were seized; but Jonson, who had taken a share in some other part of the composition, conceived himself bound in honour to participate their fate, and voluntarily accompanied them to prison. It was on this occasion that his mother, deceived by the rumour of a barbarous punishment being intended for her son, prepared a lusty poison, which she meant to have given him, and to have drunk along with him. This was maintaining in earnest the consanguinity of heroism and genius. The imagined insult to the sovereign being appeased, James's accession proved, altogether, a fortunate epoch in Jonson's history. A peaceable reign gave encouragement to the arts and festivities of peace; and in those festivities, not yet degraded to mere sound and show, poetry still maintained the honours of her primogeniture among the arts. Jonson was therefore congenially employed, and liberally rewarded, in the preparation of those masques for the court, which filled up the intervals of his more properly dramatic labours, and which allowed him room for classical impersonations, and lyrical trances of fancy, that would not have suited the business of the ordinary stage. The reception of his Sejanus, in 1603, was at first unfavourable; but it was remodelled, and again presented with better success, and kept possession of the theatre for a considerable time. Whatever this tragedy may want in the agitating power of poetry, it has a strength and dramatic skill that might have secured it, at least, from the petulant contempt with which it has been too often spoken of. Though collected from the dead languages, it is not a lifeless mass of antiquity, but the work of a severe and strong imagination, compelling shapes of truth and consistency to rise in dramatic order from the fragments of Roman eloquence and history; and an air not only of life but of grandeur is given to those curiously adjusted materials. The arraignment of Caius Silius before Tiberius, is a great and poetical cartoon of Roman characters; and if Jonson has translated from Tacitus, who would not thank him for embodying the pathos of history in such lines as these, descriptive of Germanicus ?

What his funerals lack'd

In images and pomp, they had supplied
With honourable sorrow. Soldiers' sadness,
A kind of silent mourning such as men
Who know no tears, but from their captives, use
To show in so great losses.

By his three succeeding plays, Volpone (in 1605), the Silent Woman (in 1609), and the Alchemist (in 1610), Jonson's reputation in the comic drama rose to a pitch which neither his own nor any other pen could well be expected to surpass. The tragedy of Catiline appeared in 1611, prefaced by an address to the Ordinary

Reader, as remarkable for the strength of its style, as for the contempt of popular judgments which it breathes. Such an appeal from ordinary to extraordinary readers ought at least to have been made without insolence; as the difference between the few and the many, in matters of criticism, lies more in the power of explaining their sources of pleasure than in enjoying them. Catiline, it is true, from its classical sources, was chiefly to be judged of by classical readers; but its author should have still remembered, that popular feeling is the great basis of dramatic fame. Jonson lived to alter his tone to the public, and the lateness of his humility must have made it more mortifying. The haughty preface, however, disappeared from later editions of the play, while its better apology remained in the high delineation of Cicero's character, and in passages of Roman eloquence which it contains ; above all, in the concluding speech of Petreius. It is said, on Lord Dorset's authority, to have been Jonson's favourite production.

In 1613 he made a short trip to the Continent, and, being in Paris, was introduced to the Cardinal du Perron, who, in compliment to his learning, showed him his translation of Virgil. Ben, according to Drummond's anecdotes, told the cardinal that it was nought: a criticism, by all accounts, as just as it was brief.

Of his two next pieces, Bartholomew Fair (in 1614), and the Devil is an Ass (in 1616), the former was scarcely a decline from the zenith of his comic excellence, the latter certainly was: if it was meant to ridicule superstition, it effected its object by a singular process of introducing a devil upon the stage. After this he made a long secession of nine years from the theatre, during which he composed some of his finest masques for the court, and some of those works which were irrecoverably lost in the fire that consumed his study. Meanwhile he received from his sovereign a pension of 100 marks, which, in courtesy, has been called making him poet laureat. The title, till then gratuitously assumed, has been since appropriated to his successors in the pen

sion.

The poet's journey to Scotland (1619), awakens many pleasing recollections, when we conceive him anticipating his welcome among a people who might be proud of a share in his ancestry, and setting out, with manly strength, on a journey of 400 miles, on foot. We are assured, by one who saw him in Scotland, that he was treated with respect and affection among the nobility and gentry; nor was the romantic scenery of Scotland lost upon his fancy. From the poem which he meditated on Lochlomond, it is seen that he looked on it with a poet's eye. But, unhappily, the meagre anecdotes of Drummond have made this event of his life too prominent by the overimportance which have been attached to them. Drummond, a smooth and sober gentleman, seems

to have disliked Jonson's indulgence in that conviviality which Ben had shared with his Fletcher and Shakspeare at the Mermaid. In consequence of those anecdotes, Jonson's memory has been damned for brutality, and Drummond's for perfidy. Jonson drank freely at Hawthornden, and talked big things neither incredible nor unpardonable. Drummond's perfidy amounted to writing a letter, beginning "Sir," with one very kind sentence in it, to the man whom he had described unfavourably in a private memorandum, which he never meant for publication. As to Drummond's decoying Jonson under his roof with any premeditated design on his reputation, no one can seriously believe it*.

By the continued kindness of King James, our poet was, some years after [Sept. 1621,] presented with the reversionary grant of the mastership of the revels, but from which he derived no advantage, as the incumbent, Sir John Astley, survived him. It fell, however, to the poet's son, by the permission of Charles I.+ King James, in the contemplation of his laureat's speedy accession to this office, was desirous of conferring on him the rank of knighthood; but Jonson was unwilling to accept the distinction, and prevailed on some of his friends about the court to dissuade the monarch from his purpose. After the death of his patron James, necessity brought him again upon the theatre, and he produced the Staple of News, a comedy of no ordinary merit. Two evils were at this time rapidly gaining on him,

"Disease and poverty, fell pair."

He was attacked by the palsy in 1625, and had also a tendency to dropsy, together with a scorbutie affection inherent from his youth, which pressed upon the decaying powers of his constitution. From the first stroke of the palsy he gradually recovered so far as to be able to write, in the following year, the antimasque of Sophiel. For the three succeeding years his biographer suspects that the court had ceased to call upon him for his customary contributions, a circumstance which must have aggravated his poverty; and his salary, it appears, was irregularly paid. Meanwhile his infirmities increased, and he was unable to leave his room. In these circumstances he produced his New Inn, a comedy that was driven from the stage with violent hostility. The epilogue to this piece forms a melancholy contrast to the tone of his former addresses to the audience.

[** The furious invective of Gifford against Drummond for having written private memoranda of his conversations with Ben Jonson, which he did not publish, and which, for aught we know, were perfectly faithful, is absurd. Any one else would have been thankful for so

much literary anecdote.”—HALLAM, Lit. Hist.vol.iii. p. 505.]

[t This is not quite correct: the son died in 1635, Ben himself in 1637, and Astley a year or so after. Astley thus survived the father, to whom the reversion had been granted, and the son, to whom the transfer had been made. See GIFFORD, p. cxliv, and COLLIER's Annals, vol. fi. p. 89. Sir Henry Herbert was Astley's successor.]

He "whom the morning saw so great and hight," was now so humble as to speak of his "faint and faultering tongue, and of his brain set round with pain.' An allusion to the king and queen in the same epilogue awoke the slumbering kindness of Charles, who instantly sent him 1007. and, in compliance with the poet's request, also converted the 100 marks of his salary into pounds, and added, of his own accord, a yearly tierce of canary, Jonson's favourite wine. His majesty's injunctions for the preparation of masques for the court were also renewed till they were discontinued at the suggestion of Inigo Jones, who preferred the assistance of one Aurelian Townsend to that of Jonson, in the furnishing of those entertainments. His means of subsistence were now, perhaps, both precariously supplied and imprudently expended. The city in 1631, from whom he had always received a yearly allowance of 100 nobles, by way of securing his assistance in their pageants, withdrew their pensions. He was compelled by poverty to supplicate the Lord Treasurer Weston for relief. On the rumour of his necessities, assistance came to him from various quarters, and from none more liberally than from the Earl of Newcastle. On these and other timely bounties his sickly existence was propped up to accomplish two more comedies, the Magnetic Lady, which appeared in 1632, and the Tale of a Tub, which came out in the following year. In the last of these, the last, indeed, of his dramatic career, he endeavoured to introduce some ridicule on Inigo Jones, through the machinery of a puppet-show. Jones had distinguished himself at the representation of the Magnetic Lady, by his boisterous derision. The attempt at retaliation was more natural than dignified; but the court prevented it, and witnessed the representation of the play at Whitehall with coldness. Whatever humour its manners contain, was such as courtiers were not likely to understand.

In the spring of 1633 Charles visited Scotland, and on the road was entertained by the Earl of Newcastle with all the luxury and pageantry of loyal hospitality. To grace the entertainment, Jonson sent, in grateful obedience to his benefactor the Earl, a little interlude, entitled, Love's Welcome at Welbeck, and another of the same kind for the king and queen's reception at Bolsover. In despatching the former of these to his noble patron, the poet alludes to his past bounties, which had "fallen, like the dew of Heaven, on his necessities."

In his unfinished pastoral drama of the Sad Shepherd, his biographer traces one bright and sunny ray that broke through the gloom of his setting days. Amongst his papers were found the plot and opening of a domestic tragedy on the

story of Mortimer Earl of March, together with the Discoveries, and Grammar of the English Tongue; works containing, no doubt, the philological and critical reflections of more vigorous

years, but which, it is probable that he must have continued to write till he was near his dissolution. That event took place on the 6th of August, 1637.

SONG OF HESPERUS.

IN CYNTHIA'S REVELS.

QUEEN, and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep :
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess, excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear, when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal shining quiver ;
Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever :
Thou that makest a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

SONG.

IN THE SILENT WOMAN.

STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder'd, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace:
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all the adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

If all the air my Flora drew,
Or spirit that Zephyre ever blew ;
Were put therein; and all the dew
That every rosy morning knew ;
Yet all diffused upon this bower,
To make one sweet detaining hour,
Were much too little for the grace,
And honour, you vouchsafe the place.
But if you please to come again,
We vow, we will not then with vain
And empty pastimes entertain
Your so desired, though grieved pain.
For we will have the wanton fawns,
That frisking skip about the lawns,
The Panisks, and the Sylvans rude,
Satyrs, and all that multitude,

To dance their wilder rounds about,
And cleave the air, with many a shout,
As they would hunt poor Echo out
Of yonder valley, who doth flout
Their rustic noise. To visit whom
You shall behold whole bevies come
Of gaudy nymphs, whose tender calls
Well-tuned unto the many falls
Of sweet, and several sliding rills,
That stream from tops of those less hills,
Sound like so many silver quills,
When Zephyre them with music fills,
For these, Favonius here shall blow
New flowers, which you shall see to grow,
Of which each hand a part shall take,
And, for your heads, fresh garlands make.
Wherewith, whilst they your temples round,
An air of several birds shall sound
An Io Paan, that shall drown
The acclamations, at your crown.-
All this, and more than I have gift of saying,
May vows, so you will oft come here a-maying.

SONG OF NIGHT.

IN THE MASQUE OF THS VISION OF DELIGHT.

BREAK, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings;
Now all thy figures are allow'd,

And various shapes of things;
Create of airy forms a stream,

It must have blood, and nought of phlegm ; And though it be a waking dream,

Cho. Yet let it like an odour rise

To all the senses here,

And fall like sleep upon their eyes,
Or music in their ear.

CHORUS.

IN THE SAME.

In curious knots and mazes so,
The Spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora, had their motions too :

And thence did Venus learn to lead
The Idalian brawls, and so to tread
As if the wind, not she, did walk ;
Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk.

ON LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD. FROM HIS EPIGRAMS.

THIS morning, timely rapt with holy fire,

I thought to form unto my zealous Muse, What kind of creature I could most desire,

To honour, serve, and love; as poets use. I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great; I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,

Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat. I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside. Only a learned, and a manly soul

I purposed her; that should, with even powers, The rock, the spindle, and the sheers control

Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours. Such when I meant to feign, and wish'd to see, My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she!

EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H. WOULD'ST thou hear what man can say In a little? reader, stay.

Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die : Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live.

If at all she had a fault,

Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,

The other let it sleep with death:
Fitter, where it died, to tell,
Than that it lived at all. Farewell!

TO CELIA.

FROM "THE FOREST."

KISS me, sweet! the wary lover
Can your favours keep, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again no creature comes.
Kiss, and score up wealthy sums
On my lips thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the other
Add a thousand, and so more:
Till you equal with the store,
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,

Or the stars that gild his streams,
In the silent summer-nights,
When youths ply their stolen delights;
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.

SONG.

FROM THE SAME.

FOLLOW a shadow, it still flies you;
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men?

At morn and even shades are longest ;
At noon they are or short, or none :
So men at weakest, they are strongest,

But grant us perfect, they're not known.
Say are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men ?

[* "Pembrok and his Lady discoursing, the Earl said, The woemen were men's shadowes, and she maintained them. Both appealing to Jonson, he affirmed it true, for which my Lady gave a pennance to prove it in verse; hence his epigram."-DRUMMOND's Informations, Arch. Scot. iv. 95.]

SONG TO CELIA.

FROM THE SAME.

DRINK to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there

It could not wither'd be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.

In a body should be there.

Well he should his clothes, too, wear,

Yet no tailor help to make him;
Drest, you still for man should take him,
And not think he'd eat a stake,

Or were set up in a brake.

Valiant he should be as fire,
Showing danger more than ire.
Bounteous as the clouds to earth,
And as honest as his birth;
All his actions to be such,

As to do no thing too much :
Nor o'er-praise, nor yet condemn,
Nor out-value, nor contemn;
Nor do wrongs, nor wrongs receive,
Nor tie knots, nor knots unweave;
And from baseness to be free,
As he durst love truth and me.

Such a man, with every part,
I could give my very heart;
But of one if short he came,
I can rest me where I am.

FROM THE CELEBRATION OF CHARIS.

Of your trouble, Ben, to ease me,
I will tell what man would please me.
I would have him, if I could,
Noble; or of greater blood:
Titles, I confess, do take me,

And a woman God did make me ;
French to boot, at least in fashion,
And his manners of that nation.

Young I'd have him too, and fair,
Yet a man; with crisped hair,
Cast in thousand snares and rings,
For love's fingers, and his wings:
Chesnut colour, or more slack,
Gold, upon a ground of black.
Venus and Minerva's eyes,
For he must look wanton-wise.
Eyebrows bent, like Cupid's bow,
Front, an ample field of snow;
Even nose, and cheek withal,
Smooth as is the billiard-ball:
Chin as woolly as the peach;
And his lips should kissing teach,
Till he cherish'd too much beard,
And made Love or me afeard.

He should have a hand as soft As the down, and show it oft; Skin as smooth as any rush, And so thin to see a blush Rising through it, ere it came ; All his blood should be a flame, Quickly fired, as in beginners In love's school, and yet no sinners.

"Twere too long to speak of all: What we harmony do call,

SONG.

Oн do not wanton with those eyes,
Lest I be sick with seeing;
Nor cast them down, but let them rise,
Lest shame destroy their being.

O be not angry with those fires,
For then their threats will kill me ;
Nor look too kind on my desires,
For then my hopes will spill me.

O do not steep them in thy tears,
For so will sorrow slay me ;
Nor spread them as distract with fears;
Mine own enough betray me.

A NYMPHI'S PASSION.

I LOVE, and he loves me again,

Yet dare I not tell who;

For if the nymphs should know my swain,
I fear they'd love him too;
Yet if he be not known,

The pleasure is as good as none,
For that's a narrow joy is but our own.

I'll tell, that if they be not glad,
They yet may envy me;
But then if I grow jealous mad,
And of them pitied be,

It were a plague 'bove scorn:
And yet it cannot be forborn,
Unless my heart would, as my thought, be torn.