Fuller traces him "from his long coats;" and from that poor dwelling "in Hartshorn Lane near Charing Cross he sees him through a private school in St. Martin's Church" into the sixth form at "Westminster." What wanderings must

the bricklayer's stepson have had during those school-days, and in the less happy period when they were passed! And then, when the strong man came back from the Low Countries, and perhaps on one day was driven to the taverns and the playhouses by the restlessness of his genius, and on another ate the sweeter bread of manual labour, how thoroughly must he have known that town in which he was still to live for forty years; and how familiarly must all its localities have come unbidden into his mind! As his characters could only have existed in the precise half-century in which he himself lived, so they could only have moved in the identical places which form the background in these remarkable groups. We open “Every Man in his Humour:" Master Stephen dwells at Hogsden, but he despises the "archers of Finsbury and the citizens that come a-ducking to Islington ponds." We look upon the map of Elizabeth's time, and there we see Finsbury Field covered with trees and windmills; and we understand its ruralities, and picture to ourselves the pleasant meadows between the Archery-ground and Islington. But the dwellers at Hoxton have a long suburb to pass before they reach London. "I am sent for this morning by a friend in the Old Jewry to come to him; it is but crossing over the fields to Moorgate." The Old Jewry presented the attraction of "the Windmill" tavern; and near it dwelt Cob, the waterman, by the wall at the bottom of Coleman Street, "at the sign of the Water Tankard, hard by the Green Lattice." Some thirty years after this we have in "The Tale of a Tub" a more extended picture of suburban London. The characters move about in the fields near Pancridge (Pancras), to Holloway, Highgate, Islington, Kentish Town, Hampstead, St. John's Wood, Paddington, and Kilburn : Totten-Court is a mansion in the fields : a robbery is pretended to be committed in “the ways over the country" between Kentish Town and Hampstead Heath, and a warrant is granted by a "Marribone " justice. In London the peculiarities of the streets become as familiar to us as the names of the taverns. There is a rare motion (puppet show) to be seen in Fleet Street," and " a new motion of the city of Nineveh with Jonas and the Whale at Fleet Bridge."+ The Strand was the chief road for ladies to pass through in their coaches; and there Lafoole in the "Silent Woman" has a lodging, "to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance and give them presents." Cole-Harbour, in the Parish of All Hallows the Less, is not so genteel-it is a sanctuary for spendthrifts. Sir Epicure Mammon, in "The Alchymist," would buy up all the copper in Lothbury; and we hear of the rabbit-skins of Budge Row and the stinking tripe of Panyer Alley. At the bottom of St. Martin's Lane was a nest of alleys (some remains of which existed within the last thirty years) the resort of infamy in every shape. Jonson calls them "the Straits,' ," "where the quarrelling lesson is read," and the "seconds are bottle-ale and tobacco."§ The general characteristics of the streets before the fire are not forgotten. In "The Devil is an Ass" the Lady and her lover speak closely and gently from the windows of two contiguous buildings. Such are a few examples of the local proprieties which constantly turn up in Jonson's dramas.

The personal relations in which this great dramatist stood in regard to his literary compeers is not an unimportant chapter in the history of the social state. The influence of men of letters even upon their own age is always great; it is sometimes all-powerful. In Jonson's time the pulpit and the stage were the teachers and the inciters; and the stage, taken altogether, was an engine of great power, either for

"The Fox." "Every Man out of his Humour."

"Bartholomew Fair." § Ibid.

good or evil. In the hands of Shakspere and Jonson it is impossible to over-estimate the good which it produced. The one carried men into the highest region of lofty poetry (and the loftier because it was comprehensible by all), out of the narrow range of their own petty passions and low gratifications: the other boldly lashed the follies of individuals and classes, sometimes with imprudence, but always with honesty. If others ministered to the low tastes and the intolerant prejudices of the multitude, Jonson was ever ready to launch a bolt at them, fearless of the consequences. No man ever laboured harder to uphold the dignity of letters, and of that particular branch in which his labour was embarked. He was ardent in all he did; and of course he made many enemies. But his friendship was as warm as his enmity. No man had more friends or more illustrious. He was the father of many sons, to use the affectionate phrase which indicated the relation between the great writer and his disciples. Jonson was always poor, often embarrassed; but his proper intellectual ascendancy over many minds was never doubted. Something of this ascendancy may be attributed to his social habits.

In the year 1599, when Henslowe, according to his records, was lending Benjamin Jonson twenty shillings, and thirty shillings, and other small sums, in earnest of this play and that-sometimes advanced to himself alone, oftener for works in which he was joined with others—he was speaking in his own person to the audiences of the time with a pride which prosperity could not increase or adversity subdue. In "Every Man out of his Humour," first acted in 1599, he thus delivers himself in the character of "Asper, the Presenter :”—

"If any here chance to behold himself,

Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;

For if he shame to have his follies known,

First he should shame to act 'em my strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe

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

The spirit which dictated these lines was not likely to remain free from literary quarrels. Jonson was attacked in turn, or fancied he was attacked. In 1601 he produced "The Poetaster;" and in his "Apologetical Dialogue which was only once spoken upon the stage," he thus defends his motives for this supposed attack upon some of his dramatic brethren :

"Sure I am, three years

They did provoke me with their petulant styles
On every stage and I at last, unwilling,

But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,

Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em ;
And therefore chose Augustus Cæsar's times,
When wit and arts were at their height in Rome,
To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest
Of those great master-spirits, did not want
Detractors then, or practisers against them :
And by this line, although no parallel,

I hop'd at last they would sit down and blush ;
But nothing I could find more contrary.
And though the impudence of flies be great,
Yet this has so provok'd the angry wasps,
Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets,
That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils,
And, like so many screaming grasshoppers
Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise."

In "The Poetaster" Jonson characterises himself as Horace; and his

trius, says, "Horace is a mere sponge-nothing but humours and observations. He goes up and down sucking upon every society, and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again." This reminds one of Aubrey :-" Ben Jonson and he (Shakspere) did gather humours of men daily wherever they came." They used their observations, however, very differently; the one was the Raphael, the other the Teniers, of the drama. When we look at the noble spirit with which Jonson bore poverty, it is perhaps to be lamented that he was so impatient of censure. If the love of fame be

"The last infirmity of noble minds,"

the horror of ridicule or contempt is too often its companion. The feelings are mixed in the fine lines with which Jonson concludes the "Apologetical Dialogue:"

"I, that spend half my nights, and all my days,
Here in a cell to get a dark, pale face,

To come forth with the ivy or the bays,

And in this age can hope no other grace

Leave me! There's something come into my thoughts
That must and shall be sung high and aloof,

Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof."

Gifford has thus described the club at the Mermaid :—“ About this time [1603] Jonson probably began to acquire that turn for conviviality for which he was afterwards noted. Sir Walter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement with the wretched Cobham and others, had instituted a meeting of beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Friday Street. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius than ever met together before or since, our author was a member; and here for many years he regularly repaired with Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect." Jonson has been accused of excess in wine; and certainly temperance was not the virtue of his age. Drummond, who puts down his conversations in a spirit of detraction says, "Drink was the element in which he lived." Aubrey tells us "he would many times exceed in drink; Canary was his beloved liquor." And so he tells us himself in his graceful poem "Inviting a Friend to Supper:"

"But that which most doth take my muse and me
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,

Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine."

But the rich Canary was to be used, and not abused :-

"Of this we will sup free, but moderately;
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men:
But at our parting we will be as when
We innocently met. No simple word,
That shall be utter'd at our mirthful board,
Shall make us sad next morning, or affright
The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night."

This is not the principle of intemperance, at any rate; nor were the associates of Jonson at the Mermaid such as mere sensual gratification would have allied in that band of friendship. They were not such companions as the unhappy Robert Greene, whose genius was eaten up by his profligacy, describes himself to have lived amongst :-"His company were lightly the lewdest persons in the land, apt for pilfery, perjury, forgery, or any villainy. Of these he knew the cast to cog at cards,

cozen at dice; by these he learned the legerdemains of nips, foysts, conycatchers, crossbyters, lifts, high lawyers, and all the rabble of that unclean generation of vipers; and pithily could he point out their whole courses of craft: so cunning was he in all crafts, as nothing rested in him almost but craftiness." This is an unhappy picture; and in that age, when the rewards of unprofessional scholars were few and uncertain, it is scarcely to be wondered that their morals sometimes yielded to their necessities. Jonson and Shakspere passed through the slough of the theatre without a stain. Their club meetings were not the feasts of the senses alone. The following verses by Jonson were inscribed over the door of the Apollo Room in the Devil Tavern:

"Welcome all who lead or follow
To the oracle of Apollo:

Here he speaks out of his pottle,
Or the tripos, his tower bottle;
All his answers are divine,
Truth itself doth flow in wine.
Hang up all the poor hop drinkers,
Cries old Sim, the king of skinkers;
He the half of life abuses

That sits watering with the Muses.
Those dull girls no good can mean us;

Wine-it is the milk of Venus,

And the poet's horse accounted:

Ply it, and you all are mounted.

'Tis the true Phoebean liquor,

Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker;

Pays all debts, cures all diseases,

And at once three senses pleases.

Welcome all who lead or follow

To the oracle of Apollo !"

In the Apollo Room Jonson sat, the founder of the club, perhaps its dictator. One of his contemporary dramatists, Marmion, describes him in his presidential chair:—

"The boon Delphic god

Drinks sack, and keeps his Bacchanalia,
And has his incense, and his altars smoking,
And speaks in sparkling prophecies."

"The boon Delphic god" had his Leges Convivales, written in the purest Latinity, These laws have been translated into engraved in black marble over the chimney. very indifferent verse, to quote which would give an imperfect idea of their elegance and spirit. They were not laws for common boon-companions; but for the "Eruditi, urbani, hilares, honesti." The tavern has perished: it has long been absorbed by the all-devouring appetite of commerce. But its memory will be ever fresh, whilst the laws of its club record that there were elegance without expense, wit without malice, high converse without meddling with sacred things, argumentation without violence. If these were mingled with music and poetry, and sometimes accomplished women were present, and the dance succeeded to the supper, we must not too readily conclude that there was licencc,-allurements for the careless, which the wise ought not to have presided over. We must not judge of the manners of another age by those of our own. Jonson was too severe a moralist to have laid himself open the charge of being a public example of immorality.

to

Such, then, was the social life of the illustrious men of letters and the more tasteful of the aristocracy in the latter period of Shakspere's London life. But where did the great painters of manners "pick up humours daily?" Where did they find the classes assembled that were to be held up to ridicule and reproof? We open

Jonson's first great comedy, "Every Man in his Humour," and there in the list of characters we find "Captain Bobadill, a Paul's man.” Adventurers like Bobadill were daily frequenters of Paul's. The middle aisle of the old cathedral was the resort of all the idle and profligate in London. The coxcomb here displayed his finery, and the cutpurse picked his pocket. Serving-men here came to find masters, and tradesmen to attract purchasers by their notices on the pillars. Jonson has, up and down, constant allusions to Paul's. It was here that, wrapped up in his old coachman's coat, he studied the fopperies in dress which were so remarkable a characteristic of his times. It was here, probably, that Jonson got the hint of Bobadill's boots worn over his silk stockings, and the jewel in his ear. Here, too, he heard the gingle of the silver spurs which the gallants wore in spite of the choristers, who had a vigilant eye to enforce the fine called spur-money. Here, too, he might have seen the "wrought shirt" of Fastidious Brisk, embroidered all over with fruits and flowers, which fashion the Puritans imitated by ornamenting their shirts with texts of Scripture. Here he saw the "gold cable hatband "—" the Italian cut work band "-" the embossed girdle "—and the "ruffle to the boot of the same distinguished fop. The "mirror in the hat," and the "finger that hath the ruby," could not fail to be noticed in Paul's by the satirist. The "love-lock" and the "cut beard" were displayed in every variety that caprice and folly could suggest. Dekker has noted such minor follies of his age even with more assiduity than Jonson. He is confident in his powers; and claims to be a satirist by as indefeasible a title as that of his greater rival. In Paul's Walk, in the Mediterranean Aisle, he has noted one who walks there from day to day, even till lamp-light, for he is safe from his creditors. Another is waited upon by his tailor, who steps behind a pillar with his table-book to note the last fashion which hath made its appearance there, and to commend it to his worship's admiration. He has many a joke against the gallants of the theatre whom he has noted sitting on the stage in all the glory of their coxcombry-on the very rushes where the comedy is to dance, beating down the mews and hisses of the opposed rascality. The proportionable leg, the white hand, the love-lock of the essenced fop, have none of them passed unmarked. The red beard artistically dyed according to the most approved fashion supplies many a laugh; especially if the wearer had risen to be gone in the middle of the scene, saluting his gentle acquaintance to the discomfiture of the mimics. He, above all, is quizzed who hoards up the play scraps upon which his lean wit most savouredly feeds. Equally familiar is the satirist with the ordinary. He tells of a most absolute gull that he has marked riding thither upon his Spanish jennet, with a French lacquey carrying his cloak, who having entered the public room walks up and down scornfully with a sneer and a sour face to promise quarrelling; who, when he does speak, discourses how often this lady has sent her coach for him, and how he has sweat in the tennis-court with that lord. An unfledged poet, too, he has marked, who drops a sonnet out of the large fold of his glove, which he at last reads to the company with a pretty counterfeit lothness. He has a story of the last gull whom he saw there, skeldered of his money at primero and hazard, who sat as patiently as a disarmed gentleman in the hands of the bailiffs. At the tavern he has drawn out a country gentleman that has brought his wife to town to learn the fashions, and see the tombs at Westminster, and the lions in the Tower; and is already glib with the names of the drawers, Jack and Will and Tom: the tavern is to him so delightful, with its suppers, its Canary, its tobacco, and its civil hostess at the bar, that it is odds but he will give up housekeeping. Above all," the satirical rogue" is familiar with the habits of those who hear the chimes at midnight. He knows how they shun the waking watch and play tricks with the sleeping, and he hears the pretenders to gentility call aloud Sir Giles, or Sir Abraham, will you turn this way?