The Publication Committee of the University of Texas, who have been kind enough to publish this volume as a Bulletin of the University, have already waited patiently a year beyond the time when the work was to have been ready for the press, and, keenly as I realize the shortcomings and imperfections of the study, it seems imperative to close it. Indeed, under the conditions of my work, it is scarcely profitable to pursue the subject further. particularly regret that much material which promised to be of interest for Jonson has been inaccessible to me, especially a number of works not yet reprinted which are satirical in nature or deal with manners. Even in the case of a few writers like Lodge and Guilpin, I have been forced to quote from copies of the most interesting portions of their work made when the books were temporarily accessible to me. Moreover, in the literature at hand I have undoubtedly missed much that would add to the roundedness of this treatment; but the nature of the work, I feel, makes the omissions less significant than they would otherwise be, for without any hope of exhausting the subject, I have merely attempted to gather together sufficient material to illustrate the point of view. The possible influence, also, of classical and continental Renaissance literature upon the types and conventions of English literature which led to Jonson, I have tried to weigh fairly, but, as I have naturally not been able to study this phase of the subject closely, there must be many non-English parallels to Jonson's work with which I am unacquainted. In the main, however, even Jonson's classicism seems to me to be strongly colored by contemporary attitudes, though I am aware that such a claim is, in many cases, not readily susceptible of proof. It has been difficult in handling the material to give due credit for all that has been borrowed. The volume is already so cumbered with references and notes that I have deliberately avoided a multitude of references for such ideas as are generally current now. In the matter, also, of parallels to Jonson's treatment, though I have attempted to give credit whenever I have been aware that the material has been pointed out by others, the discovery of parallels has seemed to me so much less significant than the massing and the interpretation of them that I candidly confess I have not made any exhaustive search to learn whether each parallel which I have used is to be credited to some previous student. The fact that my material has been gathered from modern editions of Elizabethan works has led to many inconsistencies. In titles and quotations I have tried to follow the various editors, and the result, which seems unavoidable, has been that the Elizabethan and the modern form jostle each other on the same line. There is much inconsistency, also, in the method of citing the sources of material. In the case of works accessible in only one edition or those easily referred to by the number of the satires, epigrams, sonnets, etc., I have not always been careful to indicate the edition. from which I quote. Such are the satires of Marston and Middleton edited by Bullen, and Skialetheia and the works of Davies edited by Grosart. But, when the reference is by volume and page, my practice has of course been to give the edition, especially with the first reference. For Jonson's works, unless it is otherwise stated, I have referred to the three volume Gifford-Cunningham edition; and, as reference to this edition by act and scene is often hardly explicit enough, I have adopted the plan of giving also the page of the volume in which the play under consideration occurs. References to the quartos of the early plays are by line to Professor Bang's reprints in Materialien zur Kunde des älteren Englischen Dramas. In closing this study I wish to express my thanks to two persons to whom I am principally indebted. Prof. J. M. Manly has made a number of suggestions, which have proved of value to me; and my wife, Catharine Q. Baskervill, has not only borne a great part of the burden of copying, verifying, indexing, etc., but has also offered innumerable suggestions that have entered into the body of the work. Without her criticism the volume would have gone forth in a far cruder form. University of Texas. C. R. BASKERVILL. CONTENTS Jonson and the new movement in comedy, 1.-Usual view of his classicism, 1.-Point of view of present treatment, 2.-Scope of treatment, 2.-Jonson's personality, 3.-Absence of realism in his work, 5.-His statement of the requisites of the poet, 5.— Demand that poetry shall conform to the conditions of the time, 7.-Relation to his contemporaries, 8.-Variety in his work, 9.-Influence of contemporary modes on his choice of material, THE ENGLISH TEMPER OF JONSON'S WORK Jonson in relation to the broader movements in contemporary lit- erature, 17.—The humour comedies as one phase of the popular satiric movement, 17.-Classicism and the school of satire, 18.— Conditions of English life that gave rise to the new satire, 18.— Jonson expressive of the English temper, 21.-His lack of sym- pathy with romantic and courtly literature, 22.-His accord with the spirit of English didacticism, 24.-Effect of English literature on his classicism, 24.-The fusion of classic and me- dieval English influences in his art, 26.-Aspects of his work that are peculiarly medieval, 29.-His technique that of the didactic A STUDY OF HUMOURS The meaning of humour as used by Jonson, 34.-Jonson's imme- tarded this development, 39.-Connection of the humour com- edy and the morality, 40.-The prominence of the humour con- ception an expression of the increasing interest in the physio- logical sciences, 41.-Use of humour in its derived sense a native development, 45.-Humour as used by Fenton, 46.-The influ- ence of the Renaissance idea of decorum on the native idea of humours in character portrayal, 55.-Wilson's conception of character treatment, 56.-Sidney's, 57.-Lyly and the treatment of humours, 59.-Gabriel Harvey, 60.-Greene, 62.-Nashe, 63.-Lodge, 67.-The part of the character sketch in humour Date of A Tale of a Tub, 76.-Changes made in revision, 77.— Type of drama to which the play belongs, 80.-Characters, 80.— Type of plot, 80.-Plays similar in method of plotting, 82.-A non-dramatic use of the same type of incidents, 85.-Minor parallels between A Tale of a Tub and other plays of the period, Date of The Case is Altered, 90.-Indebtedness to Plautus, 91.-- English influence, 93.-The character of Juniper, 94.-Onion, |