No man is not an abstract passion. He stamps the vices He possesses all other gifts, and in particular the classical; first of all, the talent for composition. For the first time we see a connected, well-contrived plot, a complete intrigue, with its beginning, middle, and end; subordinate actions well arranged, well combined; an interest which grows and never flags; a leading truth which all the events tend to demonstrate; a ruling idea which all the characters unite to illustrate; in short, an art like that which Molière and Racine were about to apply and teach. He does not, like Shak speare, take a novel from Greene, a chronicle from Holinshed, a life from Plutarch, such as they are, to cut them into scenes, irrespective of likelihood, indifferent as to order and unity, caring only to set up men, at times wandering into poetic reveries, at need finishing up the piece abruptly with a recognition or a butchery. He governs himself and his characters; he wills and he knows all that they do, and all that he does. But beyond his habits of Latin regularity, he possesses the great faculty of his age and race, the sentiment of nature and existence, the exact knowledge of precise detail, the power in frankly and boldly handling frank passions. This gift is not wanting in any writer of the time; they do not fear words that are true, shocking, and striking details of the bedchamber or medical study; the prudery of modern England and the refinement of monarchical France veil not the nudity of their figures, or dim the colouring of their pictures. They live freely, amply, amidst living things; they see the ins and outs of lust raging without any feeling of shame, hypocrisy, or palliation; and they exhibit it as they see it, Jonson as boldly as the rest, occasionally more boldly than the rest, strengthened as he is by the vigour and ruggedness of his athletic temperament, by the extraordinary exactness and abundance of his observations and his knowledge. Add also his moral loftiness, his asperity, his powerful chiding wrath, exasperated and bitter against vice, his will strengthened by pride and by conscience: "With an armed and resolved hand, I'll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth . . . and with a whip of steel, I fear no mood stampt in a private brow, above all, a scorn of base compliance, an open disdain "Those jaded wits for That run a broken pace for common hire,”—2 an enthusiasm, or deep love of "A happy muse, Borne on the wings of her immortal thought, And beats at heaven gates with her bright hoofs." 3 Such are the energies which he brought to the drama and to comedy; they were great enough to ensure him a high and separate position. III. For whatever Jonson undertakes, whatever be his faults, haughtiness, rough-handling, predilection for morality and the past, antiquarian and censorious instincts, he is never little or dull. It signifies nothing that in his Latinised tragedies, Sejanus, Catiline, he is fettered by the worship of the old worn models of the Roman decadence; nothing that he plays the scholar, manufactures Ciceronian harangues, hauls in choruses imitated from Seneca, holds forth in the style of Lucan. and the rhetors of the empire; he more than once attains a genuine accent; through his pedantry, heaviness, literary adoration of the ancients, nature forces its way; he lights, at his first attempt, on the crudities, horrors, gigantic lewdness, shameless depravity of imperial Rome; he takes in hand and sets in motion the lusts and ferocities, the passions of courtesans and princesses, the daring of assassins and of great men, which produced Messalina, Agrippina, Catiline, Tiberius.1 In the Rome which he places before us we go boldly and straight to the end; justice and pity oppose no barriers. Amid these customs of victors and slaves, human nature is upset; corruption and villany are held as proofs of insight and energy. Observe how, in Sejanus, assassination is plotted and carried out with marvellous coolness. Livia discusses with Sejanus the methods of poisoning her husband, in a clear style, without circumlocution, as if the subject were how to gain a lawsuit or to serve up a dinner. There are no equivocations, no hesitation, no remorse in the Rome of Tiberius. Glory and virtue consist in power; scruples are for base minds; the mark of a lofty heart. is to desire all and to dare all. Macro says rightly: "Men's fortune there is virtue; reason their will; Sejanus addresses Livia thus: Yet, now I see your wisdom, judgment, strength, These are the loves of the wolf and his mate; he praises her for being so ready to kill. And observe in one moment the morals of a prostitute appear behind the manners of the poisoner. Sejanus goes out, and immediately, like a courtesan, Livia turns to her physician, saying: "How do I look to-day? Eudemus. Excellent clear, believe it. This same fucus Was well laid on. Livia. Methinks 'tis here not white. E. Lend me your scarlet, lady. 'Tis the sun [Paints her cheeks.] In your clear eye, hath put away his wife . . . Fair Apicata, and made spacious room To your new pleasures. L. Have not we return'd That with our hate to Drusus, and discovery Of all his counsels ? . . . E. When will you take some physic, lady? L. I shall, Eudemus: but let Drusus' drug Be first prepar'd. E. Were Lygdus made, that's done. . . . When |