Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/189

 BEN JONSON 173 is doubtless owing to the fact that nearly every one now is both professor and practiser, being able easily to master the art himself. Finally, we have that admirable scamp Shift, the Cavalier Shift, one of whose chief exercises is taking tobacco, this being his sole innocent and laudable employment. Coming to the play itself, we find almost every act odorous with those rich fumes that cheer but not inebriate. But first let me quote the beginning of the fine passage in which the poet, under the name of Asper, announces and vindicates the purpose of his comedy : — " Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue ? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense. That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake ? To see the earth cracked with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretched wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips sealed up ? Not I : my soul Was never ground into such oily colours, To flatter vice, and daub iniquity : But, with an armed and resolved hand, I'll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth." A strain too fierce and indignant for our light and pleasant theme ! This same Asper rough-handles certain types of pre- tentious critics common in his day among theatrical audiences, just as Sterne dealt right sternly with the varieties of the cant of criticism common in his. (We have no dramatic criticism, or drama, in these days, but mere insipid tolerance or eulogy of stage