t is, and as it is,--at
best a tolerable but most frequently a blundering, copy. In the former the
difference was an essential element; in the latter an involuntary defect.
We should think it strange, if a tale in dance were announced, and the
actors did not dance at all;--and yet such is modern comedy.

Whalley's Preface.

"But Jonson was soon sensible, how inconsistent this medley of
names and manners was in reason and nature; and with how little
propriety it could ever have a place in a legitimate and just
picture of real life."

But did Jonson reflect that the very essence of a play, the very language
in which it is written, is a fiction to which all the parts must conform?
Surely, Greek manners in English should be a still grosser improbability
than a Greek name transferred to English manners. Ben's _personae_ are too
often not characters, but derangements;--the hopeless patients of a
mad-doctor rather,--exhibitions of folly betraying itself in spite of
exciting reason and prudence. He not poetically, but painfully exaggerates
every trait; that is, not by the drollery of the circumstance, but by the
excess of the originating feeling.

"But to this we might reply, that far from being thought to build
his characters upon abstract ideas, he was really accused of
representing particular persons then existing; and that even those
characters which appear to be the most exaggerated, are said to
have had their respective archetypes in nature and life."

This degrades Jonson into a libeller, instead of justifying him as a
dramatic poet. _Non quod verum est, sed quod verisimile_, is the
dramatist's rule. At all events, the poet who chooses transitory manners,
ought to content himself with transitory praise. If his object be
reputation, he ought not to expect fame. The utmost he can look forwards
to, is to be quoted by, and to enliven the writings of, an antiquarian.
Pistol, Nym, and _id genus omne_, do not please us as characters, but are
endured as fantastic creations, foils to the native wit of Falstaff.--I say
wit emphatically; for this character so often extolled as the masterpiece
of humour, neither contains, nor was meant to contain, any humour at all.

"Whalley's 'Life Of Jonson.' "

"It is to the honour of Jonson's judgment, that _the greatest poet
of our nation_ had the same opinion of Donne's genius and wit; and
hath preserved part of him