This quarrel is a splendid instance how genius of the first order, lavishing its satirical powers on a number of contemporaries, may discover, among the crowd, some individual who may return with a right aim the weapon he has himself used, and who will not want for encouragement to attack the common assailant: the greater genius is thus mortified by a victory conceded to the inferior, which he himself had taught the meaner one to obtain over him.
Jonson, in his earliest productions, “Every Man in his Humour,” and “Every Man out of his Humour,” usurped that dictatorship, in the Literary Republic, which he so sturdily and invariably maintained, though long and hardily disputed. No bard has more courageously foretold that posterity would be interested in his labours; and often with very dignified feelings he casts this declaration into the teeth of his adversaries: but a bitter contempt for his brothers and his contemporaries was not less vehement than his affections for those who crowded under his wing. To his “sons” and his admirers he was warmly attached, and no poet has left behind him, in MS., so many testimonies of personal fondness, in the inscriptions and addresses, in the copies of his works which he presented to friends: of these I have seen more than one fervent and impressive.
Drummond of Hawthornden, who perhaps carelessly and imperfectly minuted down the heads of their literary conference 475 on the chief authors of the age, exposes the severity of criticism which Ben exercised on some spirits as noble as his own. The genius of Jonson was rough, hardy, and invincible, of which the frequent excess degenerated into ferocity; and by some traditional tales, this ferocity was still inflamed by large potations: for Drummond informs us, “Drink was the element in which he lived.”[388] Old Ben had given, on two 476 occasions, some remarkable proofs of his personal intrepidity. When a soldier, in the face of both armies, he had fought single-handed with his antagonist, had slain him, and carried off his arms as trophies. Another time he killed his man in a duel. Jonson appears to have carried the same military spirit into the Literary Republic.
Such a genius would become more tyrannical by success, and naturally provoked opposition, from the proneness of mankind to mortify usurped greatness, when they can securely do it. The man who hissed the poet’s play had no idea that he might himself become one of the dramatic personages. Ben then produced his “Poetaster,” which has been called the Dunciad 477 of those times; but it is a Dunciad without notes. The personages themselves are now only known by their general resemblance to nature, with the exception of two characters, those of Crispinus and Demetrius.[389]
In “The Poetaster,” Ben, with flames too long smothered, burst over the heads of all rivals and detractors. His enemies seem to have been among all classes; personages recognised 478 on the scene as soon as viewed; poetical, military, legal, and histrionic. It raised a host in arms. Jonson wrote an apologetical epilogue, breathing a firm spirit, worthy of himself; but its dignity was too haughty to be endured by contemporaries, whom genius must soothe by equality. This apologetical dialogue was never allowed to be repeated; now we may do it with pleasure. Writings, like pictures, require a particular light and distance to be correctly judged and inspected, without any personal inconvenience.
One of the dramatic personages in this epilogue inquires
|
I never saw the play breed all this tumult. What was there in it could so deeply offend, And stir so many hornets? |
The author replies:
|
——————I never writ that piece More innocent, or empty of offence; Some salt it had, but neither tooth nor gall. ——————Why, they say you tax’d The law and lawyers, captains, and the players, By their particular names. ——————It is not so: I used no names. My books have still been taught To spare the persons, and to speak the vices. |
And he proceeds to tell us, that to obviate this accusation he had placed his scenes in the age of Augustus.