Jonson's Haterius

Ben Jonson is normally presented as being the principal witness for the actor Shakespeare being the author Shakespeare. However, what he says about Shakespeare is contradictory. When he writes about Shakespeare the author he is full of praise, as witness his striking tribute in the Shakespeare Folio; but when he writes about Shakespeare the actor it is entirely different. The only reasonable conclusion is that Jonson is referring to two different people, the actor and the author, and he seems to have known them both well.

For instance, in the only contemporary reference to the actor Shakespeare that could be called biographical, found among Jonson’s papers after his death in 1637 and printed in Discoveries in 1641, is the following comment:-

‘I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, Would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine owne candor, (for I lov’d the man, and doe honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any.) Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow’d with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stop’d: Sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his owne power; would the rule of it had beene so too. Many times hee fell into those things, could not escape laughter: As when hee said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him; Caesar, thou dost me wrong. Hee replyed: Caesar did never wrong, but with just cause: and such like; which were ridiculous. But hee redeemed his vices, with his vertues. There was ever more in him to be praysed, then to be pardoned.’[1]

In this ‘biography’ Jonson begins by referring to Heminge and Condell’s letter, To the great Variety of Readers, in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio, which remarks that they ‘scarce received from him [Shakespeare] a blot in his papers’; but Jonson appears to mock this reputation that the players had given Shakespeare, saying that they commend their friend by that wherein he most faulted. Then, after describing Shakespeare as of an honest, open and free nature, Jonson compares his actor friend to the Roman orator Haterius, who had the unfortunate reputation of being often so impetuous and carried away with his words that he would muddle them, burst into tears, speak ex tempore and become so profuse in his language that he had to be stopped. The example that Jonson gives is taken from the Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar (III, i, 47-8), wherein Caesar actually says: ‘Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause will he be satisfied’. Jonson infers that Shakespeare acted the part of Caesar and got his words muddled up in a ridiculous way – a mistake that no author of such a play, with its major focus on good oratory, would have made.

© Peter Dawkins, 2006

(See the author's book, The Shakespeare Enigma)