His muse moves along the high-road of comedy which is the Roman road, and she carries in her train types that have done service to many since the ancients fashioned them years ago.

Jealous husbands, foolish pragmatic fathers, a dissolute son, a boastful soldier, a cunning slave--they all are merely counters by which the game of comedy used to be played.

In England, since Shakespeare took his hold on the stage, that road has been stopped for us, that game has ceased to amuse.
Ben Jonson, then, in a certain degree failed in his intention.

Had he kept closer to contemporary life, instead of merely grafting on to it types he had learned from books, he might have made himself an English Moliere--without Moliere's breadth and clarity--but with a corresponding vigour and strength which would have kept his work sweet.

And he might have founded a school of comedy that would have got its roots deeper into our national life than the trivial and licentious Restoration comedy ever succeeded in doing.