Nor hales he in a gull old ends reciting,
To stop gaps in his loose writing;
With such a deal of monstrous and forced action,
As might make Bethlem a faction:
Nor made he his play for jests stolen from each table,
But makes jests to fit his fable….
The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
In the observance of the technical rules of the classic drama—this much Jonson could certainly prove to the world—he was superior to Shakspere. The severe words: 'monstrous and forced action,' can only refer to a drama written not long before; for, in 'Volpone,' Jonson wishes to give to the stage-poets of his time his own ideal of a drama. 'Bethlem' (Bedlam) indicates madness round which all kinds of lunatics might gather as factionaries or adherents of the kind of drama which Jonson wishes to stigmatise.
Do we go too far in thinking that 'Hamlet' is the play which is made the target of allusions in this very Prologue?
However, we proceed at once to the Interlude which follows after the first scene of the first act of 'Volpone.' In it, Shakspere himself is practically put on the stage, by being asked:
how of late thou hast suffered translation,
And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation.
This Interlude is in no connection with the course of the dramatic action.
Mosca, a parasite, brings in, for the entertainment of his master (Volpone), three merry Jack Andrews. One of them, Androgyno, must be held to be SHAKSPERE.
Here we have to note that Francis Meres, a scholar of great repute, and M.A. of both Universities, wrote in 1598 a book, entitled 'Palladis Tamia,' which in English he calls 'Wit's Treasury.' It contains, so far as the sixteenth century is concerned, the most valuable statements as regards Shakspere: nay, the only trustworthy ones dating from that century. In that work, Meres classifies and criticises the poets of his time and country by comparing each of them with some Greek or Roman poet, kindred to the corresponding English one in the line of production chosen and in quality. Ben Jonson is only mentioned once, at a very modest place; his name stands last, after Chapman and Dekker.
Meres confers upon Shakspere most enthusiastic but just praise:—
'As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras: so the sweete, wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare; witness his 'Venus and Adonis;' his 'Lucrece;' his sugred 'Sonnets' among his private friends…. As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy amongst the Latines: so Shakspere among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.'