Ben Jonson

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ... 143 CHAPTER VI. SECOND PERIOD OF MANHOOD. Resuming the thread of Jonson's biography, we may view the decade which elapsed between 1616 and 1626 as the third main period in his life. The year 1616 was marked, as I have already said, by the publication of the first folio of his collected works. It also witnessed the representation of his comedy ' The Devil is an Ass, ' by the King's Men at Blackfriars. This play cannot be reckoned one of J onson's masterpieces; though it counts an excellently outlined coxcomb, Fitzdottrell, among its dramatis persons, and perhaps the only interesting female character he ever drew, in that coxcomb's wife. How far it was successful on the stage at the time of its first representation we do not know. But there is some reason to suspect that it failed to please; for Jonson wholly ceased writing for the theatres between this date and the year 1625, when want and illness forced him once more to court the public. That Jonson never loved the playwright's calling is certain. He seems to have felt himself born to rebuke vice and folly; and since society refused to be scourged with patience and submission, he withdrew in dudgeon from the irksome task of writing scenes to amuse its idleness. In an ode to himself, printed in the ' Underwoods, ' we read this stanza: --And since our dainty age Cannot endure reproof, Make not thyself a page To that strumpet the stage, But sing high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof. It should be remarked that the last two lines of this ode are borrowed from the close of the 'Apologetical Dialogue ' appended to the 'Poetaster.' The little poem may, therefore, have been written about the time when Jonson first resolved to abandon comedy and try the less...