But whatever may be the conclusion at which we arrive as to the author of the Dedication, we can arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to the author of the Address to the great Variety of Readers. The Address contains a number of peculiar phrases. In speaking of his author the writer says to the reader, if you do not like him surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him.' This was a favourite idea of Jonson's. In his Underwoods, when addressing an author who concealed his name, he says that if the reader

Only doth desire

To understand, he may at length admire;

and in the very first of his Epigrams he warns the reader,

Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand
To read it well-that is to understand.

Again, the writer of the Address states that in the Folio the plays of Shakespeare are presented to the reader absolute in their numbers as he conceived them.' This is no player's phrase. It is a phrase employed by the classical writers to denote absolute perfection. Thus Cicero speaks of the material world as mundus expletus omnibus suis numeris,' and Pliny describes a book which he admired as liber numeris omnibus absolutus.' It was a favourite phrase of Jonson's. When he published his Sejanus he was careful to remind the

reader that the book was not the same in all numbers' as the play which was acted on the stage; in the dedication of his Epigrams to the Earl of Pembroke he says the persons whom he describes may not answer 'in all numbers' to the description; in his Underwoods he alludes to Sir Kenelm Digby as a gentleman absolute in all numbers'; and in his Discoveries he speaks of Bacon as one who hath filled up all numbers,' not as conveying that Bacon had written every species of verse, but as conveying that in everything he wrote he was absolutely perfect. These parallelisms of expression are suggestive of the authorship of Jonson; but there is one passage in the Address which may fairly be regarded as conclusive. 'Well,' says the writer to the reader, 'it is now publique, and you will stand to your privileges, we know, to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a book, the Stationer says. Then, how odd soever your brains be, or your wisdoms, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your six-pen'orth, your shilling's worth, your five shillings' worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But whatever you do, Buy.' These 'rates' are in reality Jonson's. In the articles of agreement between the spectator and the author, in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, it is agreed that every person here have his or their free-will of censure, the author having now departed with his right'; and it is provided that it shall be lawful

for any man to judge his six-pen'orth, his twelvepen'orth, so to his eighteen-pence, two shillings, half-a-crown, to the value of his place, provided always his place get not above his wit.' 'Marry,' says Jonson, if he drop but sixpence at the door, and will censure a crown's worth, it is thought there is no conscience or justice in that.'

We may therefore safely accept the suggestion. of the Cambridge Editors that the documents which constitute the preface of the Folio were written by some literary man to be signed by the two players; and if we come to the conclusion that this literary man was Jonson, we can scarcely be wrong in believing that it was from Jonson that Hemming and Condell received the unblotted papers from which the Folio was printed. Let us see what Jonson has to say upon the subject.

M

vi

Of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson

R. HALLAM tells us that of the young man who came up from Stratford we know next to nothing. Mr. Lee, on the contrary, tells us that in his case an investigation extending over two centuries has brought together a mass of detail which far exceeds that accessible in the case of any other contemporary professional writer (p. 299). Among the contemporary professional writers the most eminent was Jonson; let us then compare what we know of Shakspere with what we know of Jonson, and see which of the two we are to trust, Mr. Lee or Mr. Hallam.

What in point of fact do we really know of the young man who came up from Stratford? Mr. Phillipps in his Outlines shows that we know nothing of him from his baptism in 1564 to his apprenticeship in 1577; that we have no information whatever as to his occupations from his apprenticeship in 1577 to his marriage in 1582 (i. 57);

that from his marriage in 1582 to his flight from Stratford in 1587 we know nothing of him but the birth and baptism of his children; and that from 1587 to 1592 there is not a single particle of evidence respecting his career (i. 83). In default of positive evidence the traditions accepted by his biographers as authentic inform us that while he remained at Stratford he was a butcher's apprentice and a poacher, and that when he arrived in London his first occupations were those of a horseboy and a 'serviture.' Apart from tradition we know nothing about his life in London till the end of 1592, when we know that he had become an actor.

Mr. Lee states that his first successes were achieved under the auspices of Henslowe; but Henslowe, copious as he is in his references to contemporary writers for the stage, makes no mention whatever of his name. During the whole of his career, so far as it is known, he was associated with the Burbages; and all that the Burbages have to say about him is that he was one of their men-players and deserving men. Mr. Lee states that the only patron of the Player that is known to biographical research is Southampton (p. 103); but Southampton has not given us a hint of his existence. Mr. Phillipps states that as far as the social distinctions of the age permitted he was intimately acquainted not only with Southampton but with Essex and Rutland and the other leaders of the Rebellion of 1601; but