The  plots  or  intrigues  of  Jonson  are  far  superior  to  those  of  the  gener-
ality of  his  contemporaries :  he  always  constructed  them  himself,  and
with  great  care  and  skill.  Those  of  Volfone  and  the  Silent  Woman  for
example,  though  some  of  the  incidents  are  extravagant,  are  admirable
for  the  constructive  skill  they  display,  and  for  the  art  with  which  each
detail  is  made  to  contribute  to  the  catastrophe.  The  general  effect,
however,  of  Jonson's  plays,  though  abundantly  satisfactory  to  the
reason,  is  hard  and  defective  to  the  taste.  The  character  of  his  mind
was  eminently  analytic;  he  dissected  the  vices,  the  follies,  and  the
affectations  of  society,  and  presented  them  to  the  reader  rather  like
anatomical  preparations  than  like  men  and  women.  His  observation
was  extensive  and  acute ;  but  his  mind  loved  to  dwell  rather  upon  the
eccentricities  and  monstrosities  of  human  nature  than  upon  those  uni-
versal features  with  which  all  can  sympathize,  as  all  possess  them.  His
mind  was  singularly  deficient  in  what  is  called  humanity  ;  his  point  of
view  is  invariably  that  of  the  satirist,  and  thus,  as  he  fixed  his  attention
chiefly  upon  what  was  abnormal,  many  of  his  most  elaborately-drawn
portraits  are  a  sort  of  dry,  harsh,  abstruse  caricatures  of  absurdities
which  were  peculiar  to  the  manners  and  society  of  that  day,  and  appear
to  us  as  strange  and  quaint  as  the  pictures  of  our  ancestors  in  their
stiff  and  fantastic  dresses.  The  satiric  tendency  of  Jonson's  mind,  too,
induced  him  to  take  his  materials,  both  for  intrigue  and  character,  from
odious  or  repulsive  sources ;  thus  the  subject  of  two  of  his  finest  pieces,
Volfone  and  the  Alchemist,  turns  entirely  upon  a  series  of  ingenious
cheats  and  rascalities ;  all  the  persons,  without  exception,  being  either
scoundrels  or  their  dupes.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  these  peculiarities,
the  knowledge  of  character  displayed  by  Jonson  is  so  vast,  the  force
and  vigor  of  expression  are  so  unbounded,  he  has  poured  forth  into
his  dialogue  such  a  wonderful  wealth  of  illustration  drawn  from  men
as  well  as  books,  that  his  comedies  form  a  stud^  eminently  substantial.
