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Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour

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Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR Oxford University Press I^^mdon Edinburgh Glasgoiv Neto Tork Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Humphrey Milford M.A, Publisher to the University BEN JONSON'S Every Man In His Humour Edited by PERCY SIMPSON OXFORD At the Clarendon Press MDCCCCXIX — f\z S5 im rr, ! lO PREFACEf\ A COMPLETE edition of Ben Jon son's Works by Professor C. H. Herford and the present editor has long been in preparation ; this edition of Every Man in his Humour is therefore in the nature of a pioneer volume. Three objects have been kept steadily in view in producing it —to print the authoritative text ; to solve the problem of its date and composition ; to illustrate its literary relations and its faithful picture of contemporary London. The critical apparatus concentrates on the early issues and so presents, unencumbered, the minuter variants of the 1^40 Folio changes of spelling and punctuation, which, in part at least, are Jonson's. Few conjectures are recorded, for the text is too sound to need any ; and it seemed futile to notice such trivialities as Gilford's occasional expansion of the contracted i' and o\ Jonson used them side by side with the fuller forms, and the precisian who meddles with them is not even precise. Mr. H. B. Wheatley's edition of the play has been consulted for its notes on London topography. The proofs have been read throughout by Mr. D. Nichol Smith and Mr. G. Thorn-Drury. Both have contributed very valuable criticism, and the latter also collated the text, supplying 361 VI Preface. some examples of early printer's variants unknown to the editor. Twenty-four years have elapsed since the first crude draft of the commentary was drawn up by a prentice hand ; but the pleasantest memories associated with the work are these informal discussions with friends at the final stage, throwing new light on points of literature and scholarship, Oxford. April, 19 1 9. CONTEN TS INTRODUCTION .... SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS Conical brackets, as ' <7o them.)' in the heading of v. ii, denote words or letters inserted in the text. Square brackets, as ' [To them.'] ' in the heading of iv. ix, denote words or letters of the original text which ought to be omitted. A. P. = Translation of the Ars Grflm. = The English Gram- Poetica. mar. A/ch.=rhe Alchemist. M. Z,. = The Magnetic Lady. B. /^. = Barthormew Fair, N.E. Z). = New English Dic- C. is ^. =The Case is Altered. tionary, Cj/.= Catiline. iSr./.=The New Inn. C./e. = Cynthia's Revels. N. and Q. = Notes and Queries. D. is y^.=The Devil is an Pof/. = Poetaster. Ass. (2. = Quarto of ' Every Man Z)ur. = Timber, or Discoveries. in his Humour', 160 1. £. E. T. 5.= Early English S. of N. = The Staple of News. Text Society. S. ^. = The Sad Shepherd. E. jfir.= Eastward Ho. S. W. = Epicoene, or The Silent E.M,0. = E\eTy Man out of Woman. his Humour. Sej. = Sejanus. Epig. = Epigrams. Stage ^/r. = Stage-direction. /; = Folio of 1616. T. o/'r. =A Taleof aTub. jp2= Folio of 1^40. Und. = Underwoods. i^3 = Folio of 1691. ^o^. = Volpone, or the Fox. /jr= identical text in Fi and F^. ^.=:Whalley (edition of Jon- G=GifFord(edition of Jonson's son's Works, 175^). Works, 1 8 1(5). INT RODUCTION I. THE QUARTO AND THE FOLIO TEXTS. Jonson's comedy of Every Man in his Humour was first acted in I J98 by the Chamberlain*s men, who were then playing at the Curtain theatre in Shoreditch. The Quarto title-page speaks of performances being given ' sundry times *. A letter of Tobie Mathew to Dudley Carleton on September 20, preserved among the State Papers, gives one date, evidently an early one, precisely. Mathew describes a French visitor at Nonesuch, well ' received in court circles : There were with him divers Almans, where of, one, lost out of his purse, at a play 3 hundred crownes. A new play called, Euery mans humour.' The reference to repeated performances implies a theatrical success. This was the tradition with regard to this comedy. Aubrey records that, after previous failures at the Curtain, Jonson ' vndertooke againe to write a Playe and hitt it admirably well, viz. Every man . w^h was his first good one ' (Aubrey MS. 8, fol. 108). Dryden says the same in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Shakespeare took a part in the performance. His name heads the actor-list which Jonson added to the Folio text, and the prominence thus given to him suggests that he played Lorenzo senior, the original form of the elder Kno'well. There is also a tradition that, when the manuscript was on the point of being rejected at the playhouse, Shakespeare intervened in its favour and finally got it accepted. Rowe, in the Account of Shakespeare prefixed to his edition of 1709, has preserved the tradition for us in a report ' Introduction. which is clearly open to criticism. There is exaggeration in the statement that Jonson ' was at that time altogether unknown to the world ', and in the picturesque account of the people at the playhouse turning the manuscript * carelessly and superciliously over, and Shakespeare Muckily casting his eye upon it'. But the main fact may be true. The play was first printed in Quarto in i^oi. But Jonson revised it with extreme care for the Folio edition of his Works published in i6i6. This is the version here reprinted. Two entries relating to the Quarto are found in the Stationers' Register in idoo. On August 4, * Euery man in his humour / a booke' is entered along with yis Tou Like It, King Henry the Fifth, and Much Ado about Nothing as one of * My lord chamberlens mens plaies ', the publication of which was ' to be staied '. The company was responsible for this entry, probably, as Mr. A. W. Pollard suggests,^ in order to secure the copyright and checkmate a possible pirate. Ten days later it was entered for Cuthbert Burby and Walter Burre, and it was published with Bune's imprint next year.^ The text of the collected edition of 1616 was issued from the press of William Stansby ; it is one of the best-printed books * See Shakespear^s Fight with the Pirates, pp. 45-6. ^ Burby died in 1607 ; two years later his widow transferred her share of the copyright to William Welby. Welby and Burre, there- fore, were joint holders of the copyright when the revised text appeared in the 1616 Folio. In 16 18 Welby assigned his share to Thomas Snodham, whose widow transferred it to William Stansby in 1626. In 1635 Stansby also secured the share of Walter Burre, in virtue of an assignment made by Burre and Lownes in 1621. Stansby died in 1638-9, and early in 1639 his widow assigned her copyrights to Richard Bishop, whose imprint appears on the title-page of the play in the 1640 Folio. EVERY MAN IN his Humor. As it hath beene fundry times puhlickly acled hy the right Honorable the Lord Cham- herlaine hisferuants. Written by Ben. Iohnson. ^lupd non dantproceres^dabit Hijlrio, Haud tamen inuidias vati^quem pulpitapafcunt. Imprinted at London for Walter Burre^ and are to bejouldat hisjhoppe in Paules Chunh-yarde, 1601. xii Introduction. of the seventeenth century, and the text is authoritative. Jonson. following what was then the custom of a careful author, went to the printing-house and corrected the sheets of the edition while it was actually passing through the press ; the character of the changes made in the text proves that they were author's, not compositor's, corrections. As the fact has been disputed, a test passage may be cited. It is taken from Sejanus^ at the close of the fourth act (Folio, p. 41?). Some senators discuss Tiberius* vacillating policy towards Sejanus, who is honoured one moment and deprived of the honour the next. Pomponius, who does not know how to time his flattery, says on hearing news hostile to the favourite, * By Castor, that 's the worst.' An honest bystander, Arruntius, exclaims in an aside, * By PoLLVX, best.' This is the reading of some copies of the Folio ; the fact that it is also the reading of the 160^ Quarto proves it to be the original. But most copies of the Folio print the speeches in an altered form : Pom. By Pollvx, that's the worst. (Arr. By Hercvles, best.) This is the final text, for the Folio of 1^40 reproduces it. Did a printer indulge in that shuffling of Roman gods, or should we naturally suppose that it was Jonson himself, stickling for some minute point of scholarship ? Well, the change was made on the authority of the Roman antiquary, Aulus Gellius, who stated that ' in old writings Roman women do not swear by Hercules, nor men by Castor ', but that both sexes might swear by Pollux.* Another striking change is in the flattery of ^ ' In veteribus scriptis neque mulieres Romanae per Herculem deierant, neque viri per Castorem. Aedipol autem, quod iusiurandum per PoUncem est, et viro et feminae commune est ' (Nodes Atticae, xi. 6). : ^ The Quarto and the Folio Texts, xiii Queen Elizabeth which rounded off the Court performance of Every Man out of his Humour. In the Quarto of 1600, printed during her lifetime, Macilente prays : ... I implore, O Heauen : that Shee (whose Figure hath effected This change in me) may neuer suffer Change In her Admir'd and happie Gouernment. (Sig. Q 4.) But she had been dead thirteen years when the Folio ' ' appeared ; so may neuer suffer change ' was toned down to may suffer most late change '—an echo of the prayer of Horace to Augustus Serus in caelum redeas diuque Laetus intersis populo Quirini.
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