He wishes to represent on the stage
"One such to-day, as other plays shou'd be;
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas,
Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please:
Nor nimble squib is seen to' make afeard
The gentlewomen....
But deeds, and language, such as men do use....
You, that have so grac'd monsters, may like men."[540]
Men, as we see them in the streets, with their whims and humors—
"When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers
In their conductions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humor."[541]
It is these humors which he exposes to the light, not with the artist's curiosity, but with the moralist's hate:
"I will scourge those apes,
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
As large as is the stage whereon we act;
Where they shall see the time's deformity
Anatomized in every nerve, and sinew,
With constant courage, and contempt of fear....
My strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe
Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,
As lick up every idle vanity."[542]
Doubtless a determination so strong and decided does violence to the dramatic spirit. Jonson's comedies are not rarely harsh; his characters are too grotesque, laboriously constructed, mere automatons; the poet thought less of producing living beings than of scotching a vice; the scenes get arranged, or are confused together in a mechanical manner; we see the process, we feel the satirical intention throughout; delicate and easy-flowing imitation is absent, as well as the graceful fancy which abounds in Shakespeare. But if Jonson comes across harsh passions, visibly evil and vile, he will derive from his energy and wrath the talent to render them odious and visible, and will produce a "Volpone," a sublime work, the sharpest picture of the manners of the age, in which is displayed the full brightness of evil lusts, in which lewdness, cruelty, love of gold, shamelessness of vice, display a sinister yet splendid poetry, worthy of one of Titian's bacchanals.[543] All this makes itself apparent in the first scene, when Volpone says:
"Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!——
Open the shrine, that I may see my saint."
This saint is his piles of gold, jewels, precious plate:
"Hail the world's soul, and mine!... O thou son of Sol,
But brighter than thy father, let me kiss,
With adoration, thee, and every relick
Of sacred treasure in this blessed room."[544]