INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

The first English Act against witchcraft after the Norman Conquest was passed in 1541 (33 Hen. VIII. c. 8). This Act, which was of a general nature, and directed against various kinds of sorceries, was followed by another in 1562 (5 Eliz. c. 16). At the accession of James I. in 1603 was passed 1 Jac. I. c. 12, which continued law for more than a century.

During this entire period charges of witchcraft were frequent. In Scotland they were especially numerous, upwards of fifty being recorded during the years 1596-7.[84] The trial of Anne Turner in 1615, in which charges of witchcraft were joined with those of poisoning, especially attracted the attention of Jonson. In 1593 occurred the trial of the ‘three Witches of Warboys’, in 1606 that of Mary Smith, in 1612 that of the earlier Lancashire Witches, and of the later in 1633. These are only a few of the more famous cases. Of no less importance in this connection is the attitude of the King himself. In the famous Demonology[85] he allied himself unhesitatingly with the cause of superstition. Witchcraft was of course not without its opponents, but these were for the most part obscure men and of little personal influence. While Bacon and Raleigh were inclining to a belief in witchcraft, and Sir Thomas Browne was offering his support to persecution, the cause of reason was intrusted to such champions as Reginald Scot, the author of the famous Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, a work which fearlessly exposes the prevailing follies and crimes. It is on this side that Jonson places himself. That he should make a categorical statement as to his belief or disbelief in witchcraft is not to be expected. It is enough that he presents a picture of the pretended demoniac, that he makes it as sordid and hateful as possible, that he draws for us in the person of Justice Eitherside the portrait of the bigoted, unreasonable, and unjust judge, and that he openly ridicules the series of cases which he used as the source of his witch scenes (cf. Act. 5. Sc. 3).

To form an adequate conception of the poet’s satirical purpose in this play one should compare the methods used here with the treatment followed in Jonson’s other dramas where the witch motive occurs. In The Masque of Queens, 1609, and in The Sad Shepherd, Jonson employed the lore of witchcraft more freely, but in a quite different way. Here, instead of hard realism with all its hideous details, the more picturesque beliefs and traditions are used for purely imaginative and poetical purposes.

The Masque of Queens was presented at Whitehall, and dedicated to Prince Henry. Naturally Jonson’s attitude toward witchcraft would here be respectful. It is to be observed, however, that in the copious notes which are appended to the masque no contemporary trials are referred to. The poet relies upon the learned compilations of Bodin, Remigius, Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus, together with many of the classical authors. He is clearly dealing with the mythology of witchcraft. Nightshade and henbane, sulphur, vapors, the eggshell boat, and the cobweb sail are the properties which he uses in this poetic drama. The treatment does not differ essentially from that of Middleton and Shakespeare.

In The Sad Shepherd the purpose is still different. We have none of the wild unearthliness of the masque. Maudlin is a witch of a decidedly vulgar type, but there is no satirical intent. Jonson, for the purpose of his play, accepts for the moment the prevailing attitude toward witchcraft, and the satisfaction in Maudlin’s discomfiture doubtless assumed an acquiescence in the popular belief. At the same time the poetical aspect is not wholly forgotten, and appears with especial prominence in the beautiful passage which describes the witch’s forest haunt, beginning: ‘Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell’. The Sad Shepherd and the masque are far more akin to each other in their treatment of witchcraft than is either to The Devil is an Ass.

IV. Personal Satire

The detection of personal satire in Jonson’s drama is difficult, and at best unsatisfactory. Jonson himself always resented it as an impertinence.[86] In the present case Fleay suggests that the motto, Ficta, voluptatis causa, sint proxima veris, is an indication that we are to look upon the characters as real persons. But Jonson twice took the pains to explain that this is precisely the opposite of his own interpretation of Horace’s meaning.[87] The subject of personal satire was a favorite one with him, and in The Magnetic Lady he makes the sufficiently explicit statement: ‘A play, though it apparel and present vices in general, flies from all particularities in persons’.

On the other hand we know that Jonson did occasionally indulge in personal satire. Carlo Buffone,[88] Antonio Balladino,[89] and the clerk Nathaniel[90] are instances sufficiently authenticated. Of these Jonson advances a plea of justification: ‘Where have I been particular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease?’[91]

In only one play do we know that the principal characters represent real people. But between Poetaster and The Devil is an Ass there is a vast difference of treatment. In Poetaster (1) the attitude is undisguisedly satirical. The allusions in the prologues and notices to the reader are direct and unmistakable. (2) The character-drawing is partly caricature, partly allegorical. This method is easily distinguishable from the typical, which aims to satirize a class. (3) Jonson does not draw upon historical events, but personal idiosyncrasies. (4) The chief motive is in the spirit of Aristophanes, the great master of personal satire. These methods are what we should naturally expect in a composition of this sort. Of such internal evidence we find little or nothing in The Devil is an Ass. Several plausible identifications, however, have been proposed, and these we must consider separately.

The chief characters are identified by Fleay as follows: Wittipol is Jonson. He has returned from travel, and had seen Mrs. Fitzdottrel before he went. Mrs. Fitzdottrel is the Lady Elizabeth Hatton. Fitzdottrel is her husband, Sir Edward Coke.

Mrs. Fitzdottrel. The identification is based upon a series of correspondences between a passage in The Devil is an Ass (2. 6. 57-113) and a number of passages scattered through Jonson’s works. The most important of these are quoted in the note to the above passage. To them has been added an important passage from A Challenge at Tilt, 1613. Fleay’s deductions are these: (1) Underwoods 36 and Charis must be addressed to the same lady (cf. especially Ch., part 5). (2) Charis and Mrs. Fitzdottrel are identical. The song (2. 6. 94 f.) is found complete in the Celebration of Charis. In Wittipol’s preceding speech we find the phrases ‘milk and roses’ and ‘bank of kisses’, which occur in Charis and in U. 36, and a reference to the husband who is the ‘just excuse’ for the wife’s infidelity, which occurs in U. 36. (3) Charis is Lady Hatton. Fleay believes that Charis, part 1, in which the poet speaks of himself as writing ‘fifty years’, was written c 1622-3; but that parts 2-10 were written c 1608. In reference to these parts he says: ‘Written in reference to a mask in which Charis represented Venus riding in a chariot drawn by swans and doves (Charis, part 4), at a marriage, and leading the Graces in a dance at Whitehall, worthy to be envied of the Queen (6), in which Cupid had a part (2, 3, 5), at which Charis kissed him (6, 7), and afterwards kept up a close intimacy with him (8, 9, 10). The mask of 1608, Feb. 9, exactly fulfils these conditions, and the Venus of that mask was probably L. Elizabeth Hatton, the most beautiful of the then court ladies. She had appeared in the mask of Beauty, 1608, Jan. 10, but in no other year traceable by me. From the Elegy, G. 36, manifestly written to the same lady (compare it with the lines in 5 as to “the bank of kisses” and “the bath of milk and roses”), we learn that Charis had “a husband that is the just excuse of all that can be done him”. This was her second husband, Sir Edward Coke, to whom she was married in 1593’.

Fleay’s theory rests chiefly upon (1) his interpretation of The Celebration of Claris; (2) the identity of Charis and Mrs. Fitzdottrel. A study of the poem has led me to conclusions of a very different nature from those of Fleay. They may be stated as follows:

Charis 1. This was evidently written in 1622-3. Jonson plainly says: ‘Though I now write fifty years’. Charis is here seemingly identified with Lady Purbeck, daughter of Lady Hatton. Compare the last two lines with the passage from The Gipsies. Fleay believes the compliments were transferred in the masque at Lady Hatton’s request.

Charis 4 and 7 have every mark of being insertions. (1) They are in different metres from each other and from the other sections, which in this respect are uniform. (2) They are not in harmony with the rest of the poem. They entirely lack the easy, familiar, half jocular style which characterizes the eight other parts. (3) Each is a somewhat ambitious effort, complete in itself, and distinctly lyrical. (4) In neither is there any mention of or reference to Charis. (5) It is evident, therefore, that they were not written for the Charis poem, but merely interpolated. They are, then, of all the parts the least valuable for the purpose of identification, nor are we justified in looking upon them as continuing a definite narrative with the rest of the poem. (6) The evident reason for introducing them is their own intrinsic lyrical merit.

Charis 4 was apparently written in praise of some pageant, probably a court masque. The representation of Venus drawn in a chariot by swans and doves, the birds sacred to her, may have been common enough. That this is an accurate description of the masque of February 9, 1608 is, however, a striking fact, and it is possible that the lady referred to is the same who represented Venus in that masque. But (1) we do not even know that Jonson refers to a masque of his own, or a masque at all. (2) We have no trustworthy evidence that Lady Hatton was the Venus of that masque. Fleay’s identification is little better than a guess. (3) Evidence is derived from the first stanza alone. This does not appear in The Devil is an Ass, and probably was not written at the time. Otherwise there is no reason for its omission in that place. It seems to have been added for the purpose of connecting the lyric interpolation with the rest of the poem.

Charis 5 seems to be a late production. (1) Jonson combines in this single section a large number of figures used in other places. (2) That it was not the origin of these figures seems to be intimated by the words of the poem. Cupid is talking. He had lately found Jonson describing his lady, and Jonson’s words, he says, are descriptive of Cupid’s own mother, Venus. So Homer had spoken of her hair, so Anacreon of her face. He continues:

The italicized words may refer to U. 36. 3-4. They correspond, however, much more closely to Challenge, 2 Cup. The ‘bath your verse discloses’ (l. 21) may refer to DA. 2. 6. 82-3. U. 36. 7-8 or Gipsies 15-6.

is mentioned in U. 36. 9-10. ‘The passages in DA. and Gipsies[92] are less close. The ‘valley called my nest’ may be a reference to DA. 2. 6. 74 f. Jonson had already spoken of the ‘girdle ’bout her waist’ in Challenge, 2 Cup. Charis 5 seems then to have been written later than U. 36, Challenge, 1613, and probably Devil is an Ass, 1616. The evidence is strong, though not conclusive.

Charis 6 evidently refers to a marriage at Whitehall. That Cupid, who is referred to in 2, 3, 5, had any part in the marriage of Charis 6 is nowhere even intimated. That Charis led the Graces in a dance is a conjecture equally unfounded. Jonson of course takes the obvious opportunity (ll. 20, 26) of playing on the name Charis. That this occasion was the same as that celebrated in 4 we have no reason to believe. It applies equally well, for instance, to A Challenge at Tilt, but we are by no means justified in so limiting it. It may have been imaginary.

Charis 7 was written before 1618, since Jonson quoted a part of it to Drummond during his visit in Scotland (cf. Conversations 5). It was a favorite of the poet’s and this furnishes sufficient reason for its insertion here. It is worthy of note that the two sections of Charis, which we know by external proof to have been in existence before 1623, are those which give internal evidence of being interpolations.

Summary. The poem was probably a late production and of composite nature. There is no reason for supposing that the greater part was not written in 1622-3. The fourth and seventh parts are interpolations. The first stanza of the fourth part, upon which the identification largely rests, seems not to have been written until the poem was put together in 1622-3. If it was written at the same time as the other two stanzas, we cannot expect to find it forming part of a connected narrative. The events described in the fourth and sixth parts are not necessarily the same. There is practically no evidence that Lady Hatton was the Venus of 1608, or that Charis is addressed to any particular lady.

The other link in Fleay’s chain of evidence is of still weaker substance. The mere repetition of compliments does not necessarily prove the recipient to be the same person. In fact we find in these very pieces the same phrases applied indiscriminately to Lady Purbeck, Lady Frances Howard, Mrs. Fitzdottrel, perhaps to Lady Hatton, and even to the Earl of Somerset. Of what value, then, can such evidence be?

Fleay’s whole theory rests on this poem, and biographical evidence is unnecessary. It is sufficient to notice that Lady Hatton was a proud woman, that marriage with so eminent a man as Sir Edward Coke was considered a great condescension (Chamberlain’s Letters, Camden Soc., p. 29), and that an amour with Jonson is extremely improbable.

Fitzdottrel. Fleay’s identification of Fitzdottrel with Coke rests chiefly on the fact that Coke was Lady Hatton’s husband. The following considerations are added. Fitzdottrel is a ‘squire of Norfolk’. Sir E. Coke was a native of Norfolk, and had held office in Norwich. Fitzdottrel’s rôle as sham demoniac is a covert allusion to Coke’s adoption of the popular witch doctrines in the Overbury trial. His jealousy of his wife was shown in the same trial, where he refused to read the document of ‘what ladies loved what lords’, because, as was popularly supposed, his own wife’s name headed the list. Jonson is taking advantage of Coke’s disgrace in November, 1616. He had flattered him in 1613 (U. 64).

Our reasons for rejecting this theory are as follows: (1) The natural inference is that Jonson would not deliberately attack the man whom he had highly praised three years before. I do not understand Fleay’s assertion that Jonson was always ready to attack the fallen. (2) The compliment paid to Coke in 1613 (U. 64) was not the flattery of an hour of triumph. The appointment to the king’s bench was displeasing to Coke, and made at the suggestion of Bacon with the object of removing him to a place where he would come less often into contact with the king. (3) Fitzdottrel is a light-headed man of fashion, who spends his time in frequenting theatres and public places, and in conjuring evil spirits. Coke was sixty-four years old, the greatest lawyer of his time, and a man of the highest gifts and attainments. (4) The attempted parallel between Fitzdottrel, the pretended demoniac, and Coke, as judge in the Overbury trial, is patently absurd. (5) If Lady Hatton had not been selected for identification with Mrs. Fitzdottrel, Coke would never have been dreamed of as a possible Fitzdottrel.

Wittipol. He is a young man just returned from travel, which apparently has been of considerable duration. He saw Mrs. Fitzdottrel once before he went, and upon returning immediately seeks her out. How does this correspond to Jonson’s life? The Hue and Cry was played February 9, 1608. According to Fleay’s interpretation, this was followed by an intimacy with Lady Hatton. Five years later, in 1613, Drummond tells us that Jonson went to France with the son of Sir Walter Raleigh. He returned the same year in time to compose A Challenge at Tilt, December 27. Three years later he wrote The Devil is an Ass at the age of forty-three.

Wittipol intimates that he is Mrs. Fitzdottrel’s equal in years, in fashion (1. 6. 124-5), and in blood (1. 6. 168). For Jonson to say this to Lady Hatton would have been preposterous.

Justice Eitherside. Only the desire to prove a theory at all costs could have prevented Fleay from seeing that Coke’s counterpart is not Fitzdottrel, but Justice Eitherside. In obstinacy, bigotry, and vanity this character represents the class of judges with which Coke identified himself in the Overbury trial. Nor are these merely class-traits. They are distinctly the faults which marred Coke’s career from the beginning. It is certain that Coke is partially responsible for this portraiture. Overbury was a personal friend of the poet, and the trial, begun in the previous year, had extended into 1616. Jonson must have followed it eagerly. On the other hand, it is improbable that the picture was aimed exclusively at Coke. He merely furnished traits for a typical and not uncommon character. As we have seen, it is in line with Jonson’s usual practise to confine personal satire to the lesser characters.

Merecraft. Fleay’s identification with Sir Giles Mompesson has very little to commend it. Mompesson was connected by marriage with James I.’s powerful favorite, George Villiers, later Duke of Buckingham. In 1616 he suggested to Villiers the creation of a special commission for the purpose of granting licenses to keepers of inns and ale-houses. The suggestion was adopted by Villiers; Mompesson was appointed to the Commission in October, 1616, and knighted on November 18 of that year. The patent was not sealed until March, 1617. His high-handed conduct soon became unpopular, but he continued in favor with Villiers and James, and his disgrace did not come until 1621.

It will readily be seen that Mompesson’s position and career conform in no particular to those of Merecraft in the present play. Mompesson was a knight, a friend of the king’s favorite, and in favor with the king. Merecraft is a mere needy adventurer without influence at court, and the associate of ruffians, who frequent the ‘Straits’ and the ‘Bermudas’. Mompesson was himself the recipient of a patent (see section III. 2). Merecraft is merely the projector who devises clever projects for more powerful patrons. Mompesson’s project bears no resemblance to those suggested by Merecraft, and he could hardly have attracted any popular dislike at the time when The Devil is an Ass was presented, since, as we have seen, his patent was not even sealed until the following year. Finally, Jonson would hardly have attacked a man who stood so high at court as did Mompesson in 1616.

It is evident that Jonson had particularly in mind those projectors whose object it was to drain the fens of Lincolnshire. The attempts, as we have seen, were numerous, and it is highly improbable that Jonson wished to satirize any one of them more severely than another. In a single passage, however, it seems possible that Sir John Popham (see page lx) is referred to. In Act 4. Sc. 1 Merecraft speaks of a Sir John Monie-man as a projector who was able to ‘jump a business quickly’ because ‘he had great friends’. That Popham is referred to seems not unlikely from the fact that he was the most important personage who had embarked upon an enterprise of this sort, that his scheme was one of the earliest, that he was not a strict contemporary (d. 1607), and that his scheme had been very unpopular. This is proved by an anonymous letter to the king, in which complaint is made that ‘the “covetous bloody Popham” will ruin many poor men by his offer to drain the fens’ (Cal. State Papers, Mar. 14?, 1606).

Plutarchus Guilthead. Fleay’s identification with Edmund Howes I am prepared to accept, although biographical data are very meagre. Fleay says: ‘Plutarchus Gilthead, who is writing the lives of the great men in the city; the captain who writes of the Artillery Garden “to train the youth”, etc. [3. 2. 45], is, I think, Edmond Howes, whose continuation of Stow’s Chronicle was published in 1615.’

Howes’ undertaking was a matter of considerable ridicule to his acquaintances. In his 1631 edition he speaks of the heavy blows and great discouragements he received from his friends. He was in the habit of signing himself ‘Gentleman’ and this seems to be satirized in 3. 1, where Guilthead says repeatedly: ‘This is to make you a Gentleman’ (see N. & Q. 1st Ser. 6. 199.).

The Noble House. Two proposed identifications of the ‘noble house’, which pretends to a duke’s title, mentioned at 2. 4. 15-6. have been made. The expenditure of much energy in the attempt to fix so veiled an allusion is hardly worth while. Jonson of course depended upon contemporary rumor, for which we have no data.

Cunningham’s suggestion that Buckingham is referred to is not convincing. Buckingham’s father was Sir George Villiers of Brooksby in Leicestershire. He was not himself raised to the nobility until August 27, 1616, when he was created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon. It was not until January 5, 1617 (not 1616, as Cunningham says), that he became Earl of Buckingham, and it is unlikely that before this time any allusion to Villiers’ aspiration to a dukedom would have been intelligible to Jonson’s audience.

Fleay’s theory that the ‘noble house’ was that of Stuart may be accepted provisionally. Lodowick was made Earl of Richmond in 1613, and Duke in 1623. He was acceptable to king and people, and in this very year was made steward of the household.

D. AFTER-INFLUENCE OF THE DEVIL IS AN ASS

A few instances of the subsequent rehandling of certain motives in this play are too striking to be completely overlooked. John Wilson, 1627-c 1696, a faithful student and close imitator of Jonson, produced in 1690 a drama called Belphegor, or The Marriage of the Devil, a Tragi-comedy. While it is founded on the English translation of Machiavelli’s novella, which appeared in 1674, and closely adheres to the lines of the original, it shows clear evidence of Jonson’s influence. The subject has been fully investigated by Hollstein (cf. Verhältnis, pp. 22-24, 28-30, 35, 43, 50).

The Cheats, 1662, apparently refers to The Devil is an Ass in the Prologue. The characters of Bilboe and Titere Tu belong to the same class of low bullies as Merecraft and Everill, but the evident prototypes of these characters are Subtle and Face in The Alchemist.

A third play of Wilson’s, The Projectors, 1664, shows unmistakable influence of The Devil is an Ass. The chief object of satire is of course the same, and the character of Sir Gudgeon Credulous is modeled after that of Fitzdottrel. The scenes in which the projects are explained, 2. 1 and 3. 1, are similar to the corresponding passages in Jonson. The Aulularia of Plautus is a partial source, so that the play in some features resembles The Case is Altered. In 2. 1 Wilson imitates the passage in the Aulularia, which closes Act 2. Sc. 1 of The Devil is an Ass (see note 2. 1. 168).

Brome, Jonson’s old servant and friend, also handled the subject of monopolies (see page lxi). Jonson’s influence is especially marked in The Court Beggar. The project of perukes (Wks. 1. 192) should be compared with Merecraft’s project of toothpicks.

Mrs. Susanna Centlivre’s Busie Body uses the motives borrowed from Boccaccio (see pp. xlv ff.). The scenes in which these appear must have been suggested by Jonson’s play (Genest 2. 419), though the author seems to have been acquainted with the Decameron also. In Act. 1. Sc. 1 Sir George Airy makes a bargain with Sir Francis Gripe similar to Wittipol’s bargain with Fitzdottrel. In exchange for the sum of a hundred guineas he is admitted into the house for the purpose of moving his suit to Miranda. ‘for the space of ten minutes, without lett or molestation’, provided Sir Francis remain in the same room, though out of ear shot (2d ed., p. 8). In Act 2. Sc. 1 the bargain is carried out in much the same way as in Boccaccio and in Jonson. Miranda remaining dumb and Sir George answering for her.

In Act 3. Sc. 4 (2d ed., p. 38) Miranda in the presence of her guardian sends a message by Marplot not to saunter at the garden gate about eight o’clock as he has been accustomed to do, thus making an assignation with him (compare DA. 2. 2. 52).

Other motives which seem to show some influence of The Devil is an Ass are Miranda’s trick to have the estate settled upon her, Charles’ disguise as a Spaniard, and Traffick’s jealous care of Isabinda. The character of Marplot as comic butt resembles that of Pug.

The song in The Devil is an Ass 2. 6. 94 (see note) was imitated by Sir John Suckling.

APPENDIX Extracts from the Critics

Gifford: There is much good writing in this comedy. All the speeches of Satan are replete with the most biting satire, delivered with an appropriate degree of spirit. Fitzdottrel is one of those characters which Jonson delighted to draw, and in which he stood unrivalled, a gull, i. e., a confident coxcomb, selfish, cunning, and conceited. Mrs. Fitzdottrel possesses somewhat more interest than the generality of our author’s females, and is indeed a well sustained character. In action the principal amusement of the scene (exclusive of the admirable burlesque of witchery in the conclusion) was probably derived from the mortification of poor Pug, whose stupid stare of amazement at finding himself made an ass of on every possible occasion must, if portrayed as some then on the stage were well able to portray it, have been exquisitely comic.

This play is strictly moral in its conception and conduct. Knavery and folly are shamed and corrected, virtue is strengthened and rewarded, and the ends of dramatic justice are sufficiently answered by the simple exposure of those whose errors are merely subservient to the minor interests of the piece.

Herford (Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany, pp. 318-20): Jonson had in fact so far the Aristophanic quality of genius, that he was at once a most elaborate and minute student of the actual world, and a poet of the airiest and boldest fancy, and that he loved to bring the two rôles into the closest possible combination. No one so capable of holding up the mirror to contemporary society without distorting the slenderest thread of its complex tissue of usages; no one, on the other hand, who so keenly delighted in startling away the illusion or carefully undermining it by some palpably fantastic invention. His most elaborate reproductions of the everyday world are hardly ever without an infusion of equally elaborate caprice,—a leaven of recondite and fantastic legend and grotesque myth, redolent of old libraries and antique scholarship, furtively planted, as it were, in the heart of that everyday world of London life, and so subtly blending with it that the whole motley throng of merchants and apprentices, gulls and gallants, discover nothing unusual in it, and engage with the most perfectly matter of fact air in the business of working it out. The purging of Crispinus in the Poetaster, the Aristophanic motive of the Magnetic Lady, even the farcical horror of noise which is the mainspring of the Epicœne, are only less elaborate and sustained examples of this fantastic realism than the adventure of a Stupid Devil in the play before us. Nothing more anomalous in the London of Jonson’s day could be conceived; yet it is so managed that it loses all its strangeness. So perfectly is the supernatural element welded with the human, that it almost ceases to appear supernatural. Pug, the hero of the adventure, is a pretty, petulant boy, more human by many degrees than the half fairy Puck of Shakespeare, which doubtless helped to suggest him, and the arch-fiend Satan is a bluff old politician, anxious to ward off the perils of London from his young simpleton of a son, who is equally eager to plunge into them. The old savage horror fades away before Jonson’s humanising touch, the infernal world loses all its privilege of peculiar terror and strength, and sinks to the footing of a mere rival state, whose merchandise can be kept out of the market and its citizens put in the Counter or carted to Tyburn.

A. W. Ward (Eng. Dram. Lit., pp. 372-3): The oddly-named comedy of The Devil is an Ass, acted in 1616, seems already to exhibit a certain degree of decay in the dramatic powers which had so signally called forth its predecessor. Yet this comedy possesses a considerable literary interest, as adapting both to Jonson’s dramatic method, and to the general moral atmosphere of his age, a theme connecting itself with some of the most notable creations of the earlier Elizabethan drama.... The idea of the play is as healthy as its plot is ingenious; but apart from the circumstance that the latter is rather slow in preparation, and by no means, I think, gains in perspicuousness as it proceeds, the design itself suffers from one radical mistake. Pug’s intelligence is so much below par that he suffers as largely on account of his clumsiness as on account of his viciousness, while remaining absolutely without influence upon the course of the action. The comedy is at the same time full of humor, particularly in the entire character of Fitzdottrel.

Swinburne (Study of Ben Jonson, pp. 65-7): If The Devil is an Ass cannot be ranked among the crowning masterpieces of its author, it is not because the play shows any sign of decadence in literary power or in humorous invention. The writing is admirable, the wealth of comic matter is only too copious, the characters are as firm in outline or as rich in color as any but the most triumphant examples of his satirical or sympathetic skill in finished delineation and demarcation of humors. On the other hand, it is of all Ben Jonson’s comedies since the date of Cynthia’s Revels the most obsolete in subject of satire, the most temporary in its allusions and applications: the want of fusion or even connection (except of the most mechanical or casual kind) between the various parts of its structure and the alternate topics of its ridicule makes the action more difficult to follow than that of many more complicated plots: and, finally, the admixture of serious sentiment and noble emotion is not so skilfully managed as to evade the imputation of incongruity. [The dialogue between Lady Tailbush and Lady Eitherside in Act 4. Sc. 1 has some touches ‘worthy of Molière himself.’ In Act 4. Sc. 3 Mrs. Fitzdottrel’s speech possesses a ‘a noble and natural eloquence,’ but the character of her husband is ‘almost too loathsome to be ridiculous,’ and unfit ‘for the leading part in a comedy of ethics as well as of morals.’] The prodigality of elaboration lavished on such a multitude of subordinate characters, at the expense of all continuous interest and to the sacrifice of all dramatic harmony, may tempt the reader to apostrophize the poet in his own words:

Yet a word of parting praise must be given to Satan: a small part as far as extent goes, but a splendid example of high comic imagination after the order of Aristophanes, admirably relieved by the low comedy of the asinine Pug and the voluble doggrel by the antiquated Vice.