Ben Jonson and Shakespeare

[56] Ben Jonson's Timber or Discoveries was published in 1641, and, therefore, some six years after Jonson's death. The work apparently consists of notes written from time to time during the later years of his life. Into whose hands the manuscript notes fell and who edited them, and what became of them, and whether we now have them as Jonson wrote them, is, I appre hend, unknown. On the title-page we read, "Timber or Discoveries, Made upon Men and Matter: As They have How'd out of his daily Readings; or had their refluxe to his peculiar Notion of the Times," with the date MDCXLI. It seems clear that the notes were written during the last years of Jonson's life.* Sir Israel Gollancz, who edited the work, in the Temple Classics series (1902), writes, with reference to the note De Shakespeare Nostrati (No. LXIV.), "the impression it leaves is that it must have preceded that noblest of all eulogies on Shakespeare prefixed to the First Folio of 1623." But this appears to be an erroneous inference. Dr. Ingleby gives the limits of date as 1630-37 (Centurie of Prayse. Second Edition, p. 174). In an early note (No. XLV.) Jonson speaks of an event which happened in 1630. In note No. LVI. he tells us that his memory was good till he was past forty, but had since much decayed. If, therefore, we assume, as seems reasonable, that he was upwards of fifty when he so wrote, we arrive at a date certainly subsequent to 1623. Moreover in note No. LXXIII. ** he speaks of "the late Lord Saint Alban," so that this note must have been written subsequently to Bacon's death in 1626.

[57] It appears, therefore, that the note De Shakespeare Nostrati must be taken as representing Jonson's opinion of " the man " Shakspere some seven or more years after the publication of "that noblest of all eulogies." *** But some four years before the appearance of the Folio of 1623, viz.: in January, 1619, Jonson was staying with Drummond of Hawthornden, and Drummond made notes of his conversation, and, under the title, or heading, "His Acquaintance and Behaviour with poets living with him," we have recorded remarks made by Ben concerning Daniel, Drayton, Beaumont, Sir John Roe, Marston, Markham, Day, Middleton, Chapman, Fletcher, and others. What do we find concerning Shakspere? "That Shakspere wanted arte. . . . Shakspeer in a play, brought in a number of men saying they had suffered shipwrack in Bohemia, where there is no sea neer by some 100 miles." Here, then, we have Jonson unbosoming himself in private conversation with his host and friend, and this, appar ently, is all he has to say about the great bard who, only four years afterwards, he was to laud to the skies as the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage." We would have expected to find whole pages of eulogy, in Drummond's notes, of the poet who "was not of an age but for all time," instead of which we have only these two carping little bits of criticism: "That Shakspeer wanted (i.e., lacked) arte"—a curious remark to have proceeded from the mouth of him who wrote, in the Folio lines, that a poet must be "made as well as born"; that Nature must be supplemented by art; and that in Shakespeare's case such art was not lacking, but, on the contrary, was conspicuous "in his well-turned and true-filed lines." And then that niggling bit of criticism concerning the coast of Bohemia in the Winter's Tale, taken straight from the learned Greene's [58] novel of Dorastus and Fawnia, which may be compared with the depreciatory allusion to Julius Caesar in the Discoveries. As Professor Herford remarks, "It is significant that both in the Conversations 'and the Discoveries,' where high praise is given to others, Jonson only notes in the case of Shakespeare his defi ciency in qualities on which he himself set a very high value." (Article on Jonson in Dic. Nat. Biog.)

With regard to Jonson's allusion to the play of Julius Caesar, some critics have suggested that the lines he has cited are merely misquotation. Thus Mr Andrew Lang asks, "of whom is Ben writing?" and answers, "of the author of Julius Caesar, certainly, from which, his memory failing, he misquotes a line." (Shakespeare, Bacon, and The Great Unknown, p. 257). But if Ben here misquotes, owing to failing memory, it follows that the whole story is a myth. The basis of the story, if Jonson is alluding to the play, is that Julius Caesar originally contained the words quoted by him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong," and Caesar's answer as quoted. But in the play as we now have it there are no words such as "Caesar, thou dost me wrong," uttered by Metellus Cimber (Act III., sc. 1 ., 33), so that, on Mr. Lang's hypothesis, Ben not only misquoted two lines, but invented the whole story. Gifford, on the other hand, says that Jonson must have heard the words he has quoted at the theatre.

Finally, it may be noted that although Jonson, writing in the late years of his life, says of Shakespeare (or Shakspere) that he "lov'd the man," and honours his memory, yet the often-quoted Nicholas Rowe (Shakespeare's first biographer—so-called) tells us that "he was not very cordial in his friendship," nor have we, in fact, any evidence whatever that he and William Shakspere of Stratford were close friends. Shakspere's friends were men such as his fellow- players, Heminge, Burbage, and Condell, to whom he left by his Will 26s. 8d. apiece to buy them rings. He makes no mention whatever of Ben Jonson, who, (if, indeed, he was really the author of the note de[59] Shakespeare Nostrati, in the posthumously published Discoveries) **** would have us believe that he so "lov'd the man," while as to the tradition chronicled by John Ward upwards of fifty years after Shakspere's death (he became Vicar of Stratford in 1662) that Shakspere, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had "a merie meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted," it is so obviously a myth that it is unworthy of serious consideration. There is no shred of evidence that Shakspere was on intimate terms of friendship with either Jonson or Drayton, and Ben's remarks both in the "Discoveries," and in his conversation with Drummond, do but strengthen the hypothesis that the main object which Ben had in view in writing his poetical eulogy of "Shake-speare" prefixed to the First Folio, was to provide a good "send off," and to give "bold advertisement," for that volume, in the publication of which his services had been enlisted, and in which he was so intimately concerned. Moreover, as already mentioned, he must have written well knowing that several of the plays, and large portions of plays, therein ascribed to "Shake-speare" were not, in truth and in fact, by him, that is to say not by the true Shake-speare, whoever the true Shake-speare may have been.

It is remarkable that many passages in the Discoveries which have all the appearance of being Jonson's original observations are, in fact, literal translations from well-known Latin writers, such as Quintilian and the two Senecas. This is well seen in his remarks De Shake speare Nostrati. "His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter. . . . But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." This is just taken from the elder Seneca's Controversia (Bk. iv., Preface), "In sua potestate habebat ingenium, in aliena modum. . . . Saepe incidebat in ea quae [60] derisum effugere non possent. . . . redimehat tamen vitia virtutibus et persaepe plus habebat quod laudares quam cui ignosceres." There seems, however, nothing to be concluded from this except that Jonson thought Seneca's observations applicable to "Shake speare," and adopted them as his own pro hac vice; just as when he said of Bacon that he had " performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome"—words which he had previously used with reference to "Shakespeare," in his lines prefixed to the Folio of 1623—he was again quoting from Seneca: "Deinde ut possitis aestimare in quantum cotidie ingenia descres cant et nescio qua iniquitate naturae eloquentia se retro tulerit: quidquid Romana facundia habet, quod insolenti Graeciae aut opponat aut praeferat, circa Ciceronem effloruit," etc. (Controversia, Bk. I, Preface, cf. the passage in the Discoveries, No. LXXII., Scriptorum Catalogus, which, by the way, makes no mention of Shakespeare).

Note C - Jonson's Discoveries