his poor nephew Eugenie, and, to make sure that the latter will not get any money out of him, resolves to marry.  His confidant in this delicate matter is Cutbeard the barber, who, unlike his kind, never speaks unless spoken to, and does not even knick his scissors as he works.  Cutbeard (who is secretly in league with the nephew) tells him of Epicoene, a rare, silent woman, and Morose is so delighted with her silence that he resolves to marry her on the spot.  Cutbeard produces a parson with a bad cold, who can speak only in a whisper, to marry them; and when the parson coughs after the ceremony Morose demands back five shillings of the fee.  To save it the parson coughs more, and is hurriedly bundled out of the house.  The silent woman finds her voice immediately after the marriage, begins to talk loudly and to make reforms in the household, driving Morose to distraction.  A noisy dinner party from a neighboring house, with drums and trumpets and a quarreling man and wife, is skillfully guided in at this moment to celebrate the wedding.  Morose flees for his life, and is found perched like a monkey on a crossbeam in the attic, with all his nightcaps tied over his ears.  He seeks a divorce, but is driven frantic by the loud arguments of a lawyer and a divine, who are no other than Cutbeard and a sea captain disguised.  When Morose is past all hope the nephew offers to release him from his wife and her noisy friends if he will allow him five hundred pounds a year.  Morose offers him anything, everything, to escape his torment, and signs a deed to that effect.  Then comes the surprise of the play when Eugenie whips the wig from Epicoene and shows a boy in disguise.

It will be seen that the Silent Woman, with its rapid action and its unexpected situations, offers an excellent opportunity for the actors; but the reading of the play, as of most of Jonson’s comedies, is marred by low intrigues showing a sad state of morals among the upper classes.

Besides these, and many other less known comedies, Jonson wrote two great tragedies, Sejanus (1603) and Catiline (1611), upon severe classical lines.  After ceasing his work for the stage, Jonson wrote many masques in honor of James I and of Queen Anne, to be played amid elaborate scenery by the gentlemen of the court.  The best of these are “The Satyr,” “The Penates,” “Masque of Blackness,” “Masque of Beauty,” “Hue and Cry after Cupid,” and “The Masque of Queens.”  In all his plays Jonson showed a strong lyric gift, and some of his little poems and songs, like “The Triumph of Charis,” “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” and “To the Memory of my Beloved Mother,” are now better known than his great dramatic works.  A single volume of prose, called Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, is an interesting collection of short essays which are more like Bacon’s than any other work of the age.