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was in view, it will more rationally allude to a recent than a distant example; to something passing in immediate review, than to "The Winter's Tale;" produced, according to Mr. Malone, in 1604; according to Mr. Chalmers' chronology, as early as 1601. Upon the marriage of the princess Elizabeth with the elector-palatine of the Rhine, in 1612-13, the gentlemen of the inns of court presented a masque, more splendid than any preceding, the expenses of which, according to Dugdale,* amounted to one thousand and eighty-six pounds eight shillings and eleven pence; the poetry of which was composed by Chapman, and the machinery by Inigo Jones. This masque, which was printed the year following, I have not seen; but the nature and personages of the show are sufficiently intelligible in the following account, by the continuator of Stowe: "First rode fiftie choyce gentlemen richly attyred, and as gallantly mounted, with every one his footman. These rode very stately like a vauntgard. Next after with fit distance, marched an antique, or mock masque of baboons, attired like fantastique travaillers, in very strange and confused manner, ryding upon asses, or dwarf jades, using all apeish and mocking tricks to the people, moving much

*Origines Juridiciales, page 346, folio. 1671.

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laughter as they past, with torches on either side to shew their state to be as ridiculous as the rest was noble." In Beaumont's masque, presented on the same occasion, a he-baboon, and a shebaboon, are ushered in by a he-fool and a shefool; and of such extravagant and heterogeneous materials were the stage exhibitions of Jonson's age compounded. With so many examples before us, surely it is not necessary to illustrate the "servant-monsters, antiques, and such like drolleries" of Ben, by a reference to Shakspeare; and, least of all, for the purpose of making invidious deductions. The erroneous inferences, which Mr. Malone confesses to have drawn respecting other plays, should have taught that commentator the uncertainty of conclusions derived from such ambiguous sources. "You have lurched your friends of the better half of the garland," Mr. Malone considered a sneer at Cominius's panegyrick on Coriolanus

He lurch'd all swords of the garland—

till he found the phrase in Nash: Steevens so misapplied a passage in "The Alchemist:" but Mitis, in Jonson's " Every Man out of his Hu

* Stowe's Annales, by Howes, page 1006, folio. 1631. + Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, vol. x. page 499. edit. Svo. 1778.

mour," minutely ridicules the conduct of Shakspeare's "Twelfth Night," thus:-" the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son to love the lady's waiting-maid; some such cross wooing, with a clown to their serving-man; better to be thus near, and familiarly allied to the time."*-So striking an outline of Shakspeare's plot could not escape the commentators-unfortunately for them, however, the lampoon preceded the subject ridiculed fourteen or fifteen

years! A few supplementary "sneers" are introduced without much confidence by Mr. Malone in a note; but they are too futile for formal exa⚫mination:-" Chaff and bran, chaff and bran, Cressida!-porridge after meat!"

Rejecting all personal applications of general satire, and standing upon the open ground of undisguised and liberal criticism, I may be permitted to inquire whether the reproof of Jonson is properly founded, and whether the objects at which his shafts were levelled were fair subjects for ridicule and literary chastisement. If a “juggler, with well educated apes," hobby-horses,

* Whalley's Ben Jonson, vol. i. page 218. 8vo. 1756. + Shakspeare, vol. ii. page 294.

puppets, whales, and lions, usurp the scene of rational theatric representation, and Jonson smack the lash of satire to drive them from the stage, must his interference needs proceed from envy? If land-monsters and sea-monsters,

-Men fishes

Or ocean Centaurs, begot between a Siren
And a he-stock-fish,*

be exhibited in dialogue on the boards, and Shakspeare sanction the practice by his great example, must his adoption sanctify the absurdity, and every impugner of the custom be accused of envy? When Shakspeare laughed to scorn the hyperbolical grief of Jeronimo, and the bombast of Tamburlane, who but a fool would accuse him of jealousy? and yet Kydd and Marlowe could boast, in the dawning of Shakspeare's fame, unrivalled reputation. Those, who deny to Ben, wit, genius, and taste, will not object to him want of learning, art, and judgment; these are attainments indispensable to a critic; why then is Jonson only to be denied the exercise of his acknowledged qualifications

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quærere ?

* Jasper Mayne's "City Match." 1638.

After manifesting some uneasiness at the superior sagacity of the commentators, in discovering instances of Ben's enmity, Mr. Chalmers is resolved to "out-Herod Herod," and finds that Jonson's fifty-sixth epigram, "on PoetApe," was intended as a lampoon on Shakspeare. Thus:

Poor Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chief,
Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit,
From brokage is become so bold a thief,

As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it.
At first, he made low shifts, would pick, and glean;
By the reversion of old plays, now grown
Into a little wealth, and credit in the scene,

He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own.
And, told of this, he slights it. Tut! such crimes
The sluggish gaping auditor devours;

He marks not whose 'twas first; and after-times
May judge it to be his, as well as ours.
Fool, as if half-eyes will not know a fleece

From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece.

With much self-complacency, Mr. Chalmers observes on these verses, "the eye must be blind indeed, if it do not see, that Shakspeare was the Poet-Ape of Ben Jonson."

If Mr. Chalmers really does perceive the resemblance, he must, I think,

Have eyes, where other folks are blind,

As pigs are said to see the wind.

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