Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/108

94 It has been well remarked that to give specimens of a play by extracts, is like showing a brick as a sample of the edifice of which it is but a small constituent part. The force and beauty of passages in a drama depend on their relative fitness to the character by whom, and the situation in which they are uttered. This would prevent our making quotations from the comedies; but to one passage in "Every Man in his Humour," we must call the reader's attention. It is the description of jealousy. Kitely speaks.

Now, such passages, as well as Jonson's great reputation for learning, have misled many, and among them, no less a man than Sir W. Scott, who, in his life of Dryden, says, that "Jonson gave an early example of metaphysical poetry." This word metaphysical is a talisman in the hands of some, a very sorcerer's wand, and magical in its powers of confusion. It has been well observed, that when a man is saying that which his audience does not comprehend, and which he does not himself comprehend, he is talking "metaphysics." Like a weapon clumsily handled, or a lantern not dexterously used, it will only wound or discover its possessor. Sir W. Scott's remark fully illustrates this. In using that word he shows either an ignorance of its meaning or an ignorance of the