Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/538

 442

NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vi. DEC. 7, 1912.

this Jonson quarrels with this association, and ' The Poetaster ' is produced elsewhere. Meanwhile I think there is a general con- sensus that the latter part of 1599 is the date of the first production of ' As You Like It.' Now let us compare the following :

(a) ' Every Man out of his Humour,' V. 7:

So many as have sweet minds in their breasts, And are too wise to think themselves are taxed In any general figure, or too virtuous To need that wisdom's imputation:

(b) Ib., Induction (Asper) : With an armed and resolved hand,

I '11 strip the ragged follies of the time, Naked, as at their birth

Ben Jonson's ' Timber Discoveries ' is a note- or commonplace - book in which his dominant notions are recorded. Although we are told that the earliest possible date to which the book can be assigned is 1620 or 1621, there can be no doubt that the views and judgments that it contains are of much longer standing. Observe, then, the following :

(c, 1) 'Timber,' p. 73 (ed. Schelling) :

" if I see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a betrayer of myself presently. No, if I be wise, I '11 dissemble it, if honest, I '11 avoid it, lest I publish that on mine own forehead which I saw there noted without a title."

(c, 2):

" Whilst I name-no persons, but derive follies, why should any man confess or betray himself ? Why doth not that of S. Hierome come into their mind, ' Ubi generalis est de vitiis disputatio, ibi nullam esse personse injuriam ? ' It is [? Is it] such an inexpiable crime in poets to tax vices generally, and no offence in them who by their exception confess that they have committed them particularly."

The Jaques of Shakespeare says (II. vii.) :

(A)

He that a fool doth very wisely hit

Doth very foolishly, although he smart.

Not to seem senseless of the bob ; if not,

The wise man's folly is anatomised

Even by the squandering glances of the fool.

Invest me in my motley ; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and

through

Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine.

Cf. the quotation under (6), supra, from Ben Jonson.

(B)

Why, who cries out on pride, That can therein tax any private party ? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, Till that the wearers every means do ebb ? What w-oman in the city do I name, When that I say the city-woman bears The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ? Who can come in and say that I mean her,

When such a one as she such is her neighbour ?

Or what is he of basest function

That says his bravery is not of my cost,

Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits

His folly to the mettle of my speech ?

There then ; how then ? what then ? Let me-

see wherein My tongue hath wrong'd him : if it do him

right,

Then he hath wrong'd himself ; if he be free, Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies, Unclaim'd of any man.

It may be urged that this argument is a ommonplace. Indeed, it may be easily Found elsewhere (e.g., ' Anatomy of Melan- holy/ ' Democritus to the Reader,' where Burton quotes Phaedrus and Erasmus). But, if I mistake not, with Ben Jonson it was a kind of obsession, and his constant apology for the personal attack which he makes under a thin disguise. I hesitate between the notion that the whole of the defence of taxation (' As You Like It,' II. vii. 50-88) attributed to Jaques is an afterthought, or that most of the dialogue was meant as a piece of friendly banter, which Ben Jonson took, with other imaginary grievances, in ill part. I feel more confident that the covert attack in ' The Poetaster ' on Shake- speare's language led to the Duke's rebuke (' As You Like It,' II. vi.) : Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin : For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself ; And all the embossed sores and headed evils, That thou with license of free foot hast caught, Wouldst thou disgorge upon the general world.

Whether the greater part of Jaques's discourse about taxation was a piece of friendly banter,* resented by Ben Jonson, or whether Ben's resentment was due to his general quarrel with the Globe company (Shakespeare included), may be doubtful questions, but that these words of the Duke are the bitterest ingredient in the " purge ' r administered by Shakespeare I cannot but feel certain.

Again, let us note that in ' As You Like It,' III. ii. 266, although the stage direction runs " Enter Orlando and Jaques," Rosalind and Celia take no notice whatever of the fact that Jaques is with Orlando. This is because everything from 1. 266 to 1. 312 is a later insertion, in which, in the combat of wit, check, and countercheck, the cynic is

what then ? " of Jaques (II. vii. 85) a personal mannerism the rapid, impatient utterance of a fretful disputant. The humour and irony of Jaques's complaint of the Duke, " He 's too disputable for my company ; I think of as many matters as he, but I give heaven thanks I make no blast of them," arc true to life.
 * I seem to see in the " There then : how then ?