Critic: Hugh MacLean

Source: Essays in English Literature from the Renaissance to the Victorian Age, edited by Millar MacLure and F. W. Watt, University of Toronto Press, 1964, pp. 43-68. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 17

[In the following essay, MacLean discusses Jonson's poems as observations on civilized society, stressing friendship between good men, the ideal relationship between prince and poet, and the social actions befitting the ruling class.]

"The reputation of Jonson," Mr. Eliot once remarked, "has been of the most deadly kind that can becompelled upon the memory of a great poet. To be universally accepted; to be damned by the praise that quenches all desire to read the book; to be afflicted by the imputation of virtues which excite the least pleasure; and to be read only by historians and antiquaries--this is the most perfect conspiracy of approval" ["Ben Jonson," Selected Essays, 1913-1932, 1932]. Perhaps the prospect is not quite so gloomy now: "Jonson criticism has at last commenced to grow green," Jonas Barish observes, and the articles he has recently collected indicate, over a variety of critical approaches, some avenues that may be profitably explored [Ben Jonson: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1963]. But it is striking that no essay in his collection bears directly on the lyric and occasional verse. If the lawn of Jonson criticism is newly green, brown patches are still perceptible. That is not very surprising, of course, for Timber invites attention to the comedies:

The Poet is the neerest Borderer upon the Orator, and expresseth all his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers; is his equall in ornament, and above him in his strengths. And, (of the kind) the Comicke comes neerest: Because, in moving the minds of men, and stirring of affections (in which Oratory shewes, and especially approves her eminence) hee chiefly excells.

[Ben Jonson, ed. Herford and Simpson, Vol. VIII, 1925-52]

Given this remark, and the elaborations that follow, to say nothing of the triumphant Jonsonian comedies themselves, later critics could hardly be expected to spare the poems more than an appreciative glance before passing to the main course of comedy. It has often been the fate of the poems to be praised chiefly (sometimes exclusively) for their formal virtues, while the best criticism of the comedies, more than ever since L. C. Knights's Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson, has kept steadily in view Jonson's comment that "the Study of [Poesy] (if wee will trust Aristotle) offers to mankinde a certaine rule, and Patterne of living well, and happily; disposing us to all Civil offices of Society."

That is rather curious, too. The comedies, by their nature, present this "certaine rule, and Patterne" indirectly, appealing (as Knights says) to the "sardonic contemplation" of an audience characterized by "a lively sense of human limitations." The epigrams, as a rule, repeat that method; but a significant number of the poems, particularly in The Forrest, deal explicitly and directly with "high and noble matter," with "the mysteries of manners, armes, and arts." Geoffrey Walton, following Leavis, remarks on Jonson's regular attention, in the poems, to "serious moral matters in a social context" ["The Tone of Ben Jonson's Poetry," in Seventeenth Century English Poetry, ed. W. R. Keast, 1962]. I suggest that, while the plays deal principally in the satiric recognition and description of the factors that contribute to social disorder, we find in the poems (with the Discoveries behind, as theory to practice), not an explicit and detailed outline of the social order Jonson admired, but rather "notes" on particular elements that ought to mark a society properly ordered, as well as suggestions for conduct in the midst of a disordered one. The negative strictures of the comedies, accordingly, are supplemented and completed by positive advices in the poetry and the Discoveries.

One must be careful not to claim too much: no integrated grand design for society emerges from the "lesser theatre" of these poems, so often committed to compliment. But the recurrence of three related themes is striking. In brief, the poems lay stress on the virtue of friendship between good men, who are receptive by nature to the free exchange of opinion and counsel, and on the strongresource such friendships constitute for the ordered society and the secure state. They reflect also Jonson's views on the relationship that ought ideally to obtain between prince and poet, in the interest of the people at large. Finally, they indicate the social attitudes and actions befitting a "ruling class" which thoroughly understands the nature of its responsibilities and desires to make them effective. It is relevant to observe here also that, when Jonson speaks to this third question, he is apt to select the verse-epistle as a vehicle peculiarly suited to the poet who outlines, for the benefit of those in high place, "holy lawes / Of nature, and societie." In this, as in much else, "there must be a Harmonie, and concent of parts."

A dominant and recurring theme in the Discoveries is the humanistic insistence on man's power, in spite of his own nature and the vicissitudes of time, to maintain ethical standards, not in a spirit of reactionary opposition to change, but in large measure by adapting classical precepts to contemporary circumstance. "Rules," Jonson noted, "are ever of lesse force, and valew, then experiments"; men find truth by following "the Ancients ... but as Guides, not Commanders." Still, Jonson never pretended that this would be easy. He knew all about the shortcomings of human nature; when the character of mankind is in question, a note of disenchantment is often heard. "Envy is no new thing, nor was it borne onely in our times. The Ages past have brought it forth, and the comming Ages will. So long as there are men fit for it ... it will never be wanting." "Natures that are hardned to evill, you shall sooner breake, then make straight; they are like poles that are crooked, and dry: there is no attempting them." Human nature "oft-times dies of a Melancholy, that it cannot be vitious enough." It is clear too that Jonson recognized the threat of vice not merely to individuals but to the community much more.

When too much desire, and greedinesse of vice, hath made the body unfit, or unprofitable; it is yet gladded with the sight, and spectacle of it in others: and for want of ability to be an Actor; is content to be a Witnesse. It enjoyes the pleasure of sinning, in beholding others sinne; as in Dicing, Drinking, Drabbing, &c.

Indeed, "A native, if hee be vitious, deserves to bee a stranger, and cast out of the Common-wealth, as an Alien." It goes without saying that Jonson would never abandon the effort to improve matters by any available means. He gathers up, for instance, Quintilian's gentle suggestions about the best ways in education and in criticism. But in the final analysis, he depends on a continuing supply of naturally "Good men ... the Stars, the Planets of the Ages wherein they live, [who] illustrate the times." The well-known observation, "Men are decay'd, and studies: Shee [Nature] is not," needs to be compared with less familiar passages in the poet's commonplace book: "They are ever good men, that must make good the times: if the men be naught, the times will be such." "A good life," for Jonson, "is a maine Argument."

It is in the light of these attitudes that we should read those poems in which Jonson turns his attention to friendship. Geoffrey Walton touches on this matter but does not come closely to grips with it, beyond an approving glance at a few of the poems addressed to friends in various walks of life; and while it is true that in these pieces "one can observe ... [Jonson's] feeling for civilized personal relationships," there is more to be said. For Jonson, friendship is the bond enabling those good men who illustrate their times to group together and, by means of their collected virtue, cast out or resist vice. So they serve each other; but they help to safeguard the state as well.

These views are, of course, not original with Jonson, who might have been influenced by any of a number of authorities. But while it is not very feasible to suggest particular sources for his poetical comments on friendship (given their relatively orthodox detail, together with the wide range of his reading), it should at least be observed that Jonson, unlike Spenser, is not much interested in the conception of friendship "as a harmonizing and unifying principle of cosmic love operating in the realm of man to promote concord" [C. G. Smith, Spenser's Theory of Friendship, 1935]. As usual with him, metaphysical theory takes second place to, or is eclipsed by, moral and social considerations, Friendship matters to Jonson because it is a moral virtue and because it contributes to social stability. His position recalls, in particular, that of Aristotle's dissertation on friendship (Ethics, VIII-IX), which contains some passages that must certainly have called out Jonson's approval, whether or not they directly influenced his poetry. Having classified the three categories of friendship in terms of its object ("what is good, pleasurable, or useful"), Aristotle, shows that friendships based on utility and pleasure must soon dissolve; he concludes that the only "perfect Friendship" subsists

between those who are good and whose similarity consists in their goodness: for these men wish one another's good in similar ways; in so far as they are good (and good they are in themselves); and those are specially friends who wish good to their friends for their sakes, because they feel thus towards them on their own account and not as a mere matter of result; so the Friendship between these men continues to subsist so long as they are good; and goodness, we know, has in it a principle of permanence.

[J. A. Smith, ed., The Ethics of Aristotle, 1911]

"Some go so far as to hold that 'good man' and 'friend' are terms synonomous," he remarks in the same place, pointing out that "requital of Friendship is attended with moral choice which proceeds from a moral state." Relevant also is Aristotle's distinction between friendships moral and legal, and between elements within a "legal" friendship: "The Legal is upon specified conditions ... the obligation is clear and admits of no dispute, the friendly element is the delay in requiring its discharge."

All this is reflected in Jonson's poems, which often repudiate, as in "An Epistle answering to one that asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben" (9-15, 25-7), friendships based on utility or pleasure.

Let those that meerely talke, and never thinke,

That live in the wild Anarchie of Drinke,

Subject to quarrell only; or else such

As make it their proficiencie, how much

They'ave glutted in, and letcher'd out that weeke,

That never yet did friend, or friendship seeke

But for a Sealing ...

Let these men have their wayes, and take their times

To vent their Libels, and to issue rimes,

I have no portion in them....

Flattery, the extreme of that "friendship whose motive is utility," Jonson condemns in a thoughtful phrase: "To flatter my good Lord" is "To lose the formes, and dignities of men" (Under-Wood XV, 146-7). The view that "those are specially friends who wish good to their friends for their sakes, because they feel thus towards them on their own account and not as a mere matter of result," informs poems as various as "Inviting a friend to supper" or the ode to a "high-spirited friend" (Und. XXVI); notable too is the "Epistle to a friend" (Und. XXXVII), where the quality of "friendship which no chance but love did chuse" is heightened by contrast (7-9) with that of

Your Countrie-neighbours, that commit

Their vice of loving for a Christmasse fit;

Which is indeed but friendship of the spit....

These and other poems repeatedly emphasize certain qualities of friendship: moderation, candour, generosity, mutual esteem. The opening lines of the "Epigram: To a Friend, and Sonne" (Und. LXIX), perhaps to Lucius Cary, summarize those qualities with terse dignity:

Sonne, and my Friend, I had not call'd you so

To mee; or beene the same to you; if show,

Profit, or Chance had made us: But I know

What, by that name, wee each to other owe,

Freedome, and Truth; with love from those begot:

Wise-crafts, on which the flatterer ventures not.

The friendship is "attended with moral choice" is asserted by Jonson less emphatically than one might expect. Still, membership in the Tribe evidently involved selective distinction between suitable candidates and those who sought friendship "but for a Sealing"; and the poet seems to assume that his "high-spirited friend" cannot after all "mis-apply" the "wholsome Physick for the mind" prescribed by Jonson, but will in fact choose to accept the honest counsel of a friend. Another kind of moral choice emerges in Under-Wood XXXVII (25-30):

It is an Act of tyrannie, not love,

In practiz'd friendship wholly to reprove,

As flatt'ry with friends humours still to move.

From each of which I labour to be free,

Yet if with eithers vice I teynted be,

Forgive it, as my frailtie, and not me.

Friendship, in short, confers (or should confer) a capacity to recognize and accept some frailties in human nature, and so to overlook minor vices that may otherwise obscure or even destroy a relationship essentially virtuous: to resist vice, therefore, by a moral decision. One is struck by Jonson's recurring use of the term "free": true friends may fearlessly exchange ideas, give an opinion, advise, censure even. Men come to know liberty through friendship; or again, to be a friend is to free both oneself and one's friend. The term itself does not appear in yet another "Epistle to a Friend" (Und. XVII), on the distinction between legal and moral friendships, but the poem deals with the right use of that freedom which only friends can know (1-6, 11-16):

They are not, Sir, worst Owers, that doe pay

Debts when they can: good men may breake their day,

And yet the noble Nature never grude;

'Tis then a crime, when the Usurer is Judge.

And he is not in friendship. Nothing there

Is done for gaine: If't be, 'tis not sincere....

... he that takes

Simply my Band, his trust in me forsakes,

And lookes unto the forfeit. If you be

Now so much friend, as you would trust in me,

Venter a longer time, and willingly:

All is not barren land, doth fallow lie.

The associations of friendship with moral virtue, however, are no less important for Jonson than the role of friendship in its social context. Aristotle had said that "Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities," and also that, if some forms of "Communion"

are thought to be formed for pleasure's sake, those, for instance, of bacchanals or club-fellows, which are with a view to Sacrifice or merely company ... [yet] all these seem to be ranged under the great Social one, inasmuch as the aim of this is, not merely the expediency of the moment but, for life and at all times.... So then it appears that all the instances of Communion are parts of the great Social one: and corresponding Friendships will follow upon such Communions.

In "An Epistle answering to one that asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben" (Und. XLVII), Jonson draws his view of friendship between individuals together with a statement on the obligations of friends to the body politic. The poem suggests that Jonson regarded the Tribe, his own band of brother, not at all as an association "formed for pleasure's sake ... or merely company," but as a dependable nucleus of virtuous companions, secure in self-knowledge and the wit to eschew triviality, upon whom the state might rely in all honourable causes. No doubt, too, while he would endorse all friendly connections established between virtuous men, he was bound to pay particular respect to any such group including a majority of poets, whose art is that "Philosophy, which leades on, and guides us by the hand to Action...." The title, with its scriptural allusion, and the lines glancing at heaven's purposes decorously reinforce the note of high seriousness recurrently dominant in this poem. While the "Epistle" is not precisely balanced in its structure, it seems to be true that Jonson deals at first (1-30) with the distinguishing features of men unfit for friendship, and in conclusion (51-78) with the characteristics of true friends. The intervening passage, for the greater part a contemptuous catalogue of trivia dear to gossiping courtiers, contains also (37-42, at the poem's centre, as it happens) a concise and plainspoken affirmation of the good citizen's obligation to act as a member of the larger community.

I wish all well, and pray high heaven conspire

My Princes safetie, and my Kings desire,

But if, for honour, we must draw the Sword,

And force back that, which will not be restor'd,

I have a body, yet, that spirit drawes

To live, or fall a Carkasse in the cause.

Fops chatter, men act. But the passage throws into high relief a more significant contrast. The wastrels described in the opening section of the poem may be "received for the Covey of Witts," but in fact no "ignorance is more then theirs." Their crass concerns mark them as slaves to passion. Knowing nothing of friendship, each cares for himself alone. Jonson's statement of personal principle that opens the concluding section (56-62) seems at first to assert merely another kind of selfcentred aloofness. But the poet at once draws into his circle all men with whom "square, wel-tagde, and permanent" friendship is possible, men (that is) of Jonson's own stamp:

... all so cleare, and led by reasons flame, As but to stumble in her sight were shame; These I will honour, love, embrace, and serve: And free it from all question to preserve. So short you read my Character, and theirs I would call mine....

(69-74)

Such men, devoted to principle not appetite, serve each other and the community; and on such men the state can rely when it is time to "draw the Sword." Through friendship, then, good men who understand the rights and duties of the freedom they enjoy, and who are prepared to act in defence of virtuous principles, form a reliable substratum upon which the state and society at large may depend for health and survival.

To match what may be called this broad "horizontal" principle of friendship among men of active virtue, one means of preserving a desirable social order, Jonson was impressed also (as the Discoveries chiefly show) by the need for a "vertical" king-post of order: the healthy relationship of king and people. Details of mutual rights and duties, however, interested him less than the establishment of conditions that would be likely to ensure good government. Critics have often noticed that disposition, arrangement, in plays or poems, receives Jonson's particular attention; the Discoveries everywhere reflect this concern. In the state also, it is vital that administration be properly arranged, especially that the good prince shall be attended by good advisers; "for though the Prince himself be of most prompt inclination to all vertue: Yet the best Pilots have need of Mariners, beside Sayles, Anchor, and other Tackle," and "the good Counsellors to Princes are the best instruments of a good Age." "The best Counsellors," Jonson noted from Lipsius, "are books"; but the proposition implicit throughout the Discoveries is that, in fact, the best counsellor of all is the poet.

Most of the Renaissance commonplaces about the relations of king and people are present in the Discoveries. "The vulgar ... commonly ill-natur'd; and always grudging against their Governours," are like a many-headed beast; the good prince "is the Pastor of the people ... the soule of the Commonwealth; and ought to cherish it, as his owne body"; "After God, nothing is to be lov'd of man like the Prince." Jonson is orthodox on rebellion too: "Let no man therefore murmure at the Actions of the Prince, who is plac'd so farre above him. If hee offend, he hath his Discoverer. God hath a height beyond him." For these views and others like them, there was plenty of authority in Seneca, Erasmus, Lipsius, and "the great Doctor of State, Macchiavell," on whom he draws directly for a mordant passage about advisers to the prince. Yet if he recognizes Machiavellian wisdom in some things, Jonson does not give way to cynicism. "The Princes Prudence" (as he notes from Farnese) may well be "his chiefe Art, and safety"; but it is "the mercifull Prince ... safe in love, not in feare," whom Jonson admires. "A good King is a publike Servant," by no means "(as it is in the Fable) a crowned Lyon." He can agree that "the strength of Empire is in Religion.... Nothing more commends the Soveraigne to the Subject, then it," but then his own voice breaks in, "For hee that is religious, must be mercifull and just necessarily.... Justice is the vertue, that Innocence rejoyceth in." The prudence that adjusts flexibly to change and circumstance, and yet serves virtue still, he thought an essential element of administration, that princely art. "Wise, is rather the attribute of a Prince, then learned, or good"; but the governor who is truly wise must in the nature of things be a good man too.

Well enough; yet, "Princes are easie to be deceiv'd ... what wisdome can escape it; where so many Court-Arts are studied?" One answer recalls that of Lipsius: "A Prince without Letters, is a Pilot without eyes." But a more effective response is to choose the right sort of counsellor: "Soveraignty needs counsell." Jonson knew from Vives what to look for:

In being able to counsell others, a Man must be furnish'd with an universall store in himselfe, to the knowledge of all Nature: That is the matter, and seedplot; There are the seats of all Argument, and Invention. But especially, you must be cunning in the nature of Man: There is the variety of things, which are as the Elements, and Letters, which his art and wisdome must ranke, and order to the present occasion. For wee see not all letters in single words; nor all places in particular discourses.... The two chiefe things that give a man reputation in counsell, are the opinion of his Honesty; and the opinion of his Wisdome.... Wisedome without Honesty is meere craft, and coosinage. And therefore the reputation of Honesty must first be gotten; which cannot be, but by living well.

And of all such persons, the poet is most clearly qualified:

I could never thinke the study of Wisdome confin'd only to the Philosopher: or of Piety to the Divine: or of State to the Politicke. But that he which can faine a Common-wealth (which is the Poet) can governe it with Counsels, strengthen it with Lawes, correct it with Judgements, informe it with Religion, and Morals; is all these. Wee doe not require in him meere Elocution; or an excellent faculty in verse; but the exact knowledge of all vertues, and their Contraries; with ability to render the one lov'd, the other hated, by his proper embattaling them.

The prince is the apex, so to speak, of society's pyramid, but he needs the special insight of the poet, who combines "goodnes of natural wit" with the capacity ("as by a divine Instinct") to utter "somewhat above a mortall mouth." When the prince attends to the counsel of his best adviser, the learned poet (who ought also to be his truest friend), he serves his people as ideal example, almost in the fashion Jonson noted from Euripides: "Where the Prince is good ... God is a Guest in a humane body." Philosopher-kings and poet-princes are rare: for the rest, "no man is so wise, but may easily erre, if hee will take no others counsell, but his owne."

Jonson was ready and willing to advise the monarch: he said to Drummond, "so he might have favour to make one Sermon to the King, he careth not what yrafter sould befall him, for he would not flatter though he saw Death." This was, perhaps, bravado, although the notes for a disquisition on kingship lay at hand in the Discoveries, and this poet, at least, enjoyed high favour, amounting almost to friendship, with James I. But Jonson was quite aware that the "free" exchange of advice and counsel natural to friends could scarcely be duplicated in these circumstances. He had read Vives on the problems of counselling kings, "especially in affaires of State." And of course his own encounters with officialdom, notable in connection with Sejanus in 1603, when Northampton accused him "both of popperie & treason," must sufficiently have impressed even the poet who "never esteemed of a man for the name of a Lord." In any event, although one could compose verseepistles or odes to advise one's high-spirited friends, even, by judicious indirection, counsel a whole class of society, it was difficult to extend these methods to the monarch. A few pieces, however, are relevant to Jonson's prose observations on the conduct appropriate for the good prince; and these bear also on the poems to and about his patrons.

Most of the poems addressed by Jonson to royalty are "occasional" in a narrow sense; one or two others repeat the commonplace that a poet ensures fame or notoriety for his subjects. "The lesse Poetique boyes" may expect "a Snake"; but "in the Genius of a Poets Verse, The Kings fame lives" (Und. LXXVI, LXVIII). "The humble Petition of poore Ben: To ... King Charles" (Und. LXXVI), however, primarily a request for more money, takes care to stress the rationale of the poet's position (3-7):

      ... your royall Father,

James the blessed, pleas'd the rather,

Of his speciall grace to Letters,

To make all the Muses debters,

To his bountie....

That Jonson claims his due "for goodnesse sake" is apt enough, since the best princes know that poetry is "neerest of kin to Vertue." Another "Epigram: To K. Charles ... 1629" (Und. LXII) varies the same theme:

Great Charles, among the holy gifts of grace

Annexed to thy Person, and thy place,

'Tis not enough (thy pietie is such)

To cure the call'd Kings Evill with thy touch;

But thou wilt yet a Kinglier mastrie trie,

To cure the Poets Evill, Povertie....

This poem, too, concludes on a note of nearly explicit advice:

What can the Poet wish his King may doe,

But, that he cure the Peoples Evill too?

Jonson, however, does not as a rule presume to counsel the prince in these poems even thus indirectly. He prefers to draw attention to the fact (illustrated, fortunately, in both James and Charles) that the character and actions of a prince should be exemplary and therefore instructive, and to indicate some suggestive parallels between king and poet. An "Epigram: To ... K. Charles" of 1629 (Und. LXIV) makes the first point, in somewhat fulsome tones:

Indeed, when had great Britaine greater cause

Then now, to love the Soveraigne, and the Lawes?

When you that raigne, are her Example growne,

And what are bounds to her, you make your owne?

When your assiduous practise doth secure

That Faith, which she professeth to be pure?

When all your life's a president of dayes,

And murmure cannot quarrell at your wayes?

More striking are two of the Epigrams. "To King James" (IV) all but proclaims the monarch that ideal "poet-prince" who needs no other counsel.

How, best of Kings, do'st thou a scepter beare!

How, best of Poets, do'st thou laurell weare!

But two things, rare, the Fates had in their store,

And gave thee both, to shew they could no more.

For such a Poet, while thy dayes were greene,

Thou wert, as chiefe of them are said t'have beene.

And such a Prince thou art, wee daily see,

As chiefe of those still promise they will bee.

Whom should my Muse then flie to, but the best

Of Kings for grace; of Poets for my test?

A second poem (XXXV) with the same title enlarges on the principle of rule.

Who would not be thy subject, James, t'obay

A Prince, that rules by example, more than sway?

Whose manners draw, more than thy powers constraine.

And in this short time of thy happiest raigne,

Hast purg'd thy realmes, as we have now no cause

Left us of feare, but first our crimes, then lawes.

Like aydes 'gainst treasons who hath found before?

And than in them, how could we know god more?

The prince, then (who is the better ruler for a youthful poetic bent), governs, as the poet teaches, by persuasion and example; and at length, through the laws that reflect his wisdom, thesubjects discover for themselves that here indeed, "God is a guest in a human body."

That these poems are few in number was to be expected: even if wisdom had not checked the impulse to counsel a king, Jonson was not the man to lavish his talents on this particular variety of panegyric. But an attractive alternative remained. One could, if one were reasonably decorous, address a ruling class instead. Those members of aristocratic families who extended their patronage and support to Jonson, especially those with whom the poet could consider himself to be on terms at least relatively informal, must in any event be honoured in the poet's verse. While he could not ordinarily expect to be as candid (or blunt) as with his own colleagues, he could claim with some justice to have attained something like friendship with a number of highly placed individuals. Relatively free, therefore, from the limitations imposed where princes were in question, yet still addressing or chiefly complimenting persons regularly concerned, in various spheres, with the maintenance of order in social and political life, Jonson could counsel while appearing chiefly to praise. For young Sir William Sidney, the poet might assume an oracular tone; with others, the note of approbation or reminder would often be more fitting. Particularly in The Forrest, but elsewhere too, he incorporates in gracefully complimentary verse those principles of social responsibility which the actions of a ruling class ought in his view to reflect. The poet, in short, transfers his advisory function (properly directed to a prince) to that class from which, as a rule, the monarch will draw his counsellors; and he can address some of them, at least, in a manner formal and "easy" at once.

Jonson's attitude to his patrons is conditioned primarily by three factors. He needed their support, of course, but that is in some ways the least important of the three: poems that openly request or acknowledge financial support appear only in the last years, when the poet's fortunes were palled. As a rule, Jonson chose to ignore the subject, or to make it the occasion for a lacture on the art of giving and receiving, as in the "Epistle to ... Sacvile" (Und. XIII), which strikes a characteristic note.

You ... whose will not only, but desire

To succour my necessities, tooke fire,

Not at my prayers, but your sense; which laid

The way to meet, what others would upbraid;

And in the Act did so my blush prevent,

As I did feele it done, as soone as meant:

You cannot doubt, but I, who freely know

This Good from you, as freely will it owe;

And though my fortune humble me, to take

The smallest courtesies with thankes, I make

Yet choyce from whom I take them.... (7-17)

The lines reflect a cast of mind also apparent in Aubrey's allusion to "Mr. Benjamin Johnson (who ever scorned an unworthy patrone)" [John Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. A. Powell, 1949]. No doubt unworthiness might consist in the refusal to honour a promise of support, as Epigram LXV ("To my Muse") may indicate. But the poem hints at deeper causes of scorn; and Epigram X ("To my lord Ignorant") is perhaps relevant:

Thou call'st me Poet, as a terme of shame:

But I have my revenge made, in thy name.

While the episode at Salisbury's table is familiar, there were others of the sort:

Beg one day being at table with my Lady Rutland [Drummond writes], her husband comming in, accused her that she keept table to poets, of which she wrott a letter to him which he answered My Lord intercepted the letter, but never chalenged him.

A patron may be "unworthy" on several counts, but his failure to acknowledge the poet's right to a privileged place in society is particularly reprehensible. Finally, Jonson expected the patron and his class to exemplify virtuous conduct, and so to persuade a society and secure a state. The Epigrams are dedicated to Pembroke, "Great Example of Honor and Vertue"; and whatever Jonson thought of the man described by Clarendon as "immoderately given up to women," Epigram CII illustrates the poet's ideal.

... thou, whose noblesse keeps one stature still,

And one true posture, though besieg'd with ill

Of what ambition, faction, pride can raise;

Whose life, ev'n they, that envie it, must praise;

That art so reverenc'd, as thy comming in,

But in the view, doth interrupt their sinne;

Thou must draw more: and they, that hope to see

The common-wealth still safe, must studie thee.

More specifically (as the poems reveal), Jonson expected a patron to pay more than lip-service to the ideal of fraternity; to illustrate in thought and action the continuing virtue of ancient traditions; to renew in each age, by the wise application of inherited talent, the life and force of those traditions. When hard circumstance closed every other avenue, there remained an obligation to exemplify (if need be, "farre from the maze of custome, error, strife") the ideal of virtuous life appropriate to one's station.

Jonson, accordingly, looked for a good deal more than financial support from the highly placed persons who could sponsor him. And he "counselled" his patrons, directly and indirectly, in a good many genres, from the epigram to the ode. The verse-epistle in particular he found well suited to his personality and his purposes. As Trimpi shows, the genre by Jonson's time combined regard for a continuing stylistic tradition with an attitude toward the range of matter proper to the verse-epistle considerably more liberal than that of classical practice. Cicero's observations on the characteristics of the plain style in oratory, and the view of Demetrius that, in genres suited to the plain style (i.e., comedy, satire, epigram, epistle), "the diction throughout [will be] current and familiar," particularly that the epistle should "obey the laws of friendship, which demand that we should 'call a spade a spade,' as the proverb has it," contributed to a tradition of epistolary style endorsed by Lipsius, Vives, and John Hoskyns. On the other hand, Demetrius' opinion that "there are epistolary topics, as well as an epistolary style," and that "in the case of the plain style, we can no doubt point to subject matter which is homely and appropriate to the style itself," had gradually given way to the view that the range of topics proper to the epistle may extend to "all public, private, and domestic concerns."

A verse form at once traditional and evolving in this way suited Jonson very well. The manner of any one epistle will certainly vary with the occasion; one does not address a noble lord as one might ask a friend to dinner. Nor are we to expect advice directly given so much as the counsel implicit it in the poet's approbation of the action and character he describes; for "it ... behooves the giver of counsell to be circumspect." Still, the humanist who allowed Aristotle his due while insisting on the right to "make further Discoveries of truth and fitnesse," and who thought rules less forceful than experiments, recognized the suitability of the verse-epistle for precepts turning on the principle, "Newnesse of Sense, Antiquitie of voyce!" Again, it was an appropriate medium for the poet concerned to remind society and its leaders of the dangerous temptation to "rest / On what's deceast": rather (Und. XIII, 131-4),

'Tis by degrees that men arrive at glad

Profit in ought; each day some little adde,

In time 'twill be a heape; This is not true

Alone in money, but in manners too.

And, of course, for one whose sense of injur'd merit lay always ready to hand, the relatively plain-spoken style of the verse-epistle might usefully reinforce expressions hinting at an equality of merit, or even at actual friendship, between poet and the highly placed person addressed.

Evidently Jonson employs forms other than the verse-epistle proper to endorse or counsel the social actions of his patrons. It may be observed, however, that while XII and XIII in The Forrest are explicitly termed "epistles," III ("To Sir Robert Wroth") is surely one also. The "Ode: To Sir William Sydney" gives advice as directly as does the "Epistle to a Friend, to perswade him to the Warres" (Und. XV), or even the "Epistle to ... Sacvile." And the Epigrams (among which appears "Inviting a friend to supper") include several pieces not obviously representative of Jonson's taut standards for the epigram. Jonson was fond of mingling literary kinds, and in any event he had good classical precedents for the practice. That various formal labels attached to these poems should not obscure the fact that they all reflect his conviction that the poet has a clear right, a duty even, to speak out to his patron in a manly fashion. Perhaps one may risk the suggestion that Jonson found the verse-epistle especially congenial and that something of its character and tone often echoes in poems not formally so described. If he employs the verse-epistle to remind a ruling group of the constant standard it must uphold and of the continual adjustment to circumstance this will require, and to insist besides on the essential fraternity of a healthy society, poems called "odes" or "epigrams" reflect those elements too.

"To Penshurst," formally both ode and "country-house poem," has been rather thoroughly examined by G. R. Hibbard (and others), but since Jonson here explicitly considers the role of an aristocratic dynasty (in terms of one with which he felt particular sympathy), one or two points need emphasis. Penshurst, apt symbol of the Sidney line, instructively illustrates Jonson's social ideal in one aspect at least: the contrast with those more magnificent ancestral piles that betray pride and ambition points up Penshurst's vitality and their lack of it. But we are not regularly made aware of "the world outside" Penshurst in this poem, although opening and conclusion remind us of that world's existence: Jonson's emphasis falls deliberately on the positive ideal exemplified at Penshurst. That nature is everywhere compliant, even eager to serve man, effectively supplements the fraternal atmosphere prevailing in this household, where all classes are as welcome as the poet (45-50; 61-4):

... though thy walls be of the countrey stone,

They' are rear'd with no mans ruine, no mans grone,

There's none, that dwell about them, wish them downe;

But all come in, the farmer, and the clowne:

And no one empty-handed, to salute

Thy lord, and lady, though they have no sute....

[There] comes no guest, but is allow'd to eate,

Without his feare, and of thy lords owne meate:

Where the same beere, and bread, and self-same wine,

That is his Lordships, shall be also mine.

And while the family that acknowledges its social responsibilities spreads genial influence on all sides, so too it prepares for its successors, those aristocratic patrons of the next age, by properly educating and directing offspring who (96-8) may

                          every day,

Reade, in their vertuous parents noble parts,

The mysteries of manners, armes, and arts.

If this is how a great family ought to act, Jonson remarks also on the conduct appropriate to individual members of that family. Of the various poems addressed to members of the clan, the "Ode: To Sir William Sydney, on his Birth-day" is of special interest; since the person addressed is at the point of transition from youth to manhood, his responsibilities to a noble line and to society at large are emphasized in conjunction. Jonson thought that "no perfect Discovery can bee made upon a flat or a levell" also that "to many things a man should owe but a temporary beliefe, and a suspension of his owne Judgement, not an absolute resignation of himselfe, or a perpetuall captivity." These principles underlie his advice to the young Sidney (27-50):

        ... he doth lacke

        Of going backe

         Little, whose will

 Doth urge him to runne wrong, or to stand still.

Nor can a little of the common store,

 Of nobles vertue, shew in you;

                    Your blood

                    So good

 And great, must seeke for new,

And studie more:

    Not weary, rest

    On what's deceast.

     For they, that swell

     With dust of ancestors, in graves but dwell.

'T will be exacted of your name, whose sonne,

 Whose nephew, whose grand-child you are;

                    And men

                    Will, then,

 Say you have follow'd farre,

When well begunne:

    Which must be now,

    They teach you, how.

  

   And he that stayes

     To live until to morrow' hath lost two dayes.

These poems clearly reflect important elements in Jonson's "theory of social order": they are guide-lines for a ruling class that collectively and individually cares about its responsibilities. But they lack a dimension. The bright perfection of a Sidney-world obscures the sombre social backdrop that requires to be regulated by Sidneys and those like them. Leaders cannot forever prevent the incursions of vice, after all, by exemplifying virtue at a cool remove; they must often descend into the arena and actively wrestle with the enemy. Perhaps Jonson felt some reluctance, for reasons of decorum, to present Sidneys in postures other than serene: one recalls the "Epode" (Forrest, XI):

Not to know vice at all, and keepe true state,

 Is vertue, and not Fate:

Next, to that vertue, is to know vice well,

 And her blacke spight expell.

(1-4)

In any case, other poems not addressed to members of the Sidney clan complement and amplify the views approved in "Penshurst" and counselled in the "Ode." And each presumes a context appropriate to the second couplet of the "Epode."

Epigram LXXVI ("On Lucy Countesse of Bedford") has often attracted the admiration of critics: "How to be" may be suggested as the theme of this poem, which wittily translates ideal into fact. Less often noticed, but more significant here, is Epigram XCIV ("To Lucy, Countesse of Bedford, with Mr. Donnes Satyres"), an equally polished piece, with the theme, "How to act."

Lucy, you brightnesse of our spheare, who are

Life of the Muses day, their morning-starre!

If workes (not th'authors) their owne grace should looke,

Whose poemes would not wish to be your booke?

But these, desir'd by you, the makers ends

Crowne with their owne. Rare poemes aske rare friends.

Yet, Satyres, since the most of mankind bee

Their un-avoided subject, fewest see:

For none ere tooke that pleasure in sinnes sense,

But, when they heard it tax'd, tooke more offence.

They, then, that living where the matter is bred,

Dare for these poemes, yet, both aske, and read,

And like them too; must needfully, though few,

Be of the best: and 'mongst these, best are you.

Lucy, you brightnesse of our spheare, who are

The Muses evening, as their morning-starre.

Here is a poem decorously circular in design, turning on the role appropriate to patrons and exemplified by Lucy, who is not simply "Life of the Muses day," but who has the wit to discern and distinguish: to be, in fact, one of those "rare friends" that "rare poems" demand, patrons who, by extending favour to the poet, acknowledge the quality of the poetry--one might say, pay court to it. Far from assuming an attitude of aloofness and hauteur, his patroness, who deliberately seeks out satirical poems for their "matter," is concerned with the moral character of all levels of society, not merely her own. As true aristocrat, the Countess of Bedford justifies her place in the social order by gaining knowledge, through the mirror held up to nature by the poet, of social conditions upon which she may then (Jonson seems to imply) bring her beneficent influence to bear. But even if she does not act in that way, her refusal to turn away from unpleasant or disturbing aspects of society, her insistence on a full view, indicate the completeness of her own nature, one fit to be described as evening and morning star both: a "full constant light," in fact, perfectly exemplifying the recognition that ancient privilege never exempts from present responsibility.

"To Sir Robert Wroth" (The Forrest, III) parallels "To Penshurst" in its emphasis on the acquiescence of external nature in the pursuits of man ("A serpent river leades / To some coole, courteous shade"), and on the mingling in this household, when occasion arises, of all classes (53-8):

The rout of rurall folke come thronging in,

 (Their rudenesse then is thought no sinne)

Thy noblest spouse affords them welcome grace;

 And the great Heroes, of her race,

Sit mixt with losse of state, or reverence.

 Freedome doth with degree dispense.

However, unlike the other, this poem continually reminds the reader of threatening and vicious forces at court and in the world environing Wroth's home; the "thousands" who (85-8)

 ... goe flatter vice, and winne,

 By being organes to great sinne,

Get place, and honor, and be glad to keepe

 The secrets, that shall breake their sleepe....

The natural surroundings of Durrants provide, not a permanent haven, but merely a "securer rest," to which Wroth may intermittently retreat for spiritual refreshment and moral strength, before returning to the task Jonson considers appropriate to every leader: "To doe thy countrey service, thyselfe right." Further, while divine power and natural influences may direct Wroth and his highly placed fellows to peace of mind, and enable them to meet the temptations of city and court with equanimity, still (93-4)

... when man's state is well,

  'Tis better, if ne there can dwell.

These tentative expressions point to the fact that the life even of the good man is one of continual and rigorous struggle, to shore up or regulate social order, and also, through self-examination, to guard against the "subtle traines" (as the "Epode" has it) by which "severall passions invade the minde, / And strike our reason blinde."

The "Epistle to ... Sacvile" (Und. XIII), in which social vice and disorder are once again extensively detailed, with special attention to "hunters of false fame," adds a final note of counsel to the active leader. It is not enough merely to hold at bay the forces making for disorder in society and in oneself. The point of struggle is to secure virtue or to alter a vicious situation: to make something happen. At the very least, one may demonstrate in one's own person what others may also achieve (135-44). ("They are ever good men, that must make good the times.")

... we must more then move still, or goe on,

We must accomplish; 'Tis the last Key-stone

That makes the Arch. The rest that there were put

Are nothing till that comes to bind and shut.

Then stands it a triumphall marke! then Men

Observe the strength, the height, the why, and when,

It was erected; and still walking under

Meet some new matter to looke up and wonder!

Such Notes are vertuous men! they live as fast

  As they are high; are rooted and will last.

All these poems counsel or approve social actions befitting persons responsible for the maintenance and direction of social order. But what if society, hardened in bad moulds, too toughly resists the efforts of dedicated leaders to redirect its course? For Jonson had read his Seneca: "Wee will rather excuse [a vice], then be rid of it. That wee cannot, is pretended; but that wee will not, is the true reason.... It was impossible to reforme these natures; they were dry'd, and hardned in their ill." The "Epistle: To Katherine, Lady Aubigny" (The Forrest, XIII) gives counsel for just such a situation. Not surprisingly, Jonson advises his patroness to profit by the poet's example: fortitude in adversity and confidence to endure in the midst of trial will both be required. The poem opens with a warning:

'Tis growne almost a danger to speake true

Of any good minde, now: There are so few.

The bad, by number, are so fortified,

As what th'have lost t'expect, they dare deride.

So both the prais'd, and praisers suffer....

But the poet, "at fewd / With sinne and vice, though with a throne endew'd," does not recoil. "Though forsooke / Of Fortune," Jonson proudly claims (15-20)

[I] have not alter'd yet my looke,

Or so my selfe abandon'd, as because

Men are not just, or keepe no holy lawes

Of nature, and societie, I should faint....

The character of Lady Aubigny, "perfect, proper, pure and naturall" (for so her "beauties of the mind" are shown in the poet's mirror), enables her to take a stand analogous to that of the beleaguered poet. Even friendship may fail (53-8); but the individual's responsibility to virtue remains constant (51-20):

'Tis onely that can time, and chance defeat:

For he, that once is good, is ever great.

In an unregenerate world that "cannot see / Right, the right way," the virtuous individual may continue to influence others merely by being true to herself, as Jonson reminds Lady Aubigny (110-12),

... since you are truly that rare wife,

Other great wives may blush at: when they see

What your try'd manners are, what theirs should bee.

But this, he knew, was rather to be wished than expected; and since even a poet might sing, in fierce adversity, "high, and aloofe," the key passage of the poem (59-63; 121-4) advocates the pursuit of virtue in a larger context. When the times defy moral redemption, and friends fall off,

This makes, that wisely you decline your life,

Farre from the maze of custome, error, strife,

And keepe an even, and unalter'd gaite;

Not looking by, or backe (like those, that waite

Times, and occasions, to start forth, and seeme) ...

Live that one, still; and as long yeeres doe passe,

Madame, be bold to use this truest glasse:

Wherein, your forme, you still the same shall finde;

Because nor it can change, nor such a minde.

Exemplary action, therefore, may now and again be matched by an exemplary endurance that conquers time and circumstance.

The "Epistle to Elizabeth Countesse of Rutland" (The Forrest, XII), to conclude, draws together a number of views already noted, now with special reference to the poet's central role. The epistletouches on the "credentials" of the poet-counsellor and on the conditions most favourable for the exercise of his gifts. As Hercules, Helen, gods and men owed their lives beyond life "onely [to] Poets, rapt with rage divine," so Jonson's poetry (89-91) will undertake

... high, and noble matter, such as flies

From braines entranc'd, and fill'd with extasies;

Moodes, which the god-like Sydney oft did prove....

In an age when

                ... almightie gold ...

Solders crackt friendship; makes love last a day;

Or perhaps lesse,

Sidney's daughter can be trusted to

... let this drosse carry what price it will

With noble ignorants, and let them still,

Turne, upon scorned verse, their quarter-face:

With you, I know, my offring will find grace.

For what a sinne 'gainst your great fathers spirit,

Were it to thinke, that you should not inherit

His love unto the Muses, when his skill

Almost you have, or may have, when you will?

But the poem intends more than this: by spelling out the nature of that fame awaiting patrons fortunate enough to hold a place in Jonson's verse, it establishes the claim of the poet to a seat among the highest ranks of the social community. Jonson can promise "strange poems, which, as yet, / Had not their forme touch'd by an English wit"; poems, however, that also recall and confirm the powers of Orphic song. Ancient truth will live again in modes newly suited to contemporary conditions and taste. This poet can, of course, assure the worthy patron of earthly fame, "like a rich, and golden pyramede, / Borne up by statues." But Jonson's commitment is more explicit (86-7): to

... show, how, to the life, my soule presents

Your forme imprest there....

The exemplary form of virtue embodied in the Countess of Rutland while she lived will not merely be remembered through Jonson's verse, but truly re-created in it; as "god-like Sidney" had given the mark of the right poet to be his capacity so to create another nature. "To flatter my good Lord," we recall, is "To lose the formes, and dignities of men." False friendship destroys life; but the poet, like a true friend, preserves the "formes" of the men and women he addresses in his poems. The true poet gives life, in fact, as kings can "create new men" (Ungathered Verse, XVI). And only such poets, whose art "hath a Stomacke to concoct, divide, and turne all into nourishment," are thoroughly qualified to counsel the princes and patrons whose art is the ordering of society and the state. The structure of society severely limits the extension of friendship proper, on the pattern of the Tribe; that is a pity; but community of interest among good men may serve instead. And Jonson's poems record his constant care for that harmonious ideal.

Source: Hugh MacLean, "Ben Jonson's Poems: Notes on the Ordered Society," in Essays in English Literature from the Renaissance to the Victorian Age, edited by Millar MacLure and F. W. Watt, University of Toronto Press, 1964, pp. 43-68. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 17.