Humor had wholly passed away. Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, Nash-his rivals, booncompanions, patrons, friends, were gone. He was laid in Westminster Abbey. On his tomb is written, "O Rare Ben Jonson."

His Mental Labors. Jonson brought out his Every Man in his Humor in 1598; in 1599, his Every Man out of his Humor, a satire on the fashions and follies of the time. In 1600, his Cynthia's Revels celebrates in delightful poetry Elizabeth's charms and graces. His tragedy Catiline failed; Sejanus was more fortunate. In 1610, he produced the Alchemist, one of his best pieces. His works are very numerous: plays, masks, poems, epigrams, odes, even an English graminar, came from his busy pen. His Tale of a Tub, a rustic comedy, may have given a hint to Swift; one of its characters is named Pol Martin. His pastoral The Sad Shepherd has a poetical air. His lines on Shakspeare, Penshurst, and several of his short poems, are excellent. He professed to imitate the classics, but his coarser hand fails to reach the grace of Horace, Virgil, or even Ovid and Martial, whom he follows servilely. But in whatever he does one recognizes the power of a great poet, a master in his art, who often rises into strains of magnificent har

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mony, and whose fancy flows on almost as wild and free as Shakspeare's.

Jonson on Shakspeare.-Ben Jonson's lines on Shakspeare's portrait, prefixed to the edition of his plays (1623), have a precision almost classical.

TO THE READER.

This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakspeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature to outdo the life.

Oh could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass as he hath hit

His face: the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass.
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on this picture, but his book.

BEN JONSON.

Ben Jonson at Hawthornden.-Jonson's opinions of his contemporaries in their sharp and distinct clearness recall the unrivalled force with which his namesake delivered his pointed criticisms at the Literary Club, or filled Boswell's note-book with his unsparing jokes and inimitable rejoinders. In 1619, Ben Jonson, moved by some imperious impulse, wandered away on foot to Scotland, to visit Drummond of Hawthornden, and perhaps to discover some Scotch relations.

He proposed to write a description of his journey, and gathered materials with some assiduity. He was received with kindness by the poet of Hawthornden; they exchanged compliments, madrigals, and criticisms, and Jonson poured into the ears of his friend a profuse flow of conversation, which Drummond, an earlier Boswell, preserved in his note-book.*

"Shakespeer," Jonson said, "wanted arte." He "cursed Petrarch for redacting verses into sonnets." Donne, he thought, one of the first of poets. He said Sidney had once proposed to fill his Arcadia with the legends of King Arthur; that he had a face disfigured by pimples, and ugly; that Raleigh "esteemed fame more than conscience," and was indebted to others for his History of the World. Spenser's stanzas, Jonson said, gave him no pleasure, nor his matter. Spenser died in want at Westminster. Of himself he said that he had never made two hundred pounds by his plays, and lamented that he had not followed some regular profession. He saw visions at times; would meditate upon his

* Shakspeare Society, 1842, Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden. These useful publications give at least new light to the age.

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great toe all night, and see it covered with Turks, Tartars, Russians, Carthaginians. He was an astrologer, a fanciful dreamer. But he asserted, perhaps with truth, that "he never esteemed of a man for the name of a lord." His candor or his severity seems to have offended Drummond, whose poetry, Jonson said, "smelled too much of the schooles." Yet the poets separated with many expressions of regard. Drummond furnished Jonson with a description of Loch Lomond and various materials for his work; and Jonson wrote to his host that King James had told him he hoped soon to see Drummond's new poem. Unfortunately, the manuscript of the Journey was burned. The description of Scotland was left to a later Johnson; and the accidental discovery of Drummond's notes has alone brought to light this Boswellian sketch of the poet's visit to Hawthornden.

George Herbert.-George Herbert, modest, gentle, said, "I would not willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul or showing mercy." His holy life and peaceful home are reflected in the tender, religious, but somewhat affected poetry he has left behind him. He was born of a noble family (1593), and gave himself early to preaching.

Translation of the Bible.-The translation of the Bible in James's reign helped to preserve the earlier English. It was founded upon the rendering of Henry VIII.'s time, made by Cranmer, and retains much of the language of that period. It is almost pure Saxon, and has served to keep in use many simple and natural words that must without it have been neglected and forgotten. Tyndale, Coverdale, and even Wycliffe, have all left their impress upon its venerable diction.

Bacon. -Bacon began his literary life with resolutions worthy of Milton. "For myself," he says, "I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of truth." His heart, he declared, was not set on any exterior things. "I am not hunting for fame. I have no desire to found a sect." "Enough for me the consciousness of welldeserving and those real and effectual results with which fortune itself cannot interfere."* So noble a purpose could not fail to lead to valuable labors; and in the midst of all his errors, duplicity, vanity, misfortunes, he steadily pursued his search for truth. An inner light dawned upon him; and when

* Spedding, Bacon, ifi., 86, 87.