With Campion's Observations (1602) the history of classical metres in England may be said to close, until the resuscitation of quantitative verse in the present century. Daniel's Defence of Rhyme effectually put an end to this innovation; but the strong hold which the movement seems to have had during the Elizabethan age is interesting evidence of the classical tendencies of the period. Ben Jonson has usually been regarded as the forerunner of neo-classicism in England; but long before his influence was felt, classical tendencies may be observed in English criticism. Thus Ascham's conservatism and aversion to singularity in matters of art are distinctly classical. "He that can neither like Aristotle in logic and philosophy, nor Tully in rhetoric and eloquence," says Ascham, "will from these steps likely enough presume by like pride to mount higher to the misliking of graver matters; that is, either in religion to have a dissentious head, or in the commonwealth to have a factious heart."[555] His insistence that it is no slavery to be bound by the laws of art, and the stress he lays on perfection of style, are no less classical.[556]
Similar tendencies may be observed in the writers that follow Ascham. Harvey's strictures on the Faerie Queene were inspired by two influences. As a humanist, he looked back with contempt on mediæval literature in general, its superstitions, its fairy lore, and the like. As a classicist in art, he preferred the regular, or classic, form of the epic to the romantic, or irregular form; and his strictures may be compared in this respect with those of Bembo on the Orlando or those of Salviati on the Gerusalemme. So Harington attempts to make the Orlando chime with the laws of Aristotle, and Sidney attempts to force these laws on the English drama. So also Sidney declares that genius, without "art, imitation, and exercise," is as nothing, and censures his contemporaries for neglecting "artificial rules and imitative patterns."[557] So Webbe attempts to find a fixed standard or criterion by which to judge good and bad poets, and translates Fabricius's summary of the rules of Horace as a guide for English poetry.[558]
English criticism, therefore, may be said to exhibit classical tendencies from its very beginning. But it is none the less true that before Ben Jonson there was no systematic attempt to force, as it were, the classic ideal on English literature. In Spain, as has been seen, Juan de la Cueva declared that poetry should be classical and imitative, while the drama should be romantic and original. Sidney, on the contrary, sought to make the drama classical, while allowing freedom of imagination and originality of form to the non-dramatic poet. Ben Jonson was the first complete and consistent English classicist; and his classicism differs from that of the succeeding age rather in degree than in kind.
Bacon's assertion that poetry is restrained in the measure of words, but in all other points extremely licensed,[559] is characteristic of the Elizabethan point of view. The early critics allowed extreme license in the choice and treatment of material, while insisting on strict regularity of expression. Thus Sidney may advocate the use of classical metres, but this does not prevent him from celebrating the freedom of genius and the soaring heights of the imagination. There is nothing of these things in Ben Jonson. He, too, celebrates the nobility and power of poetry, and the dignity of the poet's office; but nowhere does he speak of the freedom of the imagination or the force of genius. Literature for him was not an expression of personality, not a creation of the imagination, but an image of life, a picture of the world. In other words, he effected what may be called an objectification of the literary ideal.
In the second place, this image of life can be created only by conscious effort on the part of the artist. For the creation of great poetry, genius, exercise, imitation, and study are all necessary, but to these art must be added to make them perfect, for only art can lead to perfection.[560] It is this insistence on art as a distinct element, almost as an end in itself, that distinguishes Jonson from his predecessors; and nowhere is his ideal of art expressed as pithily as in the address to the reader prefixed to the Alchemist (1612):—
"In Poetry, especially in Plays, ... the concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers; who, if they come in robustiously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good and great; but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill.... But I give thee warning, that there is a great difference between those that, to gain the opinion of copy [i.e. copiousness], utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean[561] [i.e. selection and moderation]. For it is only the disease of the unskilful to think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed."[562]
Literature, then, aims at presenting an image of life through the medium of art; and the guide to art, according to Jonson, is to be found in the rules of criticism. Thus, for example, success in comedy is to be attained
"By observation of those comic laws
Which I, your master, first did teach the age;"[563]
and elsewhere, it will be remembered, Jonson boasts that he had swerved from no "needful law." But though art can find a never-failing guide and monitor in the rules of criticism, he does not believe in mere servile adherence to the practice or theory of classical literature. The ancients are to be regarded as guides, not commanders.[564] In short, the English mind was not yet prepared to accept the neo-classic ideal in all its consequences; and absolute subservience to ancient authority came only with the introduction of the French influence.