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II. GREEK PHILOSOPHY

In the discussion of valor in Act 3, scene 5, Jonson repeats thoughts expressed in the speech of Lovel in Act 4, scene 4 of The New Inn. As the source of this speech has been investigated by Dr. Tennant in his edition of The New Inn, I shall merely indicate his conclusions.

The parallel passages of The Magnetic Lady and The New Inn are as follows:

M. L. 3. 5. 83-96.

Com.

Dia.

Pra. I think a cup of generous wine were better,
Then fighting i' your shirts. Dia. Sir, Sir, my valour,
It is a valour of another nature,

Then to be mended by a cup of wine.

should be glad to heare of any valours,

Differing in kind; who have knowne hitherto,

Only one vertue, they call Fortitude,

Worthy the name of valour. Iro. Which, who hath not,
Is justly thought a Coward: And he is such.

O, you ha' read the Play there, the New Inne,
Of Ionsons, that decries all other valour

But what is for the publike. Iro. I doe that too,
But did not learne it there; I thinke no valour
Lies for a private cause.

3. 5. III-14. Dia.

I doe know all kinds

Of doing the busines, which the Towne cals valour.

Com. . . . Your first? Dia. Is a rash head-long unexperience.

N. I. 4. 4. 39–48. It is the greatest vertue, and the safety
Of all mankinde, the obiect of it is danger.

A certaine meane 'twixt feare, and confidence :
No inconsiderate rashnesse, or vaine appetite

Of false encountring formidable things;

But a true science of distinguishing

What's good or evill. It springs out of reason,
And tends to perfect honesty, the scope

Is alwayes honour, and the publique good:
It is no valour for a priuate cause.

M. L. 3. 5. 118-19. Dia. The next, an indiscreet
Presumption, grounded upon often scapes.

N. I. 4. 4. 206–7.

So he is valiant,

That yeelds not unto wrongs; not he that scapes 'hem.

M. L. 3. 5. 124-7. Com.

.

Your third ? Dia.
Is nought but
an excesse of choller,

That raignes in testy old men-. Com. Noble mens Porters
And selfe conceited Poets. Dia. And is rather

A peevishnesse, then any part of valour.

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Vertue is never ayded by a vice.

4.4.74-7. Lov. No man is valianter by being angry,

But he that could not valiant be without:

So, that it comes not in the aid of vertue,

But in the stead of it.

M. L. 3. 5. 150-1.

Dia. But mine is a Judicial resolving,
Or liberall undertaking of a danger-.

N. I. 4. 4. 126-9. Lov. A valiant man

Ought not to undergoe, or tempt a danger,

But worthily, and by selected wayes:

He undertakes with reason, not by chance.

M. L. 3. 5. 180-4. Pra. But there's a Christian valour, 'bove

these too.

Bia. Which is a quiet patient toleration,

Of whatsoever the malitious world

With Injury doth unto you; and consists

In passion, more than action, Sir Diaphanous.

N. I. 4. 4. 130–9.

Lov. His valour is the salt to his other vertues,
They are unseason'd without it. The waiting maids,
Or the concomitants of it, are his patience,

His magnanimity, his confidence,

His constancy, security, and quiet;

He can assure himselfe against all rumour!
Despaires of nothing! laughs at contumelies!
As knowing himselfe, advanced in a height
Where injury cannot reach him, nor aspersion
Touch him with foyle!

These parallels, as well as the reference to The New Inn, show that Jonson had in mind Lovel's oration on

valor when writing this scene of The Magnetic Lady. The difference between the two situations as a whole is that the speech of Lovel is declamatory, and expresses a noble idealism, while the discussion in this play, since it is participated in by several speakers, is more dramatic -is humorous and satiric, as well as reflective. The serious, reflective element is almost identical with that in The New Inn, which has been traced by Dr. Tennant to the third book of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.1 Tennant also points out that the same ideas may be found in Plato's Protagoras and Laches.

III. OTHER CLASSICAL BORROWINGS

Jonson's debt to other classical authors is small in The Magnetic Lady. His classical borrowings, most of which were pointed out in a general way by Gifford, are recorded in the notes. These borrowings are all confined to brief passages. Counting references to characters of Latin literature, as well as quotations and allusions, the authors and the number of references to each are as follows: Plautus, 5; Terence, 4; Horace, 3; Juvenal, 2; Cicero, 2; Aristophanes, I; Martial, I; and Claudian, 1. The influence of Horace is more apparent in the critical ideas which Jonson expounds in the choruses, but these are so thoroughly assimilated as to preclude literary allusion.

IV. JONSON'S EARLIER PLAYS

The chief source upon which Jonson drew in writing The Magnetic Lady was material treated in his earlier plays. His general indebtedness to these has been indicated in the remarks on the prototypes of the characters. At the time of writing this play he was bedridden; had lost

1 Edition of The New Inn, Introduction, pp. xlix—lvi.

that touch with contemporary affairs that might have furnished him with new material; and was dependent upon his imagination, working over the materials afforded by his memory. Jonson's detailed indebtedness to his earlier plays, the allusions, and the repetitions of phrases and ideas, are carefully considered in the explanatory notes.

V. THE RELATION OF THE MAGNETIC LADY TO ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN SATIRE AND THE SATIRIC DRAMA

Although Jonson was the first great English satirist to select the drama as the vehicle for his invective, he had a formidable list of predecessors and contemporaries in satiric character-drawing. We are accustomed to consider the age of Elizabeth as one of the characteristic eras of Romanticism, and predominantly it was; but a nearer approach will also discover its great complexity. Gascoigne wrote The Steele Glas as early as 1576. Formal satire came distinctly into fashion in the last decade of the sixteenth century: Alden has discussed a list of satirists who wrote between 1593 and 1600.1-Donne, Lodge, Hall, Marston, Guilpin, T. M., the author of Micro-Cynicon, Turner, and Rowlands. After this period formal satire declined, until in 1613 it revived, and flourished for another decade.2 This temporary blank is probably due, as Alden believes, partly to the efforts of the authorities to suppress satirical literature, and partly to the rise of the satirical drama.

In the drama, the last decade of the sixteenth century was distinctly an age of Romanticism, but by 1600 a

1 The Rise of Formal Satire in England under Classical Influence. 2 Alden, pp. 238-9.

change became apparent. The exuberance of imagination began to decline, and the national temper seems to have grown more serious and reflective. This is evidenced in part by the rise of Puritanism. So, too, it is exhibited in the drama. Most of the plays from 1600 to 1608 or 1609 were tragedies, or realistic or satiric comedies.1 Within these years Shakespeare wrote his great tragedies, and Jonson his best comedies. The decade may be called the serious period of the national drama. But after the retirement of Shakespeare, and the rise of the vogue of Beaumont and Fletcher, the influence of the drama narrowed. The better element of the middle class stayed away more and more; and the audience, as described in the inductions to Bartholomew Fair and The Magnetic Lady, seems to have consisted in large part of courtiers and people of fashion, and the rabble. From Bartholomew Fair to The Staple of News, Jonson was busy on the production of masques; and when he again turned to the drama, his own powers had declined, and the form in which he chose to write had gone out of vogue. But in spite of his only partial success, he continued the tradition of the serious drama; and while in the hands of others the English stage had degenerated into a form of sensational entertainment, he exposed and satirized in comedy the same abuses that were attacked by the satirists and the Puritans.

An enumeration of the objects of Jonson's satire in The Magnetic Lady will give an idea of its scope. Under the head of moral defects occur the following: avarice, usury, ambition, fortune-hunting, flattery, abuse of guardianship, hypocrisy, bribery, lust, gluttony, superstition, affectation, slander, cowardice, stupidity. The fashions and institutions satirized are: extravagance in

1 Thorndike, The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher upon Shakspere, chap. 6.

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