Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/36

 brightest and the best of his inventions since the date of the creation of Bobadil. But the decrease in humanity of humour, in cordial and genial sympathy or tolerance of imagination, which marks the advance of his genius towards its culmination of scenical and satirical success in The Alchemist must be obvious at this stage of his work to those who will compare the delightful cowardice and the inoffensive pretention of Bobadil with the blatant vulgarity and the flagrant rascality of Tucca.

In the memorable year which brought into England her first king of Scottish birth, and made inevitable the future conflict between the revolutionary principle of monarchy by divine right and the conservative principle of self-government by deputy for the commonweal of England, the first great writer who thought fit to throw in his lot with the advocates of the royalist revolution produced on the boards a tragedy of which the moral, despite his conscious or unconscious efforts 'to disguise or to distort it, is as thoroughly republican and as tragically satirical of despotism as is that of Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar. It would be well for the fame of Jonson if the parallel could be carried further: but,