BEN JONSON

I

It is now threescore years since Gifford brought out and dedicated to Canning his edition of the works of Ben Jonson, with the text carefully revised and annotated, and elaborate introductory Memoirs. These Memoirs made a new era in the posthumous history of Rare Ben, tearing to shreds and tatters all the slanders against him, whether woven of errors or of malignant inventions, which had been handed down from one careless writer to another, and particularly all the foul calumnies of his envying and traducing Shakespeare, which the commentators on the latter— Malone, Steevens, and the rest—had fabricated out of the flimsiest and most incongruous yarns of suspicion and prejudice. It was a work well suited to Gifford's mind and temper-keen, vigilant, honest, and somewhat acrid; and he is quite at his best in it, inspired with a generous passion to redeem a great and venerable name from unmerited obloquy. I don't know whether his version of Juvenal still survives; I fancy very few of this generation have read his "Baviad " and "Mæviad," which young Byron termed the first satires of the day, calling aloud, "Why slumbers Gifford?" and, "Arouse thee, Gifford !" but if his

name lives not by itself, it will at any rate go down to remote posterity honourably associated with that of Massinger, associated more honourably yet with that of Ben Jonson. So thoroughly, indeed, has he wrought his labour of love that, so far as I am aware, he has left nothing of any importance, as regards either the life or the text, to be done by those who come after him. About four years ago Hotten published a cheap and handy reprint (why undated?), in three volumes, of Gifford's edition, under the care of that excellent editor, the late Lieut.-Col. Francis Cunningham (son of Allan), who made a few slight corrections, added a very few notes, together with some short pieces discovered since Gifford's time; and included a copy of the complete transcript, also unknown to Gifford, of Drummond of Hawthornden's celebrated notes of Ben Jonson's conversations with him, which was found by Mr. David Laing in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. This latest edition I use for the present article.

Benjamin, or (as he usually styled himself) Ben Jonson, was born about a month after his father's death, early in 1573, in the city of Westminster. He told Drummond that "his Grandfather came from Carlisle, and, he thought, from Annandale to it; he served King Henry VIII., and was a gentleman;" whence we may presume that he was one of the Johnstones who abound in Annandale. "His Father losed all his estate under Queen Marie, having been cast in prisson and forfaitted; at last turned minister : so he was a minister's son." His mother seems soon to have made a second marriage with a master bricklayer. Ben was first sent to a private school in the

F

church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and afterwards, at the expense of the famous Camden, who was then the second master, to Westminster School. Camden's great work, the "Britannia," was published in 1586, during the time he was befriending Jonson, and passed through eight editions before 1590. Jonson was ever grateful for his generosity and instruction. "Every Man in his Humour" is dedicated to him; he is mentioned with honour in two of the "Masques," and to him No. 14 of the "Epigrams" is addressed, well worth citing for the sake of both :

"CAMDEN! most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that I am in arts, all that I know;

(How nothing's that!) to whom my country owes
The great renown and name with which she goes!
Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,
More high, more holy, that she more would crave.
What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!
What sight in searching the most antique springs!
What weight, and what authority in thy speech!
Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach.
Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,

Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee.
Many of thine this better could than I;

But for their powers, accept my piety."

It is said that from Westminster he went to Cambridge, an exhibition having been procured for him; but there is no clear evidence on the point. If he did go, he did not matriculate, for he told Drummond that he was Master of Arts in both the Universities by their favour, not his study. When he returned home his stepfather took him into his own business, and many a mean sneer was afterwards flung at Ben for his bricklaying, by those of his contemporaries with whom he was at feud. He seems to have kept,

or been kept, to the trade only about a twelvemonth, for he could not endure it; and, when eighteen, went off as a volunteer to the English army in Flanders. Though he served but one campaign, he was always proud of his soldiering. Drummond reports from his own lips: "In his service in the Low Countries, he had, in the face of both the campes, killed ane enemie and taken opima spolia from him." As Gifford remarks, in those days, when great battles were rarely fought, and armies lay for half a campaign in sight of each other, it was not unusual for champions to advance into the midst and challenge their adversaries; and he thinks it probable that at that particular time such challenges were encouraged by Vere, the English general, who was undertaking the most daring enterprises, in order to animate the troops, dispirited by the tame surrender of a fort by Stanley. In his Epigram 108, "To True Soldiers," Ben writes loftily:

"I swear by your true friend, my Muse, I love
Your great profession, which I once did prove;
And did not shame it with my actions then,
No more than I dare now do with my pen."

It is probable that Jonson returned to England be- .
cause of his stepfather's death. He says that on his
return he resumed his wonted studies.
His story
at this time is very obscure; but he appears, like
so many of his educated contemporaries, to have
resorted to writing for the stage. It is said that he
also tried acting and failed, but there is no evidence
for this save Decker's "Satiromastix," which, as a
rabid attack on Jonson, cannot be trusted in anything
that concerns him. He had at least one qualification

for the stage, according to the Duchess of Newcastle, who says in her "Letters" (Charles Lamb's delight) : * "I never heard any man read well but my husband, and I have heard him say that he never heard any man read well but Ben Jonson, and yet he hath heard many in his time;" as well he might, his house for half-a-century being open to every man of genius or learning.

It was then the custom of managers to hire authors to write new pieces or re-write old, advancing them money on the credit of their talents, or in proportion to the progress of the work; and they encouraged young authors to write in conjunction with those already in possession of the stage. Jonson's earliest efforts were made in this manner, but it is not known in what dramas he took part. The first we are sure of, and this is by him alone, is "Every Man in his Humour," which was popular in 1596, having been acted eleven times between November of that year and May of the year following. It is remarkably mature for a writer but little over twenty. Before this was produced he had married, and must have been in considerable straits. Drummond reports: "He maried a

"But what moved thee, wayward and spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle?-knowing at the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio;-what but the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy friend? Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the Gallican Land

"Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness,

A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwell,
Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder."
-ELIA, on The Two Races of Men.