appears to have been Jonson's first performance*; and we may presume that it was the very play, which, we are told, was brought on the stage by the good offices of Shakspere, who himself acted in it †. Malignant and envious as Jonson appears to have been, he hardly would have ridiculed his benefactor at the very time he was so essentially obliged to him. Some years afterwards, his jealousy probably broke out, and vented itself in this prologue. It is certain that, not long after the year 1600, a coolness arose between Shakspere * Jonson himself tells us, in his Induction to The Mag netick Lady, that this was his first dramatick performance.* The author beginning his studies of this kind with Every Man in his Humour." + If the names of the actors, prefixed to this play, were arranged in the same order as the persons represented, which is very probable, Shakspere played the part of Old Knowell. It is said, that he also played the part of Adam in As You Like It; and we are informed by Betterton, that he performed the Ghost in his own Hamlet. We may presume, therefore, that he usually represented old men. See an old comedy called The Return from Parnassus : [This piece was not published till 1606; but appears to have been written in 1602-certainly was produced before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603.] "Why here's our fellow Shakspere puts them all down; ay, and Ben Jonson too. O, that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace Shakspere and him, which, however he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced on his part, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakspere hath given him a purge, that made him bewray his credit." The play of Jonson's, in which he gave the poets a pill, is the Poetaster, acted in 1601. In that piece some passages of King Henry V. are ridiculed. In what manner Shakspere put him down, or made him bewray his credit, does not appear. His retaliation, we may be well assured, contained no gross or illiberal abuse; and, perhaps, did not go beyond a ballad or an epigram, which may have perished with things of greater consequence. He has, however, marked his disregard for the calumniator of his fame, by not leaving him any memorial by his Will.-In an apologetical dialogue that Jonson annexed to the Poetaster, he says, he had been provoked for three years (i. e. from 1598 to 1601) on every stage by slanderers; as for the players, he says, "It is true, I taxed them, And yet but some, and those so sparingly, I am not mov'd with. If it gave them meat, Only amongst them, I am sorry for Some better natures, by the rest drawn in To run in that vile line." By the words "Some better natures," there can, I think, be little doubt that Shakspere was alluded to. from from that time to the death of our author, and for many years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm and many malevolent reflections *. On this play Mr. Pope has the following note, Act I, Sc. i. "This first scene was added since the edition of 1608, which is much short of the present editions, wherein In his Silent Woman, A& V. Sc. ii. 1609, Jonson perhaps pointed at Shakspere, as one whom he viewed with scornful, yet with jealous eyes: "So, they may censure poets and authors, and compare them; Daniel with Spenser, Jonson with t'other youth, and so forth." Decker, however, might have been meant. In the Induction to Bartholomew-Fair, which was acted in 1614, two years before the death of our author, three of his plays, and in the piece itself two others, are attempted to be ridiculed. In The Devil's an Ass, acted in 1616, all his historical plays are obliquely censured. Meer-er. "By my faith you are cunning in the chronicles. Fitz-Dot. "No, I confess, I ha't from the play-books, and think they are more authentick." They are again attacked in the Induction to BartholomewFair: "An some writer that I know had but the penning o'this matter, he would ha' made you such a jig-a-jog i'the booths, you should ha' thought an earthquake had been in the fair. But these master-poets, they will ha' their own absurd courses, they will be informed of nothing." The wherein the speeches are generally enlarged, and raised; several whole scenes besides, and the choruses also, were since added by Shakspere." Dr. Warburton also positively asserts that this first scene was written after the accession of K. James 1.; and the subsequent editors agree, that several additions were made by the author to King Henry V. after it was originally The following passage in Cynthia's Revels, 1601, was, I think, likewise pointed against Shakspere: "Besides they would wish your poets would leave to be promoters of other men's jests, and to way-lay all the stale apophthegms or old books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their scenes withal:-Again, that feeding their friends with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice cooked, they should not wantonly give out how soon they had dress'd it, nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat, besides hobby-horses and foot-cloth nags." Jonson's plots were all his own invention; our author's chiefly taken from preceding plays or novels. The former employed a year or two in composing a play; the latter probably produced two every year, while he remained in the theatre. The Induction to The Staple of News, which appeared in 1625, not very long after the publication of our author's plays in folio, contains a sneer at à passage in Julius Cæsar : Know Cæsar doth not wrong; nor without cause which originally composed. But there is, I believe, no good ground for these assertions. It is true, that no perfect edition of this play was published before that in folio, in 1623; but it does not follow from thence, that the scenes which then first appeared in print, and all the choruses, were added by Shakspere, as Mr. Pope supposes, which for the purpose of ridicule is quoted unfaithfully; and in the same play may be found an effort, as impotent as that of Voltaire*, to raise a laugh at Hamlet's exclamation, when he kills Polonius. Some other passages, which are found in Jonson's works, might be mentioned in support of this observation; but being quoted hereafter for other purposes, they are here omitted. Notwithstanding these proofs, Jonson's malevolence to Shakspere, and jealousy of his superior reputation, have been doubted by Mr. Pope and others; and much stress has been laid on a passage in his Discoveries, and on the commendatory verses prefixed to the first edition of our author's plays in folio.-The reader, after having perused the following character of Jonson, drawn by Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, a contemporary, and an intimate acquaintance of his, will not, perhaps, readily believe these posthumous encomiums to have been sincere. 營 "Ben "Ah! ma mere, s'écrie-t-il, il y a un gros rat derrière la tapissaire-il tire son épée, court au rat, et tue le bon homme Polonius."Oeuvres de Voltaire, Tome XV. p. 473, 4to. "Le prince tue le pere de sa maitresse, feignant de tuer un rat."--' -Tome IX. Dissertation sur la tragedie ancienne et moderne, p. 26. Jonson |