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jectors, and the exposure of pretended demoniacs and witch-finders (the crying evils of the time), that little or nothing remains to be added on either in this place. Another opportunity will be afforded of recurring to the subject of witchcraft, and the subsequent play brings forward another set of projectors.

There is much good writing in this comedy. All the speeches of Satan are replete with the most biting satire, delivered with an appropriate degree of spirit. Fitzdottrel is one of those characters which Jonson delighted to draw, and in which he stood unrivalled, a gull, i.e., a confident coxcomb, selfish, cunning, and conceited. Mrs. Fitzdottrel possesses somewhat more interest than the generality of our author's females,

and is indeed a well sustained character. In action the principal amusement of the scene (exclusive of the admirable burlesque of witchery in the conclusion) was probably derived from the mortification of poor Pug, whose stupid stare of amazement at finding himself made an ass of on every possible occasion must, if portrayed as some then on the stage were well able to portray it, have been exquisitely comic.

This play is strictly moral in its conception and conduct. Knavery and folly are shamed and corrected, virtue is strengthened and rewarded, and the ends of dramatic justice are sufficiently answered by the simple exposure of those whose errors are merely subservient to the minor interests of the piece.

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The Staple of News.

THE STAPLE OF NEWS.] This comedy was first acted by "his Majesty's Servants" in 1625, and entered soon after in the Stationers' Books, though no earlier copy of it is known than that of the old folio, which bears date in 1631. Nine years had elapsed since our author's last appearance on the stage; in the interval he appears to have spent a great part of his time not unpleasantly. He was engaged in writing masques for the court and divers of the nobility, at whose houses probably he occasionally resided; and he visited Scotland. During this period too some of the works which perished in the conflagration of his library must have been composed, as is proved from the Execration on Vulcan. Want perhaps, originating in illness, drove him again to the stage, for an unfavourable change in his circumstances seems to have taken place about this period.

With respect to the printing of this play, I think of it as I did of the preceding one, and as I continue to do of all the rest which appear in the folio of 1631,1or, as it should rather be called, of 1641, that Jonson gave himself no concern about the matter.

The motto to the old edition is from Horace; it is sufficiently trite, and had been more than once applied by the poet to his preceding labours :

Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetæ :
Aut simul et jucunda, et idonea dicere vita.

1 The only play which, according to my opinion, Jonson gave to the press after the folio of 1616, was The New Inn, which he printed in small 8vo this year (1631), and for the publication of which he had probably his private reasons. He was now on a sick bed, feeble and paralytic; and though poverty might impel him to write, it might not drive him to print, which at that time was neither a very profitable nor a sure resource.

The Stage.

Enter Prologue.

The Induction.

Pro. For your own sakes, not his1

Enter Gossip Mirth, Gossip Tattle, Gossip Expectation, and Gossip Censure, four Gentlewomen, lady-like attired.

Mirth. Come, gossip, be not ashamed. The play is THE STAPLE OF NEWS, and you are the mistress and lady of Tattle,let's have your opinion of it.-Do you hear, gentleman? what are you, gentlemanusher to the play? Pray you help us to some stools here.

Pro. Where? on the stage, ladies! Mirth. Yes, on the stage: we are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen. My Gossip Tattle here, and Gossip Expectation, and my Gossip Censure, and I am Mirth, the daughter of Christmas, and spirit of Shrovetide. They say, It's merry when gossips meet; I hope your play will be a merry one.

Pro. Or you will make it such, ladies. Bring a form here. [a bench is brought in.] But what will the noblemen think, or the

1 The folio reads ours, but erroneously, see

p. 277.

You never did wrong but with just cause.] This is meant as a satire on a line in Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, though it nowhere occurs as it is here represented.-WHAL.

The commentators are right at last. Here is evidently an allusion to Shakspeare, and for once "old Ben speaks out."

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grave wits here, to see you seated on the bench thus?

Mirth. Why, what should they think, but that they had mothers as we had; and those mothers had gossips (if their children had a longing to see plays, and sit upon were christened) as we are; and such as them, as we do, and arraign both them and their poets?

Pro. O, is that your purpose! Why, Mistress Mirth and Madam Tattle, enjoy your delights freely.

Tat. Look your News be new and fresh, Master Prologue, and untainted; I shall find them else, if they be stale or fly-blown, quickly.

Pro. We ask no favour from you; only we would entreat of Madam Expectation

Expect. What, Master Prologue? Pro. That your ladyship would expect no more than you understand. Expect. Sir, I can expect enough. Pro. I fear too much, lady; and teach. others to do the like.

Expect. I can do that too if I have cause. Pro. Cry you mercy, you never did wrong but with just cause. What's this, lady?

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Here is at least a reference to something. The fact seems to be that this verse, which closely The attacks on Jonson for this quotation, borders upon absurdity without being absolutely which are multiplied beyond credibility, are absurd, escaped the poet in the heat of compofounded on two charges-first, that he has falsi-sition, and being unluckily one of those quaint fied the passage, and secondly, that he was actuated by malignity in adverting to it at all. I cannot believe that the passage is "quoted (as Steevens says) unfaithfully.' It is sufficient to look at it in the printed copy to be convinced that it never came, in this form, from the pen of Shakspeare. One of the conspirators, Metellus Cimber by name, kneels at the feet of Cæsar, with this short address:

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"Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat An humble heart."

And what is Cæsar's reply?

slips which are readily remembered, became a jocular and familiar phrase for reproving, as here, the perverse and unreasonable expectations of the male or female gossips of the day.

To suppose, with Steevens and Malone, that Jonson derived all his knowledge of Shakspeare from his printed works, is not a little ridiculous: those gentlemen choose to forget that he passed his life among playhouses and players, and that he must have frequently seen Julius Cæsar on the stage. There he undoubtedly heard the expression which he has quoted. He tells us himself that, till he was past the age of forty, he could repeat everything that he had written.

"Know Cæsar doth not wrong, nor without His memory therefore was most retentive, and

cause

Will he be satisfied."

as his veracity was never called in question but by the duumvirate just mentioned, I cannot but

Mirth. Curiosity, my Lady Censure. Pro. O, Curiosity! you come to see who wears the new suit to-day; whose clothes are best penned, whatever the part be; which actor has the best leg and foot; what king plays without cuffs, and his queen without gloves; who rides post in stockings, and dances in boots.

Cen. Yes, and which amorous prince makes love in drink, or does over-act prodigiously in beaten satin, and having got the trick on't, will be monstrous still, in despite of counsel.1

Bookholder. [within.] Mend your lights, gentlemen.-Master Prologue, begin.

Enter the Tiremen to mend the lights.
Tat. Ah me!

Expect. Who's that?

Pro. Nay, start not, ladies; these carry no fireworks to fright you, but a torch in their hands to give light to the business. The truth is, there are a set of gamesters within, in travail of a thing called a play, and would fain be delivered of it: and they have entreated me to be their man-midwife,

believe that he has faithfully given the words as they were uttered. When The Staple of News was written cannot be told, but it was acted in 1625, nine years after Shakspeare's death; it seems, however, not to have been published till 1641, when the author himself had long been dead, though the title-page bears date 1631. Julius Cæsar was printed in 1623; but it does not necessarily follow from this that Jonson consulted the players' copy. He had no occasion to look into it for what he already knew; and if he had opened it at all, the probability is that he would have paid no attention to their botchery (for theirs I am persuaded it was), when the genuine words were already so familiar to him. He wrote and spoke at a time when he might easily have been put to shame if his quotation had been unfaithful.

I am sorry to be compelled to repeat so often, that whenever Jonson is concerned Mr. Malone is the weakest of all reasoners, the blindest of all accusers. Similar to the case before us is the attack made on the poet in a previous passage. "I remember (says Ben) the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line." Here Mr. Malone bristles up, and gives him the lie valiant. "This is NOT true," he exclaims," they only say, in their preface to his plays, that his mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered with that easiness, that a blot in his papers has scarce been received from him." This is playing at cross purposes with a witness! Jonson, who remembered everything, and who lived in habits of daily intercourse with all the players, the contemporaries of Shakspeare, gives us the results!

the prologue; for they are like to have a hard labour on't.

Tat. Then the poet has abused himself, like an ass as he is.

Mirth. No, his actors will abuse him enough, or I am deceived. Yonder he is within (I was in the tiring-house awhile to see the actors drest) rolling himself up and down like a tun in the midst of them, and purges, never did vessel of wort or wine work so! his sweating put me in mind of a good Shroving-dish (and I believe would be taken up for a service of state somewhere, an't were known) a stewed poet? he doth sit like an unbraced drum, with one of his heads beaten out; for that you must note, a poet hath two heads as a drum has: one for making, the other repeating and his repeating head is all to pieces; they may gather it up in the tiringhouse; for he hath torn the book in a poetical fury, and put himself to silence in dead sack, which, were there no other vexation, were sufficient to make him the most miserable emblem of patience. Cen. The Prologue, peace.

of his frequent conversations with them; Mr. Malone, who forgets himself from page to page, comes two centuries afterwards and charges him with a deliberate falsehood, because Heminge and Condell, two of them, print, in a preface which was not extant perhaps when Jonson wrote the passage just quoted, that they had scarce received a blot in Shakspeare's papers!

To have done with this long note. After relieving Jonson from the heaviest part of the charge-that of sophisticating a line "for the gratification of his malignity," I have no desire to push the matter further, or seek in any way to exonerate him from the crime of having produced it at all. Valeat quod valeat. Whether it be a satire, as Whalley, a sneer, as Malone, a scoff, as Steevens, a piece of wanton malice, as Tyrwhitt calls it, or all of them together, as others say, the reader may determine at his pleasure. I would only remind him that this is THE FIRST PLACE in Jonson's works in which I have found any expression that could be construed (whether fairly or not) into an attack on Shakspeare, and that a small portion of the tenderness which is felt for this great poet would not be altogether cast away on Marlowe, Lyly, Kidd, and others of some note in their day, whom he incessantly ridicules without stint and without mercy, though he had obligations to some of them, and had received provocation from none.

1 And having got the trick on't, will be monstrous still, in despite of counsel.] There can be no doubt but this is particular satire, though it is not easy to say at whom it points. WHAL.

1

THE PROLOGUE.

(FOR THE STAGE.)

For your own sakes, not his, he bad me say,
Would you were come to hear, not see a play.
Though we his actors must provide for those
Who are our guests here in the way of shows,
The maker hath not so; he'd have you wise,
Much rather by your ears than by your eyes;
And prays you'll not prejudge his play for ill,
Because you mark it not, and sit not still;
But have a longing to salute, or talk
With such a female, and from her to walk
With your discourse, to what is done, and where,
How, and by whom, in all the town but here.
Alas! what is it to this scene to know

How many coaches in Hyde-park did show
Last spring, what fare to-day at Medley's was,

If Dunstan or the Phoenix best wine has ?!

They are things-but yet the stage might stand as well
If it did neither hear these things nor tell.
Great noble wits, be good unto yourselves,
And make a difference 'twixt poetic elves
And poets all that dabble in the ink
And defile quills are not those few can think,
Conceive, express, and steer the souls of men,
As with a rudder, round thus, with their pen.
He must be one that can instruct your youth,
And keep your acme in the state of truth,
Must enterprise this work; mark but his ways,
What flight he makes, how new: and then he says,
If that not like you that he sends to-night,

"Tis you have left to judge, not he to write.

What fare at Medley's was,

If Dunstan or the Phoenix best wine has?] Medley's was an ordinary or eating-house. Dunstan was better known in the poet's time by the name of the Devil Tavern.* Here was the famous club at which Jonson presided as perpetual chairman; and at which Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Martin, a man of infinite humour, Morley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, Hodgson, and others, rarely equalled in aftertimes, occasionally assisted. The Phenix was situated somewhere near the playhouse of that name in Drury-lane.

And keep your acme] i.e., I presume, your mature age; but the expression is a strange one. The conclusion of this prologue cannot be praised for its modesty; but the audiences heard a language not much unlike it from others. Ben alludes to his long absence from the stage (nine years), during which he fears not to affirm that, whatever change (for the worse) may have taken place in them, he has suffered no deterioration. He is not much out in the present case; but the wolves were imperceptibly advancing upon Mæris.

• Mr. Waldron informs me that this tavern was shut up, and the sign (the Devil peeping over he shoulder of St. Dunstan) taken down about the year 1788. See the Leges Conviviales.

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