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EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR
EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR BEN JONSON "All that I am in arts all that I know:"
and dedicating his first dramatic success "Every Man in His
Humour" to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either
university though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted
into St. John's College Cambridge." He tells us that he took no
degree but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities by
their favour not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as
a soldier trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of
William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and
raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly
bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden
Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had in the
face of both the camps killed an enemy and taken 'opima spolia'
from him;" and how "since his coming to England being appealed to
the fields he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the
arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's
reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his
prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave
combative and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.
In 1592 Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he
married almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.
He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew yet honest";
for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord
Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's 'Epigrams' "On
my first daughter" and "On my first son" attest the warmth of the
poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy the son of
the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his
father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's
domestic life.
How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical
profession" we do not know. In 1593 Marlowe made his tragic exit from
life and Greene Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage had
preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before.
Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first
in the employment of Philip Henslowe the exploiter of several
troupes of players manager and father-in-law of the famous actor
Edward Alleyn. From entries in 'Henslowe's Diary' a species of
theatrical account book which has been handed down to us we know
that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4
pounds of Henslowe July 28 1597 paying back 3s. 9d. on the same
day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear);
while later on December 3 of the same year Henslowe advanced 20s.
to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which
he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the
next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a
play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association
with Henslowe of some duration as no mere tyro would be thus paid in
advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play
"Satiromastix" it appears that Jonson like Shakespeare began life
as an actor and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon"
taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play "The
Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598 Jonson though still in
needy circumstances had begun to receive recognition. Francis
Meres--well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets
with the Greek Latin and Italian Poets" printed in 1598 and for
his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title
--accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy" a
matter of some surprise as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early
a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy
however is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three
tragedies now lost in which he had a hand. These are "Page of
Plymouth" "King Robert II. of Scotland" and "Richard Crookback."
But all of these came later on his return to Henslowe and range
from August 1599 to June 1602.
Returning to the autumn of 1598 an event now happened to sever for
a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn
dated September 26 of that year Henslowe writes: "I have lost one
of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer]
for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson
bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson
in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual
continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to
remark however that his adversary appears to have been a notorious
fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar
squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among
gentlemen and the nobility; it was an imprudent breach of the peace
on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson
described years after to Drummond and for it Jonson was duly
arraigned at Old Bailey tried and convicted. He was sent to
prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It
is a thought to give one pause that but for the ancient law
permitting convicted felons to plead as it was called the benefit
of clergy Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The
circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he
received only a brand of the letter "T" for Tyburn on his left
thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he
returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.
On his release in disgrace with Henslowe and his former
associates Jonson offered his services as a playwright to
Henslowe's rivals the Lord Chamberlain's company in which
Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long
standing though not susceptible of proof in a court of law
narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in
His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the
company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back read the play
himself and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or
not certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by
Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598 with
Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in
the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's
works 1616. But it is a mistake to infer because Shakespeare's
name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well
first in the 'dramatis personae' that Shakespeare took that
particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was
generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in
the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of
characters.
"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success and with it
Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time
was established once and for all. This could have been by no means
Jonson's earliest comedy and we have just learned that he was
already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed one of
Jonson's extant comedies "The Case is Altered" but one never
claimed by him or published as his must certainly have preceded
"Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be
described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It
combines in fact situations derived from the "Captivi" and the
"Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the
beggar-maiden Rachel and her suitors Jonson found not among the
classics but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had
already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so
fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel although in other
respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play and save
for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio
Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well is perhaps the least
characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.
"Every Man in His Humour" probably first acted late in the summer
of 1598 and at the Curtain is commonly regarded as an epoch-making
play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot it tells
little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to
follow his supposedly studious son to London and there observe his
life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this
comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are
conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama and
he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with
them in his plays. This makes Jonson like Dryden in his time and
Wordsworth much later an author to reckon with; particularly when
we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time
definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English
poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist that is he believed
in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent
ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed
that there was a professional way of doing things which might be
reached by a study of the best examples and he found these
examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our
attention to the drama Jonson objected to the amateurishness and
haphazard nature of many contemporary plays and set himself to do
something different; and the first and most striking thing that he
evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.
As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter let us quote
his own words as to "humour." A humour according to Jonson was a
bias of disposition a warp so to speak in character by which
"Some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his affects his spirits and his powers
In their confluctions all to run one way."
But continuing Jonson is careful to add:
"But that a rook by wearing a pied feather
The cable hat-band or the three-piled ruff
A yard of shoe-tie or the Switzers knot
On his French garters should affect a humour!
O it is more than most ridiculous."
Jonson's comedy of humours in a word conceived of stage
personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable
simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and
placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict
and contrast struck the spark of comedy. Downright as his name
indicates is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the
braggart who is incidentally and with delightfully comic effect a
coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end
of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself.
But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of
"Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each
character is vividly conceived and with a firm touch based on
observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was
neither in this his first great comedy (nor in any other play that
he wrote) a supine classicist urging that English drama return to
a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the
laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws" such matters as the
unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then
but we should enjoy the same licence or free power to illustrate
and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be
tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few
who are nothing but form would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His
Humour" is written in prose a novel practice which Jonson had of
his predecessor in comedy John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems
to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before
Jonson's use of it. Indeed the comedy of humours itself is only a
heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life
viewed at a satirical angle and is the oldest and most persistent
species of comedy in the language. None the less Jonson's comedy
merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in
which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's
Falstaff and his rout Bardolph Pistol Dame Quickly and the
rest whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor"
all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains
Welsh Scotch and Irish of "Henry V." and Malvolio especially
later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for
an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his
successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated that is
degrade "the humour: into an oddity of speech an eccentricity of
manner of dress or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play
called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous
Day's Mirth" Day "Humour Out of Breath" Fletcher later "The
Humourous Lieutenant" and Jonson besides "Every Man Out of His
Humour" returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies
in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled."
With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599 by
Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe we turn a new page in
Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues if there is one
feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson it is his
arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness
especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His
Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson
contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the
theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of
plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the
manners of the time proceeding by means of vivid caricature
couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that
righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true
satire--as a realisation in short of the classical ideal of
comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days
of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour" like the two plays
that follow it contains two kinds of attack the critical or
generally satiric levelled at abuses and corruptions in the
abstract; and the personal in which specific application is made
of all this in the lampooning of poets and others Jonson's
contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature
of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama.
Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and
Socrates in "The Clouds" to mention no other examples; and in
English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again.
What Jonson really did was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an
art and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a
dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the
arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in
scorn vituperation and invective it is no wonder that Jonson
soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with
his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this
'poetomachia' are far from clear and those who have written on the
topic except of late have not helped to make them clearer. The
origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references
apparently to Jonson contained in "The Scourge of Villainy" a
satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John
Marston a fellow playwright subsequent friend and collaborator of
Jonson's. On the other hand epigrams of Jonson have been
discovered (49 68 and 100) variously charging "playwright"
(reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility cowardice
and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be
ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter
to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston beat him
and took his pistol from him wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the
beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the
stage."*
[footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found
in the edition of 'Poetaster' and 'Satiromastrix' by J. H. Penniman
in 'Belles Lettres Series' shortly to appear. See also his earlier
work 'The War of the Theatres' 1892 and the excellent
contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in 'Notes and Queries'
and in his edition of Jonson 1906.
Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the
quarrel are known. "Histriomastix" a play revised by Marston in
1598 has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus
"represented on the stage"; although the personage in question
Chrisogonus a poet satirist and translator poor but proud and
contemptuous of the common herd seems rather a complimentary
portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages
actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour" Carlo Buffone
was formerly thought certainly to be Marston as he was described
as "a public scurrilous and profane jester" and elsewhere as "the
grand scourge or second untruss [that is satirist] of the time"
(Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first and Marston's work
being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now
prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester of
whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold
impertinent fellow. . .a perpetual talker and made a noise like a
drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats
him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard)
with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone
['i.e.' jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it
conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston and that
the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of
"the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and
profane" Chester?
We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify
the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the
allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of
fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The
Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio
Balladino of Anthony Munday pageant-poet of the city translator
of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour"
there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel accepted poet of
the court sonneteer and companion of men of fashion. These men
held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better
entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems
almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire
through "Every Man Out of His Humour" and "Cynthia's Revels"
Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon Munday as
Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire
once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again
and again in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his
way to London in the masques at court and in the pastoral drama.
As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men it
is notable that he became not pageant-poet but chronologer to the
City of London; and that on the accession of the new king he came
soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.
"Cynthia's Revels" the second "comical satire" was acted in 1600
and as a play is even more lengthy elaborate and impossible
than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to
have absorbed everything and while much of the caricature is
admirable especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly
satirical dialogue the central idea of a fountain of self-love is
not very well carried out and the persons revert at times to
abstractions the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that
this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of
Queen Elizabeth's Chapel among them Nathaniel Field with whom
Jonson read Horace and Martial and whom he taught later how to
make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was
Salathiel Pavy who died before he was thirteen already famed for
taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the
sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the
character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist that he should
thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little
theatrical waifs some of whom (as we know) had been literally
kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped
to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of
Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides
(impudence) here assuredly Marston and Asotus (the prodigal)
interpreted as Lodge or more perilously Raleigh. Crites like
Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour" is Jonson's
self-complaisant portrait of himself the just wholly admirable
and judicious scholar holding his head high above the pack of the
yelping curs of envy and detraction but careless of their puny
attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect.
The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster" acted
once more by the Children of the Chapel in 1601 and Jonson's only
avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own
account this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that
his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of
"Satiromastix the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet" a dramatic
attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies
Jonson succeeded and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved
success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its
earlier companion pieces "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the
ludicrous final scene in which after a device borrowed from the
"Lexiphanes" of Lucian the offending poetaster Marston-Crispinus
is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had
overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In
the end Crispinus with his fellow Dekker-Demetrius is bound over
to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign traduce or
detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson]
or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the
most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca.
"His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant
blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most
complete exposure and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a
walking dictionary of slang."
It was this character Captain Tucca that Dekker hit upon in his
reply "Satiromastix" and he amplified him turning his abusive
vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "An immodesty to his
dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been
held altogether plausibly that when Dekker was engaged
professionally so to speak to write a dramatic reply to Jonson
he was at work on a species of chronicle history dealing with the
story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he
hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by
"Poetaster" and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The
absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the
result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the
arrogance the literary pride and self-righteousness of
Jonson-Horace whose "ningle" or pal the absurd Asinius Bubo has
recently been shown to figure forth in all likelihood Jonson's
friend the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is
"Satiromastix" especially in a comparison with the better wrought
and more significant satire of "Poetaster" the town awarded the
palm to Dekker not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence
his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to
appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to
the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in
"Poetaster" nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected
that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure
playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife and on
no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet" ii. 2) we learn
that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so
berattle the common stages. . .that many wearing rapiers are
afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither."
Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less
part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is
a college play entitled "The Return from Parnassus" dating
1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage as a
character declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them
all down; aye and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a
pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill
but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him
bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of
the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"?
Among several suggestions "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought
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