No More Learning

INTRODUCTION


BEN JONSON'S "Discoveries" are, as he says in the few Latin words
prefixed to them, "A wood--Sylva--of things and thoughts, in Greek '? ? ? '"
[which has for its first meaning material, but is also applied peculiarly
to kinds of wood, and to a wood], "from the multiplicity and variety of
the material contained in it. For, as we are commonly used to call the
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together. "

In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most
vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature.
The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his "Underwoods. "

Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district that
produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religious persecution
in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's reign, and died a
month before the poet's birth in 1573. Ben Jonson, therefore, was about
nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived Shakespeare about
twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson
was, in his own different way, the man of most mark in the story of the
English drama. His mother, left poor, married again. Her second husband
was a bricklayer, or small builder, and they lived for a time near
Charing Cross in Hartshorn Lane. Ben Jonson was taught at the parish
school of St. Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the
historian.
Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He
procured for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm
foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by
private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit.

Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time in his
step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the Low Countries.
He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end of
Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he showed
a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together with
that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged on
the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:--

"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men;
And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power. "

Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years of
the reign of James I. His _Volpone_, the _Silent Woman_, and the
_Alchemist_ first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of
Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of
James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste
from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was
weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a
short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of
the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and
their guide.