"Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!-- Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. Hail the world's soul and mine!" _The Alchemist_ makes a strong presentation of certain forms of credulity in human nature and of the special tricks which the alchemists and impostors of that day adopted. One character wants to buy the secret of the helpful influence of the stars; another parts with his wealth to learn the alchemist's secret of turning everything into gold and jewels. The way in which these characters are deceived is very amusing. A study of this play adds to our knowledge of a certain phase of the times. In point of artistic construction of plot, _The Alchemist_ is nowhere excelled in the English drama; but the intrusion of Jonson's learning often makes the play tedious reading, as when he introduces the technical terms of the so-called science of alchemy to show that he has studied it thoroughly. One character speaks to the alchemist of-- "Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit," and another asks:-- "Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine? Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic, Or what is homogene, or heterogene?" Lines like the following show that Jonson's acute mind had grasped something of the principle of evolution:-- "...'twere absurd To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter." _The Silent Woman_ is in lighter vein than either of the plays just mentioned. The leading character is called Morose, and his special whim or "humor" is a horror of noise. His home is on a street "so narrow at both ends that it will receive no coaches nor carts, nor any of these common noises." He has mattresses on the stairs, and he dismisses the footman for wearing squeaking shoes. For a long time Morose does not marry, fearing the noise of a wife's tongue. Finally he commissions his nephew to find him a silent woman for a wife, and the author uses to good advantage the opportunity for comic situations which this turn in the action affords. Dryden preferred _The Silent Woman_ to any of the other plays. Besides the plays mentioned in this section, Jonson wrote during his long life many other comedies and masques as well as some tragedies. Marks of Decline.--A study of the decline of the drama, as shown in Jonson's plays, will give us a better appreciation of the genius of Shakespeare. We may change Jonson's line so that it will state one reason for his not maintaining Shakespearean excellence:-- "He was not for all time, but of an age." His first play, _Every Man in his Humor_, paints, not the universal emotions of men, but some special humor. He thus defines the sense in which he uses humor:-- "As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a Humor."