to which jonson felt his talents better entitled him they were hence to him his natural enemies it seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through every man out of his humour and cynthia s revels daniel under the characters fastidious brisk and hedon munday as puntarvolo and amorphus but in these last we venture on quagmire once more jonson s literary rivalry of daniel is traceable again and again in the entertainments that welcomed king james on his way to london in the masques at court and in the pastoral drama as to jonson s personal ambitions with respect to these two men it is notable that he became not pageant poet but chronologer to the city of london and that on the accession of the new king he came soon to triumph over daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty cynthia s revels the second comical satire was acted in 1600 and as a play is even more lengthy elaborate and impossible than every man out of his humour here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything and while much of the caricature is admirable especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue the central idea of a fountain of self love is not very well carried out and the persons revert at times to abstractions the action to allegory it adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the children of queen elizabeth s chapel among them nathaniel field with whom jonson read horace and martial and whom he taught later how to make plays another of these precocious little actors was salathiel pavy who died before he was thirteen already famed for taking the parts of old men him jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs an interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs some of whom had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts to the caricature of daniel and munday in cynthia s revels must be added anaides here assuredly marston and asotus interpreted as lodge or more perilously raleigh crites like asper macilente in every man out of his humour is jonson s self complaisant portrait of himself the just wholly admirable and judicious scholar holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect the third and last of the comical satires is poetaster acted once more by the children of the chapel in 1601 and jonson s only avowed contribution to the fray according to the author s own account this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to dekker the preparation of satiromastix the untrussing of the humorous poet a dramatic attack upon himself in this attempt to forestall his enemies jonson succeeded and poetaster was an immediate and deserved success while hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces poetaster is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which after a device borrowed from the lexiphanes of lucian the offending poetaster marston crispinus is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary in the end crispinus with his fellow dekker demetrius is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward malign traduce or detract the person or writings of quintus horatius flaccus or any other eminent man transcending you in merit one of the most diverting personages in jonson s comedy is captain tucca his peculiarity has been well described by ward as a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang it was this character captain tucca that dekker hit upon in his reply satiromastix and he amplified him turning his abusive vocabulary back upon jonson and adding an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into jonson s conception it has been held altogether plausibly that when dekker was engaged professionally so to speak to write a dramatic reply to jonson he was at work on a species of chronicle history dealing with the story of walter terill in the reign of william rufus this he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by poetaster and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply the absurdity of placing horace in the court of a norman king is the result but dekker s play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance the literary pride and self righteousness of jonson horace whose ningle or pal the absurd asinius bubo has recently been shown to figure forth in all likelihood jonson s friend the poet drayton slight and hastily adapted as is satiromastix especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of poetaster the town awarded the palm to dekker not to jonson and jonson gave over in consequence his practice of comical satire though jonson was cited to appear before the lord chief justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in poetaster nothing came of this complaint it may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give and take was pure playing to the gallery the town was agog with the strife and on no less an authority than shakespeare we learn that the children s company did so berattle the common stages that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills and dare scarce come thither several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres among them the most important is a college play entitled the return from parnassus dating 1601 02 in it a much quoted passage makes burbage as a character declare why here s our fellow shakespeare puts them all down aye and ben jonson too o that ben jonson is a pestilent fellow he brought up horace giving the poets a pill but our fellow shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit was shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages and what could have been the nature of this purge among several suggestions troilus and cressida has been thought by some to be the play in which shakespeare thus put down his friend jonson a wiser interpretation finds the purge in satiromastix which though not written by shakespeare was staged by his company and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company the last years of the reign of elizabeth thus saw jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to shakespeare and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist but jonson now turned his talents to new fields plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama so that shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his julius caesar about 1600 therefore when jonson staged sejanus three years later and with shakespeare s company once more he was only following in the elder dramatist s footsteps but jonson s idea of a play on classical history on the one hand and shakespeare s and the elder popular dramatists on the other were very different heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession all derived from stories in ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination shakespeare had a finer conception of form but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from north s translation of plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian he reprobated this slipshod amateurishness and wrote his sejanus like a scholar reading tacitus suetonius and other authorities to be certain of his facts his setting and his atmosphere and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print sejanus is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of tiberius with his tragical overthrow our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient roman life than may be found in jonson s sejanus and catiline his conspiracy which followed in 1611 a passage in the address of the former play to the reader in which jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version has led to the surmise that shakespeare may have been that worthier pen there is no evidence to determine the matter in 1605 we find jonson in active collaboration with chapman and marston in the admirable comedy of london life entitled eastward hoe in the previous year marston had dedicated his malcontent in terms of fervid admiration to jonson so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed between jonson and chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals the two continued friends throughout life eastward hoe achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year but this was not due entirely to the merits of the play in its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation the scots sent both chapman and jonson to jail but the matter was soon patched up for by this time jonson had influence at court with the accession of king james jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques he wrote more masques than all his competitors together and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence jonson did not invent the masque for such premeditated devices to set and frame so to speak a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time but jonson gave dramatic value to the masque especially in his invention of the antimasque a comedy or farcical element of relief entrusted to professional players or dancers he enhanced as well the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions a sumptuous show on the mechanical and scenic side jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in inigo jones the royal architect who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the england of his day jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of king charles but towards the end a quarrel with jones embittered his life and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other but intolerable bores at court in hymenaei the masque of queens love freed from ignorance lovers made men pleasure reconciled to virtue and many more will be found jonson s aptitude his taste his poetry and inventiveness in these by forms of the drama while in the masque of christmas and the gipsies metamorphosed especially is discoverable that power of broad comedy which at court as well as in the city was not the least element of jonson s contemporary popularity but jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of king james in 1605 volpone was produced the silent woman in 1609 the alchemist in the following year these comedies with bartholomew fair 1614 represent jonson at his height and for constructive cleverness character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature wit and brilliancy of dialogue they stand alone in english drama volpone or the fox is in a sense a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery for among its dramatis personae from the villainous fox himself his rascally servant mosca voltore corbaccio and corvino to sir politic would be and the rest there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy for although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious it involves no mortal catastrophe but jonson was on sound historical ground for volpone is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of shakespeare however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes and identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly admires the former while inconsistently punishing them the silent woman is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction the whole comedy hinges on a huge joke played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle who is induced to take to himself a wife young fair and warranted silent but who in the end turns out neither silent nor a woman at all in the alchemist again we have the utmost cleverness in construction the whole fabric building climax on climax witty ingenious and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life in the alchemist jonson represented none the less to the life certain sharpers of the metropolis revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims we may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded the comedy is so admirably written and contrived the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that the alchemist is a new marvel every time it is read lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy bartholomew fair less clear cut less definite and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any english comedy save some other of jonson s own it is in bartholomew fair that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the puritan zeal in the land busy and the littlewits that group about him and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of jonson always open to this danger loosens into the rabelaisian mode that so delighted king james in the gipsies metamorphosed another comedy of less merit is the devil is an ass acted in 1616 it was the failure of this play that caused jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years volpone was laid as to scene in venice whether because of the success of eastward hoe or for other reasons the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to the alchemist our scene is london cause we would make known no country s mirth is better than our own indeed jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616 he transferred the scene of every man in his humour from florence to london also converting signior lorenzo di pazzi to old kno well prospero to master welborn and hesperida to dame kitely dwelling i the old jewry in his comedies of london life despite his trend towards caricature jonson has shown himself a genuine realist drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation a happy comparison has been suggested between ben jonson and charles dickens both were men of the people lowly born and hardly bred each knew the london of his time as few men knew it and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail both men were at heart moralists seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature perverse even wrong headed at times but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart and when all has been said though the elizabethan ran to satire the victorian to sentimentality leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it in 1616 the year of the death of shakespeare jonson collected his plays his poetry and his masques for publication in a collective edition this was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before jonson this volume published in a carefully revised text all the plays thus far mentioned excepting the case is altered which jonson did not acknowledge bartholomew fair and the devil is an ass which was written too late it included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd epigrams in which form of brief and pungent writing jonson was an acknowledged master the forest a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten masques and entertainments in this same year jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year this with his fees and returns from several noblemen and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income the poet appears to have done certain literary hack work for others as for example parts of the punic wars contributed to raleigh s history of the world we know from a story little to the credit of either that jonson accompanied raleigh s son abroad in the capacity of a tutor in 1618 jonson was granted the reversion of the office of master of the revels a post for which he was peculiarly fitted but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities though when and under what circumstances is not known it has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood which the satirists of the day averred king james was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand worse men were made knights in his day than worthy ben jonson from 1616 to the close of the reign of king james jonson produced nothing for the stage but he prosecuted what he calls his wonted studies with such assiduity that he became in reality as by report one of the most learned men of his time jonson s theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and an ability as he put it to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use accordingly jonson read not only the greek and latin classics down to the lesser writers but he acquainted himself especially with the latin writings of his learned contemporaries their prose as well as their poetry their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning though a poor man jonson was an indefatigable collector of books he told drummond that the earl of pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books unhappily in 1623 his library was destroyed by fire an accident serio comically described in his witty poem an execration upon vulcan yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed in fair large italian lettering the name ben jonson with respect to jonson s use of his material dryden said memorably of him was not only a professed imitator of horace but a learned plagiary of all the others you track him everywhere in their snow but he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law he invades authors like a monarch and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him and yet it is but fair to say that jonson prided himself and justly on his originality in catiline he not only uses sallust s account of the conspiracy but he models some of the speeches of cicero on the roman orator s actual words in poetaster he lifts a whole satire out of horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes the sophist libanius suggests the situation of the silent woman a latin comedy of giordano bruno il candelaio the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in the alchemist the mostellaria of plautus its admirable opening scene but jonson commonly bettered his sources and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own the lyric and especially the occasional poetry of jonson has a peculiar merit his theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish he was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day and he believed that apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned and yet many of jonson s will live as long as the language who does not know queen and huntress chaste and fair drink to me only with thine eyes or still to be neat still to be dressed beautiful in form deft and graceful in expression with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect there is yet about the of jonson a certain stiffness and formality a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden but that they were carved so to speak with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things it is for these reasons that jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry there are no such epitaphs as ben jonson s witness the charming ones on his own children on salathiel pavy the child actor and many more and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to william browne of tavistock the famous lines beginning underneath this sable hearse jonson is unsurpassed too in the difficult poetry of compliment seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard there was no man in england of his rank so well known and universally beloved as ben jonson the list of his friends of those to whom he had written verses and those who had written verses to him includes the name of every man of prominence in the england of king james and the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate in 1619 growing unwieldy through inactivity jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to scotland on his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him when he arrived in edinburgh the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city and drummond foremost of scottish poets was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at hawthornden some of the noblest of jonson s poems were inspired by friendship such is the fine ode to the memory of sir lucius cary and sir henry moryson and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection prefixed to the first shakespeare folio to the memory of my beloved master william shakespeare and what he hath left us to mention only these nor can the earlier epode beginning not to know vice at all be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age but if jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of king james he was far from inactive for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court in the golden age restored pallas turns the iron age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight in pleasure reconciled to virtue atlas figures represented as an old man his shoulders covered with snow and comus the god of cheer or the belly is one of the characters a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten named john milton was not to forget pan s anniversary late in the reign of james proclaimed that jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite and the gipsies metamorphosed displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable these too and the earlier years of charles were the days of the apollo room of the devil tavern where jonson presided the absolute monarch of english literary bohemia we hear of a room blazoned about with jonson s own judicious leges convivales in letters of gold of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time devotedly attached to their veteran dictator his reminiscences opinions affections and enmities and we hear too of valorous potations but in the words of herrick addressed to his master jonson at the devil tavern as at the dog the triple tun and at the mermaid we such clusters had as made us nobly wild not mad and yet each verse of thine outdid the meat outdid the frolic wine 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 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 and occasional poetry called underwoods including some further entertainments a translation of horace s art of poetry and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself these last comprise the fragment 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 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 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 fol 1692 1716 19 1729 edited by p whalley 7 volumes 1756 by gifford 9 volumes 1816 1846 re edited by f cunningham 3 volumes 1871 in 9 volumes 1875 by barry cornwall 1838 by b nicholson with introduction by c h herford 1893 etc nine plays 1904 ed h c hart 1906 etc plays and poems with introduction by h morley 1885 plays and poems 1905 poems with memoir by h bennett 1907 masques and entertainments ed by h morley 1890 selections j a symonds with biographical and critical essay 1886 grosart brave translunary things 1895 arber jonson anthology 1901 underwoods cambridge university press 1905 the chap books no 4 1906 songs with earliest known setting eragny press 1906 life see memoirs affixed to works j a symonds 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 