"The Alchemist." "The Silent Woman." His lyrics, masques, and pastoral. Jonson's plays; with Master Stephen, for example, in "Every Man in his Humor"; or, if Falstaff be put side by side with Captain Bobadil, in the same comedy, perhaps Jonson's masterpiece in the way of comic caricature. "Cynthia's Revels was a satire on the courtiers and "The Poetaster" on Jonson's literary enemies. "The Alchemist" was an exposure of quackery, and is one of his best comedies, but somewhat overweighted with learning. "Volpone" is the most powerful of all his dramas, but is a harsh and disagreeable piece; and the state of society which it depicts is too revolting for comedy. "The Silent Woman" is, perhaps, the easiest of all Jonson's plays for a modern reader to follow and appreciate. There is a distinct plot to it, the situation is extremely ludicrous, and the emphasis is laid upon a single humor or eccentricity, as in some of Molière's lighter comedies, like "Le Malade Imaginaire" or "Le Médecin Malgré Lui.” In spite of his heaviness in drama, Jonson had a light enough touch in lyric poetry. His songs have not the careless sweetness of Shakspere's, but they have a grace of their own. Such pieces as his "Love's Triumph," "Hymn to Diana," the adaptation from Philostratus, Drink to me only with thine eyes, and many others entitle their author to rank among the first of English lyrists. Some of these occur in his two collections of miscellaneous verse, "The Forest" and "Underwoods"; others in the numerous masques which he composed. These were a species of entertainment, very popular at the court of James I., combining dialogue with music, intricate dances, and costly scenery. Jonson left an unfinished pastoral drama, "The Sad Shepherd," which contains passages of great "The Sad beauty; one, especially, descriptive of the shepherdess Shepherd." Earine, Who had her very being and her name With the first buds and breathings of the spring, Born with the primrose and the violet And earliest roses blown. 1. GEORGE SAINTSBURY : "A History of Elizabethan Literature." London: 1877. 2. PALGRAVE: "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics." London: 1877. 3. "The Courtly Poets from Raleigh to Montrose." Edited by J. Hannah. London: 1870. 4. "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." London: 1867. 5. BACON: "Essays." Edited by W. Aldis Wright. 6. "The Cambridge Shakspere." 7. CHARLES LAMB: "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets." 8. BEN JONSON: "Volpone" and "The Silent Woman." Cunningham's Edition. 3 vols. Change of temper under the Stuarts. CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF MILTON, 1608-1674. THE Elizabethan age proper closed with the death of the queen and the accession of James I., in 1603, but the literature of the fifty years following was quite as rich as that of the half-century that had passed since she came to the throne, in 1557. The same qualities of thought and style which had marked the writers of her reign prolonged themselves in their successors, through the reigns of the first two Stuart kings and the Commonwealth. Yet there was a change in spirit. Literature is only one of the many forms in which the national mind expresses itself. In periods of political revolution, literature, leaving the serene air of fine art, partakes of the violent agitation of the times. There were seeds of civil and religious discord in Elizabethan England. As between the two parties in the church there was a compromise and a truce rather than a final settlement. The Anglican doctrine was partly Calvinistic and partly Arminian. The form of government was episcopal, but there was a large body of Presbyterians in the church who desired a change. In the ritual and ceremonies many "rags of popery" had been retained, which the extreme reformers wished to tear away. But Elizabeth was a worldly-minded woman, impatient of theological disputes. Though circumstances had made her the champion of Protestantism in Europe she kept many Catholic notions; disapproved, for example, of the marriage of priests, and hated 104 sermons. She was jealous of her prerogative in the state, and in the church she enforced uniformity. The authors of the "Martin Marprelate" pamphlets against the bishops were punished by death or imprisonment. While the queen lived things were kept well together and England was at one in face of the common foe. Admiral Howard, who commanded the English naval forces against the Armada, was a Catholic. Puritanism. But during the reign of James I. (1603-1625) and Charles I. (1625-1649) Puritanism grew stronger Rise of through repression. "England," says the historian Green, "became the people of a book, and that book the Bible." The power of the king was used to impose the power of the bishops upon the English and Scotch Churches until religious discontent became also political discontent, and finally overthrew the throne. The writers of this period divided more and more into two hostile camps. On the side of church and king was the bulk of the learning and genius of the time. But on the side of free religion and the Parliament were the stern conviction, the fiery zeal, the exalted imagination of English Puritanism. The spokesman of this movement was Milton, whose great figure dominates the literary history of his generation, as Shakspere does of the generation preceding. Fletcher. The drama went on in the course marked out for it by Shakspere's example until the theaters were closed Beaumont and by Parliament in 1642. Of the Stuart dramatists the most important were Beaumont and Fletcher, all of whose plays were produced during the reign of James I. These were fifty-three in number, but only thirteen of them were joint productions. Francis Beaumont was twenty years younger than Shakspere, and died a few years before him. He was the son of a judge of Decadence of the drama. Beaumont and the Common Pleas. His collaborator, John Fletcher, a son of the bishop of London, was five years older than Beaumont, and survived him nine years. He was much the more prolific of the two and wrote alone some forty plays. Although the life of one of these partners was conterminous with Shakspere's, their works exhibit a later phase of the dramatic art. The Stuart dramatists followed the lead of Shakspere rather than of Ben Jonson. Their plays, like the former's, belong to the romantic drama. They present a poetic and idealized version of life, deal with the highest passions and the wildest buffoonery, and introduce a great variety of those daring situations and incidents which we agree to call romantic. But, while Shakspere seldom or never overstepped the modesty of nature, his successors ran into every license. They sought to stimulate the jaded appetite of their audience by exhibiting monstrosities of character, unnatural lusts, subtleties of crime, virtues and vices both in excess. Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are much easier and more agreeable reading than Ben Jonson's. Though often loose in their plots and without that consistency in the development of their characters which distinguished Jonson's more conscientious workmanship, they are full of graceful dialogue and beautiful poetry. Dryden said that after the Restoration two of their plays were acted for one of Shakspere's or Jonson's throughout the year, and he added that they "understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better, whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartees no poet can ever paint as they have done." Wild debauchery was certainly not the mark of a gentleman in Shakspere, nor was it altogether so in Beaumont and Fletcher. Their gentlemen are gallant and passionate |