disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which
"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."

But continuing, Jonson is careful to add:
"But that a rook by wearing a pied feather,
The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,
A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot
On his French garters, should affect a humour!
O, it is more than most ridiculous."

Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the
basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life
be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in
juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy.
Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is
that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic
effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the
end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But
it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in
His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly
conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the
London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor
in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English
drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to
the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities
of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should
enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our