Chapter V (2)

This removal was the visible cause of all Ben Jonson’s eminence. Camden, the historian, was then one of the masters of that school, from whose ranks issued Cowley, George Herbert, Dryden, Churchill, Cowper, Southey, and many others less celebrated. Ben Jonson always retained an affectionate remembrance of Camden’s instructions:--

“Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that in wits I am, and all I know.”

He dedicated his best play, “Every Man in his Humour,” to Master Camden, “Clarencieux,” ending his dedication thus:--

“Now, I pray you to accept this; such wherein neither the confession of my manners shall make you blush--nor of my studies repent you to have been the instructor; and for the profession of any thankfulness, I am sure it will, with good men, find either praise or excuse, from your true lover, Ben Jonson.”[200]

Footnote 200:

Ben Johnson’s Works, p. i.

From Westminster, Jonson went to Cambridge, probably to St. John’s; but even of this important fact no certainty exists, for the university register is imperfect, and from 1600 to 1602 there is an hiatus. It is merely conjectured, from there being several books containing the name of Ben Jonson in the library of St. John’s, that he entered that College. Here, however, he only stayed, according to Fuller, some weeks; funds were wanting for his support--a circumstance which seems to shew that he was not sent up to Trinity College on the foundation, as otherwise he would have had an exhibition at Westminster. His parents were unable to supply means; and the young student, thirsting for distinction, was obliged to return and follow his step-father’s calling. Never was there a situation so pitiable, and the condition of this aspiring scholar was compassionated by other scholars of happier fortunes than himself. Camden generously relieved him; Thomas Sutton, who, having bought the Charter House from Lord Suffolk, nobly devoted it to an hospital and school, “the master-piece of Protestant charity,” as Lord Bacon styled it,--also, according to some accounts, consoled, and compassionated, and assisted Jonson. It has even been said that “Ben” was engaged to attend the eldest son of Sir Walter Ralegh, as a tutor; but of this no certainty exists. All that is absolutely known is, that he was sick of the trowel and the hod, whilst his mind was running on Horace and Virgil; and that to escape what he deemed degradation, he enlisted, went off to the Low Countries, and served a campaign in that scene of war, which was a sort of school to the young English soldier.

His heart went, to a certain extent, along with this new profession. “Let not those blush that have, but those that have not, a lawful calling,” says Fuller,--and Jonson seems to have thought so likewise. He returned, however, at nineteen, poor as ever, with the same scholastic tastes; and the master-bricklayer being dead, he repaired to his mother’s house.

He next tried the stage. It has been, in all times, the refuge of the unthrifty. But Jonson’s appearance was unfavourable to that attempt. His very ugliness, one would have thought, might have been an advantage. Mr. Gifford repels with fury the imputation on Jonson, that his hero was frightful; yet the description he gives himself of Ben Jonson is by no means attractive. His complexion, which had been clear and smooth in boyhood, was disfigured by a scorbutic humour, and ultimately by scars, from what the Germans are pleased to call the “Englische Krankheit.” His features are said not to have been irregular or unpleasing, but appear in his portraits to be large and coarse. One eye looked askance; his forehead was, however, noble; his person was broad and corpulent--after forty it became unwieldy; and his gait, he himself owned, “ungracious.” In early youth his worst points were not, probably, prominent; he had a delightful voice and emphasis. “I never,” said the Duchess of Newcastle, "heard any man read well but my husband; and I have heard him say, 'he never heard any man read well but Ben Jonson, and yet he hath heard many in his time.’"[201]

Footnote 201:

Gifford, from the Duchess of Newcastle’s Letters.

Nevertheless, “Ben” was not a good actor. Critics differ as to the nature and duration of his theatrical employ. And Gifford, who takes every question relative to his hero as a personal matter, is indignant at the statement that he was a strolling player, or ambled by the side of a waggon, and took _mad Jeronymo’s_ part; but, as most companies were then itinerant, and, as even now, first-rate actors and actresses make provincial tours, there seems little call for the venom and wrath poured out by the indefatigable biographer, who points, with satisfaction, to the bulky figure of Jonson, and asks how he could possibly act “little _Jeronymo_,” that "inch of Spain"?[202]

Footnote 202:

From the First Part of “Jeronymo,” a popular play.

Whatever was his position--whether, as Anthony Wood says, “he did recede to a nursery or obscure playhouse, called the _Green Curtain_,” in Shoreditch; or whether, as Gifford declares, that statement is a mere fable, and that his aims were higher--seemed now of little moment, perhaps, to Jonson himself; for his efforts were interrupted by a duel. His antagonist is supposed to have been a brother-player, who brought to the field a sword ten inches longer than poor Ben’s. They fought, and Ben killed the gentleman with the long sword, but was himself severely wounded in the arm; he was sent to prison, and brought, as he described it, “near to the gallows.”

Poor Ben was now, probably, fain to cry out with _Antonio_ in the “Maid of Honour”:--

“But redeem me
From this captivity, and I’ll vow
Never to draw a sword, or cut my meat hereafter
With a knife that has an edge or point; I’ll starve first.”[203]

Footnote 203:

Massinger’s Works, p. 200.

This imprisonment had a signal effect on Jonson’s destiny; he fell into melancholy, and was visited in his despondency by a Romanist priest, who applied himself to his consolation first, and to his conversion afterwards. Jonson had been religiously brought up, and it was not from indifference that he renounced the faith of his parents and entered the Romish Church. Such conversions were frequent in the early days of the Reformation. Jonson was no controversialist; wiser men than he fell into the same error, and, like such, atoned for it. The great light of our Church, Jeremy Taylor, became for some time a Romanist, but returned to the Anglican faith; Chillingworth and others wandered also, and also returned. The readiest converts are often those of deep and earnest feelings, which act on excitable minds, only superficially informed on the great doctrines of Scripture.[204] Jonson’s imprisonment was aggravated in its misery by a system of espionage which the necessities of the times induced. The plots against Elizabeth’s life usually originated in the seminaries of the priests. Jonson was warned by his gaoler that he was watched.

Footnote 204:

Gifford, p. 7, note.

He was eventually released, but by what agency does not appear.

He quitted prison, and married a young woman of his new persuasion; and there appears to have been no great reason to repent his choice. His wife was shrewish, but respectable; and the poet’s prosperity commenced with his marriage.

From this time until the period when the Court festivities brought him into frequent collision with Villiers, Jonson’s productions were successive occasions of triumph. Nevertheless, money did not flow into his coffers; and he was continually obliged to pledge, as Massinger did, the labour of his brain--two sums of four pounds, and twenty shillings, being advanced to him by Henslowe, the father-in-law of Alleyn, the player, upon the plots of two plays being presented and approved. Still poor Jonson had his enemies and traducers. The scene of “Every Man in his Humour” was originally laid in Thrace; the names were Italian, but wishing still further to ensure its success, Jonson changed them, and brought the scenes to London. Nevertheless, he was still attacked about his Italian story. There seems, then, to have been as great an objection to works of imagination based on foreign plots as in the present day. In “Volpone,” Jonson carefully avoided introducing any material not purely English.

He was still a struggling author, with few friends except players and playwrights, and with many enemies, owing to his vehemence of temper and imprudence of speech. But of his animosity to Shakspeare, and of the poet’s alienation from him, there seems no proof; and indeed Shakspeare is reported to have stood godfather to one of his children--although the improbable anecdote connected with that act is discredited by Gifford.

Jonson’s acquaintance with Shakspeare is stated by Rowe to have begun with “a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature on the part of the immortal bard.” Jonson, who was then, as Rowe observes, “entirely unknown to the world,” had offered “Every Man in his Humour” for representation; it was carelessly looked over, and returned in a supercilious manner by the person who had read it, with the uncourteous answer “that it would be of no use to the company.” Happily, however, Shakspeare chanced to cast his eyes on the manuscript, and found in the play something that powerfully engaged his attention. Generous, as well as gifted, he recommended both Jonson and his drama to the attention of the actors, and to that of the public also.[205]

Footnote 205:

Rowe’s “Life of Shakspeare,” p. xxxiii.

The old play, with the Italian names, the scene laid at Florence, had been first brought out at the Rose Theatre; and it was, apparently, the amended drama, which, from the numerous alterations, had become again Jonson’s property, according to the custom of the time, that attracted the notice of Shakspeare.[206] Be that as it may, “Every Man in his Humour” was acted at Blackfriars in 1598, and Shakspeare’s name appears at the head of it as one of the performers. This was about sixteen years before the Bard of Avon sought for repose on the banks of his beloved river, and in his native town.

Footnote 206:

Gifford, p. 2.

Henceforth the literary world was divided by the factions which penetrate even into the studies of the lettered; and a sort of rivalship was set up, in which, it appears, the partisans of the two great dramatists were far more rife than the parties concerned.

The contending critics endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense of the other. Pope observes, “It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable as that, because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakspeare had none at all; and because Shakspeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other that Jonson wanted both; because Shakspeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed everything; because Jonson did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakspeare wrote with ease and facility, they cry’d he never once made a blot.”[207]

Footnote 207:

Pope’s “Essay on Shakespere,” prefixed to the Oxford edition, p.
xix., 1745.

Yet, without attempting to enter into a controversy long since passed away, and doubtful in origin and extent, it is satisfactory to find Jonson’s vindication from unworthy motives in his famous lines, “To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespere, and what he hath left us:” in which he truly calls him the “Soul of the Age.”

Jonson’s “Every Man in his Humour” was honoured, after it had been played several times, by the presence of Queen Elizabeth, who was one of Jonson’s earliest patrons. Nevertheless, in “Cynthia’s Revels,” which was brought out during the following year, the poet satirized the formal and affected manners of the Court.

Whitehall was never gay after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots; the joyousness of Elizabeth’s nature, which she had inherited from her father, was gone.

When mirth went out, pedantry came in. Euphüism was for a time in vogue; the Queen, pensive one hour, fretful the next, looked passively on the change; but to her courtiers--among whom Jonson now began to mix--the satire in “Cynthia’s Revels” was, probably, highly acceptable. Among the most reprehensible usages of the day was that of bringing up children to perform on the public stage, as well as in the Court. In 1609 authority was given to “William Shakespeare, Robert Daborne, Nathaniel Field, and Robert Kirkham,” to provide and instruct a certain number of children to perform in tragedies, comedies, or masques, within the Blackfriars, or in “the realm of England.” Shakspeare, who soon withdrew from the superintendence of this juvenile company, has referred to them in “Hamlet,” thus marking his disapprobation of the system.[208]

“But there is, sir, an aviary of children, little eyases that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapp’d for it. These are now the fashion, and so besottle the common stages (so they call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and scarce dare come thither.”

These children were, in some respects, well cared for. They were selected from the young choristers in the Royal Chapel, and, by an order, so early as the reign of Edward IV., they were to be sent to Oxford or Cambridge, on the King’s foundation, at the age of eighteen, should their voices be changed, or the number of choristers be over-full. “Many good people,” observes Hartley Coleridge,[209] “who are scandalized at the Latin plays of Westminster, will be surprised that in the pious days of England, in the glorious morning of the Reformation, in ‘great Eliza’s golden time,’ under Kings and Queens that were the nursing fathers and nursing mothers, the public acting of plays should be, not the permitted recreation, but the compulsory employment of children devoted to sing the praises of God--of plays too, the best of which children may now only read in a ‘family’ edition of some, whose very titles a modern father would scruple to pronounce before a woman or a child.”

Footnote 208:

Introduction to Massinger’s Works, p. xxxiv.

Footnote 209:

Page xxxvi.

These children were first impressed from the cathedrals by Richard III.; and even Queen Elizabeth issued a warrant, under the sign-manual, “authorizing Thomas Gyles,” the master of the children of Paul’s, “to bring up any boys in cathedrals or collegiate churches, in order to be instructed for the entertainment of the Court.” The children of the Queen’s Chapel must, therefore, henceforth form a principal feature in the representations of Ben Jonson’s masques, as we picture them to our minds, either in Whitehall--consumed by fire long since--or at Althorpe, or at Burleigh-on-the-Hill, or in the stately Castle of Belvoir. Under those vaulted roofs their young voices warbled the exquisite poetry of Jonson to the music of Lawes, or--be it not recorded without shame, nevertheless--were obliged to utter words of raillery, bitterness, and indelicacy, which were usually, as Heywood in his apology for actors confesses, allotted to the unconscious children to deliver.

Greatly as Ben Jonson hailed the accession of James I., he had soon reason to regret the wise though parsimonious Queen Elizabeth. In conjunction with Chapman and Marston, he had written a play called "Eastward Hoe." It was well received; but there was a passage in it reflecting on the Scotch. The two authors were arrested; Jonson had not any share in writing the piece, but, being accessory to its production, he honourably and “voluntarily” accompanied his two friends to prison, thus surrendering himself to justice. No very severe punishment was ever contemplated, but a report prevailed that the three delinquents were to have their ears and noses cut. Jonson is said to have been released owing to the intercession of Camden and Selden; and they are declared to have been present when, after his liberation, he gave an entertainment. On that occasion his mother “drank to him, and showed him a paper which she designed, if the sentence had taken effect, to have been mixed with his drink, and it was a strong and hasty poison.” To show “that she was no churl,” Jonson, in relating this story, added, “she designed to have first drank of it herself.”

He escaped from some other personal attack which, in common with Chapman, he made on some individual, with only a second and also temporary imprisonment;[210] and from this time was in such constant requisition by the Court, that his imprudence went unnoticed. The “Masque of Darkness” was composed by the express command of Anne of Denmark, who appeared in it as a negress, surrounded with the dark beauties of her supposed African Court. The Queen, and the “Daughters of Night,” as the noble dames who acted in that pageant were called, were placed in a concave shell, seated one above another in tiers; from the top of the shell, which represented mother-of-pearl, hung a cheveron of light, which cast a bright beam on these ladies; the shell was moving up and down upon the sea, and in the billows appeared varied forms of sea-monsters, twelve in number, each bearing a torch on his back. The Queen was attired in azure and silver, with a curious head-dress of feathers, fastened with ropes of pearl, which showed well as the loops fell on the blackened throats of the masquers, who also wore ropes of pearl on their arms and wrists. Inigo Jones is conjectured to have written the directions for the costume of this masque.[211] Jonson now received periodical sums, not only from the Court, but from public bodies and private patrons. A year seldom passed without a Royal progress; and we have seen how essential the poet had become to the often impromptu revelries in which James I. continually indulged. Yet Jonson wrote his plays and masques slowly. The “Fox” took him a year to complete. His notion was that “a good poet’s made as well as born.”[212] He worked out his own success, and his labours were incessant. He had a practice of committing to his commonplace book remarkable passages that struck him. Lord Falkland, one of the most accomplished of the cavaliers, expressed his astonishment at the variety and extreme copiousness of Jonson’s knowledge. If a pedantic display of learning be imputed to Jonson, it must be remembered that it was, probably, in compliance with the taste of his royal patron, James, who delighted in exhibiting his classical proficiency; and who, even on his death-bed, as we have seen, answered the learned Prelate near him in Latin. It was during the first years of King James’s reign that Jonson justified these classic allusions in his “Masque and Barriers,” at the nuptials of the Earl of Essex to the faithless bride, also married afterwards to Somerset. “Some,” he says, “may squeamishly cry out, that all endeavours of learning and sharpness in these transitory devises, where it steps beyond their little (or let me not wrong them) no brain at all, is superfluous. I am contented these fastidious stomachs should leave my full tables, and enjoy at home their clean empty trenchers, fitted for such airy tastes, where perhaps a few Italian herbs, picked up, and made into a sallad, may find sweeter acceptance than all the sound meat of the world.”

Footnote 210:

Gifford, p. 23. See note by Mr. Dyce, p. 23.

Footnote 211:

Introduction to Massinger, p. xv.

Footnote 212:

“Lines on Shakespere,” p. 552; Ben Jonson’s Works.

These beautiful masques had the great advantage of being set to music by Henry Lawes, the composer who secured immortality to his name by the music of “Comus,” composed by him. Lawes was beginning his career of fame when Buckingham first entered the Court. The son of a vicar choral in Salisbury Cathedral, he rose to be first a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and afterwards Clerk of the Chapel, and conductor of the private music of Charles I. Henry Lawes sometimes took a part in the masques which he composed; and acted the attendant spirit in “Comus.” His “ayres” and dialogues have disappointed posterity. Yet he appears to have been almost the father of English vocal music; and, as Milton declares--

“Taught our English music how to space
Word with just note and accent.”

Music, like all the other delights of peace, languished during the troublous times of the Rebellion, or flourished only on the battle-field. Lawes was obliged to teach singing during that period; but he lived to compose the coronation anthem for Charles II., and to have a place of interment assigned to him in Westminster Abbey. His brother, less happy, though a skilful musician also, and often employed in conjunction with Henry Lawes, took up arms for Charles I., in whose service he also lived, and to whom he was devoted, and fell, fighting for his sovereign, at the siege of Chester.

It was then the custom for certain great families to receive musicians, as well as men of letters, in their houses, and to employ them in their especial line--sometimes in hymeneal festivities, sometimes in composing requiems. Thus the arts and sciences, poetry, music, painting, and scenic decoration, were united, during the life-time of George Villiers, in a degree never before or since known in this country. Massinger, Ben Jonson, Lawes, Inigo Jones, were at the service of the rich and noble, and awaited their bidding. Shakspeare died just after George Villiers had received the first public proof of Royal favour--the honour of knighthood;[213] and the era of masques and revels began. Still, “a craving for mental enjoyment,”[214] as well as that derived from the senses, was diffused.

Footnote 213:

In 1615. Shakspeare died in 1616.

Footnote 214:

Hartley Coleridge’s “Life of Massinger.”

The religious changes and controversies in the preceding reigns had improved the intellect of the higher orders in England, by making some portion of learning necessary to those either engaged in polemical disputes, or who, conscientious, though unassuming, wished to form their own opinions. There was an earnestness in the awakened minds of that period. “It was a time of much vice, much folly, much trouble--but it was an age of much energy.”[215] When, after the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, the thirst for controversy abated, the desire for cultivation, the love of poetry, and the taste for art remained, took another direction, and tended to the improvement and enlightenment of social life. The higher classes did much to exalt these dawning predilections, until the rebellion came; after that fearful convulsion, the diversions of the great were henceforth debased in character, and their minds in taste.

Footnote 215:

Gifford’s “Life of Ben Jonson,” p. 59.

Mary Countess of Pembroke was one of the earliest and most admired of Ben Jonson’s friends. To her son William, the early adviser of the Duke of Buckingham, Ben Jonson dedicated his “Book of Epigrams.” It is therefore almost certain that, before Jonson had appeared in public, as the composer of masques for the express entertainment of the great favourite at Burleigh, he had met Villiers at Wilton, in the society of their common friend, Lord Pembroke--“a man,” Lord Clarendon writes, “very well-bred, and of excellent parts, and a graceful speaker upon any subject, having a good proportion of learning, and a ready wit to apply and enlarge upon it.” When we add to this that the Earl was no cold, haughty, and pompous host, but facetious, affable, generous, magnificent, as disinterested and independent with the rich and great as he was unaffected and courteous to the humble; when we remember what Wilton even then was--the pride of the nation; when we reflect what and who were the men who were welcomed to its hospitality--men, as Clarendon observes, “of the most pregnant parts and understanding;” when we think of Ben Jonson there--probably received as a guest--whilst Massinger was still only the son of a retainer; when we picture Inigo Jones with his pencil--the sketches which he drew, praised by Vandyck; or hear the voices of the two brothers Henry and William Lawes, singing to soft airs the verses of Ben Jonson--we must believe that George Villiers had in such scenes, before he lost the friendship of Pembroke, many delights greater than the wearisome partiality of James, or even a communion with the then unformed mind of Charles.

A Platonic admiration for Christian, Countess of Devonshire, called forth in verses the romantic gallantry of the Earl of Pembroke. One cannot help rejoicing that Lawes set to music what Pembroke wrote:--

"Wrong not, dear Empress of my heart, The merits of true passion, With thinking that he feels no smart Who sues for no compassion. . . . . . . Silence in love betrays more woe Than words, though ne’er so witty. The beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity."[216]

Footnote 216:

“Royal and Noble Authors,” vol. ii., p. 268.

From the society of Wilton, Villiers went forth imbued with those tastes which never yielded wholly to the grosser diversions in which his Royal patron indulged. Whilst he retained the friendship of Lord Pembroke, Villiers was, in all probability, learning to estimate the conversation and works of Ben Jonson; and henceforth, the efforts of the dramatist must, to a certain degree, be associated with the influence and protection of the favourite.

London, in spite of the repeated proclamations of King James, tending to restrain its extent, and to keep the provincial gentry in their homes, was now generally crowded at certain seasons. A number of small theatres were erected in various parts of the city, in order to supply entertainments to those who would have turned with disgust, since a finer taste had been introduced by the Reformation, from the old moralities. Shakspeare, happily, formed an engagement to produce his pieces at one theatre, but Jonson was obliged to carry his productions to various minor houses, until the success of his masques enabled him to form a higher estimate of the value of his powers. His lighter pieces are marked by grace and sweetness; but these characteristics he “laid aside,” says Mr. Gifford, “whenever he approached the stage, and put on the censor with the sock.”[217] The excellence of the masque in Ben Jonson’s time, the great and gifted actors by whom it was performed, the fancy which was suffered to expand itself in these pieces, the scenic effect to which so vast an expense was devoted, incline us to think, with Gifford, “that all our ‘most splendid shows are at best but beggarly parodies,’ in comparison with those in which the Cliffords and Arundels, the Stanleys, the Russells, the Veres, and the Wroths; ‘danced in the fairy rings, in the gay and gallant circles of those enchanting devices.’”[218]

Footnote 217:

“Life of Ben Jonson,” p. 63.

Footnote 218:

Ibid., p. 67.

After the death of Shakspeare, Jonson received, by patent, a pension of a hundred marks a-year from James. It is supposed that the honour of the laureateship chiefly or solely belonged to him. Hitherto the title seems to have been merely honorary, adopted at pleasure by any poet who was appointed to write for the Court. It had been borne by Daniel in the time of Elizabeth. It was on this occasion that Jonson applied to Selden for information concerning the origin of the title of laureate; and that Selden drew up expressly, and introduced into the second part of his “Titles of Honours,” a long chapter on the custom of giving crowns of laurel to poets; at the conclusion of which he says, “Thus have I, by no unseasonable digression, performed a promise to you, my beloved Ben Jonson--your curious learning and judgment may correct where I have erred;” and adds, “where my notes and memory have left me short.” A graceful and enviable compliment from such a man.

The triumphs of Jonson’s genius were interrupted by his journey to Edinburgh in 1618--a journey which he performed _on foot_. Here he was the guest of Drummond, the poet of Hawthornden--under whose roof he passed the April of 1619. This journey was regarded as the greatest misfortune of Jonson’s life; not only because during his stay in Scotland his wife died, but because Drummond, amongst other injuries, gave the following character of Ben Jonson to the world:--[219]

“For,” he says, “Ben Jonson was a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is 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, thinketh nothing well done but what either he himself or some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind or angry, careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, if he be well answered as himself; interprets best sayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both.”

Footnote 219:

Gifford’s “Ben Jonson,” p. 37.

The conduct of Drummond, styled by Mr. Gifford, “a cankered hypocrite,”[220] has been justified by others; his very hospitality to Jonson is termed by the infuriated biographer, “decoying him into his house.” Drummond acted, in a very slight degree, in the same capacity to Jonson as that which Boswell, a century and a half afterwards, undertook in regard to the more fortunate Samuel Johnson, who found in _his_ listener an admirer, and not a foe. Both these great men had the calamity of having every idle expression set down for the curiosity of an after-age; and “old Ben,” as his contemporaries called him in their jovial meetings at the Mermaid, did not stand the test so well as “Old Samuel.” We cannot, however, regard the visit to Scotland as the great misfortune of Ben Jonson’s life, as the impassioned Gifford pronounces it.[221]

Footnote 220:

In Laing’s Preface to notes of Ben Jonson’s Conversation.

Footnote 221:

Note by Dyce; Gifford, p. 38.

Jonson, however, returned to London, unconscious of all that after his death so agitated the literary world in the eighteenth century on his account. He met, as he wrote to Drummond, with a “most Catholic welcome from King James,” who was then, like Jonson, a not disconsolate widower. The poet was writing a poem for the funeral of Queen Anne, who had just died, but was unburied. He was very keenly engaged in beginning the “Discovery,” which was to contain a description of Scotland; and he signed himself Drummond’s “true friend and lover.” He received, in return, two letters full of kindness and compliment from Drummond, whom Gifford himself, incapable of an act of insincerity, styles thereupon, “hypocrite to the last.”

Ben Jonson was now invited by Bishop Corbet to Christ Church, Oxford, where he was created Master of Arts. Thence he passed to Burleigh-on-the-Hill and to Windsor, to see the performance of his "Gypsies Metamorphosed"--and to introduce little compliments in each piece, as the _dramatis personnæ_ were varied or augmented by the accession of fresh actors and actresses. About this time he wrote his poem on the “Ladies of England.” It was lost--a mischance which, in the weakness of one’s nature, one is apt to regret more than the destruction of a vast body of philological notes, the fruit of twenty years’ labour, for which Mr. Gifford calls for especial sympathy.

Jonson was now made “Master of the Revells,” and was nearly being knighted. He passed his time in going from one country seat to another; every Twelfth-day he was ordered to produce, or to repeat a masque. Charles I. was now rising to maturity, and, like his deceased brother, Henry, he loved the poetry of Jonson, and the fancy of Inigo Jones. The match-making propensities of King James were as yet undeveloped, and had neither troubled his repose nor maddened the nation into a dread of his mistakes. Villiers was young, gay, and unmarried; and the world was at peace. Those were happy and busy days for Jonson--yet, amid all his labours, he found time to collect an excellent library. He was not only a collector, but a lender of his books--an unusual combination; a man must be generous, indeed, to unite the two characters; nay, he gave them also, liberally, to those qualified to value the rare editions which he bought. “I am fully warranted in saying,” Mr. Gifford writes, “that more valuable books given to individuals by Jonson are yet to be met with than by any person of that age. Scores of them have fallen under my own observation, and I have heard of abundance of others.”[222] This is rare praise. Nevertheless, since brilliant success always has its alloy, it was the lot of Jonson to suffer from the ingratitude of his coadjutor, Inigo Jones; and the excuse, perhaps, of Inigo was, that he was tried and tempted by the temper and irony of Jonson. Their quarrel was inconvenient, and must have caused some trouble in the representation of those masques and revels over which Jonson presided.

Footnote 222:

Life, p. 49.

“Whoever was the aggressor,” says Horace Walpole, “the turbulence and brutality of Jonson was sure to place him most in the wrong.” This is a hard judgment. Let it be remembered that the circumstances of the two men were different. Jonson was poor, diseased, and in that miserable plight when a generous temper is continually checked by pecuniary difficulties. Inigo Jones had realized a handsome fortune, and was then in the full enjoyment of wealth and reputation. Unfortunately he was a poet; some of the masques printed had their joint names as the composers. Jealousies arose, which ought to have soon subsided, had either of these celebrated men known how to curb his wrath. In Jonson’s case, his temper was his worst enemy; but for this defect he had an excuse which might have pleaded for him even with Inigo. In 1625, Jonson composed for King James “Pan’s Anniversary,” the last piece that he presented to that monarch; towards the end of that year he was attacked with palsy, and a threatening of dropsy added to his accumulated trials. Poverty and ill-health are pleas for indulgence. For the first evil, Jonson’s improvidence, his hospitality, his utter want of prudence in his affairs, may justly be blamed. The last was also partially his own fault, for his habits were intemperate--and partly ascribable to an hereditarily diseased constitution. Nature, which had endowed him with that wonderful intellect, that indomitable energy, had modified her gift by the infliction of a cruel malady, which, being in the blood, was aggravated by the weakness of approaching age. The suppers at the Mermaid were now finally abandoned; and the club at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, was no longer enlivened by his wit. His intellect was affected to some extent, but he recovered sufficiently to write the anti-masque of “Jophiel” for the Court; after which, none of his productions were commanded by the King during the space of three years. In his necessities, unable to leave his room, or to move without assistance, the poor invalid turned to the theatre as a source of revenue, and produced “The New Inn.” It was hissed from the stage; and, notwithstanding the dramatist’s plea in his epilogue that he was “sick and sad,” he was persecuted with contemptuous verses, and pursued with remorseless cruelty by the many enemies that his rough manners had excited--among them, Inigo was the most inveterate.

There was, however, one kind heart that pitied him--that of Charles I. The monarch was touched by the lines which the hard critics in the theatre could hear without compassion:--

“If you expect more than you had to-night,
The Maker is sick and sad; he sent things fit
In all the numbers both of verse and wit,
If they have not miscarried: if they have,
All that his faint and faltering tongue doth crave
Is, that you not impute it to his brain--
That’s yet unhurt, although set round with pain.
It cannot long hold out: all strength must yield;
Yet judgment would the last be in the field
With the true poet.”

Charles sent him a hundred pounds: the poet, in the fulness of gratitude, wrote "A petition from poor Ben to the best of monarchs, masters, and men"--full of gaiety and good-humour, yet touching, even in its sparkling wit. The petition prayed that His Majesty would make his father’s “hundred marks a hundred pounds,” alluding to the pension granted by King James. The petition was granted, and in the patent by which the annuity was confirmed, it was said, “especially to encourage Jonson to proceed in those services of his wit and penn, which we have enjoined unto him.”

A tierce of Canary accompanied this act of bounty. It was Jonson’s favourite wine, and the King, from his private bounty, sent it to the sick poet. It was to be a yearly gift, not only to Jonson, but to his successors; and the wine--Spanish Canary--was to be taken from his Majesty’s cellars at Whitehall, out of the stores of wine “remaining therein.” Charles little anticipated that even his love of the drama should be made a cause of reproach to him at his trial. “Had the King but studied Scripture half as much as he studied Ben Jonson or Shakspeare!” was the cry of the Puritans.

Jonson might now have been tolerably happy, had not his former coadjutor, Inigo, still borne him enmity for having, during the preceding year, placed his own name before that of the royal architect. The conduct of Jones in this respect has been placed in its true light by a letter from a Mr. Perry to Sir Thomas Pickering.[223] In that letter it is stated that Inigo used his “predominant power” at Court to injure Jonson, then bed-ridden and impoverished, as the poet was. Henceforth, Aurelian Townshend, a poet scarcely known, was employed to invent the masques represented at Court, in conjunction with Inigo Jones.

Footnote 223:

This was communicated to Gifford by the late Mr. D’Israeli, to
whom historical literature owes indeed much.

The same year that was marked by the death of Buckingham witnessed poor Jonson’s “fatal stroke,” as he termed it, of palsy. He never recovered this attack of 1628, and his days were overclouded by successive mortifications. Hitherto the city of London had given him a pension for his services. At the very time when it was most needed by the forlorn dramatist, it was withdrawn, but restored three years afterwards. The office for which he received this annuity was that of City Chronologer. The plea made for its cessation was that there had been “no fruits of his labours in that his place,” which place was to commemorate signal events; other sources of emolument were also withheld, on the plea that the fruits of that now exhausted brain were no longer forthcoming.

But bright instances of compassion and generosity stood forth amid all this gloom. Amongst the great patrons of the drama was William Cavendish, the first Earl of Newcastle, declared by Cibber to be “one of the most finished gentlemen and distinguished patriots of his time.” He had been constituted governor to Prince Charles, for whom he ever retained the most loyal affection. Of this nobleman it was said that he understood horsemanship, music, and poetry; but that he was a better horseman than a musician, a better musician than a poet. His wife, the eccentric Margaret Lucas, wrote of him that “his mind was above his fortune, his generosity above his purse, his courage above danger, his justice above bribers, his friendship above self-interest, his truth too firm for falsehood, his temperance beyond temptation.”

It was by no means prejudicial to the popularity of this fine specimen of an English nobleman that “he was fitter to break Pegasus for a _manège_ than to mount him on the steps of Parnassus.” He wrote a work entitled, “A new Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses and Work them according to Nature, as also to Perfect Nature by the Subtlety of Art.” The work, a folio, was succeeded by various comedies, several of them written when Lord Newcastle was in banishment, and acted, after his return to England, at Blackfriars. He wrote, it is said, in the manner of Ben Jonson, to whom he was a kind patron. The Earl was a singular compound of military skill and ardour with literary tastes; by him Sir William Davenant, poet-laureate after Jonson’s death, was made Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance.[224]

Footnote 224:

Grainger, Biog. Hist., vol. i., p. 194.

His wife, who at the time Ben Jonson knew her was Countess of Newcastle, and afterwards Duchess, is one of the most voluminous of writers among the (now) long catalogue of literary ladies in this country. She was at once ridiculous and estimable--a combination of qualities painful to friends, but never acknowledged by her husband, who revered her talents, and tried to defend what was incomprehensible to the learned--her philosophy. In private life she was reserved, living almost entirely among her books, or in contemplation, or writing indefatigably. Even during the night, one of the Duke’s secretaries is said to have slept on a truckle bed in a closet in her bedroom, in order to be ready to answer any sudden bursts of inspiration that might occur; and the summonses to John, “to get up and write down her Grace’s suggestions,” were frequent and wearisome. Kind, pious, charitable, generous, and really gifted, though romantic and visionary, this excellent lady’s peculiarities might have furnished Molière with a model for his “Precieuses Ridicules;” but, to Ben Jonson, they were lessened by the vast amount of amiability that welcomed the poet to her stately abode, or, better still, relieved him in his poverty and want.

When the Earl and Countess of Newcastle heard of the poet’s play being condemned--when they learned that various copies of complimentary verses had been addressed to him by admirers, pitying his humiliation--the Earl, worthy of the name of Cavendish (so dear to England), sent to request a transcript of them. The reply is very touching:--[225]

"MY NOBLEST LORD, and my Patron by Excellence--I have here obeyed your commands, and sent you a packet of my own praises, which I should not have done if I had any stock of modesty in store; but ‘obedience is better than sacrifice,’ and you command it. I am now like an old bankrupt in wit, that am driven to pay debts on my friends’ credit; and, for want of satisfying letters, to subscribe bills of exchange.

“Your devoted
“BEN JONSON.

"4th February, 1632.

“To the Right Hon. the Earl of Newcastle.”

Footnote 225:

Gifford, p. 48.

Also note, same page:--

"MY NOBLEST LORD AND BEST PATRON--I send no borrowing epistle to provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to repay, nor security to engage, that will be taken; but I make a most humble petition to your lordship’s bounty to succour my present necessities this good time of Easter; and it shall conclude a begging request hereafter on behalf of

"Your truest bondsman and
"Most thankful servant,
“B. J.”

One of these complimentary poems was written by Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland--a patriot, a soldier, and a poet, the very model of that refined spirit of chivalry which never recovered itself after the Rebellion. There must have been consolation in such a strain, from such a man; but poor “old Ben,” as he was now called, was almost past consolation. He was engaged on another play, “The Majestic Lady.” The world, who had then deemed the old man dead,[226] received it as the injudicious effort of a mind enfeebled. Dryden, even, who should have forborne from the poor triumph over him whom he wrongly considered a “driveller and a show,” called these last plays “Ben’s dotages;” but, though feebler than his former dramas, they exhibit no traces of _dotage_--that invidious and almost cruel expression.[227]

Footnote 226:

Gifford, p. 49.

Footnote 227:

With a gentler feeling, Charles Lamb made numerous extracts from
“The New Inn,” to show that the mind that produced the “Fox” was
still there.--Ibid.

Sustained by the Earl of Newcastle, praised by the noble Falkland, pensioned by the King, one might have supposed that Jonson’s last days would have been peaceful, though no longer cheerful. But he had debts; and he was forced--bed-ridden, shaken in body and mind--to write on to the very last. His latest effort was an interlude welcome of King Charles to Welbeck, on his way to Scotland; for which a tribute from Jonson’s muse was commanded by the ever-friendly and munificent Newcastle.

The timely gratuity sent to the poet, when the interlude was ordered, “fell,” he wrote, “like the dew of Heaven on his necessities.” He wrote to his patron in terms of gratitude, warm and expressive, and creditable to himself and that benefactor.

He continued at his desk; and a fragment of the “Last Shepherd,” one of his last efforts which is preserved, proves that his fancy was unclouded. Hitherto it has been painful to trace his decay--to record his distress; but now light came to his death-bed, and came from on high. Penitence, prayer, conviction of the true faith in our Holy Apostolic Church, confession of sins, hope, and rest--these were the Heavenly lights that broke over the gloom of his latter hours.

Happily--and let the fact he impressively recorded--his parents had carefully impressed on his infancy deep religious convictions.

As he lay, neglected by his former associates, and even believed by the worldly to be dead--and dead, indeed, was he to them--the impressions of his duty to his Maker grew more frequent and stronger in his affection.[228]

Footnote 228:

Gifford, p. 48.

To the Bishop of Winchester, who visited him during his long illness, he expressed the deepest contrition for having profaned the sacred name of his Creator in his plays. His “remorse was poignant;” and doubtless this sense of the responsibility which is devolved on great talents, which comes to many too late, was the foundation of his heartfelt penitence and sorrow. He died on the 5th of April, 1637--and on the 9th his remains were entombed in Westminster Abbey, on the north side, just opposite the escutcheon of Robertus de Ros. A common pavement stone was placed over his grave; but Sir John Young, of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, passing through the Abbey, noticed that the stone was without any inscription to mark where the great poet lay. Sir John, or, as Aubrey calls him, “Jack” Young, gave one of the workmen eighteen-pence to cut an inscription; and the words, “O rare Ben Jonson!” were carved as a temporary distinction. Meantime, the admirers of the deceased poet were collecting a subscription to defray the expense of a suitable[229] monument to “poor Ben;” but the Rebellion breaking out, the project was abandoned, and the money returned to the subscribers.

Footnote 229:

Gifford.

No fewer than thirty-four elegies on Ben Jonson were collected by Dr. Duppa, the Bishop of Winchester, and published under the title of “Jonson’s Verbius;” and amongst the authors were Lord Falkland, Ford, Waller, George Donne, Lord Buckhurst, and other illustrious names. But perhaps there is no tribute more gratifying to the admirers of Ben Jonson than that of Taylor, the water-poet, who had met him at Leith. Jonson, be it remembered, had walked to Edinburgh, yet he could not see the humble poet without giving him what he could ill afford to bestow.

“At Leith,” says Taylor, “I found my long-approved and assured good friend, Master Benjamin Jonson, at one Master John Stuart’s house. I thank him for his great kindness; for at my taking leave of him, he give me a piece of gold, of two-and-twenty shillings value, to drink his health in England; and withall willed me to remember his kind commendations to all his friends. So, with a friendly farewell, I left him as well as I hope never to see him in a worse state; for he is among noblemen and gentlemen that know his true worth, and their own honours, where with much respective love he is entertained.”

The sum, as Gifford remarks, was not, in those days, an inconsiderable one; and there was something graceful and touching in the kindness of one placed so high, as Jonson was in literary fame, to the humbler poet.

This sketch of Ben Jonson’s life and writings may serve to illustrate the manners of those times, and the nature of that society in which George Villiers lived. In every revel Buckingham was the most distinguished courtier. In every masque, during King James’s life, he played a part. He knew the poet at Wilton; there can be little doubt that the friends of Villiers were the patrons of poor Ben. The panegyrist of the Duke, Lord Clarendon, lived, as he has himself declared, “many years on terms of the most friendly intercourse with Jonson.” In that conversation, praised by this historian “as very good, with men of most note,” Villiers must have borne a part; whilst Camden and Selden mingled with poor Ben, with the Sackvilles, the Sidneys, the Herberts, and the numerous family of Villiers.

CHAPTER VI.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER--THEIR ORIGIN--THEIR JOINT
PRODUCTIONS--CHARACTER OF BISHOP FLETCHER--ANECDOTES ABOUT THE
USE OF TOBACCO--FORD, THE DRAMATIST--HOWELL--SIR HENRY
WOTTON--THE CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM CONSIDERED.