_Abel Drugger_, in Ben Jonson's "Alchemist," was one of Garrick's famous
parts.
P. 326. _author of Mustapha_. Fulke Greville.
_Kit Marlowe_ (1564-1593), the most brilliant writer of tragedy before
Shakespeare. He wrote "Tamburlaine the Great," "The Tragical History of
Dr. Faustus," "The Jew of Malta," and "Edward the Second." In the "Age of
Elizabeth" Hazlitt says of him, "There is a lust of power in his writings,
a hunger and thirst after unrighteousness, a glow of the imagination,
unhallowed by any thing but its own energies."
_Webster_, John, wrote during the first quarter of the seventeenth
century. His chief plays are "The White Devil" and the "Duchess of Malfy."
_Dekker_, Thomas (c. 1570-1641). "The Shoemaker's Holiday," "The Honest
Whore," and "Old Fortunatus" are his best plays. In the third lecture of
the "Age of Elizabeth" Hazlitt thus compares Webster and Dekker: "Webster
would, I think, be a greater dramatic genius than Deckar, if he had the
same originality; and perhaps is so, even without it. His White Devil and
Duchess of Malfy, upon the whole perhaps, come the nearest to Shakspeare
of anything we have upon record; the only drawback to them, the only shade
of imputation that can be thrown upon them, 'by which they lose some
colour,' is, that they are too like Shakspeare, and often direct
imitations of him, both in general conception and individual
expression.... Deckar has, I think, more truth of character, more
instinctive depth of sentiment, more of the unconscious simplicity of
nature; but he does not, out of his own stores, clothe his subject with
the same richness of imagination, or the same glowing colours of language.
Deckar excels in giving expression to certain habitual, deeply-rooted
feelings, which remain pretty much the same in all circumstances, the
simple uncompounded elements of nature and passion:--Webster gives more
scope to their various combinations and changeable aspects, brings them
into dramatic play by contrast and comparison, flings them into a state of
fusion by a kindled fancy, makes them describe a wider arc of oscillation
from the impulse of unbridled passion, and carries both terror and pity to
a more painful and sometimes unwarrantable excess. Deckar is content with
the historic picture of suffering; Webster goes on to suggest horrible
imaginings. The pathos of the one tells home and for itself; the other
adorns his sentiments with some image of tender or awful beauty. In a
word, Deckar is more like Chaucer or Boccaccio; as Webster's mind appears
to have been cast more in the mould of Shakespeare's, as well naturally as
from studious emulation."
_Heywood_, Thomas (d. c. 1650), a prolific dramatist who excelled in the
homely vein. His best-known play is "The Woman Killed with Kindness."
_Beaumont_, Francis (1584-1616), and _Fletcher_, John (1579-1625),
composed their dramas in collaboration. In the "Age of Elizabeth" Hazlitt
calls them lyric and descriptive poets of the first order, but as regards
drama "the first writers who in some measure departed from the genuine
tragic style of the age of Shakspeare. They thought less of their subject,
and more of themselves, than some others. They had a great and
unquestioned command over the stores both of fancy and passion; but they
availed themselves too often of commonplace extravagances and theatrical
trick.... The example of preceding or contemporary writers had given them
facility; the frequency of dramatic exhibition had advanced the popular
taste; and this facility of production, and the necessity for appealing to
popular applause, tended to vitiate their own taste, and to make them
willing to pamper that of the public for novelty and extraordinary effect.
There wants something of the sincerity and modesty of the older writers.
They do not wait nature's time, or work out her materials patiently and
faithfully, but try to anticipate her, and so far defeat themselves. They
would have a catastrophe in every scene; so that you have none at last:
they would raise admiration to its height in every line; so that the
impression of the whole is comparatively loose and desultory. They pitch
the characters at first in too high a key, and exhaust themselves by the
eagerness and impatience of their efforts. We find all the prodigality of
youth, the confidence inspired by success, an enthusiasm bordering on
extravagance, richness running riot, beauty dissolving in its own
sweetness. They are like heirs just come to their estates, like lovers in
the honeymoon. In the economy of nature's gifts, they 'misuse the
bounteous Pan, and thank the Gods amiss.' Their productions shoot up in
haste, but bear the marks of precocity and premature decay. Or they are
two goodly trees, the stateliest of the forest, crowned with blossoms, and
with the verdure springing at their feet; but they do not strike their
roots far enough into the ground, and the fruit can hardly ripen for the
flowers!"
_Jonson_, Ben (1573-1637), was the originator of the "comedy of humors."
Hazlitt, in discussing him at length in the second lecture on the "Comic
Writers," confesses a disrelish for his style. "He was a great man in
himself, but one cannot readily sympathise with him. His works, as the
characteristic productions of an individual mind, or as records of the
manners of a particular age, cannot be valued too highly; but they have
little charm for the mere general reader. Schlegel observes, that whereas
Shakspeare gives the springs of human nature, which are always the same,
or sufficiently so to be interesting and intelligible; Jonson chiefly
gives the _humours_ of men, as connected with certain arbitrary and
conventional modes of dress, action, and expression, which are
intelligible only while they last, and not very interesting at any time.
Shakspeare's characters are men; Ben Jonson's are more like machines,
governed by mere routine, or by the convenience of the poet, whose
property they are.... His portraits are caricatures by dint of their very
likeness, being extravagant tautologies of themselves; as his plots are
improbable by an excess of consistency; for he goes thoroughstitch with
whatever he takes in hand, makes one contrivance answer all purposes, and
every obstacle give way to a predetermined theory.... Old Ben was of a
scholastic turn and had dealt a little in the occult sciences and
controversial divinity. He was a man of strong crabbed sense, retentive
memory, acute observation, great fidelity of description and keeping in
character, a power of working out an idea so as to make it painfully true
and oppressive, and with great honesty and manliness of feeling, as well
as directness of understanding: but with all this, he wanted, to my
thinking, that genial spirit of enjoyment and finer fancy, which
constitute the essence of poetry and wit.... There was nothing
spontaneous, no impulse or ease about his genius: it was all forced,
up-hill work, making a toil of pleasure. And hence his overweening
admiration of his own works, from the effort they had cost him, and the
apprehension that they were not proportionably admired by others, who knew
nothing of the pangs and throes of his Muse in child-bearing." Works,
VIII, 39-41. Of Ben Jonson's tragedies Hazlitt held a higher opinion than
of his comedies. "The richer the soil in which he labours, the less dross
and rubbish we have.... His tenaciousness of what is grand and lofty, is
more praiseworthy than his delight in what is low and disagreeable. His
pedantry accords better with didactic pomp than with illiterate and vulgar
gabble; his learning engrafted on romantic tradition or classical history,
looks like genius.... His tragedy of the Fall of Sejanus, in particular,
is an admirable piece of ancient mosaic.... The depth of knowledge and
gravity of expression sustain one another throughout: the poet has worked
out the historian's outline, so that the vices and passions, the ambition
and servility of public men, in the heated and poisonous atmosphere of a
luxurious and despotic court, were never described in fuller or more
glowing colours." Works, V, 262-3.
_a vast species alone_. Cowley's "The Praise of Pindar."
_G----_. Godwin, according to "Literary Remains."
_Drummond of Hawthornden_. William Drummond (1585-1649), the poet who
recorded his conversation with Ben Jonson on the occasion of a visit paid
to him by the latter in 1618. "He has not done himself or Jonson any
credit by his account of their conversation," says Hazlitt in the
"Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth." Works, V, 299.
_Eugene Aram_ was hanged in 1759 for a murder he had committed several
years earlier.
_Admirable Crichton_. James Crichton (1560?-1582), a Scotchman of noble
birth who, in a brief life, gained the reputation of universal genius and
concerning whose powers many legends arose.