Dam. For they have had very mean ones from this shop of late, the stage as you call it. Boy. Troth, gentlemen, I have no wares which I dare thrust upon the people with praise. But this, such as it is, I will venture with your people, your gay gallant people: so as you, again, will undertake for them, that they shall know a good play when they hear it; and will have the conscience and ingenuity beside to confess it. Pro. We'll pass our words for that; you shall have a brace of us to engage ourselves. Boy. You'll tender your names, gentlemen, to our book then? Dam. Yes; here's master Probee, a man of most powerful speech, and parts to persuade. Pro. And master Damplay will make good all he undertakes. Boy. Good master Probee, and master Damplay! I like your securities: whence do you write yourselves? Pro. Of London, gentlemen; but knights' brothers, and knights' friends, I assure you. Dam. And knights' fellows too: every poet writes squire now. Boy. You are good names! very good men, both of you; I accept you. Dam. And what is the title of your play here, The Magnetic Lady? Boy. Yes, sir, an attractive title the author has given it. Pro. A magnete, I warrant you. Dam. O no, from magnus, magna, magnum. Boy. This gentleman hath found the true magnitude Dam. Of his portal or entry to the work, according to Vitruvius. Boy. Sir, all our work is done without a portal,' or Vitruvius. In foro, as a true comedy should be. And what is conceal'd within, is brought out, and made present by report. Dam. We see not that always observed by your authors of these times; or scarce any other. Boy. Where it is not at all known, how should it be observed? The most of those your people call authors, never dreamt of any decorum, or what was proper in the scene; but grope at it in the dark, and feel or fumble for it: I speak it, both with their leave, and the leave of your people. Dam. But, why Humours Reconciled, I would fain know? Boy. I can satisfy you there too, if you will. But perhaps you desire not to be satisfied. Dam. No! why should you conceive so, boy? Boy. My conceit is not ripe yet; I'll tell you that anon. The author beginning his studies of this kind, with Every Man in his Humour; and after, 3 Without a portal, or Vitruvius.] This simple passage, in which the boy merely repeats the terms of the preceding speech, affords a curious specimen of the spirit in which our author is read. After portal, an accidental break occurs in the folio, just sufficient to contain one letter; this, Dr. Farmer (the most liberal of critics,) seriously proposes to fill up with the name of Inigo Jones, "because Jonson seems to have levelled a sneer at him in this place"! 4 The author beginning his studies of this kind, with Every Man in his Humour.] We must except those pieces which were offered to the stage before that play, and which did not succeed so well. The Case is altered has, I think, plain marks of being one of his earlier compositions. WHAL. Had Whalley already forgotten that the second title of this play is HUMOURS RECONCILED! To this Jonson alludes. Mr. Malone, who probably never read more of the Magnetic Lady than this quotation, makes a notable use of it. Jonson, he says, admits that Every Man in his Humour was his first play, and as this was brought out by Shakspeare, to whose kind intervention Every Man out of his Humour; and since, continuing in all his plays, especially those of the comic thread, whereof the New Inn was the last, some recent humours still, or manners of men, that went along with the times; finding himself now near the close, or shutting up of his circle, hath fancied to himself, in idea, this Magnetic Mistress: a lady, a brave bountiful house-keeper, and a virtuous widow; who having a young niece, ripe for a man, and marriageable, he makes that his centre attractive, to draw thither a diversity of guests, all persons of different humours to make up his perimeter. And this he hath called HUMOURS RECONCILED. Pro. A bold undertaking, and far greater than the reconciliation of both churches; the quarrel between humours having been much the ancienter; and, in my poor opinion, the root of all schism and faction both in church and commonwealth. Boy. Such is the opinion of many wise men, that meet at this shop still; but how he will speed in it, we cannot tell, and he himself, it seems, less cares: for he will not be entreated by us, to give it a prologue. He has lost too much that way already, he says. He will not woo the gentle ignorance so much." alone Old Ben owed his introduction to the stage, it furnishes a manifest proof of his ingratitude to his benefactor, whom " he persecuted during his life with much clumsy sarcasm, and malevolent reflection." This would be very well had it contained one syllable of truth, and had not Mr. Malone himself produced the titles of several pieces written either wholly, or in part by Jonson, previously to the Comedy which he here asserts to be the first of his dramatic efforts. 5 He will not woo, &c.] It has been already observed that our poet was a great admirer and imitator of Aristophanes. Under the shelter of his undisputed authority, he probably indulged in many sarcasms on the public taste, which he would not so freely have hazarded on his own. In his comedies, the prægrandis senex frequently drops the mask, and comes forward (in what the ancients called the parabasis of the piece) in propria persona, to But careless of all vulgar censure, as not depending on common approbation, he is confident it shall superplease judicious spectators, and to them he leaves it to work with the rest, by example or otherwise. Dam. He may be deceived in that, boy: few follow examples now, especially if they be good. Boy. The play is ready to begin, gentlemen; I tell you, lest you might you might defraud the expectation of the people, for whom you are delegates: please you take a couple of seats, and plant yourselves, here, as near my standing as you can: fly every thing you see to the mark, and censure it freely; so you interrupt not the series or thread of the argument, to break or pucker it, with unnecessary questions. For, I must tell you, (not out of mine own dictamen, but the author's,) a good play is like a skein of silk; which, if you take by the right end, you may wind off at pleasure, on the bottom or card of your discourse, in a tale or so; how you will: but if you light on the wrong end, you will pull all into a knot or elf-lock; which nothing but the sheers, or a candle, will undo or separate. assert his own claims to favour, and question the impartiality or the judgment of his hearers. The passage in the text is a pretty close imitation of what Aristophanes urges in the Clouds. Όστις εν τετοισι γελά, τοις εμοις μη χαιρετώ v. 560. There is more to the same purpose in this speech; in the Pax, and several others of his plays, he addresses the audience with yet greater freedom.-The English stage was not perhaps at this time greatly behind that of Athens, in refinement, and propriety of conduct; yet it may be questioned whether Aristophanes was not heard with far more complacency than Jonson, who suffered continually from those reflections, which no consideration could deter him from renewing. The allusion to what he had lost by his prologues is easily understood. Dam. Stay! who be these, I pray you? Boy. Because it is your first question, and these be the prime persons, it would in civility require an answer: but I have heard the poet affirm, that to be the most unlucky scene in a play, which needs an interpreter; especially, when the auditory are awake: and such are you, he presumes; ergo |