: History of English Humour Vol. 1 With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour by L Estrange A G K Alfred Guy Kingan - English wit and humor History and criticism; Wit and humor History and criticism

@FreeBooks

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

our counsel, and cut my hair, and leave vapours. I see that tobacco and bottle ale, and pig and whit, and very Ursula herself is all vanity.

Ben Jonson has a strange, and I believe original conceit of introducing persons to explain their plays, and make remarks on the characters. Sometimes many interruptions of this kind occur in the course of a drama, affording variety and amusement to the audience, or the reader. In "Midsummer's Night's Dream" we have the insertion of a play within a play. The following taken from Jonson's epigrams have fine complexity, and show a certain tinge of humour.

THE HOUR GLASS.

MY PICTURE.--LEFT IN SCOTLAND.

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind, For else it could not be That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my suit behind; I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, And every close did meet In sentence of as subtle feet, As hath the youngest, he, That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. Oh! but my conscious fears That fly my thoughts between Tell me that she hath seen My hundreds of gray hairs, Told seven and forty years, Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace My mountain belly, and my rocky face, And all these through her eyes have stopt her ears.

Although fond of indulging in strong language, Jonson is scarcely ever guilty of any really coarse allusion--he expresses his aversion from anything of the kind, and this in the age in which he lived, argued great refinement of feeling.

In Fletcher we mark a progress in humour. Ben Jonson was so personal that he made enemies, and was suspected of attacking Inigo Jones and others, but Fletcher was general in his references, and merely ridiculed the manners of the age. The classic element disappears, and quibbling and playing with words--so fashionable in Shakespeare's time--is not found in this author, whose humour has more point, and generally more sarcasm, but of a refined character.

The name of Fletcher is invariably connected with Beaumont. The two young men lived together in the same house, and it is even said wore each other's clothes. But Beaumont only lived to be twenty-nine, and has left little in comparison with the voluminous works of Fletcher. They were both born in a good position, and, mingling in the fashionable society of their day, filled their pages with love intrigues, in colours not then offensive. Fletcher never married, and those who look for contrasts between fathers and children may learn that his father, who was Bishop of London, was suspended by Elizabeth for taking a second wife. Our author is said to have been himself a comedy, and his death, if we can believe the story, was consistent with his gay life, for we are told that, through waiting in London for a new suit of clothes, he died of cholera, which was raging there at the time.

Here is a specimen of his sketches--the character of a rich usurer--

You'd swear it, colonel. I'd rather drill at home A hundred thousand crowns, and with more honour, Than exercise ten thousand fools with nothing; A wise man safely feeds, fools cut their fingers.

The prurient coarseness of Fletcher is due to the peculiar licentiousness of the period. In his plays, although kissing is sometimes provocative of jealousy, it is generally regarded, even by persons of rank, as of less importance than it is now by boys and girls, who play "Kiss in the ring." In "Rule a wife and have a wife" Margarita says to the Duke

"I may kiss a stranger, For you must be so now."

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

(0)

Login to post a comment!