This conception of "humours," based on a
physiology which was already obsolescent, takes heavily from the realism
of Jonson's methods, nor does his use of a careful vocabulary of
contemporary colloquialism and slang save him from a certain dryness and
tediousness to modern readers. The truth is he was less a satirist of
contemporary manners than a satirist in the abstract who followed the
models of classical writers in this style, and he found the vices and
follies of his own day hardly adequate to the intricacy and
elaborateness of the plots which he constructed for their exposure. At
the first glance his people are contemporary types, at the second they
betray themselves for what they are really--cock-shies set up by the new
comedy of Greece that every "classical" satirist in Rome or France or
England has had his shot at since. One wonders whether Ben Jonson, for
all his satirical intention, had as much observation--as much of an eye
for contemporary types--as Shakespeare's rustics and roysterers prove
him to have had. It follows that all but one or two of his plays, when
they are put on the stage to-day are apt to come to one with a sense of
remoteness and other-worldliness which we hardly feel with Shakespeare
or Moliere.
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