his wit made. He had the honour to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendship from the Earl of Southampton, famous in the hiftories of that time for his friendship to the unfortunate Earl of Effex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is one inftance fo fingular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakspeare's, that if I had not been affured that the story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I fhould not have ventured to have inferted; that my Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almoft equal to that profufe generofity the prefent age has shown to French dancers and Italian fingers. What particular habitude or friendships he contracted with private men, I have not been able to learn, more than that every one, who had a true taste of merit, and could diftinguifh men, had generally a juft value and efteem for him. His exceeding candour and good-nature must certainly have inclined all the gentler part of the world to love him, as the power of his wit obliged the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him. His acquaintance with Ben Jonfon began with a Sfrom the Earl of Southampton,] Of this amiable nobleman fach memoirs as I have been able to collect, may be found in the tenth volume, [i. e. of Mr. Malone's edition] prefixed to the poem of Venus and Adonis. MALONE. - he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis.] To this nobleman alfo he dedicated his Rape of Lucrece, printed in 4to. in 1594. MALONE. remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature; Mr. Jonfon, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the perfons into whofe hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and fupercilioufly over, were juft upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no fervice to their company; when Shakspeare luckily caft his eye upon it, and found fomething fo well in it, as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick. f to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick.] In Mr. Rowe's first edition, after thefe words was inferted the following paffage : "After this, they were profeffed friends; though I do not know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentlenefs and fincerity. Ben was naturally proud and infolent, and in the days of his reputation did fo far take upon him the supremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that feemed to ftand in competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with fome referve; infinuating his uncorrectnefs, a careless manner of writing, and want of judgment. The praise of feldom altering or blotting out what he writ, which was given him by the players, who were the first publishers of his works after his death, was what Jonfon could not bear: he thought it impoffible, perhaps, for another man to ftrike out the greatest thoughts in the fineft expreffion, and to reach those excellencies of poetry with the ease of a first imagination, which himself with infinite labour and study could but hardly attain to." I have preserved this paffage because I believe it strictly true, except that in the last line, instead of but hardly, I would read never. Dryden, we are told by Pope, concurred with Mr. Rowe in thinking Jonfon's pofthumous verfes on our author Sparing and invidious. See alfo Mr. Steevens's note on those verses. Before Shakspeare's death Ben's envious difpofition is mentioned by one of his own friends; it must therefore have been even then notorious, though the writer denies the truth of the charge: Jonfon was certainly a very good fcholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakspeare; though at "To my well accomplish'd friend, Mr. Ben. Jonfon. 66 "Thou art found in body; but fome fay, thy foule Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies, printed about 1611. The following lines by one of Jonfon's admirers will fufficiently fupport Mr. Rowe in what he has faid relative to the flownefs of that writer in his compofitions : "Scorn then their cenfures who gave out, thy wit "As elephants bring forth, and that thy blots "And mendings took more time than FORTUNE-PLOTS; The writer does not deny the charge, but vindicates his friend by faying that, however flow, "He that writes well, writes quick-." Verfes on B. Jonfon, by Jafper Mayne. So alfo, another of his Panegyrifts: "Admit his mufe was flow, 'tis judgment's fate "To move like greatest princes, ftill in ftate." In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, Jonfon is faid to be "fo flow an enditer, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying." The fame piece furnishes us with the earliest intimation of the quarrel between him and Shakspeare: "Why here's our fellow Shakspeare put them [the university poets] all down, ay, and Ben Jonfon 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." Fuller, who was a diligent inquirer, and lived near enough the time to be well informed, confirms this account, afferting in his Worthies, 1662, that "many were the wit-combats" between Jonfon and our poet. It is a fingular circumftance that old Ben should for near two centuries have ftalked on the ftilts of an artificial reputation; and that even at this day, of the very few who read his works, scarcely one in ten yet ventures to confefs how little entertainment they afford. Such was the impreffion made on the publick by the extravagant praises of those who knew more of books than the fame time I believe it must be allowed, that what nature gave the latter, was more than a balance of the drama, that Dryden in his Effay on Dramatick Poefie, written about 1667, does not venture to go further in his elogium on Shakspeare, than by saying," he was at leaft Jonfon's equal, if not his fuperior;" and in the preface to his Mock Aftrologer, 1671, he hardly dares to affert, what, in my opinion, cannot be denied, that "all Jonfon's pieces, except three or four, are but crambe bis cocta; the fame humours a little varied, and written worfe." Ben, however, did not truft to the praise of others. One of his admirers honeftly confeffes, "Of whom I write this, has prevented me, In vain, however, did he endeavour to bully the town into approbation by telling his auditors," By G-'tis good, and if you like't, you may;" and by pouring out against those who preferred our poet to him, a torrent of illiberal abufe; which, as Mr. Walpole juftly obferves, fome of his contemporaries were willing to think wit, because they were afraid of it; for, notwithstanding all his arrogant boafts, notwithstanding all the clamour of his partizans both in his own life-time and for fixty years after his death, the truth is, that his pieces, when firft performed, were fo far from being applauded by the people, that they were scarcely endured; and many of them were actually damned. 66 the fine plush and velvets of the age "Did oft for fixpence damn thee from the ftage,”fays one of his eulogifts in Jonfonius Virlius, 4to. 1638. Jonfon himself owns that Sejanus was damned. "It is a poem," fays he, in his Dedication to Lord Aubigny," that, if I well remember, in your lordship's fight fuffered no lefs violence from our people here, than the fubject of it did from the rage of the people of Rome." His friend E. B. (probably Edmund Bolton) Speaking of the fame performance, fays, But when I'view'd the people's beaftly rage, "Bent to confound thy grave and learned toil, Again, in his Dedication of Catiline to the Earl of Pembroke, the author fays, "Pofterity may pay your benefit the honour and for what books had given the former; and the judgment of a great man upon this occafion was, I think, very juft and proper. In a converfation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonfon, Sir John Suckling, who was a profefled admirer of Shakfpeare, had undertaken his defence against Ben Jonson with fome warmth; Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, told them,* That if Mr. Shakspeare had not read the ancients, he had likewife not fiolen any thing from them; and that if he would produce any one topick finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to show fome thanks, when it shall know that you dare in these jig-given times to countenance a legitimate poem. I muft call it fo, against all noife of opinion, from whofe crude and ayrie reports I appeal to that great and fingular facultie of judgment in your lordship." See alfo the Epilogue to Every Man in his Humour, by Lord Buckhurft, quoted below in The Account of our old English Theatres, ad finem. To his teftimony and that of Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, (there also mentioned,) may be added that of Leonard Digges in his Verses on Shakspeare, and of Sir Robert Howard, who fays in the preface to his Plays, folio, 1665, (not thirty years after Ben's death,) "When I confider how fevere the former age has been to fome of the beft of Mr. Jonfon's never-to-be-equalled comedies, I cannot but wonder, why any poet should speak of former times." The truth is, that however extravagant the elogiums were that a few scholars gave him in their closets, he was not only not admired in his own time by the generality, but not even understood. His friend Beaumont affures him in a copy of verfes, that "his fense is so deep that he will not be understood for three ages to come." MALONE. Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, told them,] In Mr. Rowe's first edition this paffage runs thus: "Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, hearing Ben frequently reproach him with the want of learning and ignorance of the antients, told him at last, That if Mr. Shakspeare," &c. By the alteration, the fubfequent part of the fentence"if he would produce," &c. is rendered ungrammatical. MALONE. |
