“If there be never a _servant-monster_ in the Fair, who can help it
he says, nor a nest of antiques?”
The best excuse that can be made for Jonson, and in a somewhat less degree
for Beaumont and Fletcher, in respect of these base and silly sneers at
Shakespeare is, that his plays were present to men’s minds chiefly as
acted. They had not a neat edition of them, as we have, so as, by
comparing the one with the other, to form a just notion of the mighty mind
that produced the whole. At all events, and in every point of view, Jonson
stands far higher in a moral light than Beaumont and Fletcher. He was a
fair contemporary, and in his way, and as far as Shakespeare is concerned,
an original. But Beaumont and Fletcher were always imitators of, and often
borrowers from him, and yet sneer at him with a spite far more malignant
than Jonson, who, besides, has made noble compensation by his praises.