When, for instance,
he tells us that 'Jonson made masks,' while 'Dekker and Heywood created
souls,' we feel that he is asking us to accept a crude judgment for the
sake of a smart antithesis. It is, of course, true that we do not find
in Jonson the same growth of character that we find in Shakespeare, and
we may admit that most of the characters in Jonson's plays are, so to
speak, ready-made. But a ready-made character is not necessarily either
mechanical or wooden, two epithets Mr. Symonds uses constantly in his
criticism.

We cannot tell, and Shakespeare himself does not tell us, why Iago is
evil, why Regan and Goneril have hard hearts, or why Sir Andrew Aguecheek
is a fool. It is sufficient that they are what they are, and that nature
gives warrant for their existence. If a character in a play is lifelike,
if we recognise it as true to nature, we have no right to insist on the
author explaining its genesis to us. We must accept it as it is: and in
the hands of a good dramatist mere presentation can take the place of
analysis, and indeed is often a more dramatic method, because a more
direct one. And Jonson's characters are true to nature. They are in no
sense abstractions; they are types. Captain Bobadil and Captain Tucca,
Sir John Daw and Sir Amorous La Foole, Volpone and Mosca, Subtle and Sir
Epicure Mammon, Mrs. Purecraft and the Rabbi Busy are all creatures of
flesh and blood, none the less lifelike because they are labelled. In
this point Mr. Symonds seems to us unjust towards Jonson.

We think, also, that a special chapter might have been devoted to Jonson
as a literary critic. The creative activity of the English Renaissance
is so great that its achievements in the sphere of criticism are often
overlooked by the student. Then, for the first time, was language
treated as an art. The laws of expression and composition were
investigated and formularised. The importance of words was recognised.
Romanticism, Realism and Classicism fought their first battles. The
dramatists are full of literary and art criticisms, and amused the public
with slashing articles on one another in the form of plays.

Mr. Symonds, of course, deals with Jonson in his capacity as a critic,
and always with just appreciation, but the whole subject is one that
deserves fuller and more special treatment.

Some small inaccuracies, too, should be corrected in the second edition.
Dryden, for instance, was not 'Jonson's successor on the laureate's
throne,' as Mr. Symonds eloquently puts it, for Sir William Davenant came
between them, and when one remembers the predominance of rhyme in
Shakespeare's early plays, it is too much to say that 'after the
production of the first part of Tamburlaine blank verse became the
regular dramatic metre of the public stage.' Shakespeare did not accept
blank verse at once as a gift from Marlowe's hand, but himself arrived at
it after a long course of experiments in rhyme. Indeed, some of Mr.
Symonds' remarks on Marlowe are very curious. To say of his Edward II.,
for instance, that it 'is not at all inferior to the work of
Shakespeare's younger age,' is very niggardly and inadequate praise, and
comes strangely from one who has elsewhere written with such appreciation
of Marlowe's great genius; while to call Marlowe Jonson's 'master' is to
make for him an impossible claim.