...

son's Comedy (p. 37), there is the following observation : 'In The Magnetic Lady. Lady Loadstone's powers of attraction are continually alluded to, though with no apparent reason unless it be perhaps the sound of her name, and at the end she is married to Captain Ironside, presumably because magnet attracts iron.' But this statement, I think, reverses the process which Jonson would more naturally have followed-that of adapting the name to the character and the plot, rather than the reverse. And reflection upon the nature of allegory inclines me to the opinion that these personages should not be classified under that type. Allegorical characters are personifications of a single, abstract quality; but these are typical characters, each with a predominant trait. Lady Loadstone is the rich and gracious hostess to whose hospitality is added the attraction of a wealthy and marriageable niece; Compass is the astute observer and critic, the scholar with a satiric bent; and the typical soldier swaggers in the person of Captain Ironside. In one passage, however, Lady Loadstone and Compass are mentioned as if they were merely symbolic personifications:

As Doctor Ridley writ, and Doctor Barlow?
They both have wrote of you and Mr. Compasse.
(I. 4. 5; see note)

Again, in Act 5, scene 5, Alderman Parrot's widow is described in such terms that one is doubtful as to whether the subject of conversation is a gentlewoman or a parrot. With the exception of these passages, the seemingly allegorical touches in the play may rather be explained as puns on the names which suggest the predominant traits of typical characters than as genuine personifications. The marriage of Lady Loadstone and Ironside is a natural result of the situation; rather hastily executed, to be sure, but not more so than the union of

Oliver and Celia in As You Like It; and as justifiable, at least, as the marriage of Vincentio and Isabella in Measure for Measure. The allegory in The Magnetic Lady is much less extensive and important than that in The Staple of News. The quasi-allegorical passages are the product of Jonson's ingenuity, and belong to the same species of mental dexterity as his habit of punning, and his use of words with an ambiguous meaning or humorous connotation.

D. THE SATIRE

I. SPECIFIC OBJECTS OF SATIRE

In The Magnetic Lady, Jonson, as he explains in the Induction (lines 86-97), is making a summary of his satiric humor-studies: he brings together a diversity of guests, all persons of different humors to make up his perimeter.' The result is not emphasis upon the satire of one or a few specific types or customs, but a more scattering and cursory treatment of many. Since the play lacks the unifying force of a central satiric motive, such as is exhibited in Volpone and The Alchemist, we cannot expect it to possess their dramatic power; but to one who has made a study of Jonson's earlier works, the play is rich in literary allusion.

In addition to his satire of representative types of folly or affectation, Jonson attacks various customs and superstitions. He makes thrusts at astrology (2. 2. 50; 5. 10. 14), the predictions of almanacs (4. 2. 25), and monopolies (1. 7. 74; 5. 3. 12). In this byplay he merely echoes work done more thoroughly in The Alchemist and The Devil is an Ass. The conflict of the humors of the captain and the courtier gives opportunity for an elaborate satire upon the duello, and in the last act he attacks the popular belief in demoniac possession, a phase of the

witchcraft-superstition.

The exposure of this supersti

tion of demoniac possession in Act 5 is a much abridged parallel to the satire upon the belief in alchemy in The Alchemist. It is involved with satire upon the doctor's pretended powers of exorcism, and upon the popular belief in birds of omen. As the topic of the duello, and Jonson's satirical comments upon it, are discussed with some fulness in the notes (3. 3. 44; 3. 5. 21, 26), it is not necessary to deal with it further at this point. The satire upon the belief in demoniac possession and other allied objects of Jonson's humor and ridicule is also discussed in the notes (5. 5. 8). The vogue of dueling and the belief in witchcraft were both elaborately satirized in The Devil is an Ass; and are discussed in their historical relations in Johnson's edition of this play (Introduction, pp. liv-lviii, lxii-lxv).

II. SATIRE OF TYPES OR CLASSES

Before discussing the satire of types or classes, it may be well to classify the characters of the play. A survey of the group suggets the following division: (1) sympathetic characters; (2) humor-types not treated satirically; (3) minor characters; and (4) satirized characters. In addition to these four main groups may be mentioned a fifth, the personages of the chorus-Probee, Damplay, and Boy of the House-who discuss questions of critical and theatrical interest that have a bearing upon the play.

The one sympathetic person of the play is Compass. He is the chorus or ideal commentator; his function is to expose and explain the follies of the other characters. Gifford remarks that he is the mouthpiece of Jonson; and there certainly are strong points of resemblance between this character and the dramatist himself. His ideas and

sentiments are in harmony with those which Jonson expressed in the Underwoods and Discoveries, and enforced dramatically through the speeches of Crites and Horace. His mental characteristics are also those of Jonsonkeen observation, extensive knowledge, unerring insight into character, freedom from contemporary superstitions. Like the dramatist, he is a scholar, and has been a soldier. If one is looking for autobiographical material in Jonson's plays, he may well be considered together with Horace, Crites, and Macilente.

In the second group, the humor-types not treated satirically, belong Captain Ironside and the midwife, Chair. The captain is the typical soldier and man of action-independent, void of ceremony, intolerant of affectation and caprice. Although sudden and quick in quarrel, he is without deep grudge or resentment, and ready to do another a good turn. He is a hasty and successful wooer. The midwife is a type pretty thoroughly individualized. She is coarse and morally obtuse, but has the attractive qualities of good nature, and healthy optimism. The forcefulness of her personality is shown indirectly in the success with which she composes the quarrel between Polish and Keep.

In the third group, the minor characters or mere agents of the plot, belong Lady Loadstone, Placentia, Pleasance, Keep, Needle, and Item.

The satirized characters, or main group, include Palate, the clergyman; Rut, the physician; Silkworm, the courtier ; Practice, the lawyer; Interest, the usurer; Bias, the intriguing politician; and Polish, whose character is sufficiently complex to require separate treatment. In satirizing these personages, Jonson is repeating work that he has done before. He is beyond doubt the greatest English satiric dramatist, and in his epigrams he took a high rank in satiric character-writing. The success of Jonson

as a satiric dramatist is probably due in large part to the happy union of the man and the time. He possessed a strong intellectual endowment and sturdy common sense. His temper was serious and self-conscious. From his study of classical literature he acquired a reverence for form and for the rational element, and a fund of critical precepts. And he began to write at a time when the vogue of Elizabethan romantic literature was beginning to pass. Shakespeare's later comedies, which were contemporary with Jonson's Every Man in His Humor, were becoming increasingly serious in tone; and a few years later he later he gave up for a time the production of romantic comedy, and devoted himself to the highest form of realism, tragedy. The decade from 1600 to 1610 was the most serious period of the national drama. The literary fashions and social culture introduced from Italy, though bearing excellent fruit with Sidney, Marlowe, Greene, Shakespeare, and others, had developed on the social side into affectation, extravagance, and vice. The death of Elizabeth removed a great national unifying and uplifting force; and the corrupt court of James reduced to further disillusionment the idealistic temper of the preceding decade. The appeal of the drama at length became narrower, and the Puritan movement increasingly drew away the middle-class element from the theatres. The audience, it is probable, became composed mainly of the rabble and the courtiers; and when, in the following decade, the realistic drama was less in vogue, the coarse tragi-comedies of intrigue by Beaumont and Fletcher and their successors held the chief place on the stage. But Jonson, with the exception of the years when he was busy on the masques, persisted in the composition of realistic and satiric plays. While the majority of the dramatists were writing plays of adventure and intrigue with a foreign setting, he continued to satirize the follies of the time. The characters of The