"
To produce such lines requires labour, requires conscious "art." So
Shakespeare HAD "art," after all, despite what Ben had said to
Drummond: "Shakespeare lacked art." There is no more in the matter;
the "inconsistency" is that of Ben's humours on two perfectly
different occasions, now grumbling to Drummond; and now writing
hyperbolically in commendatory verses. But the contrast makes Mr.
Greenwood exclaim, "Can anything be more astonishing and at the same
time more unsatisfactory than this?" {249a}
Can anything be more like Ben Jonson?
Did he know the secret of the authorship in 1619? If so, why did he
say nothing about the plays of the Great Unknown (whom he called
Shakespeare), save what Drummond reports, "want of art," ignorance of
Bohemian geography. Or did Ben NOT know the secret till, say, 1623,
and then heap on the very works which he had previously scouted
praise for the very quality which he had said they lacked? If so,
Ben was as absolutely inconsistent, as before. There is no way out
of this dilemma. On neither choice are Ben's utterances "easy to
reconcile one with the other," except on the ground that Ben was--
Ben, and his comments varied with his varying humours and occasions.
I believe that, in the commendatory verses, Ben allowed his Muse to
carry him up to heights of hyperbolical praise which he never came
near in cold blood.
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