Sir Politic is something more. In the theatre he emerges as the befuddled Englishman abroad, secure only in his suspicion of foreigners and his own better understanding of how things are organized by the natives. His ludicrous speculative ventures parallel Volpone’s successful fleecing of his dupes; and are part of the play’s satirical attack upon an irrationally acquisitive, capitalistic society. Sir Pol is a contemporary satirical portrait of the English traveller. He is also, in the play’s bestiary, the parrot, chattering away at second hand, and memorable for his bland stupidity and his vague ‘general notions’. Sir Politic has been excellently played by Michael Hordern and by Jonathan Miller, and it is his essential Englishness which makes him funny. The Would-be pair are expendable; but to cut them from a performance of the comedy leaves the Italian dupes and manipulators relatively unfocused. They earn their part in the play.

IV

The Alchemist is a humbler, a more domestic Volpone. Once more the characters are men dominated and exploited by others through their own desires to get rich quick. A sucker seems to have been born every minute in Jonson’s comic world, and in the Philosopher’s Stone, which was supposed to turn base metals into gold, Jonson found a wonderful correlative for his gulls’ selfish and inordinate desire for wealth, influence, and power. It is by holding out to the gulls the prospect of possessing the Stone, that the triumvirate of confidence-tricksters, Face, Subtle, and Dol Common, manipulate them, and win a living. But their world is very different from the rich, remote world of Volpone’s Venice. Their environment is Jacobean London, vividly and saltily evoked by Jonson; and where Volpone operated in part for the sheer perverse exhilaration of controlling others, these three uneasy allies are desperate chancers living on their wits. The play opens explosively with Face and Subtle quarrelling, and we are early reminded how near the bread-line Subtle has been used to living. Dol Common and Subtle are the under-dogs of the Elizabedian underworld.

The great technical achievement of this comedy is that Jonson was able to compress so much local life, so many special slangs and jargons, within his lively and supple blank verse. The density of the dialogue, the contemporaneity of the comedy to a Jacobean audience, makes The Alchemist (like Bartholomew Fair) more difficult than Volpone for readers and playgoers today. While the theme of human greed and gullibility is universal, the types, the references, the vocabularies are Jacobean. The idiom is often obscure, but the dialogue and the pace of the action are fast, and carry the reader with them. The play moves with classical, almost clockwork precision, each act stepping on the heels of the preceding one, and the action is virtually continuous from (according to the Herford-Simpson edition) 9 a.m., when Dapper calls, until 3 p.m., when Lovewit unexpectedly returns home and the coney-catchers are unmasked and dispersed. The Alchemist is, in essence, farcical; but its quality lies in the Jonsonian synthesis of two seemingly irreconcilable elements – farce and intellect.

The structure of The Alchemist resembles Volpone in that, one by one, the principal dupes are introduced to us as they pay their morning calls. Jonson provides a superb array of types – the upstart clerk, Dapper; the shy little tobacconist, Abel Drugger, whom Garrick delighted to act; the elephantine voluptuary, Sir Epicure Mammon; and the insidious kill-joy Puritans, Ananias and Tribulation Wholesome. Each is governed by self-interest, and each is betrayed into the opportunists’ hands by a dream of wealth. Even the card-sharper, Surly, who seems to embody common sense – rather like those reasonable brothers-in-law in Moliere who show up the obsessions of the Miser or the Imaginary Invalid – ends by trying to make a wealthy match with Dame Pliant. For each Jonson creates an appropriate diction and speech-rhythm: Drugger is shy and halting, the Puritans are sanctimonious, and Subtle has a splendid line in alchemical blarney. Sir Epicure’s speeches sound almost as seductive, Marlovian, and sumptuous as Volpone’s, but they are transparently silly and self-deluding. He is closer to Sir Politic Would-be than to Tamburlaine.

The end of The Alchemist is more indulgent than that of Volpone. Lovewit, the rightful owner, returns suddenly, and is not really surprised at the uses to which his town house has been put. Dol Common and Subtle make their get-away, none the richer for their ingenious cozenings. Captain Face dwindles again to being Jeremy, the butler, and blandly triumphs by helping his master to a rich wife. He remains the complete opportunist.