The "book of which he shewed the company the plotte," might have been the Case is Altered. as he might have saved himself and Mr. G. Chalmers a world of trouble in dandling this play backwards and forwards, on account of the last quoted passage. In a "Speech according to Horace," (vol. viii. p. 428,) undoubtedly subsequent to the Tempest, we find the words "tempestuous grandlings." Here the allusion is not only to the title of the play, but most palpably to Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco, and, perhaps, to Prospero himself! After such overwhelming proofs it cannot but surprise the reader to hear one of Jonson's critics speak thus doubtingly : 66 Perhaps Shakspeare himself, by the help of a proper application, was designed, to be included!" O the power of candour! But far better is the writer's amended judgment. "Other dramatists had indeed written on the jars of York and Lancaster, but Jonson doth not appear to have thought them worthy of his notice"! And best of all is the liberal conclusion of Steevens:/" The whole of Ben Jonson's prologue to Every Man in his Humour is a malicious sneer at Shakspeare." vol. xiii. p. 249. "The following curious notices (says Mr. Malone, Shak. vol. ii. p. 484,) occur relative to Shakspeare's old antagonist, Ben Jonson."-When it is considered that Jonson was at this time scarcely 22, (Shakspeare was 32,) that by Mr. Malone's own account, he was not known to Shakspeare, whom he could in no possible way have offended, the justice of calling him the old antagonist of our great poet, is not a little questionable. The notices are: "Lent unto Benjemen Johnson player, the 22d of July 1597, in ready money, the some of fower poundes, to be payed yt agen whensoever either I or my sonne (Alleyn) shall demand yt." "Lent unto Benjemen Johnsone the 3d of december 1597, VOL. I. с He was now recent from the Roman writers of comedy, and, in this pleasant piece, both Plautus and Terence are laid under frequent contribution. The success of Every Man in his Humour appears to have encouraged the author to attempt to render it yet more popular: accordingly he transferred the scene, which in the former play lay in the neighbourhood of Florence, to London, changed the Italian names for English ones; and introduced such appropriate circumstances as the place of action upon a book which he was to writte for us before crysmas nexte after the date here of, which he showed the plotte unto the company: I say lent unto hime in redy money, the some of xxs." This Comedy is usually assigned to 1598, principally because of its allusion to Antony Munday, which appeared in the Wits' Treasurie, published in that year. But Antony might have been called "our best plotter" before Meares wrote his pedantic conundrums; and, indeed, the words have to me the air of a quotation. I am almost inclined to set down this, as the earliest of our author's dramas; in 1598 it was already a popular piece, and it bears about it the marks of juvenility. It is doubted in the Bio. Dram. whether Jonson be the author of this piece, because, says the writer, it is printed without a dedication, which is commonly prefixed to his early plays, &c. I cannot stoop to contend with sheer ignorance-but in the first place, the play was not published by Jonson; and in the second, his dedications are more frequent in the folio, than in the 4tos. seemed to require. In fact, the attempt was to be expected, from the improvement which was visibly taking place in his mind. Young' as he was, when he wrote this drama, it is scarcely to be wondered, that he should fall into the common practice, and while he placed his scene in Italy, draw all his incidents from his own country. It must be added to his praise, that he did not entirely neglect the decorum of 7 The reader of the present day, who has been accustomed to hear of nothing but "old Ben," will start, perhaps, to find that he once was young. The appellation was first given to him by sir John Suckling, a gay, careless, good-humoured wit of the court, in 1637: "The next that approached was good old Ben." << Good," the commentators are careful to omit; but "old Ben" they are never weary of repeating. Mr. Malone says that this title was not familiarly given to him during his life. In fact, it was never familiarly given to him, till he and his friend Steevens took it up, and applied it as a term of ridicule and contempt in every page. That Ben was termed old on one occasion shortly after his death, is scarcely a sufficient plea for making the appellation perpetual, or we might confer it on all the writers of his time. We hear of old Massinger, and old Shirley; and the publishers of Beaumont and Fletcher advertise their readers, " that after they shall have reprinted Jonson's two volumes, they hope to reprint old Shakspeare." See the Booksellers' address, fol. 1679. What would Mr. Malone have said if the editors of any of our old dramatists had nauseated their readers from page to page (on this authority) with a repetition of old Shakspeare? place, even in this performance but there was yet too much of English manners, and the reformation of the piece was therefore well-timed and judicious. Jonson fell into no subsequent incongruities of this kind, for the Fox is without any tincture of foreign customs, and his two tragedies are chastly Roman. "But notwithstanding (Whalley says) the art and care of Jonson to redress the incongruities taken notice of, a remarkable instance of Italian manners is still preserved, which, in transferring the scene, he forgot to change. It is an allusion to the custom of poisoning, of which we have instances of various kinds, in the dark and fatal revenges of Italian jealousy. Kitely is blaming Well-bred for promoting the quarrel between Bobadil and Downright, and Well-bred offers to excuse himself by saying that no harm had happened from it. Kitely's wife then objects to him; "But what harm might have come of it, brother?" to whom Well-bred replies, " Might, sister? so might the good warm clothes your husband wears be poisoned for any thing he knows; or the wholesome wine he drank even now at table." Kitely's jealous apprehension is immediately alarmed, and he breaks out in a passionate exclamation; 'Now God forbid. O me, now I remember My wife drank to me last, and changed the cup; And thus he goes on, imagining that he feels the poison begin to operate upon him. Nothing could be more in character than this surmise, supposing the persons, as was the case at first, to have been natives of Italy. But had Jonson recollected, it is probable he would have varied the thought to adapt it more consistently to the genius and manners of the speaker." Preface, p. xii. I have given this tedious passage at large, because the happy discovery which it holds forth has been received with vast applause by the critics. In Hurd's letter to Mason On the marks of Imitation, it is said, "The late editor of Johnson's works observes very well the impropriety of leaving a trait of Italian manners in his Every Man in his Humour, when he fitted up that play with English characters. Had the scene been originally laid in England, and that trait been given us, it had convicted the poet of imitation." p. 18. Such solemn absurdity is intolerable. The truth is, that Jonson could not have devised a more characteristic "trait" of the times in which he wrote. Poisoning was unfortunately too well understood, |