common practice of contrasting the two poets, and after observing that 66 Shakspeare wants no light but his own; 'for' as he never has been equalled, and in all human probability never will be equalled, it seems an invidious employ, at best, to speculate minutely on the precise degree in which others fell short of him," proceeds to state, that "the judgment of Jonson was correct and severe, and his knowledge of human nature extensive and profound. He was familiar with the various combinations of the humours and affections, and with the nice and evanescent tints by which the extremes of opposing qualities melt into one another, and are lost to the vulgar eye: but the art which he possessed in perfection, was that of marking in the happiest manner the different shades of the same quality, in different minds, so as to discriminate the voluptuous from the voluptuous, the covetous from the covetous, &c.

"In what Hurd calls picturing,' he was excellent. His characters are delineated with a breadth and vigour, as well as a truth, that display a master hand; his figures stand prominent on the canvas, bold and muscular, though not elegant; his attitudes, though some times ungraceful, are always just; while his strict observation of proportion, (in which he was eminently skilled,) occasionally mellowed the hard and rigid tone of his colouring, and by the mere force of symmetry, gave a warmth to the whole, as pleasing as it was unexpected. Such, in a word, was his success, that it may be doubted whether he has been surpassed, or even equalled, by any of those who have attempted to tread in his steps.

"In the plots of his comedies, which were constructed from his own materials, he is deserving of undisputed praise. Without violence; without, indeed, any visible effort, the various events of the story are so linked together, that they have the appearance of accidental introduction; yet they all contribute to the main design, and support that just harmony which alone constitutes a perfect fable. Such, in fact, is the rigid accuracy of his plans, that it requires a constant, and almost painful attention, to trace out their various bearings and dependencies. Nothing is left to chance: before he sat

down to write, he had evidently arranged every circumstance in his mind; preparations are made for incidents which do not immediately occur; and hints are dropped, which can only be comprehended at the unravelling of the piece. The play does not end with Jonson, because the fifth act is come to a conclusion; nor are the most important events precipitated, and the most violent revolutions of character suddenly effected, because the progress of the story has involved the poet in difficulties from which he cannot otherwise extricate himself. This praise, whatever be its worth, is enhanced by the rigid attention paid to the unities; to say nothing of those of place and character, that of time is so well observed in most of his comedies, that the representation occupies scarcely an hour more on the stage, than the action would require in real life.” *

Mr. Gifford then goes on to explain, why Jonson, “with such extraordinary requisites for the stage, joined to a strain of poetry always manly, frequently lofty, and sometimes sublime," should not have retained his popularity; accounting for this result by the assignment of three causes, of which the first was, his dismissing "the grace and urbanity which mark his lighter pieces whenever he approached the stage, putting on the censor with the sock;" the second sprung from the circumstance, that "Jonson was the painter of humours, not of passions," and aiming less to excite laughter in his hearers," than to feast their understanding, and minister to their rational improvement," he frequently brought forward unamiable and uninteresting characters, pests which he wished to extirpate from society, not only by rendering them ridiculous, but by exhibiting them in an odious and disgusting light; and the third was, " a want of just discrimination. He seems to have been deficient,” observes Mr. Gifford," in that true tact or feeling of propriety which Shakspeare possessed in full excellence. He appears to have had an equal value for all his characters, and he labours upon the most

* Gifford's Jonson, vol. i. Memoirs of Jonson, pp. ccxiii.-CCXV.

unimportant, and even disagreeable of them, with the same fond and paternal assiduity which accompanies his happiest efforts."* This laboured and indiscriminate finishing may be termed, indeed, one of the prominent characteristics of Jonson's composition; and has, perhaps, more than any thing else, contributed to obscure his reputation. The genius of Jonson seems to have forsaken him, when he touched the tragic chords. Neither pity nor terror answered to his call, and Sejanus and Catiline are valuable, principally, for their correct, though cold and hard, delineations of Roman character and costume. It is remarkable, that, in the construction of these tragedies, Jonson has deserted his Athenian masters, and, adopting the licence of the Romantic school, he has laid aside the unities of time and place; but without acquiring that breadth and freedom in the execution of his subjects, with which such deviations ought to have been accompanied. The devotion of the poet to this high department of his art was not confined, however, to these two Roman dramas; he had planned a tragedy on the Fall of Mortimer, of which only a small fragment remains; and we find, from the Dulwich Manuscripts, that, the year preceding the first performance of Sejanus, he had actually been engaged in writing a play on the subject of Richard the Third:-" Lent unto Benjemy Johstone," says Henslowe's memorandum," at the appoyntment of E. Alleyn and Wm. Birde the 22 June 1602, in earnest of a boocke called Richard Crook-back, and for new adycions for Jeronymo, the some of xlb." † The Richard of Jonson, and the Macbeth of Milton!-would that time had spared the one and witnessed the execution of the other! How delightful, how interesting might have been the labour of comparison !

If Jonson failed, as he must be allowed to have done, in communicating pathos and interest to his tragic productions, he has made us ample amends by the unrivalled excellence of his numerous Masques, a species of dramatic poetry, to which he, and he alone, put the seal of

VOL. II.

* Gifford's Jonson, vol. i. Memoirs, pp. ccxvi.-ccxix.

+ Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 394.

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perfection. Here his imagination, which, in the peculiar line of comedy he cultivated, had but little scope for expansion, and was, in his tragedies, altogether repressed, by an undeviating adhesion to the letter of history, expatiated as in its native element. "No sooner," remarks Mr. Gifford, "has he taken down his lyre, no sooner touched on his lighter pieces, than all is changed as if by magic, and he seems a new person. His genius awakes at once, his imagination becomes fertile, ardent, versatile, and excursive; his taste pure and elegant; and all his faculties attuned to sprightliness and pleasure.”* No greater honour, however, has been paid to the memory of Jonson, than the proof which Mr. Godwin has brought forward of his being the favourite author of Milton, "the predecessor that he chiefly had in his eye, and whom he seems principally to resemble in

* Gifford's Jonson, vol. i. Memoirs, p. ccxxx. After the passage which we have inserted in the text, follow these admirable observations:

"Such were the Masques of Jonson, in which, as Mr. Malone says, the wretched taste of those times found amusement.' That James and his court delighted in them cannot be doubted, and we have only to open the Memoirs of Winwood and others to discover with what interest they were followed by the nobility of both sexes. Can we wonder at this? There were few entertainments of a public kind at which they could appear, and none in which they could participate. Here all was worthy of their hours of relaxation. Mythologues of classic purity, in which, as Hurd observes, the soundest moral lessons came recommended by the charm of numbers, were set forth with all the splendour of royalty, while Jones and Lanier, and Lawes and Ferrabosco, lavished all the grace and elegance of their respective arts on the embellishment of the entertainment.

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"But in what was the taste of the times wretched? In poetry, painting, architecture, they have not since been equalled; in theology, and moral philosophy, they are not even now surpassed; and it ill becomes us, who live in an age which can scarcely produce a Bartholomew Fair farce, to arraign the taste of a period which possessed a cluster of writers, of whom the meanest would now be esteemed a prodigy. And why is it assumed that the followers of the court of James were deficient in what Mr. Malone is pleased to call taste? To say nothing of the men, (who were trained to a high sense of decorum and intellectual discernment under Elizabeth,) the Veres, the Wroths, the Derbys, the Bedfords, the Rutlands, the Cliffords, and the Arundels, who danced in the fairy rings, in the gay and gallant circles of these enchanting devices, of which our most splendid shows are, at best, but beggarly parodies, were fully as accomplished in every internal and external grace as those who, in our days, have succeeded to their names and honours."-Memoirs, pp. ccxxx. CCXXX.

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his style of composition." * Among the numerous passages by which he has substantiated this fact, none are more conspicuous than those that breathe the spirit of the lyrical portion of the Masques; for " Milton," as he observes, "will certainly be found to have studied his compositions in this kind more assiduously, than those of any of his contemporaries. It would be strange indeed, if the poet, who in early youth composed the Mask of Comus, had not diligently studied the writings of Ben Jonson." † Can there be a test of merit more indisputable than this? for Comus, though by no means faultless as a Masque, has to boast of a poetry more rich and imaginative than is to be found in any other composition, save The Tempest of Shakspeare.

"It is not however," proceeds Mr. Godwin," in lighter and incidental matters only, that Milton studied the great model afforded him by Jonson: we may find in him much that would almost tempt us to hold opinion with Pythagoras, and to believe that the very spirit and souls of some men became transfused into their poetical successors. The address of our earlier poet to the two universities, prefixed to his most consummate performance, the comedy of The Fox, will strike every reader familiar with the happiest passages of Milton's prose, with its wonderful resemblance. They were both of them emphatically poets who had sounded the depths, and formed themselves in the school, of classic lore.

"The difference between them' may perhaps best be illustrated from the topic of religion. They had neither of them one spark of libertine and latitudinarian unbelief. But Jonson was not, like Milton, penetrated with his religion. It is to him a sort of servitude it is not the principle that actuates, but the check that controls him. But in Milton, it is the element in which he breathes, a part of his He acts, as ever in his Great Task-master's eye:' and this is not his misfortune; but he rejoices in his condition, that he has

nature.

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* Gifford's Jonson, vol. i. p. ccxcvii.

+ Ibid. vol. i. pp. ccciii.cccv.