The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

The Alchemist outshines all predecessors - Between 1637 and 1640

Literary Record 42

[From James Shirley, Poems (1646).]

Shirley (1596-66) became master of the grammar school at St Albans and then moved to London and established himself as the leading playwright of the London stage. This prologue must date from Shirley's time as the resident dramatist at the Werburgh Street Playhouse, Dublin. He was there from its opening in late 1637 to April 1640, when he returned to England ((Stevenson, "James Shirley and the Actors at the First Irish Theatre", 1942-3). In the dedication of his The Grateful Servant (1630) Shirley had called Jonson 'our acknowledg'd Master'; in a commendatory verse in the same volume, William Abington claimed that Shirley would be Jonson's successor, and after Jonson's death verses by 'Dru. Cooper' and by W. Markham in Shirley's The Royall Master (1638) declared Shirley his rightful heir.

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The Alchimist, a Play for strength of wit,
And true Art, made to shame, what hath been writ
In former Ages: I except no worth
Of what or Greek or Latines have brought forth,
Is now to be presented to your eare,
For which I wish each man were a Muse here.
To know, and in his soule be fit to be
Judge of this Master-piece of Comedie;
That when we heare but once of Johnsons name,
Whose mention shall make proud the breath of Fame,
We may agree, and Crownes of Laurel bring
A justice unto him the Poets King.
But he is dead, Time envious of that blisse,
Which we possest in that great Braine of his,
By putting out this light, hath darkned all
The sphere of Poesie, and we let fall
At best, unworthy Elegies on his Herse,
A Tribute that we owe his living Verse;
Which though some men that never reacht him, may
Decry, that love all folly in a Play,
The Wiser few shall this distinction have,
To kneele, not tread upon his honour'd grave.

(36-7)