Chapter VIII: Part 8

On the accession of Edward new commissions were issued, at the suggestion of Cranmer, to himself and the other bishops, by which they were empowered to receive again their bishoprics, as though they had ceased with the demise of the crown, and to hold them during the royal pleasure. His object of course was to settle at once the question of the new king’s supremacy, and the proceeding was in conformity with an opinion which at one time he undoubtedly entertained, that there are no distinct orders of bishops and priests, and that the office of bishop, so far as it is distinguished from that of priests, is simply of civil origin. The government was now directed by the friends of Reformation, Cranmer himself being one of the Council of Regency; but still his course was by no means a smooth one. The unpopularity, which the conduct of the late king had brought on the cause, was even aggravated by the proceedings of its avowed friends during the short reign of his son. The example of the Protector Somerset was followed by a herd of courtiers, and not a few ecclesiastics, in making reform a plea for the most shameless rapacity, rendered doubly hateful by the hypocritical pretence of religious zeal. The remonstrances of Cranmer were of course disregarded; but his powerful friends were content that, whilst they were filling their pockets, he should complete, if he could, the establishment of the reformed church. Henry had left much for the Reformers to do. Some, indeed, of the peculiar doctrines of Romanism had been modified, and some of its superstitious observances abolished. The great step gained was the general permission to read the Scriptures; and, though even that had been partially recalled, it was impossible to recall the scriptural knowledge and the spirit of inquiry to which it had given birth. With the assistance of some able divines, particularly of his friend and chaplain Ridley, afterwards Bishop of London, Cranmer was able to bring the services and discipline of the church, well as the articles of faith, nearly to the state in which we now see them. In doing this he had to contend at once with the determined hostility of the Romanists, with dissensions in his own party, and conscientious opposition from sincere friends of the cause. In these difficult circumstances his conduct was marked generally by moderation, good judgment, and temper. But it must be acknowledged that he concurred in proceedings against some of the Romanists, especially against Gardiner, which were unfair and oppressive. In the composition of the New Service Book, as it was then generally called, and of the Articles, we know not what parts were the immediate work of Cranmer; but we have good evidence that he was the author of three of the Homilies, those of Salvation, of Faith, and of Good Works.

It should be observed, that Cranmer, though he early set out from a principle which might be expected eventually to lead him to the full extent of doctrinal reformation, made his way slowly and by careful study of the Scriptures, of which he left behind sufficient proof, to that point at which we find him in the reign of Edward. It is certain that during the greater part, if not the whole, of Henry’s reign, he agreed with the Romanists in the doctrine of the corporal presence and transubstantiation.

The death of Edward ushered in the storms which troubled the remainder of his days. All the members of the council affixed their signatures to the will of the young king, altering the order of succession in favour of the Lady Jane Grey. Cranmer’s accession to this illegal measure, the suggestion of the profligate Northumberland, cannot be justified, nor did he himself attempt to justify it. He appears, weakly and with great reluctance, to have yielded up his better judgment to the will of his colleagues, and the opinion of the judges.

Mary had not been long on the throne before Cranmer was committed to the Tower, attainted of high treason, brought forth to take part in what seems to have been little better than a mockery of disputation, and then sent to Oxford, where, with Latimer and Ridley, he was confined in a common prison. The charge of high treason, which might undoubtedly have been maintained, was not followed up, and it was not, perhaps, the intention of the government at any time to act upon it: it was their wish that he should fall as a heretic. At Oxford he was repeatedly brought before commissioners delegated by the Convocation, and, in what were called examinations and disputations, was subjected to the most unworthy treatment. On the 20th of April, 1554, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were publicly required to recant, and on their refusal were condemned as heretics. The commission however having been illegally made out, it was thought expedient to stay the execution till a new one had been obtained; which, in the case of Cranmer, was issued by the Pope. He was consequently dragged through the forms of another trial and examination; summoned, whilst still a close prisoner, to appear within eighty days at Rome; and then, by a sort of legal fiction, not more absurd perhaps than some which still find favour in our own courts, declared contumacious for failing to appear. Finally, he was degraded, and delivered over to the secular power. That no insult might be spared him, Bonner was placed on the commission for his degradation, in which employment he seems to have surpassed even his usual brutality.

Cranmer had now been a prisoner for more than two years, during the whole of which his conduct appears to have been worthy of the high office which he had held, and the situation in which he was placed. Whilst he expressed contrition for his political offence, and was earnest to vindicate his loyalty, he maintained with temper and firmness those religious opinions which had placed him in such fearful peril. Of the change which has thrown a cloud over his memory, we know hardly any thing with certainty but the fact of his recantation. Little reliance can be placed on the detailed accounts of the circumstances which accompanied it. He was taken from his miserable cell in the prison to comfortable lodgings in Christchurch, where he is said to have been assailed with promises of pardon, and allured, by a treacherous show of kindness, into repeated acts of apostacy. In the mean while the government had decreed his death. On the 21st of March, 1556, he was taken from his prison to St. Mary’s Church, and exhibited to a crowded audience, on an elevated platform, in front of the pulpit. After a sermon from Dr. Cole, the Provost of Eton, he uttered a short and affecting prayer on his knees; then rising, addressed an exhortation to those around him; and, finally, made a full and distinct avowal of his penitence and remorse for his apostacy, declaring, that the unworthy hand which had signed his recantation should be the first member that perished. Amidst the reproaches of his disappointed persecutors he was hurried from the church to the stake, where he fulfilled his promise by holding forth his hand to the flames. We have undoubted testimony that he bore his sufferings with inflexible constancy. A spectator of the Romanist party says, “If it had been either for the glory of God, the wealth of his country, or the testimony of the truth, as it was for a pernicious error, and subversion of true religion, I could worthily have commended the example, and matched it with the fame of any Father of ancient time.” He perished in his sixty-seventh year.

All that has been left of his writings will be found in an edition of “The Remains of Archbishop Cranmer,” lately published at Oxford, in four volumes 8vo. They give proof that he was deeply imbued with the spirit of Protestantism, and that his opinions were the result of reflection and study; though the effect of early impressions occasionally appears, as in the manner of his appeals to the Apocryphal books, and a submission to the judgment of the early fathers, in a degree barely consistent with his avowed principles. See his First Letter to Queen Mary.

This brief memoir does not pretend to supply the reader with materials for examining that difficult question, the character of the Archbishop. It is hardly necessary to refer him to such well-known books as Strype’s Life of Cranmer, and the recent works of Mr. Todd and Mr. Le Bas.

The time, it seems, has not arrived for producing a strictly impartial life of this celebrated man. Yet there is doubtless a much nearer agreement among candid inquirers, whether members of the Church of England or Roman Catholics, than the language of those who have told their thoughts to the public might lead us to expect. Those who are cool enough to understand that the credit and truth of their respective creeds are in no way interested in the matter, will probably allow, that the course of reform which Cranmer directed was justified to himself by his private convictions; and that his motive was a desire to establish what he really believed to be the truth. Beyond this they will acknowledge that there is room for difference of opinion. Some will see, in the errors of his life, only human frailty, not irreconcileable with a general singleness of purpose; occasional deviations from the habitual courage of a confirmed Christian. Others may honestly, and not uncharitably, suspect, that the habits of a court, and constant engagement in official business, may have somewhat marred the simplicity of his character, weakened the practical influence of religious belief, and caused him, whilst labouring for the improvement of others, to neglect his own; and hence they may account for his unsteadfastness in times of trial.

In addition to the works mentioned above, we may name as easily accessible, among Protestant authorities, Burnet’s History of the Reformation; among Roman Catholic, Lingard’s History of England. Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, stands, perhaps, more nearly on neutral ground, but can hardly be cited as an impartial historian. Though a Protestant, in his hatred and dread of all innovators, and especially of the Puritans, he seems ready to take refuge even with Popery; and examines always with jealousy, sometimes with malignity, the motives and conduct of Reformers, from his first notice of Wiclif to the close of his history.

_Engraved by Rob^t. Hart._

TASSO.

_From a Print by Raffaelle Morghen._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

TASSO.

Torquato Tasso, born at Sorrento March 11, 1544, was the son of Bernardo Tasso by Portia de Rossi, a lady of a noble Neapolitan family. His father was a man of some note, both as a political and as a literary character; and his poem of ‘Amadigi,’ founded on the well-known romance of Amadis de Gaul, has been preferred by one partial critic even to the Orlando Furioso. Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, chose him for his secretary, and with him and for him Bernardo shared all the vicissitudes of fortune. That Prince having been deprived of his estates, and expelled from the kingdom of Naples by the court of Spain, Bernardo was involved in his proscription, and retired with him to Rome. Tarquato, then five years old, remained with his mother, who left Sorrento and went to reside with her family in Naples.

Bernardo Tasso having lost all hopes of ever returning to that capital, advised his wife to retire with his daughter into a nunnery, and to send Torquato to Rome. Our young poet suffered much in parting from his mother and sister; but, fulfilling the command of his parents, he joined his father in October, 1554. On this occasion he composed a canzone, in which he compared himself to Ascanius escaping from Troy with his father Æneas.

The fluctuating fortunes of the elder Tasso caused Torquato to visit successively Bergamo, the abode of his paternal relatives, and Pesaro, where his manners and intelligence made so favourable an impression, that the Duke of Pesaro chose him for companion to his son, then studying under the celebrated Corrado of Mantua. In 1559, he accompanied his father to Venice, and there perused the best Italian authors, especially Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The next year he went to the University of Padua, where, under Sperone Speroni, and Sigonio, he studied Aristotle and the critics; and by Piccolomini and Pandasio he was taught the moral and philosophical doctrines of Socrates and Plato. However, notwithstanding his severer studies, Torquato never lost sight of his favourite art; and, at the age of seventeen, in ten months, he composed his _Rinaldo_, a poem in twelve cantos, founded on the then popular romances of Charlemagne and his Paladins. This work, which was published in 1562, excited great admiration, and gave rise to expectations which were justified by the Gerusalemme Liberata. The plan of that immortal poem was conceived, according to Serassi’s conjecture, in 1563, at Bologna, where Tasso was then prosecuting his studies. The first sketch of it is still preserved in a manuscript, dated 1563, in the Vatican Library, and printed at Venice in 1722. Unfortunately, while thus engaged, he was brought into collision with the civil authorities, in consequence of some satirical attacks on the University, which were falsely attributed to him. The charge was refuted, but not until his papers had been seized and himself imprisoned. This disgusted him with Bologna, and he returned to Padua in 1564. There he applied all his faculties to the accomplishment of his epic poem; collected immense materials from the Chronicles of the Crusades; and wrote, to exercise his critical powers, the _Discorsi_ and the _Trattato sulla Poesia_. While thus engaged, the Cardinal Luigi d’Este appointed him a gentleman of his court. Speroni endeavoured to dissuade the young poet from accepting that office, by relating the many disappointments which he had himself experienced while engaged in a similar career. These remonstrances were vain. Tasso joined the Cardinal at Ferrara at the end of October, 1564, and soon attracted the favourable notice of the Duke Alphonso, brother of the Cardinal, and of their sisters; one of whom, the celebrated Eleonora, is commonly supposed to have exercised a lasting and unhappy influence over the poet’s life. Ferrara continued to be his chief place of abode till 1571, when he was summoned to accompany his patron the Cardinal to France. The gaieties of a court, celebrated in that age for its splendour, did not prevent his prosecuting his poetic studies with zeal; for it appears from his will, quoted by Mr. Stebbing, that, at his departure for France, he had written a considerable portion of the Gerusalemme, besides a variety of minor pieces. His reputation was already high at the court of France, where he was received by Charles IX. with distinguished attention. But he perceived, or fancied that he saw, a change in the Cardinal’s demeanour towards him, and, impatient of neglect, begged leave to return to Italy. In 1572, he was at Rome with the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. In the same year he entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara, and resumed with zeal the completion and correction of the Gerusalemme.

In 1573, Tasso wrote his beautiful pastoral drama Aminta. This new production added greatly to his reputation. He chose simple Nature for his model; and succeeded admirably in the imitation of her.

The Gerusalemme Liberata was completed in 1575. Tasso submitted it to the criticism of the most learned men of that age. The great confusion which prevailed in the remarks of his critics caused him extraordinary uneasiness and labour. To answer their objections, he wrote the _Lettere Poetiche_, which are the best key to the true interpretation of his poem.

During 1575, Tasso visited Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and Rome, and in 1576 returned to Ferrara. His abode there never was a happy one; for his talents, celebrity, and the favour in which he was held, raised up enemies, who showed their spleen in petty underminings and annoyances, to which the poet’s susceptible temper lent a sting. He was attracted, however, by the kindness of the Duke and the society of the beautiful and accomplished Eleonora, the Duke’s sister, for whom the poet ventured, it is said, to declare an affection, which, according to some historians, did not remain unrequited. The portrait of Olinda, in the beautiful episode which relates her history, is generally understood to have been designed after this living model: while some have imagined that Tasso himself is not less clearly pictured in the description of her lover Sofronio. But about this time, whether from mental uneasiness, or from constitutional causes, his conduct began to be marked by a morbid irritability allied to madness. The Gerusalemme was surreptitiously printed without having received the author’s last corrections; and he entreated the Duke, and all his powerful friends, to prevent such an abuse. Alfonso and the Pope himself endeavoured to satisfy Tasso’s demands, but with little success. This circumstance, and other partly real, partly imaginary troubles, augmented so much his natural melancholy and apprehension, that he began to think that his enemies not only persecuted and calumniated him, but accused him of great crimes; he even imagined that they had the intention of denouncing his works to the Holy Inquisition. Under this impression he presented himself to the Inquisitor of Bologna; and having made a general confession, submitted his works to the examination of that holy father, and begged and obtained his absolution. His malady, for such we may surely call it, was continually exasperated by the arts of his rivals; and on one occasion, in the apartments of the Duchess of Urbino, he drew his sword on one of her attendants. He was immediately arrested; and subsequently sent to one of the Duke’s villas, where he was kindly treated and supplied with medical advice. But his fancied injuries (for in this case they do not seem to have been real) still pursued him; and he fled, destitute of every thing, from Ferrara, and hastened to his sister Cornelia, then living at Sorrento. Her care and tenderness very much soothed his mind and improved his health; but, unfortunately, he soon repented of his hasty flight, and returned to Ferrara, where his former malady soon regained its power. Dissatisfied with all about him, he again left that town; but, after having wandered for more than a year, he returned to Alfonso, by whom he was received with indifference and contempt. By nature sensitive, and much excited by his misfortunes, Tasso began to pour forth bitter invectives against the Duke and his court. Alfonso exercised a cruel revenge; for, instead of soothing the unhappy poet, he shut him up as a lunatic in the Hospital of St. Anne. This act merits our unqualified censure; for if Tasso had in truth any tendency to madness, what so likely to render it incurable as to shut him up in solitary confinement, in an unhealthy cell, deprived of his favourite books, and of every amusement? Yet, strange to say, notwithstanding his sufferings, mental and bodily, for more than seven years in that abode of misery and despair, his powers remained unbroken, his genius unimpaired; and even there he composed some pieces both in prose and verse, which were triumphantly appealed to by his friends in proof of his sanity. To this period we may probably refer the ‘Veglie,’ or ‘Watches’ of Tasso, the manuscript of which was discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, towards the end of the last century. They are written in prose, and express the author’s melancholy thoughts in elegant and poetic language. The Gerusalemme had now been published and republished both in Italy and France, and Europe rang with its praises; yet the author lay almost perishing in close confinement, sick, forlorn, and destitute of every comfort.

In 1584, Camillo Pellegrini, a Capuan nobleman, and a great admirer of Tasso’s genius, published a Dialogue on Epic Poetry, in which he placed the Gerusalemme far above the Orlando Furioso. This testimony from a man of literary distinction caused a great sensation among the friends and admirers of Ariosto. Two Academicians of the Crusca, Salviati and De Rossi, attacked the Gerusalemme in the name of the Academy, and assailed Tasso and his father in a gross strain of abuse. From the mad-house Tasso answered with great moderation; defended his father, his poem, and himself from these groundless invectives; and thus gave to the world the best proof of his soundness of mind, and of his manly philosophical spirit.

At length, after being long importuned by the noblest minds of Italy, Alphonso released him in 1586, at the earnest entreaty of Don Vincenzo Gonzaga, son of the Duke of Mantua, at whose court the poet for a time took up his abode. There, through the kindness and attentions of his patron and friends, he improved so much in health and spirits, that he resumed his literary labours, and completed his father’s poem, Floridante, and his own tragedy, Torrismondo.

But, with advancing age, Tasso became still more restless and impatient of dependence, and he conceived a desire to visit Naples, in the hope of obtaining some part of the confiscated property of his parents. Accordingly, having received permission from the Duke, he left Mantua, and arrived in Naples at the end of March, 1588. About this time he made several alterations in his Gerusalemme, corrected numerous faults, and took away all the praises he had bestowed on the House of Este. Alfieri used to say, that this amended Gerusalemme was the only one which he could read with pleasure to himself, or with admiration for the author. But as there appeared no hope that his claims would be soon adjusted, he returned to Rome, in November, 1588. Ever harassed by a restless mind, he quitted, one after another, the hospitable roofs which gave him shelter; and at last, destitute of all resources, and afflicted with illness, took refuge in the hospital of the Bergamaschi, with whose founder he claimed relation by the father’s side: a singular fate for one with whose praises Italy even then was ringing. But it should be remembered, ere we break into invectives against the sordidness of the age which suffered this degradation, that the waywardness of Tasso’s temper rendered it hard to satisfy him as an inmate, or to befriend him as a patron.

Restored to health, at the Grand Duke’s invitation, he went to Florence, where both prince and people received him with every mark of admiration. Those who saw him, as he passed along the streets, would exclaim, “See! there is Tasso! That is the wonderful and unfortunate poet!”

It is useless minutely to trace his wanderings from Florence to Rome, from Rome to Mantua, and back again to Rome and Naples. At the latter place he dwelt in the palace of the Prince of Conca, where he composed great part of the Gerusalemme Conquistata. But having apprehended, not without reason, that the prince wished to possess himself of his manuscripts, Torquato left the palace to reside with his friend Manso. His health and spirits improved in his new abode; and besides proceeding with the Conquistata, he commenced, at the request of Manso’s mother, ‘Le Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato,’ a sacred poem in blank verse, founded on the Book of Genesis, which he completed in Rome a few days before his death.

He visited Rome in 1593. A report that Marco di Sciarra, a notorious bandit, infested the road, induced him to halt at Gaeta, where his presence was celebrated by the citizens with great rejoicing. Sciarra having heard that the great poet was detained by fear of him, sent a message, purporting, that instead of injury, Tasso should receive every protection at his hands. This offer was declined; yet Sciarra, in testimony of respect, sent word, that for the poet’s sake he would withdraw with all his band from that neighbourhood; and he did so.

This time, on his arrival at Rome, Tasso was received by the Cardinals Cinzio and Pietro Aldobrandini, nephews of the Pope, not as a courtier, but as a friend. At their palace he completed the Gerusalemme Conquistata, and published it with a dedication to Cardinal Cinzio. This work was preferred by its author to the Gerusalemme Liberata. It is remarkable that Milton made a similar error in estimating his Paradise Regained.

In March, 1594, Tasso returned to Naples in hope of benefiting his rapidly declining health. The experiment appeared to answer; but scarcely had he passed four months in his native country, when Cardinal Cinzio requested him to hasten to Rome, having obtained for him from the Pope the honour of a solemn coronation in the Capitol. In the following November the poet arrived at Rome, and was received with general applause. The Pope himself overwhelmed him with praises, and one day said, “Torquato, I give you the laurel, that it may receive as much honour from you as it has conferred upon them who have worn it before you.” To give to this solemnity greater splendour, it was delayed till April 25, 1595; but during the winter Tasso’s health became worse. Feeling that his end was nigh, he begged to be removed to the convent of St. Onofrio, where he was carried off by fever on the very day appointed for his coronation. His corpse was interred the same evening in the church of the monastery, according to his will; and his tomb was covered with a plain stone, on which, ten years after, Manso, his friend and admirer, caused this simple epitaph to be engraved,—HIC JACET TORQUATUS TASSO.

Tasso was tall and well proportioned; his countenance very expressive, but rather melancholy; his complexion of a dark brown, with lively eyes. Our vignette is taken from a cast in wax, made after his death. He has left many beautiful and remarkable pieces, both in verse and prose; but his fame is based upon the Gerusalemme Liberata: the others are comparatively little read. Among his countrymen, the comparative merits of this great work, and of the Orlando Furioso, have, ever since the days of Pellegrini, been a favourite subject of controversy. Some who persist in asserting that Ariosto was the greater poet, do not refuse to allow the superiority of the Gerusalemme as a poem; and of this opinion was (at least latterly) Metastasio, who, in his youth, was so great an admirer of the Orlando, that he would not even read the Gerusalemme. In after-life, however, having perused it with much attention, he was so enchanted by its beauties and regularity, that, being requested to give his opinion on the comparative merits of the two, he wrote in these words:—“If it ever came into the mind of Apollo to make me a great poet, and were he to command me to declare frankly whether I should like to choose for model the Orlando or the Gerusalemme, I would not hesitate to answer, the Gerusalemme.”

The principal biographers of Tasso, among his own countrymen, are his friend Manso, who wrote his Life in 1600, six years only after the poet’s death; and the Abate Serassi, whose work was first published at Rome in 1785, and again at Bergamo in 1790. Besides these is his Life, in French, by the Abbé de Charnes (1690); and that by M. Suard, prefixed to the translation of the Gerusalemme by Prince Lebrun (1803, two tom. 8vo.): while in English we have a Life of Tasso by Mr. Black (1810); and a Memoir by the Rev. Mr. Stebbing (1833). The best complete edition of Tasso’s works is that of Molini, in eight volumes 8vo., Florence, 1822–6.

]

BEN JONSON.

The rapid growth and early maturity of the drama form a remarkable portion of the literary history of Britain. Within forty years from the appearance of the first rude attempts at English comedy, all the most distinguished of our dramatists had graced the stage by their performances. Among the worthies, he whom we familiarly call Ben Jonson holds a prominent place. He was born in Westminster, June 11, 1574, and placed, at a proper age, at Westminster School, where Camden then presided. He made unusual progress in classical learning, until his mother, who was left in narrow circumstances, married a bricklayer, and removed her son from school, that he might work with his step-father in Lincoln’s-Inn. In his vexation and anger at this domestic tyranny, he enlisted as a private soldier, was sent abroad to join the English army in the Netherlands, and distinguished himself against the Spaniards by a gallant achievement. In an encounter with a single man of the enemy, he slew his opponent, and carried off his spoils in the view of both armies.

_Engraved by E. Scriven._

BEN JONSON.

_From a Picture in the possession of M^r. Knight._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

On his return home, he resumed his former studies at St. John’s, Cambridge; but thither the miseries of slender means followed him, and he quitted the University after a short residence. He then turned his thoughts to the stage. The encouragement afforded to dramatic talent coincided with his taste and inclination; and the example of Shakspeare, who had successfully adopted the same course under similar difficulties, determined his choice. He was admitted into an obscure theatre, called the Green Curtain, in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch and Clerkenwell; but his salary there must have been insufficient for his support, and his merits were too meagre to entitle him to a place in any respectable company. While in this humble station, he fought a duel with one of the players, in which he was wounded in the arm, but killed his antagonist, who had been the challenger. During his imprisonment for this offence, he was visited by a Popish priest, who profited by his depressed state of mind to win him over to the Church of Rome, within the pale of which he continued for twelve years. Thus did melancholy produce a change in his religious condition; but his spirits returned with his release, and he ventured to offer up his recovered liberty on the altar of matrimony.

Considering that he was only about twenty-four years of age when he rose to reputation as a dramatic writer, his life had been unusually, but painfully, eventful. He had made some attempts as a playwright from his first entrance into the profession, but without success. His connexion with Shakspeare has been variously related. It has been stated that when Jonson was unknown to the world, he offered a play to the theatre, which was rejected after a very careless perusal; but our great dramatist, having accidentally cast his eye on it, thought well of the production, and afterwards recommended the author and his writings to the public. For this candour he is said to have been repaid by Jonson, when the latter became a poet of note, with an envious disrespect. Farmer, of all Shakspeare’s commentators, was most inclined to depart from these traditions, and to think the belief in Jonson’s hostility to Shakspeare absolutely groundless. This question, triumphantly, but with needless acrimony, argued by Mr. Gifford, we regard as now determined in Jonson’s favour. Without any imputation of ingratitude, the acknowledged superior in learning might chequer his commendations with reproof; as he undeniably did, partly from natural temper, and partly from a habit of asserting his own preeminence, as having first taught rules to the stage. He has been loosely, not to say falsely, accused of endeavouring to depreciate The Tempest, by calling it a _foolery_, a term which unquestionably cannot be applied to any work without such design. But he called it, not a _foolery_, but a _drollery_. In present acceptation the terms may be nearly equivalent; but in that age, the word conveyed no censure. Dennis says, in one of his letters, that he went to see the Siege of Namur, a _droll_. In after-times, the word implied a farcical dialogue in a single scene. Where Jonson says, “if there be never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it?”—he is supposed to fling at Caliban; but the satire was general. Creatures of various kinds, taught a thousand antics, were the concomitants of puppet-shows. In the Dumb Knight, by Lewis Machin, 1608, Prate, the orator, cautions his wife thus:—“I would not have you to step into the suburbs, and acquaint yourself either with _monsters_ or _motions_; but holding your way strictly homeward, show yourself still to be a rare housewife.” It has been alleged in the controversy, that Jonson seems to ridicule the conduct of Twelfth Night in his Every Man out of his Humour, where he makes Mitis say, “that the argument of the author’s comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with a duke’s son, and the son to love the ladies’ waiting-maid; some such cross-wooing, with a clown to their serving-men, better than to be thus near, and familiarly attired to the time.” Unfortunately for Stevens’s application of this passage, Ben Jonson could not have ridiculed Twelfth Night, which was produced at least eight years after the play quoted. Among the commendatory poems prefixed to the editions of Shakspeare, Jonson’s is not only the first in date, but the most judicious, zealous, and affectionate. His personal attachment is expressed on various occasions with more enthusiasm than is apt to be felt by men of his temperament. We have no right to doubt its sincerity.

We are told that, “having improved his fancy by keeping scholastic company, he betook himself to writing plays.” The comedy entitled Every Man in his Humour was his first successful piece. It was produced in 1598, on the stage with which Shakspeare was connected, and the generous poet and proprietor sanctioned it by playing the part of Kno’well. This was followed the next year by Every Man out of his Humour. After this time he produced a play every year, for several years successively. In 1600 he paid his court to Queen Elizabeth, by complimenting her under the allegorical character of the goddess Cynthia, in his Cynthia’s Revels, which was acted that year by the choristers of the Queen’s Chapel, In his next piece, The Poetaster, which was represented in 1601 by the same performers, he ridicules his rival Decker under the character of Crispinus. Some reflections in it were also supposed to allude to certain well-known lawyers and military men. A popular clamour was raised against him; in vindication of himself, he replied in an apologetical dialogue, which was once recited on the stage, and on the publication of his works annexed to this play. But Decker was bent on revenge, and resolved, if possible, to conquer Jonson at his own weapons. He immediately wrote a play called Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the Humourous Poet, in which Jonson is introduced under the character of Horace Junior. Jonson’s enemies industriously gave out that he wrote with extreme labour, and was not less than a year about every play. Had it been so, it was no disgrace: the best authors know by experience, that what appears to be the most natural and easy writing is frequently the result of study and close application. But the insinuation was meant to convey, that Jonson had heavy parts, and little imagination: a charge which applies only to two of his works, Sejanus and Catiline. Jonson retorted upon Decker in the prologue to Volpone, or The Fox. We are there told that this play, which is one of his best, was finished in five weeks. He professes that, in all his poems, his aim has been to mix profit with pleasure; and concludes with saying, that all gall is drained from his ink, and “only a little salt remaineth.”

“Eastward Hoe” was the joint production of Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston. What part each author had in it is not known; but the consequences were near being very serious to them all. They were accused of reflecting on the Scots, who crowded the court at that time to the utter disgust of the English gentlemen; and, in perfect unison with the arbitrary temper of the times, were all three not only committed to prison, but in peril as to their ears and noses. On submission however they received pardons. Jonson, on his releasement from prison, gave an entertainment to his friends, among whom were Camden and Selden. His mother seems now to have risen mightily in her ideas, and to have affected the Roman matron, although the bricklayer’s wife would, in past time, have bound her son to the hod and trowel. In the midst of the entertainment she drank to him, and produced a paper of poison, which she intended to have mixed with his liquor, having first taken a portion of it herself, if the punishment of mutilation had not been remitted.

That mixture of poetry and spectacle, which, in our ancient literature, is termed a masque, had been encouraged by Elizabeth, and became still more fashionable during the reigns of James and Charles. The queens of both monarchs, being foreigners, understood the English language but imperfectly, so that the music, dancing, and decorations of a masque were better adapted to their amusement than the more intellectual entertainment of the regular drama. After Queen Elizabeth’s example, they occasionally assisted in the representation, and probably were still better pleased to be performers than spectators. Jonson was the chief manufacturer of this article for the court; and a year seldom passed without his furnishing more than one piece of this sort. They were usually got up, as the phrase is, with the utmost splendour. In the scenery, Jonson had Inigo Jones for an associate. As compositions, these trifles rank little higher than shows and pageants; but they possessed a property peculiarly acceptable at court—they abounded with incense and servility. However crusty Jonson might be as a critical censor, he saw plainly what food his royal master relished, and furnished the table plentifully.

This occupation interrupted the periodical production of his regular plays; but the interval had not been frivolously passed. In 1609, he produced “Epicœne, or the Silent Woman.” This was generally esteemed to be the most perfect pattern of a play hitherto brought out in England, and might be selected as a proof that its author was a careful and learned observer of the dramatic laws. We are assured that Jonson was personally acquainted with a man quite as ridiculous as Morose is represented to be. It may here be observed that the description of humour, drawn from the knowledge and observation of particular persons, was in the line of this author’s peculiar genius and talent. There is more wit and fancy in the dialogue of this play than in any by the same hand. Truewit is a scholar, with an alloy of pedantry; but he is the best gentleman ever drawn by Jonson, whose strength, in general, was not properly wit or sharpness of conceit, but the natural imitation of various and contrasted follies. The Alchemist came out in 1610. Jonson shows in it much learning relative to changes in the external appearance of metals, and uses some of the very terms of art met with in Eastward Hoe; which makes it probable that the passages in which they are contained are from his pen. This piece was unusually free from personal allusions; yet it was not popular at first. The partisans of inferior writers were constantly let loose whenever Jonson brought out a new play; but their censure was harmless, for he numbered among his friends and admirers, Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, Camden, Selden, and a host of worthies of every class. In 1613, he made the tour of France, and was introduced to Cardinal Perron, who showed him his translation of Virgil; but Perron not being his master and sovereign, but a foreign cardinal, with his customary bluntness he told him it was a bad one. About this time he and Inigo Jones quarrelled; and he ridiculed his colleague of the Masques, under the character of Sir Lantern Leatherhead, a Hobby-horse Seller. His next play was “The Devil is an Ass,” 1616.

In 1617, the salary of poet-laureat was settled on him for life by King James, and he published his works in one folio volume. His fame, both as to poetry and learning, was now so fully established, that he was invited to the University of Oxford by several members, and particularly by Dr. Corbet, of Christ Church. That college was his residence during his stay, and he was created Master of Arts in full convocation, in July, 1619. In the following October, on the death of Daniel, he received the appointment of Poet-laureat, after having discharged the duties of the office for some time. At the latter end of this year he travelled into Scotland on foot, to visit his correspondent, Drummond of Hawthornden. Jonson had formed a design of writing on the history and geography of Scotland, and had received some curious documents from Drummond. The acquisition of additional materials appears to have been the main object of his journey. In the freedom of social intercourse, he expressed his sentiments strongly concerning the authors and poets of his own time. Drummond committed the heads of their conversations to writing, and has been severely censured on account of what he has left us concerning his guest. He says that he was “a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; chusing rather to lose his friend than his jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which was one of the elements in which he lived; a dissembler of the parts which reigned in him; a bragger of some good that he wanted; he thought nothing right, but what either himself or some of his friends had said or done. He was passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if he was well answered, greatly chagrined; interpreting the best sayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for either religion, being versed in both; oppressed with fancy, which over-mastered his reason, a general disease among the poets.” Drummond’s letters exhibit Jonson in a much more favourable light; and this inconsistency may, perhaps, be explained by supposing that they exhibit the Scotch poet’s deliberate opinion of his guest, while the strictures contained in his loose notes were probably penned in a moment of irritation, to which he appears to have been subject. If, indeed, the received notions of Jonson’s heat of temper had any foundation, we may suppose him and his northern host to have been occasionally so far advanced in disputation, that “testy Drummond could not speak for fretting.” Jonson recorded his adventures on this journey in a poem, which was accidentally burnt; a loss which he lamented in another poem called “An Execration upon Vulcan.”

The laureateship obliged him annually to provide, besides other entertainments of the court, the Christmas Masque: of these we have a series in his works, from 1615 to 1625. In 1625, his comedy called The Staple of News was exhibited. In 1627, The New Inn was performed at the Blackfriars theatre, and deservedly hissed off the stage. Three of Jonson’s plays underwent that fate. He was so much incensed against the town, that in 1631 he published it with the following title: “The New Inn, or the Light Heart, a comedy; as it was never acted, but most negligently played, by some, the king’s servants, and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the king’s subjects, 1629; and now at last set at liberty to the readers.” To this he annexed an ode to himself, threatening to leave the stage, which was sarcastically parodied by Owen Feltham, a writer of note, and author of a book called “Resolves.” Jonson’s mingled foibles and excellencies are pleasantly touched by Sir John Suckling, in his “Session of the Poets.” An improbable story is told by Cibber, and repeated by Smollet, that in 1629, Ben, being reduced to distress, and living in an obscure alley, petitioned his Majesty to assist him in his poverty and sickness; but that, on receiving ten pounds, he said to the messenger who brought the donation, “His Majesty has sent me ten pounds, because I am poor and live in an alley: go and tell him that his soul lives in an alley.” His annual pension had been increased from a hundred marks to a hundred pounds, with the welcome addition of a yearly tierce of Canary wine. He received from the king a further present of one hundred pounds in that very year, which he acknowledged in an epigram published in his works. Could he, as he does in his “Epistle Mendicant,” have further solicited the Lord Treasurer for relief in 1631, had he been guilty of such an insult to royalty in 1629? There is reason to believe that he had pensions from the city, and from several of the nobility and gentry; particularly from Mr. Sutton, the founder of the Charter-house. Yet, with all these helps, his finances were unredeemed from disorder.

In his distress, he came upon the stage again, in spite of his last defeat. Two comedies without a date, “The Magnetic Lady,” and “The Tale of a Tub,” belong to these latter compositions, which Dryden has called his dotages; at all events, they are the dotages of Jonson. Alexander Gill, a poetaster of the times, attacked him with brutal fury, on account of his “Magnetic Lady.” Gill was a bad man as well as a bad poet; and Jonson availed himself of his adversary’s weak points in a short but cutting reply. His last masque was performed July 30, 1634, and the only piece extant of later date is his “New Year’s Ode for 1635.” He died of palsy, August 6, 1637, in his sixty-third year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His grave-stone only bears the quaint inscription,—“O RARE BEN JONSON!”

In the beginning of 1638, elegies on his death were published, under the title of “Jonsonius Virbius, or, the Memory of Ben Jonson Revived, by the Friends of the Muses.” This collection contains poems by Lord Falkland, Lord Buckhurst, Sir John Beaumont, Sir Thomas Hawkins, Mr. Waller, Mayne, Cartwright, Waryng, the author of “Effigies Amoris,” and other contributors of note. In 1640, the former volume of his works was reprinted; with a second, containing the rest of his plays, masques, and entertainments; Underwoods; English Grammar; his translation of Horace’s Art of Poetry; and Discoveries. The latter is a prose work of various and extensive learning, containing opinions on all subjects, worthy to be weighed even at this distant period. In 1716, his works were reprinted in six volumes octavo. Another edition appeared in 1756, under the care of Mr. Whalley, of St. John’s, Oxford, with notes, and the addition of a comedy not inserted in any former edition, called “The Case is Altered.” But all former editions are superseded in value by that of Mr. Gifford.

Jonson was married, and had children; particularly a son and a daughter, both celebrated by him in epitaphs at their death; but none of his children survived him.

As a dramatic writer, he is remarkable for judgment in the arrangement of his plots; a happy choice of characters; and skill in maintaining character throughout the piece. The manners of the most trifling persons are always consistent. Dryden censures him for exhibiting _mechanic humour_, “Where men were dull and conversation low.” This remark is so far just, that Jonson chiefly aimed at mirth by the contrast and collision of what Dryden terms _humour_. The reader, however, would do the dramatist injustice, were he to apply the word humour to him in its modern and confined sense. Jonson cultivated it according to a more philosophical definition; as a technical term for characters swayed and directed by some predominant passion, the display of which, under various circumstances, formed the strength of the comedy. Among the writers of that age, Jonson alone perhaps felt all the impropriety arising from frequent and violent change of scene. Yet Jonson himself, who disapproved of Shakspeare’s practice in that particular, was not wholly free from it, as Dryden has remarked with some appearance of triumph. Pope has touched on his genius in respect to dramatic poetry. He says,—“That when Jonson got possession of the stage, he brought critical learning into vogue; and this was not done without difficulty, which appears from those frequent lessons, and indeed almost declamations, which he was forced to prefix to his first plays, and put into the mouths of his actors the grex, chorus, &c., to remove the prejudices and reform the judgment of his hearers. Till then the English authors had no thoughts of writing upon the model of the ancients; their tragedies were only histories in dialogue, and their comedies followed the thread of any novel as they found it, no less implicitly than if it had been true history.” In fact, this author’s object was to found a reputation on understanding, and submitting to the discipline of the ancient stage; but his success fell short of his just expectations, and he growls on every occasion against the rude taste of an age which preferred to his laboured and well-concocted scenes, the more glowing, wild, and irregular effusions of his unlearned contemporaries. Beyond this there appears nothing to confirm the eagerly propagated opinion of his pride and malignity, at least in the earlier part of his life. At that time he contributed an encomium to almost every play or poem that appeared, from Shakspeare down to the translator of Du Bartas. His antagonist, Decker, seems to hint at a personal failing, seldom allied to malignity, when, in the “Satiromastix,” Sir Vaughan says to Horace, that is, Jonson, “I have some cousin-german at court shall beget you the reversion of the master of the king’s revels, or else to be his _Lord of Misrule_ now at Christmas.” We have already quoted Drummond to the purport, that “drink was one of the elements in which he lived;” which accounts but too well for the poverty of his latter days, in spite of royal and noble munificence. In reference to this unfortunate propensity, the following amusing story is told:—Camden had recommended him to Sir Walter Raleigh, who trusted him with the care and education of his eldest son Walter, a gay spark, who could not brook Ben’s rigorous treatment; but perceiving one foible in his disposition, made use of that to throw off the yoke of his government. This was an unlucky habit Ben had contracted, through his love of jovial company, of being overtaken with liquor, which Sir Walter did of all vices most abominate, and hath most exclaimed against. One day, when Ben had taken a plentiful dose, and was fallen into a sound sleep, young Raleigh got a great basket, and a couple of men, who laid Ben in it, and then with a pole carried him between their shoulders to Sir Walter, telling him their young master had sent home his tutor.

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

CANOVA.

_From a Picture by_
Sir Thomas Lawrence,
_in the possession of the Abate Canova at Rome_.

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

CANOVA.

About the middle of the last century the art of Sculpture, which had been long on the decline, may be said to have reached the lowest point to which it has sunk since the revival of the arts; for, although the seventeenth century was the great æra of bad taste, the genius which was often apparent in the mannered productions of that time, no longer survived in those of the imitators who succeeded. The works of Bernini in Italy, and of Puget in France, both men of extraordinary talent but most mistaken principles, were still regarded as types of excellence. Their fame still produced a host of followers, who, with perhaps the single exception of Duquesnoy, called Fiammingo, naturally aimed at the extravagances and peculiarities of their models; and the consequence was, a constantly increasing deviation from nature, and a total misconception of the style and limits of the art. The works which were produced in Rome about the period alluded to, thus fluctuated between manner and insipidity; till the art had relapsed into a state of such lethargic mediocrity, that even sculptors of note, such as Cavaceppi, Pacetti, and Albacini, were content to occupy themselves in restoring and mending antique statues. But the germs of a better taste, and a more rational imitation, were already expanding. If the mania for collecting antique statues had the temporary effect of paralysing invention in the artist, and diverting the means of patronage, a gradual appreciation of the principles of ancient art was, nevertheless, the result; while the illustration and description of museums, and the works of Winkelmann, all tended to awaken the attention of the connoisseur to the amazing difference between the ill-advised caprices of the Bernini school and the sagacious simplicity of the ancients.