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Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend

The dukedom yet unbowed- alas, poor Milan! —
To most ignoble stooping.

Mira.

Pros.

Oh, the heavens !

Now the condition.

This king of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit,
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises
Of homage and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan,
With all the honors, on my brother. Whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose did Antonio open
The gates of Milan, and i' the dead of darkness,
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence

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My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not, So dear the love my people bore me, nor set

A mark so bloody on the business, but

With colors fairer painted their foul ends.

In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigged,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats

Instinctively have quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roared to us, to sigh

To the winds whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

Mira.

Was I then to you!

Pros.

Alack, what trouble

Oh! a cherubin

Thou wast, that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have decked the sea with drops full salt,

Under my burden groaned; which raised in me
An undergoing stomach to bear up

Against what should ensue.

XXV.

ON THE DRAMATIC POETS WHO

LIVED IN SHAKESPEARE'S

TIME: BEN JONSON; BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

THE

HERE was no branch of English literature which grew so suddenly and blossomed so richly as dramatic poetry. The names that appear as writers for the stage between the dates of Shakespeare's birth and death are almost legion. I do not think it would be worth my pains to tell you, or yours to remember, the names even of half these writers. They had merits, and won some success in their day; but we should hardly be better or wiser for knowing more than a small share of these works. I will only mention the names of some of the greatest writers and their most noted dramas, and give here and there an illustration of the quality of their poetry.

1573-1637

BEN JONSON is generally placed next Shakespeare in the history of the drama. "Rare Ben Jonson " he is called in his epitaph in Westminster Abbey. I do not think he should rank next Shakespeare as a poet, and I think his plays neither so poetical nor so powerful as those of some others of his fellows. They were very well adapted to the time for which they were written, although the wit, which may have been relished in that day, seems to me heavy and dull. The characters in his comedies are distinct and individual, although more like caricatures than real types. He is learned and painstaking in his tragedy, but he never moves me by any touch of sympathy or human interest in his characters or their actions, and I do not believe his plays are now interesting, or will ever again interest any one, except the scholar who makes the study of literature his special pursuit.

I think, therefore, that the position Jonson gained in his own time, and the reputation he has held ever since, he gained more by certain mental powers he possessed than by the pre-eminence of his poetry. He was a man who,

by force of character and a power of criticism, exerted a strong influence on his age. We shall see in several later periods in literature certain men who, impressing themselves and their opinions vividly upon their fellows, get great supremacy over them. Ben Jonson was something such a power in his age as two centuries later Samuel Johnson was in his. It takes a great man to gain such a position, and therefore I do not underrate rare old Ben when say that he owes as much to this power as to his ability as a poet. Certainly he had good taste and good judgment. He did much towards establishing rules for criticism and language. Among his others works, he is the author of an English grammar, which is now a curiosity among text-books.

I

Ben had known hard fortune when he came to London and began to write for the stage. He was first an actor, like almost all the other play-writers, but does not seem to have been brilliantly successful in this calling. One of his fellows says that "he left bricklaying and took to play-acting," as if he meant to hint that neither trade had gained by Jonson's change. There is an old story to the effect that Jonson sent his first comedy to the theatre in which Shakespeare was already a prosperous and influential member. The comedy had been rejected, and the poor author was going away in discouragement, when Shakespeare asked to look at it, saw its merit, and through his means it was performed. This play was Every Man in His Humor, one of the best of Jonson's comedies.1

Jonson and Shakespeare seem to have been good friends, and it was Jonson who wrote that fine elegy on Shakespeare which predicts that "he was not for a day, but for all time." Jonson was a man of much more learning than Shakespeare, and seems to have been rather vain of his attainments. He says that " Shakespeare had little Latin

1 This story has been contradicted as improbable; but it is to be noted that any story which sheds a gleam of light on the dull annals of the past is sure to be contradicted, whether it be probable or not, by some dry-as-dust critic.

and less Greek," in a way that intimates how inferior Shakespeare was in that respect to himself. And there is another story which I tell with proper fear that it may not be true that Shakespeare was once asked to be sponsor to an infant; and when some one asked him what he would give his godchild, answered: "I will give him. a dozen Latin1 spoons, and Ben shall translate them." Whether this story be true or not, there was, no doubt, many a sharp passage of wit between Jonson and Shakespeare. They were both members of a club, said to have been founded by Raleigh, which used to meet at the Mermaid Tavern, in London, where wit sparkled like fireworks. If the walls of the old tavern could only have reported what had been said within them, what a feast of good things we might have had! But this was before the age of newspapers, and the club at the Mermaid had no reporter to take down their witty speeches.

To return to Jonson's plays. His tragedies of Catiline and Sejanus have plots drawn from classic sources. His best comedies are Volpone, The Silent Woman, and Every Man in His Humor. To give you an idea of his plots, which in most cases seem (unlike Shakespeare's) to be original in construction, let me tell you the story of The Silent Woman.

The hero, a young gentleman, has an eccentric uncle who cannot bear the slightest noise, and has shut himself up from everything which can molest him or break his quiet. He quarrels with his nephew, who expects to be his heir, and resolves to disinherit him and marry. The Silent Woman is accordingly introduced to him, a woman warranted to speak very seldom, and then hardly above a whisper. He is charmed with her, and hurries on the wedding; but as soon as the knot is tied, the Silent Woman turns into a fluent talker and a termagant. Hosts of friends come in to visit her, a band of instruments enters, playing loudly, and the old man is on the point of going mad, when his scapegrace nephew comes to his relief.

1 "Latten" was a cheap metal, of which spoons were made.

He offers to show his uncle a way of release from the marriage if he will sign an agreement by which his fortune after death, and an annuity during his life, are secured to the nephew. The poor old man gladly assents, and the fact is disclosed that the Silent Woman is a boy who has been trained to play this trick, that the marriage is no marriage, and thus the play ends. No doubt this was very amusing when it was first performed, but it has lost its flavor of wit for our day, and there are few lines in it worth preserving as literature.

Jonson wrote a large number of plays, both comedies and tragedies. He also wrote a number of masques, for representation in the court, when he was made poet-laureate to James I.; and in these is some of his best poetry. These masques were generally written for some special occasion of festivity, - royal birthdays or marriages, or court celebrations. They were also sometimes performed in the open air in the course of the journey of a sovereign, or at his reception at some noble house. You will get a very good idea of a masque if you read, in Scott's novel of Kenilworth, the account of Elizabeth's visit to the Earl of Leicester and of the masque performed there.

Although Jonson, in my opinion, does not show a very fine imagination in his most famous dramas, he is a very musical lyric poet. This is shown in the songs which we find in his plays and in the masques, as well as among his short poems. I presume you have heard this song of

his, beginning,

"Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine,"

which is one of the most beautiful of the early songs. Here is another song from one of his masques: :

TO CHARIS.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth.
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth.

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