Ben Jonson

The Critical Heritage

D.H. Craig

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134783052
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read the material themselves.

1.

John Weever, Marston and Jonson 1599

From Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion, Sixth Week, no. 11.

E.A.J.Honigmann, John Weever (Manchester 1987), p. 91, suggests a date of late 1598 or 1599 for the sonnet. Weever (1575 or 1576–1632) is best known for his references to poetic contemporaries in the Epigrammes (Fourth Week, no. 22 is a sonnet on Shakespeare) and for his 1631 folio, Ancient Funerall Monuments. There is slighting reference to Weever’s epigrams in Jonson’s ‘To my meere English censurer’ (Epig. 18). See Introduction, p. 3, and Nos 4 and 7, below.

Ad Io: Marston, & Ben: Iohnson

Marston, thy Muse enharbours Horace vaine,

Then some Augustus give thee Horace merit,

And thine embuskin’d Johnson doth retaine

So rich a stile, and wondrous gallant spirit;

That if to praise your Muses I desired,

My Muse would muse. Such wittes must be admired.

(Sig. [F8]^v)

2.

Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour 1599

Printed from the first edition, The Comicall Satyre of Every Man out of his Humor (1600). The play was first performed in 1599.

Cordatus (described in the dramatis personae as ‘The Authors friend; A man inly acquainted with the Scope and Drift of his Plot: Of a discreet, and understanding Judgement; and has the place of a Moderator’) and Mitis form the Grex or chorus, commenting on critical issues and explicating the action and characters. The passages from the chorus printed below are those which deal with specific critical issues arising from the action of the play, rather than those which explicate or anticipate it, or discuss drama in general.

(a) From the Induction.

Mit. You have seene his play Cordatus? pray you; how is’t?

Cord. Faith Sir, I must refraine to judge, onely this I can say of it, ’tis strange, and of a perticular kind by it selfe, somewhat like Vetus Comædia: a worke that hath bounteously pleased me, how it will answere the generall expectation, I know not.

Mit. Does he observe all the lawes of Comedie in it?

Cord. What lawes meane you?

Mit. Why the equall devision of it into Acts and Scenes, according to the Terentian manner, his true number of Actors; the furnishing of the Scene with Grex or Chorus, and that the whole Argument fall within compasse of a daies efficiencie.

Cord. O no, these are too nice observations.

Mit. They are such as must bee received by your favour, or it cannot be Authentique.

Cord. Troth I can discerne no such necessitie.

Mit. No?

Cord. No, I assure you signior; if those lawes you speake of, had beene delivered us, ab Initio; and in their present vertue and perfection, there had beene some reason of obeying their powers…. (Sig. [Biv]^v)

[Cordatus then gives a brief history of the development of the classical drama, to show how successive playwrights adapted the forms they inherited.]

(b) The chorus following Act I, Scene iii.

Cord. Now signior, how approve you this? have the Humorists exprest themselves truly or no?

Mit. Yes (if it be wel prosecuted) ’tis hitherto happy ynough: but methinks Macilente went hence too soone, he might have been made to stay and speake somewhat in reproofe of Sordido’s wretchednesse, now at the last.

Cor. O no, that had bin extreamly improper, besides he had continued the Scene too long with him as’t was, being in no more action.

Mit. You may enforce the length as a necessarie reason; but for propriety the Scene wold very wel have born it, in my judgement.

Cor. O worst of both; why you mistake his Humor utterly then.

Mit. How? do I mistake it? is’t not Envie?

Cord. Yes, but you must understand Signior, hee envies him not as he is a villaine, a wolfe i’ the commonwealth, but as he is rich and fortunate; for the true condition of envie, is Dolor aliena felicitatis, to have our eies continually fixt upon another mans prosperitie, that is his cheefe happinesse, and to grieve at that. Whereas if we make his monstrous and abhord actions, our object, the greefe (we take then) comes neerer the nature of Hate than Envie, as being bred out of a kind of contempt and lothing in our selves.

Mit. So you’le infer it had been Hate, not Envie in him, to reprehend the humour of Sordido?

Cord. Right, for what a man truly envies in another, he could alwaies love, and cherish in himselfe; but no man truly reprehends in another what he loves in himselfe, therefore Reprehension is out of his Hate. And this distinction hath he himselfe made in a speech there (if you markt it) where hee saies, I envie not this Buffon, but I hate him.

Mit. Stay sir: I envie not this Buffon, but I hate him; why might he not as well have hated Sordido as him?

Cord. No sir, there was subject for his envie in Sordido; his wealth: So was there not in the other, he stood possest of no one eminent gift, but a most odious and fiend–like disposition, that would turne Charitie it selfe into Hate, much more Envie for the present. (Sig. [D iv]^r-v)

(c) From the chorus following Act II, Scene iii. The act as a whole has displayed the humours of Fastidious Brisk, Carlo Buffone, Sogliardo, Puntarvolo, Sordido, and Fungoso.

Mit. Me thinks Cordatus, he dwelt somwhat too long on this Scene; it hung i’the hand.

Cord. I see not where he could have insisted lesse, and t’have made the Humors perspicuous enough.

Mit. True, as his Subject lies: but he might have altered the shape of Argument, & explicated ‘hem better in single Scenes.

Cord. That had been Single indeed: why? be they not the same persons in this, as they would have been in those? and is it not an object of more State, to behold the Scene full, and reliev’d with varietie of Speakers to the end, than to see a vast emptie stage, and the Actors come in (one by one) as if they were dropt down with a feather into the eie of the Audience?

Mir. Nay, you are better traded with these things than I, and therefore I’le subscribe to your judgement; mary you shall give me leave to make objections.

Cord. O what else? it’s the speciall intent of the Author you should do so: for thereby others (that are present) may as well be satisfied, who happily would object the same you doe. (Sig. [Fiv.]^r-v)

(d) From the chorus following Act II, Scene vi.

Mit. Well, I doubt this last Scene will endure some grievous Torture.

Cord. How? you feare ’twill be rackt by some hard Construction?

Mit. Doe not you?

Cord. No in good faith: unlesse mine eyes could light mee beyond Sence, I see no reason why this should be more Liable to the Racke than the rest: you’le say perhaps the Cittie will not take it wel, that the Merchant is made here to dote so perfectly upon his wife; and shee againe, to be so Fastidiously affected, as she is?

Mit. You have utter’d my thought sir, indeed.

Cord. Why (by that proportion) the Court might as well take offence at him we call the Courtier, and with much more Pretext, by how much the place transcends and goes before in dignitie and vertue: but can you imagine that any Noble or true spirit in the Court (whose Sinewie, and altogether unaffected graces, very worthily expresse him a Courtier) will make any exception at the opening of such an emptie Trunk as this Briske is? or thinke his owne worth empeacht by beholding his motley inside?

Mit. No Sir, I doe not. Cord. No more, assure you, will any grave wise Cittizen, or modest Matron, take the object of this Follie in Deliro and his Wife; but rather apply it as the foile to their owne vertues: For that were to affirme, that a man writing of Nero, should meane all Emperours: or speaking of Machiavell, comprehend all States-men; or in our Sordido, all Farmars; and so of the rest; than which, nothing can bee utter’d more malicious and absurd. Indeed there are a sort of these narrow–ey’d Decipherers, I confesse, that will extort straunge and abstruse meanings out of any Subject, bee it never so Conspicuous and Innocently delivered. But to such (where e’re they sit conceald) let them know, the Authour defies them, and their writing-Tables; and hopes, no sound or safe judgement will infect it selfe with their contagious Comments, who (indeed) come here only to pervert and poyson the sence of what they heare, and for nought else. (Sig. Hii^r-v)

(e) The chorus following Act III, Scene vi.

Mit. I travell with another objection Signior, which I feare will be enforc’d against the Author, ere I can be deliver’d of it.

Cord. What’s that sir?

Mit. That the argument of his Comedie might have ben of some other nature, as of a Duke to be in love with a Countesse, and that Countesse to be in love with the Dukes son, & the son to love the Ladies waiting maid; some such crosse woing, with a Clowne to their servingman, better than to be thus neere and familiarly allied to the time.

Cord. You say well, but I would faine hear one of these Autumne—judgements define once, Quid sit Comædia?¹ if he cannot, let him content himselfe with Ciceros defini...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Note
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. John Weever, Marston and Jonson, 1599
• 2. Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, 1599
• 3. Ben Jonson, prologue to Cynthia’s Revels, 1600
• 4. John Weever, Jonson as humorist, 1601
• 5. Nicholas Breton on the satirical fashion, 1601
• 6. Ben Jonson, Poetaster, 1601
• 7. Thomas Dekker, Horace untrussed, 1601–2
• 8. Charles Fitzgeffrey on Jonson, 1601
• 9. Cambridge views on the War of the Theatres, 1601–2
• 10. Henry Chettle, Jonson’s steel pen, 1603
• 11. Samuel Daniel attacks the learned masque, 1604
• 12. Thomas Dekker on Jonson’s pedantry, 1604
• 13. John Marston, tribute to Jonson, 1604
• 14. Sir Edward Herbert on Jonson’s Horace, 1604
• 15. Jonson as laureate, 1605
• 16. On Sejanus, 1605
• 17. John Marston glances at Sejanus, 1606
• 18. Ben Jonson on his masques, 1606
• 19. On Volpone, 1605–7
• 20. Ben Jonson, more principles for the masque, 1609
• 21. Jonson’s comedy malicious and factious, 1610
• 22. Ben Jonson, prologue to The Alchemist, 1610
• 23. On Catiline, 1611
• 24. John Selden on Jonson’s scholarship, 1614
• 25. Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, 1614
• 26. On Jonson’s epigrams, 1615
• 27. William Fennor on the reception of Sejanus, 1616
• 28. Robert Anton, Jonson among the melancholic creators, 1616
• 29. From The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, 1616
• 30. William Drummond, Jonson’s character, 1619
• 31. Inigo Jones, attack on Jonson, 1619 or later
• 32. Edmund Bolton on Jonson’s language, 1621
• 33. George Chapman, expostulation with Jonson, 1623 or later
• 34. Ben Jonson on The Staple of News, 1626
• 35. Nicholas Oldisworth on Jonson, 1629
• 36. Controversy over The New Inn, 1629–31
• 37. Falkland on Jonson as the dispenser of fame, 1631 or earlier
• 38. Leonard Digges, Shakespeare’s plays more popular than Jonson’s, (?) 1632
• 39. Thomas Randolph on the power of Jonson’s verses, 1632 or later
• 40. Ben Jonson, The Magnetic Lady, 1632
• 41. Alexander Gill, attack on The Magnetic Lady, 1633
• 42. James Howell, letters to Jonson, 1632–5
• 43. Sir John Suckling, caricature of Jonson, 1637 or earlier
• 44. Ben Jonson, prologue to The Sad Shepherd, 1637 or earlier
• 45. Sir John Suckling, Jonson’s arrogance, 1637
• 46. James Shirley on Jonson and The Alchemist, between 1637 and 1640
• 47. Newcastle, tribute to Jonson, 1637 or later
• 48. George Stutvile, Jonson as tutor, 1637 or later
• 49. Tributes from Jonsonus Virbius, 1638
• 50. George Daniel, elegy on Jonson, 1638
• 51. John Benson, dedication of Jonson’s Poems, 1640
• 52. On Jonson’s translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica, 1640
• 53. James Shirley on Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson, 1642
• 54. William Cartwright on Jonson’s love-scenes, 1647
• 55. Robert Herrick, tributes to Jonson, 1648
• 56. Edmund Gayton, Jonson the scholar’s playwright, 1654
• 57. On reviving Jonson at the Restoration, 1660
• 58. Samuel Pepys on performances of Epicoene and Bartholomew Fair, 1661
• 59. The Play of the Puritan, 1661
• 60. Margaret Cavendish on Jonson’s plays, 1662
• 61. Thomas Fuller, portrait of Jonson, 1662
• 62. Richard Flecknoe, Jonson’s part in the history of the English stage, 1664
• 63. Samuel Pepys on performances of Epicoene and Bartholomew Fair, 1664–5
• 64. Saint-Evremond, Jonson central to a French view of English comedy, 1666–7
• 65. Samuel Butler on Jonson and Shakespeare, 1667–9
• 66. Samuel Pepys reads Every Man in his Humour, sees Epicoene, 1667
• 67. John Dryden’s Essay, 1667
• 68. John Dryden makes Shakespeare monarch over Fletcher and Jonson, 1667
• 69. John Dryden, Jonson’s borrowings, 1668
• 70. Thomas Shadwell on Jonson’s humour comedy, 1668
• 71. John Dryden cites Jonson in the controversy over rhymed drama, 1668
• 72. Samuel Pepys on Bartholomew Fair, Epicoene, Catiline, and The Alchemist, 1668–9
• 73. Clarendon on Jonson’s talents and achievements, 1668–70
• 74. Charles Sackville, epilogue to an Every Man in his Humour revival, 1670
• 75. Richard Flecknoe answers Dryden on Jonson, 1670–1
• 76. John Dryden explains his view of Jonson, 1671
• 77. Thomas Shadwell defends his estimate of Jonson, 1670–1
• 78. Edward Howard on Jonson, 1671
• 79. Edward Howard on Jonson’s imaginary creations, 1671
• 80. Edward Ravenscroft, Jonson the model for didactic comedy, 1671
• 81. On Jonson and Shakespeare, 1672
• 82. John Dryden on the faults of predecessors like Jonson, 1672
• 83. Aphra Behn on Shakespeare and Jonson, 1673
• 84. Edward Howard, Jonson unparalleled among ancient or modern authors, 1673
• 85. Edward Phillips on Jonson’s achievements, 1675
• 86. John Dryden, Jonson distinguished from Shadwell, 1676
• 87. John Oldham on Jonson, 1678
• 88. John Dryden, low farce in Volpone, 1683
• 89. Edward Howard on Jonson’s allegory and on a statue of Jonson, 1689
• 90. Gerald Langbaine, notes on Jonson, 1691
• 91. Thomas Rymer on Catiline, 1692
• 92. Nahum Tate, farce in Jonson, 1693
• 93. John Dryden, Jonson and Fletcher matched at last, 1694
• 94. Beat Louis de Muralt on Jonson and Molière, 1694
• 95. William Wotton on Jonson’s Grammar, 1694, 1697
• 96. John Dennis and William Congreve on Jonson’s comedy, 1695
• 97. Jeremy Collier on Jonson as a model playwright, 1698
• 98. William Congreve and Jeremy Collier on profanity in Bartholomew Fair, 1698
• 99. William Burnaby, Jonson a model for the comedy of characters and action, 1701
• 100. John Dennis on Jonson’s comedy, 1702
• 101. Jonson discussed in a critical dialogue on the theatre, 1702
• 102. Jonson returns from the shades to castigate Thomas Baker, 1704
• 103. Samuel Cobb, Jonson’s notable thefts and successful piracies, 1707
• 104. Richard Steele on Jonson, 1709
• 105. Nicholas Rowe, Jonson’s evil eye on Shakespeare, 1709
• 106. Charles Gildon on Jonson, 1710
• 107. Richard Steele on Jonson’s plays as description and instruction, 1712
• 108. John Dennis, Jonson no guide to Shakespeare for tragedy, 1712
• 109. Lewis Theobald as ‘Benjamin Johnson’, 1715
• 110. John Dennis on suggestibility in The Alchemist, 1718
• 111. John Dennis, Jonson invoked against Steele, 1720
• 112. Charles Gildon, Jonson the master of comedy, 1721
• 113. John Dennis, Jonson the authority for the comedy of ridicule, 1722
• 114. Alexander Pope on the relations between Shakespeare and Jonson, 1725
• 115. Alexander Pope, observations on Jonson, (?) 1728, 1733 or 1734
• 116. Shakespeare and the actors defended against Pope and Jonson, 1729
• 117. William Levin, Shakespeare and Jonson a lesson to their successors, 1731
• 118. Jonson’s comedy obsolete, 1732
• 119. A proper reaction to Volpone, 1733
• 120. William Warburton and Lewis Theobald On Jonson, 1734
• 121. Alexander Pope on Jonson’s inflated popular reputation, 1737
• 122. Algernon Sidney on Catiline, 1739
• 123. Henry Fielding on Jonson, 1740, 1742
• 124. Corbyn Morris, humours in Shakespeare and Jonson, 1744
• 125. David Garrick, the acting of Drugger and Macbeth, 1744
• 126. Sarah Fielding, David Simple hears a critic on Shakespeare and Jonson, 1744
• 127. William Guthrie, Jonson the Poussin of drama, 1747
• 128. Unsigned review of La Place’s Catiline, 1747
• 129. Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare and Jonson, 1747
• 130. Charles Macklin, a forged pamphlet on Jonson, 1748
• 131. Edmund Burke, Jonson and true comedy, 1748
• 132. John Upton on Jonson, 1749
• 133. Richard Hurd, on Catiline and on Shakespeare versus Jonson, 1749
• 134. Thomas Seward on Jonson, Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher, 1750
• 135. William Guthrie, Jonson and human nature, 1750
• 136. Garrick’s Every Man in his Humour revival, 1751
• 137. Francis Gentleman, Sejanus, 1751
• 138. Bonnell Thornton, review of Epicoene, 1752
• 139. Theophilus Cibber and Robert Shiells, summary criticism of Jonson, 1753
• 140. Richard Hurd, Every Man out of his Humour, The Alchemist, Volpone, 1753–7
• 141. Arthur Murphy, essays in The Gray’s Inn Journal, 1754–86
• 142. David Hume, Jonson’s rude art, 1754
• 143. Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier, Jonson’s envy of Shakespeare, 1754
• 144. Peter Whalley’s edition of Jonson, 1756
• 145. Richard Hurd, Jonson’s imitations, 1757
• 146. Arthur Murphy, articles in The London Chronicle, 1757
• 147. Thomas Wilkes on Jonson and on Jonson actors of the day, 1759
• 148. Edward Young, Jonson and the load of learning, 1759
• 149. Charles Churchill, Jonson’s judgement, 1761
• 150. Garrick as Abel Drugger, 1762
• 151. Horace Walpole on Jonson, 1762–76
• 152. Samuel Rogers, Shakespeare and Jonson, 1763
• 153. David Erskine Baker On Jonson, 1764
• 154. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg on Jonson, 1765
• 155. John Brown, Bartholomew Fair revised, 1765
• 156. Edward Capell, Jonson’s borrowings, 1766
• 157. Jonson strong without passion, 1767
• 158. James Beattie, Jonson’s misuse of learning, 1769
• 159. Elizabeth Montague, Jonson and Shakespeare, 1769, 1770
• 160. Francis Gentleman, Jonson a bad writer, 1770
• 161. Charles Jenner, Sir Charles Beville at The Alchemist, 1770
• 162. Francis Gentleman’s The Tobacconist, 1770–1
• 163. George Colman’s revival of Volpone, 1771
• 164. Doubts on Jonson and the old dramatists, 1772
• 165. Shakespeare and Jonson compared, 1772
• 166. George Steevens on Jonson, 1773–8
• 167. Lord Camden, on reading Jonson, 1774
• 168. Francis Gentleman, notes on Jonson’s ode to Shakespeare, 1774
• 169. David Garrick on confidence tricks in The Alchemist, 1774
• 170. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Garrick’s Abel Drugger, 1775
• 171. George Colman’s Epicoene, 1776
• 172. Kitely preferred to Ford, 1778
• 173. Thomas Davies on Jonson revivals, 1780
• 174. B.Walwyn, Falstaff and Bobadil, 1782
• 175. Colman’s Volpone revived, 1783
• 176. Thomas Davies, observations on Jonson, 1783–4
• 177. George Colman, Jonson’s intentions in The Sad Shepherd, 1784
• 178. Richard Cumberland on Jonson, 1786–8
• 179. Henry Sampson Woodfall, Jun., Jonson’s vain contention with Shakespeare, 1788
• 180. Philip Neve on Jonson, 1789
• 181. Ludwig Tieck on Shakespeare and Jonson, 1794
• 182. Nathan Drake, Jonson’s inferior genius, 1798
• Bibliography
• Index