He was always pre-eminently
an Englishman of his own day with a scholar's rather than a poet's
temper, hating extravagance, hating bombast and cant, and only limited
because in ruling out these things he ruled out much else that was
essential to the spirit of the time. As a craftsman he was
uncompromising; he never bowed to the tastes of the public and never
veiled his scorn of those--Shakespeare among them--whom he conceived to
do so; but he knew and valued his own work, as his famous last word to
an audience who might be unsympathetic stands to witness,
"By God 'tis good, and if you like it you may."
Compare the temper it reveals with the titles of the two contemporary
comedies of his gentler and greater brother, the one _As You Like It_,
the other _What You Will_. Of the two attitudes towards the public, and
they might stand as typical of two kinds of artists, neither perhaps can
claim complete sincerity. A truculent and noisy disclaimer of their
favours is not a bad tone to assume towards an audience; in the end it
is apt to succeed as well as the sub-ironical compliance which is its
opposite.
Jonson's theory of comedy and the consciousness with which he set it
against the practice of his contemporaries and particularly of
Shakespeare receive explicit statement in the prologue to _Every Man Out
of His Humour_--one of his earlier plays.
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