The managers acquired neither profit nor reputation by the exhibition of it. Some expreffions met with fevere marks of the fpectators displeasure. The character of Morose, upon whose peevish and perverse humour the plot of the comedy depends, is that of a whimfical reclufe, whofe difpofition can bear no found but that which he utters himself. If this were the whole of his character, he would ftill be a good object for comic fatire, but the melancholy of Morofe degenerates into malice and cruelty. In extreme old age, to difinherit a worthy young man, his nephew, he enters into the bonds of matrimony. The schemes therefore which are contrived to disturb his repofe and torment his mind, are proper medicines for such a man, and justified by the strictest morality.

But, befides the licentioufness of the manners, and quaintness of expreffion, in the Silent Woman, the frequent allufions to forgotten customs and characters render it impoffible to be ever revived with

any

any probability of fuccefs. To understand Jonfon's comedies perfectly, we should have before us a fatirical hiftory of the age in which he lived. I question whether the diligence of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone could dig up a very complete explanation of this author's allufions. Mr. Colman, after all the pains and skill he could bestow on this comedy, found that it was labour loft; there was no reviving the dead. The audience were as much difgufted with Jonfon's old ruffs and bands, as the wits of James I. were with Hyeronimo's old cloak and the Spanish tragedy.

It must yet be confeffed, that the gentlemen of this comedy, though perhaps too learned for the present day, converse with an eafy gaiety and liberal familiarity, fuperior to any of this writer's productions. In the first act there is a fonnet, which, for the vivacity and elegance of its turn of thought, I cannot forbear transcribing :

Still to be neat, ftill to be, drefs'd
As you were going to a feaft;

Still to be powder'd, ftill perfum'd;
Lady, 'tis to be prefum'd,

Though art's hid caufes are not found,
All is not fweet, all is not found.
Give me a look, give me a face,,
That makes fimplicity a grace ;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such fweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th'adulteries of art,

That frike my eyes, but not my heart.

The author, agreeably to his old cuf tom, has made very free with the ancients; he has borrowed from Juvenal, Ovid de Arte Amandi, and Plautus's 'Aulularia,

We are told, that the Fox was conceived and brought forth in fix weeks. But Jonfon's dramatic mufe lay fallow for four years; for Volpone was acted in 1605, and the Silent Woman not till the year roog. Some new quarrel with the established comedians, I fuppofe, caufed him to have recourfe again to his children of the Revels,

though

though he had loft his favourite boy, Sal. Pavy, whofe hiftrionical abilities, and wonderful skill in representing old men, though not arrived to his fourteenth year, he celebrated in a copy of verses to his memory.

Such was the authority of Jonfon's name, that the king's comedians, established at the Reftoration, claiming a prior right of choice to the Duke of York's players, feized upon Ben Jonfon's three moft efteemed comedies and his two tragedies.

as

Cartwright, who was a bookfeller well as an actor, played Morofe. He is mentioned by name in the Rehearsal. Major Mohun was celebrated for TrueWit. The famous Lacy acted Captain

Otter. E.

About fifty or fixty years fince, great refpect was paid to this comedy; for Booth, Wilks, the elder Mills, and Colley Cibber, acted the Dauphin, Truewit, Clerimont, and Sir John Daw. Such an od ebrwish. retom exhibition

i

exhibition of comic diftrefs, in old Ben Jonfon's Morofe, I have hardly ever feen in any other actor. He and Weston are the only comedians I can remember, that, in all the parts they represented, abfolutely forgot themfelves. I have feen very great players, nay, fuperior, in fome refpects, to them, at least in the art of colouring and high finishing, when on the stage laugh at a blunder of a performer or fome accidental impropriety of the fcene: but these men were fo truly abforb ed in character, that they never loft fight of it. Jonson stayed on the stage to the last, till within about two years of eighty; but his very dregs were refpectable. He died in 1742; and, a few months before his death, was out of humour, that the agent of the Dublin theatre, who came over on purpose to engage Mr. Garrick for the fummer-months, had not made overtures to him. Otter was well acted by Shepherd, and Sir Amorous La Foole with vivacity by Theophilus Cibber.

The Alchemift was Ben Jonfon's last comedy of merit, for afterwards he pro

duced