“If you expect more than you had to-night,The Maker is sick and sad; he sent things fitIn all the numbers both of verse and wit,If they have not miscarried: if they have,All that his faint and faltering tongue doth craveIs, that you not impute it to his brain--That’s yet unhurt, although set round with pain.It cannot long hold out: all strength must yield;Yet judgment would the last be in the fieldWith the true poet.”
“If you expect more than you had to-night,The Maker is sick and sad; he sent things fitIn all the numbers both of verse and wit,If they have not miscarried: if they have,All that his faint and faltering tongue doth craveIs, that you not impute it to his brain--That’s yet unhurt, although set round with pain.It cannot long hold out: all strength must yield;Yet judgment would the last be in the fieldWith the true poet.”
“If you expect more than you had to-night,The Maker is sick and sad; he sent things fitIn all the numbers both of verse and wit,If they have not miscarried: if they have,All that his faint and faltering tongue doth craveIs, that you not impute it to his brain--That’s yet unhurt, although set round with pain.It cannot long hold out: all strength must yield;Yet judgment would the last be in the fieldWith the true poet.”
“If you expect more than you had to-night,
The Maker is sick and sad; he sent things fit
In all the numbers both of verse and wit,
If they have not miscarried: if they have,
All that his faint and faltering tongue doth crave
Is, that you not impute it to his brain--
That’s yet unhurt, although set round with pain.
It cannot long hold out: all strength must yield;
Yet judgment would the last be in the field
With the true poet.”
Charles sent him a hundred pounds: the poet, in the fulness of gratitude, wrote "A petition from poor Ben to the best of monarchs, masters, and men"--full of gaiety and good-humour, yet touching, even in its sparkling wit. The petition prayed that His Majesty would make his father’s “hundred marks a hundred pounds,” alluding to the pension granted by King James. The petition was granted, and in the patent by which the annuity was confirmed, it was said, “especially to encourage Jonson to proceed in those services of his wit and penn, which we have enjoined unto him.”
A tierce of Canary accompanied this act of bounty. It was Jonson’s favourite wine, and the King, from his private bounty, sent it to the sick poet. It was to be a yearly gift, not only to Jonson, but to his successors; and the wine--Spanish Canary--was to be taken from his Majesty’s cellars at Whitehall, out of the stores of wine “remaining therein.” Charles little anticipated that even his love of the drama should be made a cause of reproach to him at his trial. “Had the King but studied Scripture half asmuch as he studied Ben Jonson or Shakspeare!” was the cry of the Puritans.
Jonson might now have been tolerably happy, had not his former coadjutor, Inigo, still borne him enmity for having, during the preceding year, placed his own name before that of the royal architect. The conduct of Jones in this respect has been placed in its true light by a letter from a Mr. Perry to Sir Thomas Pickering.[223]In that letter it is stated that Inigo used his “predominant power” at Court to injure Jonson, then bed-ridden and impoverished, as the poet was. Henceforth, Aurelian Townshend, a poet scarcely known, was employed to invent the masques represented at Court, in conjunction with Inigo Jones.
The same year that was marked by the death of Buckingham witnessed poor Jonson’s “fatal stroke,” as he termed it, of palsy. He never recovered this attack of 1628, and his days were overclouded by successive mortifications. Hitherto the city of London had given him a pension for his services. At the very time when it was most needed by the forlorn dramatist, it was withdrawn, but restored three years afterwards. The office for which he received thisannuity was that of City Chronologer. The plea made for its cessation was that there had been “no fruits of his labours in that his place,” which place was to commemorate signal events; other sources of emolument were also withheld, on the plea that the fruits of that now exhausted brain were no longer forthcoming.
But bright instances of compassion and generosity stood forth amid all this gloom. Amongst the great patrons of the drama was William Cavendish, the first Earl of Newcastle, declared by Cibber to be “one of the most finished gentlemen and distinguished patriots of his time.” He had been constituted governor to Prince Charles, for whom he ever retained the most loyal affection. Of this nobleman it was said that he understood horsemanship, music, and poetry; but that he was a better horseman than a musician, a better musician than a poet. His wife, the eccentric Margaret Lucas, wrote of him that “his mind was above his fortune, his generosity above his purse, his courage above danger, his justice above bribers, his friendship above self-interest, his truth too firm for falsehood, his temperance beyond temptation.”
It was by no means prejudicial to the popularity of this fine specimen of an English nobleman that “he was fitter to break Pegasus for amanègethan to mount him on the steps of Parnassus.” He wrote a work entitled, “A new Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses and Work them according to Nature, as also to Perfect Nature by the Subtlety of Art.” The work, a folio, was succeeded by various comedies, several of them written when Lord Newcastle was in banishment, and acted, after his return to England, at Blackfriars. He wrote, it is said, in the manner of Ben Jonson, to whom he was a kind patron. The Earl was a singular compound of military skill and ardour with literary tastes; by him Sir William Davenant, poet-laureate after Jonson’s death, was made Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance.[224]
His wife, who at the time Ben Jonson knew her was Countess of Newcastle, and afterwards Duchess, is one of the most voluminous of writers among the (now) long catalogue of literary ladies in this country. She was at once ridiculous and estimable--a combination of qualities painful to friends, but never acknowledged by her husband, who revered her talents, and tried to defend what was incomprehensible to the learned--her philosophy. In private life she was reserved, living almost entirely among her books, or in contemplation, or writing indefatigably. Evenduring the night, one of the Duke’s secretaries is said to have slept on a truckle bed in a closet in her bedroom, in order to be ready to answer any sudden bursts of inspiration that might occur; and the summonses to John, “to get up and write down her Grace’s suggestions,” were frequent and wearisome. Kind, pious, charitable, generous, and really gifted, though romantic and visionary, this excellent lady’s peculiarities might have furnished Molière with a model for his “Precieuses Ridicules;” but, to Ben Jonson, they were lessened by the vast amount of amiability that welcomed the poet to her stately abode, or, better still, relieved him in his poverty and want.
When the Earl and Countess of Newcastle heard of the poet’s play being condemned--when they learned that various copies of complimentary verses had been addressed to him by admirers, pitying his humiliation--the Earl, worthy of the name of Cavendish (so dear to England),sent tosent torequest a transcript of them. The reply is very touching:--[225]
"My Noblest Lord, and my Patron by Excellence--I have here obeyed your commands, and sent you a packet of my own praises, which I should not have done if I had any stock of modesty in store; but ‘obedience is better thansacrifice,’ and you command it. I am now like an old bankrupt in wit, that am driven to pay debts on my friends’ credit; and, for want of satisfying letters, to subscribe bills of exchange.“Your devoted“Ben Jonson."4th February, 1632.“To the Right Hon. the Earl of Newcastle.”
"My Noblest Lord, and my Patron by Excellence--I have here obeyed your commands, and sent you a packet of my own praises, which I should not have done if I had any stock of modesty in store; but ‘obedience is better thansacrifice,’ and you command it. I am now like an old bankrupt in wit, that am driven to pay debts on my friends’ credit; and, for want of satisfying letters, to subscribe bills of exchange.
“Your devoted“Ben Jonson.
“Your devoted“Ben Jonson.
“Your devoted“Ben Jonson.
“Your devoted
“Ben Jonson.
"4th February, 1632.
“To the Right Hon. the Earl of Newcastle.”
Also note, same page:--
"My Noblest Lord and best Patron--I send no borrowing epistle to provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to repay, nor security to engage, that will be taken; but I make a most humble petition to your lordship’s bounty to succour my present necessities this good time of Easter; and it shall conclude a begging request hereafter on behalf of"Your truest bondsman and"Most thankful servant,“B. J.”
"My Noblest Lord and best Patron--I send no borrowing epistle to provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to repay, nor security to engage, that will be taken; but I make a most humble petition to your lordship’s bounty to succour my present necessities this good time of Easter; and it shall conclude a begging request hereafter on behalf of
"Your truest bondsman and"Most thankful servant,“B. J.”
"Your truest bondsman and"Most thankful servant,“B. J.”
"Your truest bondsman and"Most thankful servant,“B. J.”
"Your truest bondsman and
"Most thankful servant,
“B. J.”
One of these complimentary poems was written by Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland--a patriot, a soldier, and a poet, the very model of that refined spirit of chivalry which never recovered itself after the Rebellion. There must have been consolation in such a strain, from such a man; but poor “old Ben,” as he was now called, was almostpast consolation. He was engaged on another play, “The Majestic Lady.” The world, who had then deemed the old man dead,[226]received it as the injudicious effort of a mind enfeebled. Dryden, even, who should have forborne from the poor triumph over him whom he wrongly considered a “driveller and a show,” called these last plays “Ben’s dotages;” but, though feebler than his former dramas, they exhibit no traces ofdotage--that invidious and almost cruel expression.[227]
Sustained by the Earl of Newcastle, praised by the noble Falkland, pensioned by the King, one might have supposed that Jonson’s last days would have been peaceful, though no longer cheerful. But he had debts; and he was forced--bed-ridden, shaken in body and mind--to write on to the very last. His latest effort was an interlude welcome of King Charles to Welbeck, on his way to Scotland; for which a tribute from Jonson’s muse was commanded by the ever-friendly and munificent Newcastle.
The timely gratuity sent to the poet, when the interlude was ordered, “fell,” he wrote, “like thedew of Heaven on his necessities.” He wrote to his patron in terms of gratitude, warm and expressive, and creditable to himself and that benefactor.
He continued at his desk; and a fragment of the “Last Shepherd,” one of his last efforts which is preserved, proves that his fancy was unclouded. Hitherto it has been painful to trace his decay--to record his distress; but now light came to his death-bed, and came from on high. Penitence, prayer, conviction of the true faith in our Holy Apostolic Church, confession of sins, hope, and rest--these were the Heavenly lights that broke over the gloom of his latter hours.
Happily--and let the fact he impressively recorded--his parents had carefully impressed on his infancy deep religious convictions.
As he lay, neglected by his former associates, and even believed by the worldly to be dead--and dead, indeed, was he to them--the impressions of his duty to his Maker grew more frequent and stronger in his affection.[228]
To the Bishop of Winchester, who visited him during his long illness, he expressed the deepest contrition for having profaned the sacred name of his Creator in his plays. His “remorse was poignant;” and doubtless this sense of the responsibilitywhich is devolved on great talents, which comes to many too late, was the foundation of his heartfelt penitence and sorrow. He died on the 5th of April, 1637--and on the 9th his remains were entombed in Westminster Abbey, on the north side, just opposite the escutcheon of Robertus de Ros. A common pavement stone was placed over his grave; but Sir John Young, of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, passing through the Abbey, noticed that the stone was without any inscription to mark where the great poet lay. Sir John, or, as Aubrey calls him, “Jack” Young, gave one of the workmen eighteen-pence to cut an inscription; and the words, “O rare Ben Jonson!” were carved as a temporary distinction. Meantime, the admirers of the deceased poet were collecting a subscription to defray the expense of a suitable[229]monument to “poor Ben;” but the Rebellion breaking out, the project was abandoned, and the money returned to the subscribers.
No fewer than thirty-four elegies on Ben Jonson were collected by Dr. Duppa, the Bishop of Winchester, and published under the title of “Jonson’s Verbius;” and amongst the authors were Lord Falkland, Ford, Waller, George Donne, Lord Buckhurst, and other illustriousnames. But perhaps there is no tribute more gratifying to the admirers of Ben Jonson than that of Taylor, the water-poet, who had met him at Leith. Jonson, be it remembered, had walked to Edinburgh, yet he could not see the humble poet without giving him what he could ill afford to bestow.
“At Leith,” says Taylor, “I found my long-approved and assured good friend, Master Benjamin Jonson, at one Master John Stuart’s house. I thank him for his great kindness; for at my taking leave of him, he give me a piece of gold, of two-and-twenty shillings value, to drink his health in England; and withall willed me to remember his kind commendations to all his friends. So, with a friendly farewell, I left him as well as I hope never to see him in a worse state; for he is among noblemen and gentlemen that know his true worth, and their own honours, where with much respective love he is entertained.”
The sum, as Gifford remarks, was not, in those days, an inconsiderable one; and there was something graceful and touching in the kindness of one placed so high, as Jonson was in literary fame, to the humbler poet.
This sketch of Ben Jonson’s life and writings may serve to illustrate the manners of those times, and the nature of that society in whichGeorge Villiers lived. In every revel Buckingham was the most distinguished courtier. In every masque, during King James’s life, he played a part. He knew the poet at Wilton; there can be little doubt that the friends of Villiers were the patrons of poor Ben. The panegyrist of the Duke, Lord Clarendon, lived, as he has himself declared, “many years on terms of the most friendly intercourse with Jonson.” In that conversation, praised by this historian “as very good, with men of most note,” Villiers must have borne a part; whilst Camden and Selden mingled with poor Ben, with the Sackvilles, the Sidneys, the Herberts, and the numerous family of Villiers.