The story reads exactly like the story of Goethe and Schiller. It was Schiller who held aloof and was full of fault-finding criticism: it was Goethe who made all the advances and did all the kindnesses. It was Goethe who obtained for Schiller that place as professor of history at Jena which gave Schiller the leisure needed for his dramatic work. It is always the greater who gives and forgives.
I believe, of course, too, in the traditional account of the unforgettable evenings at the Mermaid. “Many were the wit-combats,” wrote Fuller of Shakespeare in his “Worthies” (1662), “betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which too I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man of war. Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all sides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.”
It was natural for the onlooker to compare Ben Jonson and his “mountainous belly” to some Spanish galleon, and Shakespeare, with his quicker wit, to the more active English ship. It was Jonson's great size—a quality which has always been too highly esteemed in England—his domineering temper and desperate personal courage that induced the gossip to even him with Shakespeare.
Beaumont described these meetings, too, in his poetical letter to his friend Jonson:
“What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid? Heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.”
In one respect at least the two men were antitheses. Jonson was exceedingly combative and quarrelsome, and seems to have taken a chief part in all the bitter disputes of his time between actors and men of letters. He killed one actor in a duel and attacked Marston and Dekker in “The Poetaster”; they replied to him in the “Satiromastix.” More than once he criticized Shakespeare's writings; more than once jibed at Shakespeare, unfairly trying to wound him; but Shakespeare would not retort. It is to Jonson's credit that though he found fault with Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar” and “Pericles,” he yet wrote of him in the “Poetaster” as a peacemaker, and, under the name of Virgil, honoured him as the greatest master of poetry.
Tradition gives us one witty story about the relations between the pair which seems to me extraordinarily characteristic. Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben's children, and after the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and asked him why he was so melancholy. “No, faith, Ben,” says he; “not I, but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild and I have resolved at last.” “I pr'ythee, what?” sayes he. “I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.” Lattin, as everybody knows, was a mixed metal resembling brass: the play upon words and sly fun poked at Jonson's scholarship are in Shakespeare's best manner. The story must be regarded as Shakespeare's answer to Jonson's sneer that he had “little Latine and lesse Greeke.”
Through the mist of tradition and more or less uncertain references in his poetry, one sees that he had come, probably through Southampton, to admire Essex, and the fall and execution of Essex had an immense effect upon him. It is certain, I think, that the noble speech on mercy put into Portia's mouth in “The Merchant of Venice,” was primarily an appeal to Elizabeth for Essex or for Southampton. It is plainly addressed to the Queen, and not to a Jew pariah:
“... It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,
It is enthroned in the heart of kings.
It is an attribute of God Himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When Mercy seasons Justice.”
All this must have seemed the veriest irony when addressed to an outcast Jew. It was clearly intended as an appeal to Elizabeth, and shows how far gentle Shakespeare would venture in defence of a friend. Like a woman, he gained a certain courage through his affections.