Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/165

I BEN JONSON 149 taste and judgment which such learning nourishes, he was almost if not quite unequalled. He would neither bow nor pretend to bow to vulgar censures of what he knew to be above the vulgar compre- hension ; neither consent nor affect to consent to be mixed up with the lower class of playwrights, unlearned and unskilful, producing in hottest haste, pandering to the mob, often scurrilous, profane, and obscene. "A contemner and scorner of others ; given rather to lose a friend than a jest ; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth)." Every- thing we know of Jonson, bearing upon these charges, tends to falsify them. Gifford says, and says well : "It cannot be too often repeated that this writer, who has been described as a mere mass of spleen and ill-nature, was, in fact, the frankest and most liberal of mankind. I am fully warranted in saying that more valuable books given to individuals by Jonson are yet to be met with than by any [other] person of that age. Scores of them have fallen under my own inspection, and I have heard of abundance of others." And in a note he cites confirmation from the elder Disraeli (" Quarrels of Authors ") : " No [other] has left behind him in MS. so many testi- monies of personal fondness as Ben Jonson, by in- scriptions and addresses, in the copies of his works, which he presented to his friends. Of these I have seen more than one fervent and impressive." And William Godwin (in "Appendix to the Lives of E. and J. Philips ; " where, by the way, he points out in some detail how largely Milton was indebted to