We cannot, however, agree with Mr. Symonds when he says that Jonson ‘rarely touched more than the outside of character,’ that his men and women are ’the incarnations of abstract properties rather than living human beings,’ that they are in fact mere ’masqueraders and mechanical puppets.’  Eloquence is a beautiful thing but rhetoric ruins many a critic, and Mr. Symonds is essentially rhetorical.  When, for instance, he tells us that ‘Jonson made masks,’ while ’Dekker and Heywood created souls,’ we feel that he is asking us to accept a crude judgment for the sake of a smart antithesis.  It is, of course, true that we do not find in Jonson the same growth of character that we find in Shakespeare, and we may admit that most of the characters in Jonson’s plays are, so to speak, ready-made.  But a ready-made character is not necessarily either mechanical or wooden, two epithets Mr. Symonds uses constantly in his criticism.

We cannot tell, and Shakespeare himself does not tell us, why Iago is evil, why Regan and Goneril have hard hearts, or why Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a fool.  It is sufficient that they are what they are, and that nature gives warrant for their existence.  If a character in a play is lifelike, if we recognise it as true to nature, we have no right to insist on the author explaining its genesis to us.  We must accept it as it is:  and in the hands of a good dramatist mere presentation can take the place of analysis, and indeed is often a more dramatic method, because a more direct one.  And Jonson’s characters are true to nature.  They are in no sense abstractions; they are types.  Captain Bobadil and Captain Tucca, Sir John Daw and Sir Amorous La Foole, Volpone and Mosca, Subtle and Sir Epicure Mammon, Mrs. Purecraft and the Rabbi Busy are all creatures of flesh and blood, none the less lifelike because they are labelled.  In this point Mr. Symonds seems to us unjust towards Jonson.

We think, also, that a special chapter might have been devoted to Jonson as a literary critic.  The creative activity of the English Renaissance is so great that its achievements in the sphere of criticism are often overlooked by the student.  Then, for the first time, was language treated as an art.  The laws of expression and composition were investigated and formularised.  The importance of words was recognised.  Romanticism, Realism and Classicism fought their first battles.  The dramatists are full of literary and art criticisms, and amused the public with slashing articles on one another in the form of plays.

Mr. Symonds, of course, deals with Jonson in his capacity as a critic, and always with just appreciation, but the whole subject is one that deserves fuller and more special treatment.