is certain that, not long after the year 1600, a coolness arose between Shakspeare and him, which, however he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced on his part, from that time to the death of our author, and for many 9 See an old comedy called The Return from Parnaffus: [This piece was not published till 1606; but appears to have been written in 1602, certainly was produced before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March, 1602-3.] "Why here's our fellow Shakspeare puts them all down; ay and Ben Jonson too. O, that Ben Jonfon is a peftilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakspeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." The play of Jonfon's in which he gave the poets a pill, is the Poetafter, acted in 1601. In that piece fome paffages of King Henry V. are ridiculed. In what manner Shakspeare put him down, or made him bewray his credit, does not appear. His retaliation, we may be well affured, contained no grofs or illiberal abuse; and, perhaps, did not go beyond a ballad or an epigram, which may have perifhed with things of greater confequence. He has, however, marked his difregard for the calumniator of his fame, by not leaving him any memorial by his Will.-In an apologetical dialogue which Jonfon annexed to the Poetafter, he fays, he had been provoked for three years (i. e. from 1598 to 1601) on every stage by flanderers; as for the players, he fays, It is true, I tax'd them, "And yet but fome, and thofe fo fparingly, "As all the reft might have fat ftill unquestion'd: "I am not mov'd with. If it gave them meat, "Some better natures, by the reft drawn in "To run in that vile line." By the words "Some better natures." there can, I think, be little doubt that Shakspeare was alluded to. years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm, and many malevolent reflections.* In his Silent Women, 1609, A&t V. fc. ii. Jonfon perhaps pointed at Shakspeare, as one whom he viewed with fcornful, yet with jealous, eyes: "So they may cenfure poets and authors, and compare them; Daniel with Spenfer, Jonfon with t'other youth, and fo forth." Decker, however, might have been meant. Again, in the fame play : "You two fhall be the chorus behind the arras, and whip out between the acts, and fpeak." In the Induction to Bartholemew Fair, which was acted in 1614, two years before the death of our author, three of his plays, and in the piece itfelf two others, are attempted to be ridiculed. In The Devil's an Afs, acted in 1616, all his hiftorical plays are obliquely cenfured. Meer-er. By my faith you are cunning in the chronicles. Fitz-dot." No, I confefs, I ha't from the play-books, and think they are more authentick. They are again attacked in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair: "An fome writer that I know, had but the penning o' this, matter, he would ha' made you fuch a jig-a-jog i' the booths, you fhould ha' thought an earthquake had been in the fair. But thefe mafter-poets, they will ha' their own abfurd courses, they will be informed of nothing.' The following paffage in Cynthia's Revels, 1601, was, I think, likewife pointed againft Shakspeare: 66 Befides, they would with your poets would leave to be promoters of other men's jefts, and to way-lay all the ftale apothegms or old books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their fcenes withal: Again, that feeding their friends with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice cooked, they fhould not wantonly give out how foon they had dress'd it, nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat, befides hobby-horfes and foot-cloth nags. Jonfon's plots were all his own invention; our author's chiefly taken from preceding plays or novels. The former employed a year or two in compofing a play; the latter pro 1 On this play Mr. Pope has the following note, Act I. fc. i. bably produced two every year, while he remained in the theatre. The Induction to The Staple of News, which appeared in 1625, not very long after the publication of our author's plays in folio, contains a fneer at a paffage in Julius Cæfar: 66 Know, Cæfar doth not wrong; nor without cause "Will he be fatisfied." which for the purpose of ridicule is quoted unfaithfully; and in the fame play may be found an effort, as impotent as that of Voltaire, to raise a laugh at Hamlet's exclamation when he kills Polonius. Some other paffages which are found in Jonfon's works,, might be mentioned in fupport of this observation, but being quoted hereafter for other purposes, they are here omitted. 66 was Notwithftaading these proofs, Jonfon's malevolence to Shakspeare, and jealoufy of his fuperior reputation, have been doubted by Mr. Pope and others: and much firefs has been laid on a paffage in his Discoveries, and on the com. mendatory verfes prefixed to the first edition of our author's plays in folio. The reader, after having perufed the following character of Jonfon, drawn by Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, a contemporary, and an intimate acquaintance of his, will not, perhaps, readily believe thefe pofthumous encomiums to have been fincere. 66 Ben Jonfon," fays that writer, a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to lofe a friend than a jeft; jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived; a diffembler of the parts which reign in him; a bragger of fome good that he wanted: thinketh nothing well done, but what either he himfelf or fome of his friends have faid or done; he is paffionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if he be well anfwered, [angry] at himfelf; interprets beft fayings and deeds often * “ Ah! ma mère, s'écrie-t-il, il y a un gros rat derrière la tapis ferie; il tire fon épée, court au rat, & tue le bon homme Polonius." Oeuvres de Voltaire, Tome XV. p. 473. 4to. "This firft fcéne was added fince the edition of 1608, which is much fhort of the prefent editions, wherein the speeches are generally enlarged, and raised; several whole scenes befides, and the chorufes alfo, were fince added by Shakspeare." Dr. Warburton alfo,pofitively afferts that this firft fcene was written after the acceffion of K. James I. and the fubfequent editors agree, that feveral additions were made by the author to King Henry V. after it was originally compofed. But there is, I believe, no good ground for these affertions. It is true that no perfect edition of this play was published before that in folio, in 1623; but it does not follow from thence, that the fcenes which then first appeared in print, and all the' choruses, were added by Shakspeare, as Mr. Pope fuppofes, after 1608. We know indeed the contrary to be true; for the chorus to the fifth act must have been written in 1599. The fair inference to be drawn from the imperfect and mutilated copies of this play, published to the worst. * He was for any religion, as being verfed in both; oppreffed with fancy, which over-maftered his reafon, a general difeafe in many poets. His inventions are smooth and eafy, but above all, he excelleth in tranflation." Drummond's Works, fol. 1711; p. 226. In the year 1619 Jonfon went to Scotland, to vifit Mr. Drummond, who has left a curious account of a converfation that paffed between them, relative to the principal poets of thofe times. *His mifquoting a line of Julius Cæfar, fo as to render it nonfenfe, at a time when the play was in print, is a strong illuftration of this part of his charader. The plea of an unfaithful memory cannot be urged in his defence, for he tells us in his Discoveries, that till he was past forty, he could repeat every thing that he had written. in 1600, 1602, and 1608, is, not that the whole. play, as we now have it, did not then exist, but that thofe copies were furreptitious; and that the editor in 1600, not being able to publifh the whole, published what he could. I have not indeed met with any evidence (except in three plays) that the feveral scenes which are found in the folio of 1623, and are not in the preceding quartos, were added by the fecond labour of the author.-The laft chorus of King Henry V. already mentioned, affords a ftriking proof that this was not always the cafe. The two copies of the Second Part of King Henry IV. printed in the fame year, (1600) furnish another. In one of thefe, the whole firft fcene of Act III. is wanting; not because it was then unwritten, (for it is found in the other copy published in that year,) but becaufe the editor was not poffeffed of it. That what have been called additions by the author, were not really fuch, may be alfo collected from another circumflance; that in fome of the quartos where these fuppofed additions are wanting, references and replies are found to the paffages omitted.' I do not however mean to fay, that Shakspeare never made any alterations in his plays. We have reason to believe that Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and the Merry Wives of Windfor, were revised and augmented by the author; and a fecond revifal or 3 Of this fee a remarkable inftance in King Henry IV. P.II. A&t I. fc. i. where Morton in a long speech having informed Northumberland that the archbishop of York had joined the rebel party, the earl replies, "I knew of this before." The quarto contains the reply, but not a fingle line of the narrative to which it relates. -- 66 |