Every Man in his Humour. CHAPTER XXIII. mour. Humour. Particular merit of Every Man in his Hu- Garrick. ley, ley, commended.- Henderfon.- Every man VERY Man in his Humour is foun EV ded on fuch follies and paffions as are perpetually incident to, and connected with, man's nature; fuch as do not depend upon local cuftom or change of fafhion; and, for that reason, will bid fair to last as long as many of our old comedies. The language of Jonfon is very peculiar; în perfpicuity and elegance he is inferior to Beaumont and Fletcher, and very unlike the masculine dialogue of Maffinger. It is almoft needless to observe that he comes far short of the variety, strength, and natural flow, of Shakspeare. To avoid the common idiom, he plunges into ftiff, quaint, and harsh, phraseology: he has borrowed more words, from the Latin tongue, D 3 tongue, than all the authors of his time, However, the style of this play, as well as that of the Alchemift and Silent Woman, is more difentangled and free from foreign auxiliaries than the greatest part of his works. Most of the characters are truly dramatic: Kitely, though not equal to Ford in The Merry Wives of Windfor, who can plead a more justifiable caufe of jealoufy, is yet well conceived, and is placed fo artfully in fituation, as to draw forth a confiderable fhare of comic distress. Bobadil is an original. The coward, affuming the dignity of calm courage, was, I believe, new to our stage; at least, I can remember nothing like him. From Bobadil, Congreve formed his Noll Bluff; a part most admirably acted by Ben Jonfon the comedian. Mafter Stephen is an honeter object of ridicule than mafter Slender. One is nature's oaf, confequently rather an object of compaffion than fcorn, The other is a fop of fashion, and the gulled imitator of the follies which he ad mires in his companions. Clement and Downright are strongly marked with humour, especially the firft; and Brainworm is a fellow of merry and arch contrivance. In drawing this character, I believe the author had Terence, or rather, Plautus, of whom he was acknowledged to be an imitator, in his eye. Wellbred and young Knowell are distinguished by no peculiarities, Old Knowell is fomething like the anxious Simo of Terence. A remarkable anecdote, concerning the introduction of this play to the theatre, has been handed down traditionally. Ben Jonfon prefented his Every Man in his Humour to one of the leading players in that company of which Shakspeare was a member. After cafting his eye over it careleffly and fupercilioufly, the comedian was on the point of returning it to the author with a peremptory refufal; when Shakspeare, who perhaps had never, till that inftant, feen Jonfon, defired he might look into the play. He was fo well pleased D 4 with with it, on perufal, that he recommended the work and the author to his fellows. The fuccefs of the comedy was confiderable, and we find that the principal actors were employed in it; Burbage, Kempe, Hemmings, Condell, and Sly. Shakfpeare himself is generally faid, by his name being first in the drama, to have acted the part of old Knowell. He was, at that time, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and Ben Jonson in his twenty-fourth, Notwithstanding the friendship which Shakspeare had manifested to Ben, by patronizing his play, yet the reader will find that the prologue is nothing less than a fatirical picture of feveral of Shakspeare's dramas, particularly his Henry V. and the three parts of Henry VI. I am of opinion, too, that Lear and the Tempest are pointed at in the following lines; Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please, Thefe |