It would be amusing to collect out of our dramatists from Elizabeth to
Charles I. proofs of the manners of the times. One striking symptom of
general coarseness of manners, which may co-exist with great refinement of
morals, as, alas! _vice versa_, is to be seen in the very frequent
allusions to the olfactories with their most disgusting stimulants, and
these, too, in the conversation of virtuous ladies. This would not appear
so strange to one who had been on terms of familiarity with Sicilian and
Italian women of rank: and bad as they may, too many of them, actually be,
yet I doubt not that the extreme grossness of their language has impressed
many an Englishman of the present era with far darker notions than the
same language would have produced in the mind of one of Elizabeth’s or
James’s courtiers. Those who have read Shakespeare only, complain of
occasional grossness in his plays; but compare him with his
contemporaries, and the inevitable conviction, is that of the exquisite
purity of his imagination.
The observation I have prefixed to the _Volpone_ is the key to the faint
interest which these noble efforts of intellectual power excite, with the
exception of the fragment of the _Sad Shepherd_; because in that piece
only is there any character with whom you can morally sympathise. On the
other hand, _Measure for Measure_ is the only play of Shakespeare’s in
which there are not some one or more characters, generally many, whom you
follow with affectionate feeling. For I confess that Isabella, of all
Shakespeare’s female characters, pleases me the least; and _Measure for
Measure_ is, indeed, the only one of his genuine works, which is painful
to me.
Let me not conclude this remark, however, without a thankful
acknowledgment to the _manes_ of Ben Jonson, that the more I study his
writings, I the more admire them; and the more my study of him resembles
that of an ancient classic, in the _minutiæ_ of his rhythm, metre, choice
of words, forms of connection, and so forth, the more numerous have the
points of my admiration become. I may add, too, that both the study and
the admiration cannot but be disinterested, for to expect therefrom any
advantage to the present drama would be ignorance. The latter is utterly
heterogeneous from the drama of the Shakespearian age, with a diverse
object and contrary principle. The one was to present a model by imitation
of real life, taking from real life all that in it which it ought to be,
and supplying the rest;—the other is to copy what is, and as it is,—at
best a tolerable but most frequently a blundering, copy. In the former the
difference was an essential element; in the latter an involuntary defect.
We should think it strange, if a tale in dance were announced, and the
actors did not dance at all;—and yet such is modern comedy.
Whalley’s Preface.
“But Jonson was soon sensible, how inconsistent this medley of
names and manners was in reason and nature; and with how little
propriety it could ever have a place in a legitimate and just
picture of real life.”
But did Jonson reflect that the very essence of a play, the very language
in which it is written, is a fiction to which all the parts must conform?
Surely, Greek manners in English should be a still grosser improbability
than a Greek name transferred to English manners. Ben’s _personæ_ are too
often not characters, but derangements;—the hopeless patients of a
mad-doctor rather,—exhibitions of folly betraying itself in spite of
exciting reason and prudence. He not poetically, but painfully exaggerates
every trait; that is, not by the drollery of the circumstance, but by the
excess of the originating feeling.
“But to this we might reply, that far from being thought to build
his characters upon abstract ideas, he was really accused of
representing particular persons then existing; and that even those
characters which appear to be the most exaggerated, are said to
have had their respective archetypes in nature and life.”
This degrades Jonson into a libeller, instead of justifying him as a
dramatic poet. _Non quod verum est, sed quod verisimile_, is the
dramatist’s rule. At all events, the poet who chooses transitory manners,
ought to content himself with transitory praise. If his object be
reputation, he ought not to expect fame. The utmost he can look forwards
to, is to be quoted by, and to enliven the writings of, an antiquarian.
Pistol, Nym, and _id genus omne_, do not please us as characters, but are
endured as fantastic creations, foils to the native wit of Falstaff.—I say
wit emphatically; for this character so often extolled as the masterpiece
of humour, neither contains, nor was meant to contain, any humour at all.
“Whalley’s ‘Life Of Jonson.’ ”
“It is to the honour of Jonson’s judgment, that _the greatest poet
of our nation_ had the same opinion of Donne’s genius and wit; and
hath preserved part of him from perishing, by putting his thoughts
and satire into modern verse.”
_Videlicet_ Pope!—
“He said further to Drummond, Shakespeare wanted art, and
sometimes sense; for in one of his plays he brought in a number of
men, saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is no
sea near by a hundred miles.”
I have often thought Shakespeare justified in this seeming anachronism. In
Pagan times a single name of a German kingdom might well be supposed to
comprise a hundred miles more than at present. The truth is, these notes
of Drummond’s are more disgraceful to himself than to Jonson. It would be
easy to conjecture how grossly Jonson must have been misunderstood, and
what he had said in jest, as of Hippocrates, interpreted in earnest. But
this is characteristic of a Scotchman; he has no notion of a jest, unless
you tell him—“This is a joke!”—and still less of that finer shade of
feeling, the half-and-half, in which Englishmen naturally delight.
“Every Man Out Of His Humour.”