The humour of his huge
photographic group of divers "humours" is undeniably and incomparably
richer, broader, fuller of invention and variety, than any that
Shakespeare's lighter work can show; all the five acts of the latter
comedy can hardly serve as counterpoise, in weight and wealth of comic
effect, to the single scene in which Zeal-of-the-Land defines the moral
and theological boundaries of action and intention which distinguish the
innocent if not laudable desire to eat pig from the venial though not
mortal sin of longing to eat pig in the thick of the profane Fair, which
may rather be termed a foul than a fair. Taken from that point of view
which looks only to force and freedom and range of humorous effect,
Jonson's play is to his friend's as London is to Windsor; but in more
senses than one it is to Shakespeare's as the Thames at London Bridge is
to the Thames at Eton: the atmosphere of Smithfield is not more different
from the atmosphere of the playing-fields; and some, too delicate of nose
or squeamish of stomach, may prefer Cuckoo Weir to Shoreditch. But
undoubtedly the phantoms of Shallow and Mrs.
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