Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/193

 authority for attributing it to Jonson. The quarto version, where the names are Italian, was probably that acted in 1598. It alone contains Knowell's (Lorenzo's) defence of poetry (cf. also Englische Studien, i. 181 f.). This delightful comedy has always been popular. Congreve is said to have copied his Captain Bluff (‘Old Bachelor’) from Bobadil. Garrick revised it, and Kitely became one of his best rôles. It was the last of Jonson's plays to quit the stage. The prologue, his first critical manifesto, appears only in the folio. 2. ‘The Case is Altered,’ 1598–9; 4to, 1609; fol. 1692. Its date is fixed within narrow limits by allusions in it to Meres's eulogy of Munday (here ‘Antonio Balladino’) as the ‘best plotter’ (Palladis Tamia, 1598), and allusions to it in Nash's ‘Lenten Stuff,’ 1599, as ‘that witty play of “The C. is A.”’ It may, however, have preceded 1. Its plot is a combination of motives from Plautus's ‘Aulularia’ and ‘Captivi,’ treated with concessions to the current romantic drama which have been connected by Mr. Symonds with his work in 6. Jonson clearly disapproved the result in 1616, and it has never been popular since his own day. The careless quarto edition was doubtless pirated. 3. ‘Every Man out of his Humour, a Comicall Satyre,’ 1599; 4to (two editions), 1600; fol. 1616. Not so much a counterpart to No. 1 as a more elaborate version of the same motive, with a more satirical purpose. Its brilliant ridicule of current fashions, which made it popular in its own day, lacked permanent attraction, and it is not known to have been acted since 1682. The Theophrastean analyses of the characters prefixed to it found few imitators. 4. ‘Cynthia's Revels, or the Fountayne of Selfe-Love, a Comicall Satyre,’ 1600; 4to, 1600; fol. 1616; the latter edition with large additions, which reflect the tastes of the court of James, and were doubtless composed after Jonson had begun to write masques. Although highly popular in its day it was rapidly forgotten. 5. ‘Poëtaster, or His Arraignement, a Comicall Satyre,’ 1601; 4to, 1602; fol. 1616. The ‘Apologetic Dialogue’ was first printed in the latter. 6. Additions to ‘Jeronymo,’ 1601–2; 4to, 1602. Henslowe, 25 Sept. 1601, refers to ‘adicions,’ and on 24 June 1602 to ‘new adicyons,’ by Jonson. The undoubted tragic passion shown in one scene has led most critics to doubt Jonson's authorship of it. Mr. Symonds has insisted on his possession of a ‘romantic vein,’ habitually suppressed. The loss of all his early tragedy renders the question insoluble. 7. ‘Sejanus, his Fall, a Tragœdie,’ 1603; 4to, 1605; fol. 1616. The original version is not extant. ‘In this,’ says Jonson in preface to quarto, ‘a second pen had good share, in place of which I have rather chosen to put weaker, and no doubt less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.’ The ‘happy genius’ was assumed before Gifford to be Shakespeare; it was more probably Chapman, but the cancelled scenes being lost, conjecture is idle. As this was the first tragedy which Jonson published, it doubtless differed in method fundamentally from its lost predecessors. ‘The Favourite,’ a satirical tragedy, in which Bute is intended by Sejanus, was founded on it in 1770. 8. ‘Eastward Ho,’ 1604; 4to (in three editions), 1605, by Chapman, Marston, and Jonson. Jonson's contribution was doubtless very slight. 9. ‘Volpone, or the Foxe, a Comœdie,’ 1605; 4to, 1607; fol. 1616. Jonson here returned to comedy, but to comedy both simpler in conception, stronger in action, and more ethical in aim than its predecessors. He allowed his catastrophe in the interest of morals to swerve from ‘the strict rigour of comic law,’ ‘my special aim being to put a snaffle in their mouths that cry out, we never punish vice in our interludes’ (Dedication to the two universities). Received with great applause, it held the stage till the end of the eighteenth century. 10. ‘Epicœne, or the Silent Woman, a Comœdie,’ 1609; 4to, 1609 and 1620; fol. 1616. Of all Jonson's comedies the richest in comic invention. The farcical conception of Morose was early criticised; Dryden's tradition (Essay of Dram. Poes.) that Jonson had actually known such a person is immaterial. The scene between La Foole, Daw, and Truewit (act iv.) was probably influenced by ‘Twelfth Night;’ it suggested one in Hausted's ‘Rival Friends,’ 1631. Its popularity was from the first, in spite of the trifling epigram reported by Drummond, great, and steadily grew. Dryden chose it for a detailed ‘Examen’ as the best of English comedies. It was revived by Garrick in 1776. 11. ‘The Alchemist, a Comœdie,’ 1610; 4to, 1612; fol. 1616. In constructive mastery and prodigal intellectual power supreme among Jonson's plays. A droll, the ‘Empiric,’ was founded on it, 1676, and a farce, the ‘Tobacconist,’ in 1771. It was revived by Garrick, who made Drugger one of his best parts. 12. ‘Catiline his Conspiracy, a Tragœdie,’ 1611; 4to, 1611, 1635; fol. 1616. Jonson's second tragedy, composed on precisely the same principles as his first (No. 7), appealed like it to the few. It nevertheless acquired some popularity, and in Langbaine's time was still ‘always presented with success.’ 13. ‘Bartholmew Fayre, a Comedie,’ 1614; fol. 1631. Of all Jonson's plays moves most entirely within the horizon of the