PREFACE

In The Staple of News Jonson pushed his theory of the purpose and method of comedy to its logical extreme. With him the satiric purpose of comedy was always paramount. Indeed it sometimes seems, as in the formless Cynthia's Revels, as if he deliberately neglected the principles of stage-success in order that his satire might be the sole claimant for attention. Again, with Jonson satiric purpose was usually synonymous with moral purpose. Though his characters sometimes represent real persons, and more often 'humours,' in the plays which are most consistent with his fundamental conception of the purpose and method of comedy the majority of the characters are generalized types, and are designed to satirize neither individuals nor superficial 'humours,' but vices and abuses. With his long practice of this theory, with his reverence for ancient models, and with the impulse in that direction gained from his own masks, it was easy for him to go one step further, and attempt a comedy containing characters which are not individuals, nor 'humours,' nor generalized types, but abstractions or allegories: this he had done tentatively, in Cynthia's Revels, before he began to write masks; and this, with a clearer consciousness of what he was about, and with a bolder faith, he did again, a quarter of a century later, in The Staple of News.

Its

The Staple of News is not a great stage-piece. remarkable organization and the skill with which its threads are brought together in the project of the news-staple; the interest of the motifs; the vivacity and lifelikeness of the characterization-especially that of the Peniboys and that of the gossips in the Induction and Intermeans; the force and pungency of the satire-all these are more or less dulled

and clouded by the abstract and shadowy quality of the central group of characters, Pecunia and her train. Even had the satire been less unpalatable to the audience for whom it was intended, this allegorical element would probably have condemned The Staple of News as a stage-piece in Jonson's day; just as it offers some discouragement to those who would read it as literature in this day.

Still I am not one of those who see in The Staple of News manifest signs that the decay of Jonson's powers had begun. The real wane began soon after its production, but it began suddenly, with a stroke of paralysis. We miss in this play the exuberant creativeness and the wonderful dramatic nerve and energy of Volpone and the Alchemist, but we feel in their stead a power of another and higher kind. We feel in it the presence of a mind of broader, clearer, steadier vision than that of the early masterpieces-a mind of an easier and more comprehensive grasp upon the meaning of life, and of a deeper and saner sense of moral values. It is primarily as a moral thinker that Jonson addresses us here: The Staple of News is a great moral poem in dramatic form. Compared with it in this respect, most of the satirical dramas of that age are the merest ephemerae. No other even of Jonson's own plays contains so much that is of abiding significance: it represents his power and energy as a moral thinker at their highest.

For nine years—and this in the very prime of life-Jonson had written no plays, and had had no outlet for his satiric energy other than short poems and occasional masks; and it would almost seem that he tried in our play to express the entire satiric consciousness accumulated during this period of comparative silence. In order to swell the grand total, his recent masks, too, were made to return most of the thought of this kind which he had put into them. Scarcely a single prominent abuse of the times, one might believe, came off untouched. Greatest of all, and the informing idea of the whole play, is the satire against the many-headed evil of money-worship, and the misuse of

money in lavish gifts to sycophants and flatterers, and in feasting and dress, which, with its stronghold about the very throne of England, was impoverishing the nation with its exactions, and enervating it with its example. Next in importance is the satire upon the idle, credulous, almost diseased, appetite of the public for transitory news, and upon the unprincipled gatherers, makers, and vendors of such Besides these two major themes, the play contains. a whole bundle of minor satiric themes: projectors and bubble projects, typified in Cymbal and his news-exchange; the profane wit which

news.

Dare put on any visor to deride

The wretched, or with buffon license jest

At whatsoe'er is serious, if not sacred,

typified in the covey of jeerers; the mercenary herald, typified in Piedmantle; the unprincipled courtier, in Fitton; the scheming lawyer, in Picklock; the quacksalver, in Almanach; the cowardly and venal army-officer, in Shunfield; the insipid but popular rimester, in Madrigal; the undiscerning dramatic critic, in the 'ridiculous gossips' of the Induction and the Intermeans-all these Jonson mustered for flagellation in this singularly potent drama.

The Staple of News is a difficult play. With the possible exception of Cynthia's Revels, no other play of Jonson's yields up so small a part of its real meaning at the first reading. Though I have studied it for many months, I still discover new meanings daily. As the proportions of the glossary included in this volume will show, the play is particularly interesting from a lexical point of view: it contains an unusually large percentage of obsolete and archaic words and uses, and a considerable number of what seem to be very rare, or even entirely exceptional, uses. Moreover, notwithstanding his satiric wrath, Jonson seems here to have delighted in language for its own sake: he revels in word-plays, in double meanings, and even in triple meanings. Again, the play contains a very large number

of allusions to contemporary events. Thoroughly to realize the meaning of it, one should be saturated with the social and political history of the time. In my attempt to throw light upon it in the notes and glossary I have had in mind not so much the needs of the erudite few, as of that larger class who would read it with scholarly interest, and read it more often, if the means were at hand of reading it more intelligently.

I owe hearty thanks to Professor Albert S. Cook for advice in numerous matters of form, and for the stimulus of his criticism; to Dr. Herbert S. Mallory, whose task of editing Poetaster has kept him always within hailing distance, for help in many a difficulty; to Dr. John M. Berdan for the privilege of collating his copy of the Folio; to Mr. Lucius H. Holt and to Mr. William S. Johnson for helpful suggestions; and to Mr. Andrew Keogh of the Yale Library for aid in bibliographical matters.

A portion of the expense of printing this thesis has been borne by the Modern Language Club of Yale University from funds placed at its disposal by the generosity of Mr. George E. Dimock of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a graduate of Yale in the Class of 1874.

YALE UNIVERSITY,

Feb. 8, 1905.

D. W.