History of English Humour Volume I Part 15

The enigmas and logical quibbles, which he occasionally intermingles with his verbal conceits, remind us of the old philosophic paradoxes.

Sometimes a riddle is attempted; thus, he asks--"What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old now?" Answer--"The Moon."

Taken generally, there is such a remarkable uniformity in Shakespeare's humour as must acquit him of all charge of plagiarism in this respect, and may go some way towards proving the general originality of his plays. Certainly, verbal conceits were then in high favour, and the character of Shakespeare's humour is only one of many proofs that pleasantry had not at this time reached its highest excellence.

To Shakespeare's kindness and discretion Ben Jonson owed his first introduction to dramatic fame. The young poet had presented "Every Man in his Humour," to one of the leading players of the company to which Shakespeare belonged, and the comedian upon reading it, determined to refuse it. Jonson's fate was trembling in the balance; he was a struggling man, and, had he been unsuccessful, might have eventually, returned to his bricklayer's work, but he was destined to be raised up for his own benefit and that of others. Shakespeare was present when his play was about to be rejected, asked to be allowed to look over it, and, at once recognising the poet's talent, recommended it to his companions.

From that moment Jonson's career was secured. But he was never destined to acquire the lasting fame of Shakespeare. With him the stream of Comedy was losing its deep and strong reflections, and beginning to flow in a swifter and shallower current, meandering through labyrinths of court and city life. Perhaps, also, his large amount of humorous ill.u.s.tration, which must have been mostly ephemeral, tended to cut short his fame. The best of it is interwoven with his several designs and plots, as where, in "The Alchemist," a gentleman leaves his house in town, and his housekeeper fills it with fortune-tellers vagabonds, who carry on their trade there; and in "The Fox" a rich and childless man is courted by his friends, from whom he obtains presents under the pretence that he will leave them his property. In this last play a parasite is introduced, and in general these plays abound with cla.s.sical allusions, sometimes very incongruously intermixed with modern concerns. An indiscriminating admiration of ancient literature and art was as much one of the features of the day, as was its crude humour--a cleverness joined to folly and attributed to b.o.o.bies and simpletons. Much of this jocosity scarcely deserves the name of humour, and we may remark that in Jonson's time it did not receive it. With him humour is thus defined--

"To be a quality of air or water, And in itself holds these two properties, Moisture and fluxure.... Now thus far It may by metaphor apply itself Unto the general disposition: As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his power."

The social peculiarities of the day are frequently alluded to by Jonson.

In "Every Man out of his own Humour," we have complete directions for the conduct of a gentleman of the time. Smoking, then lately introduced, is especially mentioned as one of the necessities of foppery. Cob, a water-bearer says, "Ods me, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them they say will never 'scape it: he cast up a bushel of soot yesterday."

In Cynthia's Revels a courtier is thus described--

"He walks most commonly with a clove or toothpick in his mouth: he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are pointed: his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him, sweats to imitate him in everything to a hair, except his beard, which is not yet extant."

But the stamp of the age is especially prominent in the constant recurrence of verbal conceits. Jonson was fond of coining words, and of using such as are long and little known. He evidently found this a successful kind of humour, and may have partly imitated Plautus--

Lady Politick Would-be, to Volpone, supposed sick--

Seed pearl were good now, boiled with syrup of apples, Tincture of gold, and coral, citron pills, Your elicampane root, myrobalanes--

_Volpone (tired with her talk)_ Ah me! I have ta'en a gra.s.shopper by the wing.

In "The Alchemist" Subtle says to Face,

Sirrah my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him Like a philosopher: answer in the language, Name the vexations and the martyrizations Of metals in the work.

Face. Sir, putrefaction, Solution, ablution, sublimation, Cohabation, calcination, ceration and Fixation.

From "Every Man out of his Humour."

_Macilente._ Pork! heart! what dost thou with such a greasy dish? I think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so like a glue-pot.

_Carlo._ True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it too, they would not like rugged laths, rub out so many doublets as they do; but thou knowest not a good dish thou. No marvel though, that saucy stubborn generation, the Jews, were forbidden it, for what would they have done, well pampered with fat pork, that durst murmur at their Maker out of garlick and onions?

'Slight! fed with it--the strummel-patched, goggle-eyed, grumbledones would have gigantomachized.--

The following extracts will give a slight idea of Ben Jonson's varied talent. At the conclusion of a play directed against plagiarists and libellers, he sums up--

"Blush, folly, blus.h.!.+ here's none that fears The wagging of an a.s.s's ears, Although a wolfish case he wears.

Detraction is but baseness varlet And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet."

From "The Alchemist."

_Tribulation._ What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you.

Sathan our common enemy, but his being Perpetually about the fire, and boiling Brimstone and a.r.s.enic?...

_Fastidious._ How like you her wit.

_Macilente._ Her ingenuity is excellent, Sir.

_Fast._ You see the subject of her sweet fingers there (_the viol_) oh, she tickles it so that--she makes it laugh most divinely--I'll tell you a good jest just now, and yourself shall say it's a good one. I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think a thousand times, and not so few by heaven.

The two following are from "Bartholomew Fair."

_Littlewit._ I envy no man my delicates, Sir.

_Winwife._ Alas, you have the garden where they grow still. A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head like a melicotton.

_Lit._ Good i' faith! now dulness upon us, that I had not that before him, that I should not light on't as well as he! Velvet head!...

_Knockem._ Sir, I will take your counsel, and cut my hair, and leave vapours. I see that tobacco and bottle ale, and pig and whit, and very Ursula herself is all vanity.

_Busy._ Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition--the rest were: for long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a banner: and the world is full of those banners--very full of banners. And bottle ale is a drink of Satan's, a diet-drink of Satan's devised to puff us up, and make us swell in this latter age of vanity; as the smoke of tobacco to keep us in mist and error: but the fleshly woman, which you call Ursula, is above all to be avoided, having the marks upon her of the three enemies of man--the world, as being in the Fair, the Devil, as being in the fire;[53] and the flesh as being herself.

Ben Jonson has a strange, and I believe original conceit of introducing persons to explain their plays, and make remarks on the characters.

Sometimes many interruptions of this kind occur in the course of a drama, affording variety and amus.e.m.e.nt to the audience, or the reader.

In "Midsummer's Night's Dream" we have the insertion of a play within a play. The following taken from Jonson's epigrams have fine complexity, and show a certain tinge of humour.

THE HOUR GLa.s.s.

"Consider this small dust here in the gla.s.s, By atoms moved: Could you believe that this the body was Of one that loved; And in his mistress' flame, playing like a fly, Was turned to cinders by her eye: Yes; and in death as like unblest, To have't exprest, Ev'n ashes of lovers find no rest."

MY PICTURE.--LEFT IN SCOTLAND.

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind, For else it could not be That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my suit behind; I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, And every close did meet In sentence of as subtle feet, As hath the youngest, he, That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.

Oh! but my conscious fears That fly my thoughts between Tell me that she hath seen My hundreds of gray hairs, Told seven and forty years, Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace My mountain belly, and my rocky face, And all these through her eyes have stopt her ears.

Although fond of indulging in strong language, Jonson is scarcely ever guilty of any really coa.r.s.e allusion--he expresses his aversion from anything of the kind, and this in the age in which he lived, argued great refinement of feeling.

In Fletcher we mark a progress in humour. Ben Jonson was so personal that he made enemies, and was suspected of attacking Inigo Jones and others, but Fletcher was general in his references, and merely ridiculed the manners of the age. The cla.s.sic element disappears, and quibbling and playing with words--so fas.h.i.+onable in Shakespeare's time--is not found in this author, whose humour has more point, and generally more sarcasm, but of a refined character.

The name of Fletcher is invariably connected with Beaumont. The two young men lived together in the same house, and it is even said wore each other's clothes. But Beaumont only lived to be twenty-nine, and has left little in comparison with the voluminous works of Fletcher. They were both born in a good position, and, mingling in the fas.h.i.+onable society of their day, filled their pages with love intrigues, in colours not then offensive. Fletcher never married, and those who look for contrasts between fathers and children may learn that his father, who was Bishop of London, was suspended by Elizabeth for taking a second wife. Our author is said to have been himself a comedy, and his death, if we can believe the story, was consistent with his gay life, for we are told that, through waiting in London for a new suit of clothes, he died of cholera, which was raging there at the time.

Here is a specimen of his sketches--the character of a rich usurer--

_Sanchio._ Thou'art very brave.

_Cacafogo._ I've reason; I have money.

_San._ Is money reason?

_Cac._ Yes, and rhyme too, captain.

If you've no money you're an a.s.s.

_San._ I thank you.