Ben Jonson again.
We must not forget our literature; and what has become of our friend Ben Jonson in these times? He is hearty and thriving; he has written gratulatory and fulsome verses to the new sovereign. He is better placed with James than even with Elizabeth. If his tragedy of “Sejanus” has not found a great success, he has more than made up the failing by the brilliant masques he has written. The pedantic King loves their pretty show of classicism, which he can interpret better than his courtiers. He battens, too, upon the flattery that is strown with a lavish hand:—
“Never came man more longed for, more desired,
And being come, more reverenced, lov’d, admired.”[4]
This is the strain; no wonder that the poet comes by pension; no wonder he has “commands,” with goodly fees, to all the fêtes in the royal honor. Yet he is too strong and robust and learned to be called a mere sycophant. The more I read of the literary history of those days the more impressed I am by the predominance of Ben Jonson;—a great, careless, hard-living, hard-drinking, not ill-natured literary monarch. His strength is evidenced by the deference shown him—by his versatility; now some musical masque sparkling with little dainty bits which a sentimental miss might copy in her album or chant in her boudoir; and this, matched or followed by some labored drama full of classic knowledge, full of largest wordcraft, snapping with fire-crackers of wit, loaded with ponderous nuggets of strong sense, and the whole capped and booted with prologue and epilogue where poetic graces shine through proudest averments of indifference—of scorn of applause—of audacious self-sufficiency.
It was some fifteen years after James’ coming to power that Ben Jonson made his memorable Scotch journey—perhaps out of respect for his forebears, who had gone, two generations before, out of Annandale—perhaps out of some lighter caprice. In any event it would have been only a commonplace foot-journey of a middle-aged man, well known over all Britain as poet and dramatist, with no special record of its own, except for a visit of a fortnight which he made, in the north country, to Drummond of Hawthornden:—this made it memorable. For this Drummond was a note-taker; he was a smooth but not strong poet; was something proud of his Scotch lairdship; lived in a beautiful home seated upon a crag that lifts above the beautiful valley of Eskdale; its picturesque irregularities of tower and turret are still very charming, and Eskdale is charming with its wooded walks, cliffs, pools, and bridges; Roslin Castle is near by, and Roslin Chapel, and so is Dalkeith.
The tourist of our time can pass no pleasanter summer’s day than in loiterings there and thereabout. Echoes of Scott’s border minstrelsy beat from bank to bank. Poet Drummond was proud to have poet Jonson as a guest, and hospitably plied him with “strong waters;” under the effusion Jonson dilated, and Drummond, eagerly attentive, made notes. These jottings down, which were not voluminous, and which were not published until after both parties were in their graves, have been subject of much and bitter discussion, and relate to topics lying widely apart. There is talk of Petrarch and of Queen Elizabeth—of Marston and of Overbury—of Drayton and Donne—of Shakespeare (all too little)—of King James and Petronius—of Jonson’s “shrew of a wife” and of Sir Francis Bacon; and there are more or less authentic stories of Spenser and Raleigh and Sidney. Throughout we find the burly British poet very aggressive, very outspoken, very penetrative and fearless: and we find his Scotch interviewer a little overawed by the other’s audacities, and not a little resentful of his advice to him—to study Quintillian.