"Make a child now swaddled, to proceed

Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,
Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars.
He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see."

He wishes to represent on the stage

"One such to-day, as other plays shou'd be;
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas,

Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please :
Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard

The gentlewomen.

But deeds, and language, such as men do use.

You, that have so grac'd monsters, may like men." 2

Men, as we see them in the streets, with their whims and humours—

"When some one peculiar quality

Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour." 3

It is these humours which he exposes to the light, not with the artist's curiosity, but with the moralist's hate: "I will scourge those apes,

And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
As large as is the stage whereon we act;
Where they shall see the time's deformity
Anatomized in every nerve, and sinew,
With constant courage, and contempt of fear.

My strict hand

Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe

1 Every Man in his Humour, Prologue.
2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,
As lick up every idle vanity." 1

Doubtless a determination so strong and decided does violence to the dramatic spirit. Jonson's comedies are not rarely harsh; his characters are too grotesque, laboriously constructed, mere automatons; the poet thought less of producing living beings than of scotching a vice; the scenes get arranged, or are confused together in a mechanical manner; we see the process, we feel the satirical intention throughout; delicate and easyflowing imitation is absent, as well as the graceful fancy which abounds in Shakspeare. But if Jonson comes across harsh passions, visibly evil and vile, he will derive from his energy and wrath the talent to render them odious and visible, and will produce a Volpone, a sublime work, the sharpest picture of the manners of the age, in which is displayed the full brightness of evil lusts, in which lewdness, cruelty, love of gold, shamelessness of vice, display a sinister yet splendid poetry, worthy of one of Titian's bacchanals.2 All this makes itself apparent in the first scene, when Volpone says:

"Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!——
Open the shrine, that I may see my saint."

This saint is his piles of gold, jewels, precious plate:
O thou son of Sol,

"Hail the world's soul, and mine! . .
But brighter than thy father, let me kiss,
With adoration, thee, and every relick
Of sacred treasure in this blessed room."3

1 Every Man out of his Humour, Prologue.

2 Compare Volpone with Regnard's Légataire; the end of the six teenth with the beginning of the eighteenth century.

3 Volpone, i. 1.

Presently after, the dwarf, the eunuch, and the hermaphrodite of the house sing a sort of pagan and fantastic interlude; they chant in strange verses the metamorphoses of the hermaphrodite, who was first the soul of Pythagoras. We are at Venice, in the palace of the magnifico Volpone. These deformed creatures, the splendour of gold, this strange and poetical buffoonery, carry the thought immediately to the sensual city, queen of vices and of arts.

The rich Volpone lives like an ancient Greek or Roman. Childless and without relatives, playing the invalid, he makes all his flatterers hope to be his heir, receives their gifts,

"Letting the cherry knock against their lips,

And draw it by their mouths, and back again.”1

Glad to have their gold, but still more glad to deceive them, artistic in wickedness as in avarice, and just as pleased to look at a contortion of suffering as at the sparkle of a ruby.

The advocate Voltore arrives, bearing a "huge piece of plate." Volpone throws himself on his bed, wraps himself in furs, heaps up his pillows, and coughs as if at the point of death:

"Volpone. I thank you, signior Voltore,

Where is the plate? mine eyes are bad. . . . Your love
Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswer'd . .

"Voltore. Am I inscrib'd his heir for certain ? Mosca (Volpone's Parasite).

I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe

Are you

!

To write me in your family. All my hopes
Depend upon your worship: I am lost,

Except the rising sun do shine on me.

Volt. It shall both shine and warm thee, Mosca.
M.
Sir,

I am man, that hath not done your love

All the worst offices: here I wear your keys,
See all your coffers and your caskets lock'd,
Keep the poor inventory of your jewels,
Your plate and monies; am your steward, sir,

Husband your goods here.

Volt. But am I sole heir?

M. Without a partner, sir; confirm'd this morning :

The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry

And he details the abundance of the wealth in which Voltore is about to revel, the gold which is to pour upon him, the opulence which is to flow in his house. as a river:

"When will you have your inventory brought, sir?
Or see a copy of the will?"

The imagination is fed with precise words, precise details. Thus, one after another, the would-be heirs come like beasts of prey. The second who arrives is an old miser, Corbaccio, deaf, " impotent," almost dying,

1 Volpone, i. 3.

who nevertheless hopes to survive Volpone. To make more sure of it, he would fain have Mosca give his master a narcotic. He has it about him, this excellent opiate he has had it prepared under his own eyes, he suggests it. His joy on finding Volpone more ill than himself is bitterly humorous:

"Corbaccio. How does your patron? . . .

M. A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints, And makes the colour of his flesh like lead.

M. Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum, Forth the resolved corners of his eyes.

C. Is't possible? Yet I am better, ha! How does he, with the swimming of his head? M. O, sir, 'tis past the scotomy; he now Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort: You hardly can perceive him, that he breathes.

C. Excellent, excellent! sure I shall outlast him: This makes me young again, a score of years." 1

If you would be his heir, says Mosca, the moment is favourable; but you must not let yourself be forestalled. Voltore has been here, and presented him with this piece of plate:

Here, I have brought a bag of bright chequines,

Will quite weigh down his plate. .