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JONSON , See also:BEN' (1573-1637), See also:English dramatist, was See also:born, probably in See also:Westminster, in the beginning of the See also:year 1573 (or possibly, if he reckoned by the unadopted See also:modern See also:calendar, 1572; see Castelain, p. 4, See also:note 1). By the poet's See also:account his grandfather had been a See also:gentleman who "came from" See also:Carlisle, and originally, the See also:grandson thought, from Annandale. His arms, " three spindles or rhombi," are the See also:family See also:device of the Johnstones of Annandale, a _fact which confirms his assertion of Border descent. Ben Jonson further related that he was born a See also:month after the See also:death of his See also:father, who, after suffering in See also:estate and See also:person under See also:Queen See also:Mary, had in the end " turned See also:minister." Two years after the See also:birth of her son the widow married again; she may be supposed to have loved him in a passionate way See also:peculiar to herself, since on one occasion we find her revealing an almost ferocious determination to See also:save his See also:honour at the cost of both his See also:life and her own. Jonson's stepfather was a See also:master bricklayer, living in See also:Hartshorn See also:Lane, near Charing See also:Cross, who provided his stepson with the See also:foundations of a See also:good See also:education. After attending a private school in St See also: He soon had enough of the trade, which was no doubt his father's bricklaying, for See also:Henslowe in See also:writing to See also:Edward Alleyne of his affair with See also:Gabriel See also:Spenser calls him " bergemen [sic] Jonson, bricklayer." Either before or after his See also:marriage—more probably before, as See also:Sir See also:Francis See also:Vere's three English regiments were not removed from the See also:Low Countries till 1592—he spent some See also:time in that See also:country soldiering, much to his own subsequent See also:satisfaction when the days of self-conscious retrospect arrived, but to no further purpose beyond that of seeing something of the See also:world.
Ben Jonson married not later than 1592. The registers of St Martin's See also: Jonson's additions, which were not the first changes made in the, play, are usually supposed to be those printed with The Spanish Tragedy in the edition of 1602; See also: The See also:quarrel with
Henslowe consequent on this event may account for the produc- Either on its performance or on its appearing in See also:print in 16o5 tion of Every Man in his Humour by the See also:rival company. In
prison Jonson was visited by a See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:priest, and the result (certainly See also:strange, if Jonson's parentage is considered) was his See also:conversion to the Church of See also:Rome, to which he adhered for twelve years. Jonson was afterwards a diligent student of divinity; but, though his mind was religious, it is not probable that its natural See also:bias much inclined it to dwell upon See also:creeds and their controversies. He pleaded guilty to the See also:charge brought against him, as the rolls of See also:Middlesex sessions show; but, after a See also:short imprisonment, he was released by benefit of See also:clergy, forfeiting his " goods and chattels," and being branded on his See also:left thumb. The affair does not seem to have affected his reputation; in 1599 he is found back again at See also:work for Henslowe, receiving together with See also:Dekker, See also:Chettle and " another gentleman," See also:earnest-See also:money for a tragedy (undiscovered) called See also:Robert II., See also: The play was completed fifteen See also:weeks after its See also:plot was first conceived. It is not certain to what the proceedings against author and play before the lord See also:chief See also:justice, referred to in the See also:dedication of the edition of 1616, had reference, or when they were instituted. Fleay's supposition that the " purge," said in the Returne from See also:Parnassus (Pt. II. See also:act 1v. sc. iii.) to have been administered by Shakespeare to Jonson in return for See also:Horace's " pill to the poets " in this piece, consisted of See also:Troilus and Cressida is supremely ingenious, but cannot be examined here. As for Dekker, he retaliated on The Poetaster by the Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1602). Some more last words were indeed attempted on Jonson's part, but in the A pologetic See also:Dialogue added to The Poetaster in the edition of 1616, though excluded from that of 16o2, he says he intends to turn his See also:attention to tragedy. This intention he apparently carried out immediately, for in 16o2 he received Do from Henslowe for a play, entitled See also:Richard Crookbacke, now lost—unfortunately so, for purposes of comparison in particular, even if it was only, as Fleay conjectures, " an alteration of See also:Marlowe's play." According to a statement by See also:Overbury, See also:early in 1603, " Ben See also: The Satyr (1603) was produced on one of these occasions, Queen See also:Anne's sojourn at Althorpe, the seat of Sir Robert See also:Spencer, afterwards Lord Althorpe, who seems to have previously bestowed some patronage upon him. The See also:Penates followed on May-day 1604 at the house of Sir William See also:Cornwallis at See also:Highgate, and the queen herself with her ladies played his Masque of Blackness at See also:Whitehall in 1605. He was soon occasionally employed by the court itself—already in 16o6 in See also:conjunction with Inigo See also: He thinks that the play in question, in which both Chapman and Jonson took part, was Sir Gyles Goosecappe, and that the last imprisonment of the two poets was shortly after the See also:discovery of the See also:Gunpowder Plot. In the mysterious See also:history of the See also:Gun-See also:powder Plot Jonson certainly had some obscure part. On the 7th of November, very soon after the discovery of the See also:conspiracy, the council appears to have sent for him and to have asked him, as a loyal Roman Catholic, to use his good offices in inducing the priests to do something required by the council—one hardly likes to conjecture it to have been some tampering with the secrets of See also:confession. In any case, the negotiations See also:fell through, because the priests declined to come forth out of their hiding-places to be negotiated with—greatly to the wrath of Ben Jonson, who declares in a letter to Lord Salisbury that " they are all so enweaved in it that it will make 500 gentlemen less of the See also:religion within this See also:week, if they carry their understanding about them." Jonson himself, however, did not declare his separation from the Church of Rome for five years longer, however much it might have been to his See also:advantage to do so. His See also:powers as a dramatist were at their height during the earlier half of the reign of James I.; and by the year 1616 he had produced nearly all the plays which are worthy of his genius. They include the tragedy of See also:Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only a doubtful success, and the comedies of Volpone, or the See also:Fox (acted 16o5 and printed in 1607 with a dedication " from my house in the Blackfriars "), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609; entered in the Stationers' See also:Register 161o), the Alchemist(i6io; printed in 161o), See also:Bartholomew See also:Fair and The See also:Devil is an See also:Ass (acted respectively in 1614 and 1616). During the same period he produced several masques, usually in connexion with Inigo Jones, with whom, however, he seems to have quarrelled already in this reign, though it is very doubtful whether the architect is really intended to be ridiculed in Bartholomew Fair under the character of Lanthorn See also:Leatherhead. Littlewit, according to Fleay, is Daniel. Among the most attractive of his masques maybe mentioned the Masque of Blackness (16o6), the Masque of Beauty (16o8), and the Masque of Queens (1609), described by See also:Swinburne as " the most splendid of all masques " and as " one of the typically splendid monuments or trophies of English literature." In 1616 a modest See also:pension of See also:ioo marks a year was conferred upon him; and possibly this sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to the publication of the first See also:volume of the folio collected edition of his See also:works (1616), though there are indications that he had contemplated its See also:production, an exceptional task for a playwright of his times to take in hand, as early as 1612. He had other patrons more bountiful than the See also:Crown, and for a brief space of time (in 1613) had travelled to See also:France as See also:governor (without apparently much moral authority) to the eldest son of Sir See also:Walter See also:Raleigh, then a state prisoner in the See also:Tower, for whose society Jonson may have gained a liking at the Mermaid Tavern in Cheapside, but for whose See also:personal character he, like so many of his contemporaries, seems to have had but small esteem. By the year 1616 Jonson seems to have made up his mind to cease writing for the stage, where neither his success nor his profits had equalled his merits and expectations. He continued to produce masques and entertainments when called upon; but he was attracted by many other literary pursuits, and had already accomplished enough to furnish plentiful materials for retrospective discourse over See also:pipe or See also:cup. He was already entitled to lord it at the Mermaid, where his See also:quick antagonist in earlier wit-combats (if Fuller's famous description be See also:authentic) no longer appeared even on a visit from his comfortable See also:retreat at See also:Stratford. That on the other hand Ben carried his wicked See also:town habits into See also:Warwickshire, and there, together with See also:Drayton, made Shakespeare drink so hard with them as to bring upon him-self the fatal See also:fever which ended his days, is a See also:scandal with which we may fairly refuse to load Jonson's memory. That he had a share in the preparing for the See also:press of the first folio of Shakespeare, or in the composition of its See also:preface, is of course a See also:mere conjecture.
It was in the year 1618 that, like Dr See also:Samuel Johnson a See also:century and a half afterwards, Ben resolved to have a real See also:holiday for once, and about midsummer started for his ancestral country, See also:Scotland. He had (very heroically for a man of his habits) determined to make the See also:journey on See also:foot; and he was speedily followed by John See also: This honour Jonson (hardly in deference to the memory of Sir See also:Petronel Flash) declined; but there was- no reason why he should not gratefully accept the increase of his pension in the same year (1621) to f2oo—a temporary increase only, inasmuch as it still stood at Too marks when afterwards augmented by Charles I. - The See also:close of King James I.'s reign found the foremost of its poets in anything but a prosperous condition. It would be unjust to hold the See also:Sun, the See also:Dog, the Triple See also:Tun, or the Old Devil with its See also:Apollo See also:club-See also:room, where Ben's supremacy must by this time have become established, responsible for this result; taverns were the clubs of that day, and a man of letters is not considered lost in our own because he haunts a smoking-room in See also:Pall Mall. Disease had weakened the poet's strength, and the burning of his library, as his Execration upon See also:Vulcan sufficiently shows, must have been no mere transitory trouble to a poor poet and See also:scholar. Moreover he cannot but have See also:felt, from the time of the See also:accession of Charles I. early in 1625 onwards, that the royal patronage would no longer be due in part to anything like intellectual sympathy. He thus thought it best to recur to the surer way of writing for the stage, and in 1625 produced, with no faint See also:heart, but with a very clear anticipation of the comments which would be made upon the reappearance of the " huge, overgrown play-maker," The See also:Staple of See also:News, a comedy excellent in some respects, but little calculated to become popular. It was not printed till 163r. Jonson, whose See also:habit of See also:body was not more conducive than were his ways of life to a healthy old See also:age, had a paralytic stroke in 1626, and a second in 1628. In the latter year, on the death of See also:Middleton, the See also:appointment of See also:city chronologer, with a See also:salary of ioo nobles a year, was bestowed upon him. He appears to have considered the duties of this office as purely ornamental; but in 1631 his salary was suspended until he should have presented some fruits of his labours in his place, or—as he more succinctly phrased it—" yesterday the barbarous court of aldermen have withdrawn their chandlerly pension for verjuice and See also:mustard, £33, 6s. 8d." After being in 1628 arrested by See also:mistake on the utterly false charge of having written certain verses in approval of the assassination of See also:Buckingham, he was soon allowed to return to Westminster, where it would appear from a letter of his " son and contiguous See also:neighbour," James See also:Howell, he was living in 1629, and about this time narrowly escaped another conflagration. In the same year (1629) he once more essayed the stage with the comedy of The New See also:Inn, which was actually, and on its own merits not unjustly, damned on the first performance. It was printed in 1631, " as it was never acted but most negligently played "; and Jonson defended himself against his critics in his spirited See also:Ode to Himself. The epilogue to The New Inn having dwelt not without dignity upon the neglect which the poet had experienced at the hands of " king and queen," King Charles immediately sent the unlucky author a See also:gift of £See also:loo, and in response to a further See also:appeal increased his See also:standing salary to the same sum, with the addition of an See also:annual tierce of See also:canary —the poet-See also:laureate's customary royal gift, though this designation of an office, of which Jonson discharged some of what became the See also:ordinary functions, is not mentioned in the See also:warrant dated the 26th of March 163o. In 1634, by the king's See also:desire, Jonson's salary as chronologer to the city was again paid. To his later years belong the comedies, The Magnetic Lady (1632) and The See also:Tale of a Tub (1633), both printed in 1640, and some masques, none of which met with great success. The patronage of liberal-minded men, such as the earl, afterwards duke, of See also:Newcastle—by whom he must have been commissioned to write his last two masques Love's Welcome at Welbeck (1633) and Love's Welcome at See also:Bolsover (1634)—and See also:Viscount See also:Falkland, was not wanting, and his was hardly an instance in which the fickleness of time and taste could have allowed a literary See also:veteran to end his career in neglect. He was the acknowledged chief of the English world of letters, both at the festive meetings where he ruled the roast among the younger authors whose See also:pride it was to be " sealed of the tribe of Ben, " and by the avowal of See also:grave writers, old or See also:young, not one of whom would have ventured to dispute his titular pre-See also:eminence. Nor was he to the last unconscious of the claims upon him which his position brought with it. When, nearly two years after he had lost his surviving son, death came upon the sick old man on the 6th of See also:August 1639, he left behind him an unfinished work of great beauty, the See also:pastoral drama of The Sad Shepherd (printed in 1641). For See also:forty years, he said in the prologue, he had feasted the public; at first he could scarce See also:hit its taste, but See also:patience had at last enabled it to identify itself with the working of his pen. We are so accustomed to think of Ben Jonson presiding, attentive to his own See also:applause, over a circle of younger followers and admirers that we are See also:apt to forget the hard struggle which he had passed through before gaining the crown now universally acknowledged to be his. Howell records, in the year before Ben's death, that a See also:solemn supper at the poet's own house, where the host had almost spoiled the relish of the feast by vilifying others and magnifying himself, " T. Ca. "(Thomas See also:Carew) buzzed in the writer's See also:ear " that, though Ben had barrelled up a great See also:deal of knowledge, yet it seemed he had not read the See also:Ethics,which, among other precepts of morality, forbid self-See also:commendation." Self-reliance is but too frequently coupled with self-consciousness, and for good and for evil self-confidence was no doubt the most prominent feature in the character of Ben Jonson. Hence the combativeness which involved him in so many quarrels in his earlier days, and which jarred so harshly upon the less militant and in some respects more pedantic nature of Drummond. But his quarrels do not appear to have entered deeply into his soul, or indeed usually to have lasted long.' He was too exuberant in his vituperations to be See also:bitter, and too outspoken to be malicious. He loved of all things to be called " honest," and there is every reason to suppose that he deserved the epithet. The old super- ' With Inigo Jones, however, in quarrelling with whom, as Howell reminds Jonson, the poet was virtually quarrelling with his See also:bread and See also:butter, he seems to have found it impossible to live permanently at See also:peace; his satirical Expostulation against the architect was published as late as 1635. Chapman's See also:satire against his old See also:associate, perhaps due to this quarrel, was left unfinished and unpublished.stition that Jonson was filled with See also:malignant envy of the greatest of his See also:fellow-dramatists, and lost no opportunity of giving expression to it, hardly needs See also:notice. Those who consider that Shakespeare was beyond criticism may find See also:blasphemy in the saying of Jonson that Shakespeare " wanted See also:art." Occasional jesting allusions to particular plays of Shakespeare may be found in Jonson, among which should hardly be included the sneer at " mouldy " See also:Pericles in his Ode to Himself. But these amount to nothing collectively, and to very little individually; and against them have to be set, not only the many pleasant traditions concerning the long intimacy between the pair, but also the lines, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, as noble as they are judicious, dedicated by the survivor to " the See also:star of poets," and the See also:adaptation, clearly sympathetic notwithstanding all its buts, de Shakespeare nostrat. in the Discoveries. But if Gifford had rendered no other service to Jonson's fame he must be allowed to have once for all vindicated it from the cruellest aspersion which has ever been See also:cast upon it. That in See also:general Ben Jonson was a man of strong likes and dislikes, and was wont to See also:manifest the latter as vehemently as the former, it would be idle to deny. He was at least impartial in his censures, dealing them out freely to Puritan poets like See also:Wither and (supposing him not to have exaggerated his free-spokenness) to princes of his church like See also:Cardinal du See also:Perron. And, if sensitive to attack, he seems to have been impervious to flattery—to See also:judge from the candour with which he condemned the foibles even of so enthusiastic an admirer as See also:Beaumont. The personage that he disliked the most, and openly abused in the roundest terms, was unfortunately one with many heads and a See also:tongue to hiss in each—no other than that " general public " which it was the fundamental mistake of his life to See also:fancy he could " See also:rail into approbation " before he had effectively secured its See also:goodwill. And upon the whole it may be said that the admiration of the few, rather than the favour of the many, has kept See also:green the fame of the most See also:independent among all the masters of an art which, in more senses than one, must please to live. Jonson's learning and See also:industry, which were alike exceptional, by no means exhausted themselves in furnishing and elaborating the materials of his dramatic works. His enemies sneered at him as a translator—a title which the preceding See also:generation was inclined to esteem the most See also:honourable in literature. But his classical scholarship shows itself in other directions besides his See also:translations from the Latin poets (the Ars poetica in particular), in addition to which he appears to have written a version of See also:Barclay's Argenis; it was likewise the basis of his English See also:Grammar, of which nothing but the rough draft remains (the MS. itself having perished in the See also:fire in his library), and in connexion with the subject of which he appears to have pursued other linguistic studies (Howell in 1629 was trying to procure him a Welsh grammar). And its effects are very visible in some of the most pleasing of his non-dramatic poems, which often display that See also:combination of See also:polish and simplicity hardly to be reached—or even to be appreciated—without some measure of classical training. Exclusively of the few lyrics in Jonson's dramas (which, with the exception of the stately choruses in Catiline, See also:charm, and perhaps may surprise, by their lightness of See also:touch), his non-dramatic works are comprised in the following collections. The See also:book of .Epigrams (published in the first folio of 1616) contained, in the poet's own words, the "ripest of his studies." His notion of an epigram was the See also:ancient, not the restricted modern one—still less that of the critic (R. C., the author of The Times' See also:Whistle) in whose See also:language, according to Jonson, "witty " was " obscene." On the whole, these epigrams excel more in encomiastic than in satiric touches, while the pathos of one or two epitaphs in the collection is of the truest kind. In the lyrics and epistles contained in the See also:Forest (also in the first folio), Jonson shows greater variety in the poetic styles adopted by him; but the subject of love, which See also:Dryden considered conspicuous by its See also:absence in the author's dramas, is similarly eschewed here. The Underwoods (not published collectively till the second and surreptitious folio) are a See also:miscellaneous See also:series, comprising, together with a few religious and a few amatory poems, a large number of epigrams, epitaphs, elegies and " odes," including both the tributes to later date, keeping in closer touch with the See also:common experience Shakespeare and several to royal and other patrons and See also:friends, besides the Execration upon Vulcan, and the characteristic ode addressed by the poet to himself. To these pieces in verse should be added the Discoveries—See also:Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matters, avowedly a See also:commonplace book of aphorisms noted by the poet in his daily readings—thoughts adopted and adapted in more tranquil and perhaps more sober moods than those which gave rise to the outpourings of the Conversations at Hawthornden. As to the critical value of these Conversations it is far from being only negative; he knew how to admire as well as how to disdain. For these thoughts, though abounding with See also:biographical as well as general See also:interest, Jonson was almost entirely indebted to ancient writers, or (as has been shown by See also:Professor Spingarn and by See also:Percy See also:Simpson) indebted to the humanists of the See also:Renaissance (see Modern Language See also:Review, ii. 3, See also:April 1907). The extant dramatic works of Ben Jonson fall into three or, if his fragmentary pastoral drama be considered to stand by itself, into four distinct divisions. The tragedies are only two in number—Sejanus his Fall and Catiline his Conspiracy.' Of these the earlier, as is worth noting, was produced at Shakespeare's See also:theatre, in all See also:probability before the first of Shakespeare's Roman dramas, and still contains a considerable admixture of See also:rhyme in the dialogue. Though perhaps less carefully elaborated in diction than its successor, Sejanus is at least equally impressive as a highly wrought dramatic treatment of a complex historic theme. The character of Tiberius adds an See also:element of curious psychological interest on which See also:speculation has never quite exhausted itself and which, in Jonson's day at least, was wanting to the figures of Catiline and his associates. But in both plays the See also:action is powerfully conducted, and the care bestowed by the dramatist upon the great variety of characters introduced cannot, as in some of his comedies, be said to distract the interest of the reader. Both these tragedies are noble works, though the relative popularity of the subject (for conspiracies are in the long run more interesting than camarillas) has perhaps secured the preference to Catiline. Yet this play and its predecessor were alike too manifestly intended by their author to court the goodwill of what he calls the " extraordinary " reader. It is difficult to imagine that (with the aid of judicious shortenings) either could altogether See also:miss its effect on the stage; but, while Shakespeare causes us to forget, Jonson seems to wish us to remember, his authorities. The half is often greater than the whole; and Jonson, like all dramatists and, it might be added, all novelists in similar cases, has had to pay the See also:penalty incurred by too obvious a desire to underline the learning of the author. Perversity—or would-be originality—alone could declare Jonson's tragedy preferable to his comedy. Even if the revolution which he created in the comic branch of the drama had been mistaken in its principles or unsatisfactory in its results, it would be clear that the strength of his dramatic genius See also:lay in the See also:power of depicting a great variety of characters, and that in comedy alone he succeeded in finding a wide See also: Bodham See also:Donne, has dwelt on the difficulty which, in The Poetaster and elsewhere, Ben Jonson seems to experience in sustaining the promise of his actions. The Poetaster is, however, a play sui generis, in which the real business can hardly be said to begin till the last act. Dryden, when criticizing Ben Jonson's comedies, thought See also:fit, while allowing the old master humour and incontestable " pleasantness," to deny him wit and those ornaments thereof which See also:Quintilian reckons up under the terms See also:urbana, salsa, faceta and so forth. Such wit as Dryden has in view is the mere outward fashion or style of the day, the See also:euphuism or " sheerwit " or See also:chic which is the creed of Fastidious Brisks and of their astute purveyors at any given moment. In this Ben Jonson was no doubt defective; but it would be an See also:error to suppose him, as a comic dramatist, to have maintained towards the world around him the attitude of a philosopher, careless of mere transient externalisms. It is said that the See also:scene of his Every Man in his Humour was originally laid near See also:Florence; and his Volpone, which is perhaps the darkest social picture ever See also:drawn by him, plays at See also:Venice. Neither locality was See also:ill-chosen, but the real See also:atmosphere of his comedies is that of the native surroundings amidst which they were produced; and Ben Jonson's times live for us in his men and See also:women, his country gulls and town gulls, his alchemists and exorcists, his " skeldring " captains and whining Puritans, and the whole ragamuffin rout of his Bartholomew Fair, the comedy See also:par excellence of Elizabethan low life. After he had described the pastimes, fashionable and unfashionable, of his age, its feeble superstitions and its flaunting naughtinesses, its vapouring affectations and its lying effronteries, with an odour as of " divine tabacco " pervading the whole, little might seem to be left to describe for his " sons " and successors. Enough, however, remained; only that his followers speedily again threw manners and "humours" into an undistinguishable medley. The gift which both in his art and in his life Jonson lacked was that of exercising the See also:influence or creating the effects which he wished to exercise or create without the appearance of consciousness. Concealment never crept over his efforts, and he scorned insinuation. Instead of this, influenced no doubt by the example of the free relations between author and public permitted by See also:Attic comedy, he resorted again and again, from Every Man out of his Humour to The Magnetic Lady, to inductions and commentatory intermezzos and appendices, which, though occasionally effective by the excellence of their execution, are to be regretted as introducing into his dramas an See also:exotic and often vexatious element. A man of letters to the very core, he never quite understood that there is and ought to be a wide difference of methods between the world of letters and the world of the theatre. The richness and versatility of Jonson's genius will never be fully appreciated by those who fail to acquaint themselves with what is preserved to us of his " masques " and cognate entertainments. He was conscious enough of his success in this direction—" next himself," he said, " only See also:Fletcher and See also:Chap-man could write a masque:" He introduced, or at least established, the ingenious innovation of the See also:anti-masque, which See also:Schlegel has described, as a species of " See also:parody added by the poet to his device, and usually prefixed to the serious entry," and which accordingly supplies a See also:grotesque antidote to the often extravagantly imaginative See also:main conception. Jonson's learning, creative power and humorous ingenuity—combined, it should not be forgotten, with a genuine lyrical gift—all found abundant opportunities for displaying themselves in these productions. Though a growth of See also:foreign origin, the masque was by him thoroughly domesticated in the high places of English literature. He lived long enough to see the species produce its poetic masterpiece in Comas. The Sad Shepherd, of which Jonson left behind; him three acts and a prologue, is distinguished among English pastoral dramas by its freshness of See also:tone; it breathes something of the spirit of the See also:greenwood, and is not unnatural even in its supernatural element. While this piece, with its charming love-scenes between See also:Robin Hood and Maid See also:Marion, remains a fragment, another pastoral by Jonson, the May Lord (which F. G. Fleay and J. A. See also:Symonds sought to identify with The Sad Shepherd; see, however, W. W. See also:Greg in introduction to the See also:Louvain reprint), has been lost, and a third, of which See also:Loch See also:Lomond was intended to be the scene, probably remained unwritten. Though Ben Jonson never altogether recognized the truth of the See also:maxim that the dramatic art has properly speaking no didactic purpose, his long and laborious life was not wasted upon a barren endeavour. In tragedy he added two works of uncommon merit to our dramatic literature. In comedy his aim was higher, his effort more sustained, and his success more solid than were those of any of his See also:fellows. In the subsidiary and hybrid species of the masque, he helped to open B. new and attractive though :unddubtedly devious path in the field of dramatic literature. His intellectual endowments surpassed those of most of the great English dramatists in richness and breadth; and in See also:energy. of application he probably left them all behind. Inferior to more than one of his fellow-dramatists in the power of imaginative sympathy, he was first among the Elizabethans in the power of observation; and there is point in See also:Barrett Wendell's See also:paradox, that as a dramatist he was not really a poet but a painter. Yet it is less by these gifts, or even by his unexcelled capacity for hard work, than by the true See also:ring of manliness that he will always remain distinguished among his peers. Jonson was buried on the See also:north See also:side of the See also:nave in Westminster See also:Abbey, and the inscription, " O Rare Ben Jonson," was cut in the slab over his grave. In the beginning of the 18th century a portrait bust was put up to his memory in the Poets' Corner by Harley, earl of Oxford. Of See also:Honthorst's portrait of Jonson at Knole See also:Park there is a copy in the National Portrait See also:Gallery; another was engraved by W. See also:Marshall for the 164o edition of his Poems. The criticisms of Ben Jonson are too numerous for cataloguing here; among those by eminent Englishmen should be specially mentioned John Dryden s, particularly those in his ,be on Dramatic Poesy (1667–1668; revised 1684), and in the preface to An Evening's Love, or the See also:Mock Astrologer (1668), and A. C. Swinburne's Study of Ben Jonson (1889), in which, however, the significance of the Discoveries is misapprehended, See also F. G. Fleay, Biographical See also:Chronicle of the English Drama (1891), i. 311-387, ii. 1-18; C. H. See also:Herford, " Ben Jonson "(art. in See also:Diet. Nat. Biog., vol. See also:xxx., 1802) ; A. W. See also: Soergel, See also:Die englischen Maskenspiele (1882) and J. See also:Schmidt, Ober Ben Jonson's Maskenspiele," in Herrig's Archie, &c., See also:xxvii. 51–91. See also H. Reinsch, " Ben Jonson's Poetik and See also:seine Beziehungen zu Horaz," in Miinchener Beitrage, 16 (1899), (A. W. 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