your court farther from my cabin, because I will not be a courtier.

[Enter APELLES.]

Alex. But here cometh Apelles. Apelles, what piece of work have you in hand?

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Apel. None in hand, if it like your majesty: but I am devising a platform' in my head.

Alex. I think your hand put it in your head. Is it nothing about Venus?

[Re-enter Page.]

Apel. No, but something above Venus.

Page. Apelles, Apelles, look about you, your shop is on fire!

Apel. Ay me! if the picture of Campaspe be burnt, I am undone !

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Alex. Stay, Apelles, no haste: it is your heart is on fire, not your shop; and if Campaspe hang there, I would she were burnt. But have you the picture of Campaspe? Belike you love her well, that you care not though all be lost so she be safe.

Apel. Not love her: but your majesty knows that painters in their last works are said to excel themselves, and in this I have so much pleased myself, that the shadow as much delighteth me, being an artificer, as the substance doth others that are amorous.

109

Alex. You lay your colours grossly; though I could not paint in your shop, I can spy into your excuse. Be not ashamed, Apelles, it is a gentleman's sport to be in love. [To Attendants.] Call hither Campaspe. Methinks I might have been made privy to your affection; though my counsel had not been necessary, yet my countenance might have been thought requisite. But Apelles, for

1 sketch or design.

sooth, loveth underhand; yea, and under Alexander's nose, and-but I say no more.

Apel. Apelles loveth not so: but he liveth to do as Alexander will.

[Enter CAMPASPE.]

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Alex. Campaspe, here is news. Apelles is in love with you.

Camp. It pleaseth your majesty to say so.

Alex. (aside). Hephestion, I will try her too.-Campaspe, for the good qualities I know in Apelles, and the virtue I see in you, I am determined you shall enjoy one the other. How say you, Campaspe, would you say Aye?

Camp. Your handmaid must obey, if you command. Alex. (aside). Think you not, Hephestion, that she would fain be commanded?

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Hep. I am no thought catcher, but I guess unhappily. Alex. [to CAMP.]. I will not enforce marriage where I cannot compel love.

Camp. But your majesty may move a question where you be willing to have a match.

Alex. Believe me, Hephestion, these parties are agreed; they would have me both priest and witness. Apelles, take Campaspe: why move ye not? Campaspe, take Apelles will it not be? If you be ashamed one of the other, by my consent you shall never come together. But dissemble not, Campaspe; do you love Apelles? 141 Camp. Pardon, my Lord, I love Apelles !

Alex. Apelles, it were a shame for you, being loved so openly of so fair a virgin, to say the contrary. Do you love Campaspe?

Apel. Only Campaspe!

Alex. Two loving worms, Hephestion! I perceive Alexander cannot subdue the affections of men, though he conquer their countries. Love falleth like dew, as well

upon the low grass as upon the high cedar. Sparks have their heat, ants their gall, flies their spleen. Well, enjoy one another, I give her thee frankly, Apelles. Thou shalt see that Alexander maketh but a toy of love, and leadeth affection in fetters; using fancy as a fool to make him sport, or a minstrel to make him merry. It is not the amorous glance of an eye can settle an idle thought in the heart; no, no, it is children's game, a life for seamsters and scholars; the one, pricking in clouts, have nothing else to think on, the other, picking fancies out of books, have little else to marvel at. Go, Apelles, take with you your Campaspe, Alexander is cloyed with looking on that which thou wonderest at.

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Apel. Thanks to your majesty on bended knee, you have honoured Apelles.

Camp. Thanks with bowed heart, you have blessed Campaspe. [Exeunt APELL. and CAMP.

Alex. Page, go warn Clytus and Parmenio and the other Lords to be in readiness, let the trumpet sound, strike up the drum, and I will presently into Persia. How now, Hephestion, is Alexander able to resist love as he list?

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Hep. The conquering of Thebes was not so honourable as the subduing of these thoughts.

Alex. It were a shame Alexander should desire to command the world if he could not command himself. But come, let us go, I will try whether I can better my hand with my heart than I could with my eye. And good Hephestion, when all the world is won, and every country is thine and mine, either find me out another to subdue, or of my word I will fall in love. [Exeunt.

CHAPTER IV

THE COMEDY OF HUMOURS

ONE general difference between the comedy of Shakespeare and that of Molière is that Shakespeare gives us the whole man, and Molière concentrates our attention on his most diverting aspect. We cannot imagine M. Jourdain making his fortune by shrewd and successful commerce: we infer that he has done so, but we have no idea what he said to his customers. With the young Falstaff, page to the Duke of Norfolk, we are almost as well acquainted as with the old Falstaff of Gadshill and Eastcheap: if a play were written on his boyhood we could keep tally and correct or approve the lines of the portrait. Molière, in short, begins his drama at the rise of the curtain, and is content to carry us through scene after scene of irresistible laughter: Shakespeare treats his drama as the most vivid chapter in a complete human life, and while we laugh shows us not only the action presented, but its origin and its sequel.

Jonson's method stands, in this matter, on the further side of Molière's. His chief concern is with 'humours', that is, with the whims, follies, and affectations of his day: his fun is almost impersonal, the judgement of common sense on extravagance and absurdity. In his later comedies he often pushes his point to the verge of eccentricity or monomania; in his first and greatest the more vivid characters are those which are further removed from a normal standard. Even when he is not ostensibly satirical, the whip

of the satirist is never far from his hand; he is happier in bantering a fop or exposing an impostor than in setting before our eyes the foibles of average humanity. Young Knowell, for instance, is a shadowy and unsubstantial figure the play which turns on his fortune assigns to him only a minor part; while the real protagonists, the men of whom we can never have enough, are Matthew the dolt, and Bobadill the braggart, and that exquisite embodiment of pure foolishness, Master Stephen.

To contrast his attitude with that of Shakespeare, we have only to set Bobadill beside Parolles and Stephen beside Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Parolles is about as odious as any character at whom we can afford to laugh, but (apart from the fact that he is merely an incidental sketch) his last cry before detection stirs us, in spite of ourselves, to a strange and unexpected sympathy. Bobadill ruffles and hectors over the entire stage, he fills the whole theatre with his swaggering oaths and his monstrous pretensions, we enjoy every scene in which he appears, and yet when he comes to his final discomfiture we simply call the watch together and thank God that we are rid of a knave. Sir Andrew, again, gives abundant cause that many in Illyria do call him fool', but it is impossible to help liking him and hoping that he will settle down to the old age of Justice Shallow. Nobody cares a jot about Stephen (though we can scarce bear to let him out of our sight), or wastes a moment in wondering what will befall him when he has finished his ignominious supper at the buttery-hatch. Yet though Jonson's humour is unsympathetic, more intent, as Mr. Swinburne says, on the creation than on the creature, it is of its kind wonderfully keen and penetrating. And if we add that it is in essence neither coarse nor cruel, that it views its collection of grotesques from the vantage-ground of a sane and wholesome