Page:The Works of Ben Jonson - Gifford - Volume 4.djvu/195

 Jonson could not easily have found. Long before the date of his play, it had become necessary (so numerous were the professors of Alchemy in this credulous nation) to pass more than one Act of Parliament against the transmutation of metals: this, in fact, rather tended to serve the cause of the knavish pretender, by imposing secrecy on his dupes, and furnishing a plea for conducting his mysterious operations in obscure and unfrequented corners. What the terror of the law, however, could not effect, was brought about by the force of well directed ridicule; and the success of Cervantes, in discrediting the legends of knight-errantry, was not more complete than that of Jonson in demolishing the sect of hermetic philosophers in this country. They vanished before him, like Mammon's hopes, in fumo: and though a solitary individual might, and occasionally did, re-appear, as a body they were no longer visible.

It is a part of the usual ill fortune which attends Jonson, that the very success of his satire has been urged as a drawback on its merits. "The pursuit," Hurd tells us, "so strongly exposed in this play, is forgotten, and therefore its humour must appear exaggerated," &c. Surely, this savours of ingratitude:—the Python is destroyed, and we instantly under-rate the arm by which the monster fell. It was not so of old.—Leaving this, however, let us descend to particulars. The character of Mammon is conceived in the united strength of genius and learning, and preserved in every situation, with inimitable skill. Avarice, though powerful in him, is yet subservient to his baser passions; and he pants after riches merely to squander them upon the most impure, and sensual gratifications: and it is finely imagined to involve him in an intrigue, of which (though fully aware of the fatal consequences) his uncontrollable licentiousness renders him the victim. In the elders, who are also most ably sustained, while their characters are kept perfectly distinct, it is the lust of power which inflames their cupidity; and to add fuel to this, the arguments of Subtle are chiefly directed. There are many portentous indications in this play of the ambitious views of the Puritans, views too fatally realized;—and it is apparent that the stage had formed juster notions of their power and pretensions than the court. While the dramatic poets were directing their satire against the turbulent activity of "the elect," James was seeking to sooth it by argument—but he never understood this people: he supposed them to be a sect, and they were a faction.

In the contracted minds of Dapper and Drugger, wealth is sought for itself alone, yet their characters are discriminated with great art; and the grovelling but cunning trader is treated