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Cambden wrot that book "Remaines of Bretagne."

Joseph Hall the harbenger to Done's Anniversarie.2

The epigrame of Martial, Vir verpium he vantes to expone.

Lucan, Sidney, Guarini, make every man speak as well as themselves, forgetting decorum, for Dametas sometymes speaks grave sentences. Lucan taken in parts excellent, altogidder naught.

He dissuaded me from Poetrie, for that she had beggered him, when he might have been a rich lawer, physitian, or marchant.*

Questioned about English, them, they, those. They is still the nominative, those accusative, them newter; collective, not them men, them trees, but them by itself referred to many. Which, who, be relatives, not that. Flouds, hilles, he would have masculines. He was better versed, and knew more in Greek and Latin, than all the Poets in England, and quintessence their braines.5

He made much of that Epistle of Plinius, wher Ad prandium, non ad notam is; and that other of Marcellinus, who Plinie made to be removed from the table; and of the grosse turbat.

One wrote one epigrame to his father, and vanted he had slain ten,' the quantity of decem being false. An other answered the epigrame, telling that decem was false. S. J. Davies' epigrame of the whoores C. compared to a coule.

Of all styles he loved most to be named Honest, and hath of that ane hundreth letters so naming him.

He had this oft,

Thy flattering picture, Phrenee, is lyke thee
Only in this, that ye both painted be."6

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the purposes for which, with some reason, he imagined him to have been "sent" by others; as is evident by his treatment of Taylor when he came across him in Scotland.

"Now the day before I came from Edenborough I went to Leeth, where I found my long approved and assured good friend, Master Benjamin Johnson, at one Master John Stuart's house: I thanke him for his great kindnesse towards me; for at my taking leave of him, he gave me a piece of gold of two and twenty shillings to drink his health in England; and withall willed me to remember his kind commendations to all his friends. So with a friendly farewell, I left him as well as I hope never to see him in a worse estate; for he is amongst Noblemen and Gentlemen that knowe his true worth, and their own honours, where with much respective love he is worthily entertained."

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Jonson evidently intended that the man who was sent to scorn him" should have to make a flourishing report of him.

1 Camden's "Remains concerning Britain" was published in 1605 without the author's name. His great work the Britannia had been published in 1586, and passed through eight editions before the end of 1590, during the very year in which he was laying the young Jonson (and the world) under such obligations.

* See Donne's Poems, ed. 1669, p. 291, where the Progress of the Soul, The Second Anniver sary is prefaced by The Harbinger to the Progress. As a satirist Bishop Hall is not excelled by Dryden and Pope, while as a writer of sermons he rivals Jeremy Taylor.

He had already made this remark about the Arcadia (ante, p. 470).

4 Jonson's vigorous talents and extraordinary industry would have insured his success in any pursuit, and he had such a passion for letters that we may be sure the pen would have been constantly in his hand whatever his profession might have been. He is a great poet certainly, though not of the highest class, but rather one after Sir Joshua Reynolds' heart, as being the possessor of great general powers forced in a particular direction. I find the following remark in Coleridge's handwriting in the margin of Charles Lamb's copy of the folio Beaumont and Fletcher, and I transcribe it because it seems to be more applicable to Jonson than to the man whose writings suggested it. "A noble subject for the few noble minds capable of treating it would be this. What are the probable, what the possible defects of Genius, and of each given sort of Genius! and of course what defects are psychologically impossible? This would comprise what semblance of Genius can Talent supply? and what Talent, united with strong feeling for Poetry, aided by Taste and Judgment? And how are the effects to be distinguished from those of Genius? Lastly, what degree of Talent may be produced by an intense desire of the end (ex. gr. to be and to be thought a Poet) without any natural, more than general, aptitude for the means?"

The last part of this remark is somewhat obscure, but there can be little doubt that in the whole line of our poets, from Chaucer to Tennyson, Jonson stands unrivalled in this respect. Gifford, indeed-and he was a most competent judge was of opinion that in the vastness of: range of his learning, no Englishman had gone beyond him.

Jonson says in his "Discoveries," ante, p. 396, that in his youth he could have "repeated all that he had ever made," and that it so continued till he was past forty. Even in later life he says,

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In his merry humor he was wont to name himself The Poet.

He went from Lieth homeward the 25 of January 1619, in a pair of shoes which, he told, lasted him since he came from Darnton, which he minded to take back that farr againe: they were appearing like Coriat's: the first two dayes he was all excoriate.1 If he died by the way, he promised to send me his papers of this Country, hewen as they were.

2

I have to send him descriptions of Edinbrough, Borrow Lawes, of the Lowmond.3 That piece of the Pucelle of the Court was stolen out of his pocket by a gentleman who drank him drousie, and given Mistress Boulstraid; which brought him great displeasure.4

He sent to me this Madrigal :

XIX.

"ON A LOVERS DUST, MADE SAND FOR ANE HOURE GLASSE."

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"I can repeat whole books that I have read, and poems of some selected friends, which I have liked to charge my memory with." Donne was one of the chief of his selected friends, and was the author of this epigram. (See his Works, 1669, p. 94). Jonson was forty-six years old when he visited Drummond.

1 Darnton may be supposed to be Darlington. The name of Tom Coryate must have been a fertile subject of joking. The news of his death at Surat in December, 1617, had most probably not reached Scotland in January, 1619.

2 Had Jonson's Journals reached us, even "hewen as they were," they would no doubt have thrown a flood of light on the Borders and Southern Highlands at the most interesting period of their history, when the clans in both parts had begun to find that harrying, and lifting, and rebellion were no longer to be recognised as honourable and rather engaging pursuits. Among many other points of resemblance between two very great men, no one has mentioned that Ben Jonson was the first distinguished Englishman who visited the Highlands, as Samuel Johnson was to visit the Hebrides.

Drummond did not forget his promise, as evidenced by a letter of July 1st, 1619.

4 See ante, P. 473.

5 These verses, in an altered form, will be found, ante, p. 285. It is proper to repeat here the "cordial, respectful, and affectionate" address with which they were prefaced.

"To the Honouring Respect

Born

To the Friendship contracted with
The Right Virtuous and Learned
MASTER WILLIAM DRUMMOND,

And the Perpetuating the same by all Offices of
Love Hereafter,
I, Benjamin Jonson,

Whom he hath honoured with the leave to be called his,
Have with my own hand, to satisfy his Request,

Written this imperfect Song,

On a Lover's Dust, made Sand for an
Hour-glass."

See "My Picture left in Scotland," ante, p. 286. These were headed with the following brief Inscription, which may be regarded as a continuation of the longer one in the last note; "Yet that love when it is at full may admit heaping, receive another, and this a Picture of myself.”

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He [Jonson] is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to losse a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especiallie after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth); a dissembler of ill parts which raigne in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh nothing well bot what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done; he is passionately kynde and angry; careless either to gaine or keep ; vindicative, but, if he be well answered, at himself.

For any religion, as being versed in both. Interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with fantasie, which hath ever mastered his reason, a generall disease in many Poets. His inventions are smooth and easie; but above all he excelleth in a Translation.2

When his play of a Silent Woman was first acted, ther was found verses after on the stage against him, concluding that that play was well named the Silent Woman, ther was never one man to say Plaudite to it.3

1 I have no doubt that Drummond, a valetudinarian and "minor poet," was thoroughly borne down by the superior powers, physical and mental, of Jonson, and heartily glad when he saw the last of his somewhat boisterous and somewhat arrogant guest. The picture drawn by one who thus felt himself "sat upon at every turn was not likely to be a flattering one, and yet there is nothing in the Conversations to lead us to expect that the portrait given at the end of them would be composed almost entirely of shadows. But may we not suppose that on the 24th of January, 1619, on his way to Leith, Jonson may have passed the night at Hawthornden, and full of the idea of returning home and warmed with the generous liquors, for the abundance and quality of which "The heart of Scotland, Britain's other eye"

has always been famous, have forgotten that he was at the table of a prim Scotch laird, and dreaming himself already in the Apollo or at the Mermaid, given vent to each feeling as it rose, whether vanity, scorn, contempt, ridicule, mistrust, boasting, love of country and friends, passionate kindness, regardlessness of money and gain, eagerness to conquer, and readiness to own himself vanquished. Had Drummond waited till time and distance had mellowed his feelings, he would, I am persuaded, have employed some such terms as I have here substituted for the harsher sounding synonymes actually recorded.

The spirit of toleration and respect for honest difference of religious opinion, which Jonson had arrived at by study and reflection, must have led him to be regarded as a very Gallio" by the average Scotchman of his age; while his great and various experience of Courts and Courtiers, doubtless caused him to express anything but blind confidence in the large promises and smooth excuses of the Great. What follows about the characteristics of his poetry is quite consistent with what we know to have been his own honest belief, although surely no poet has ever been farther from allowing fancy to master reason. Enough has been already said of his peculiar ideas about translation.

This amusing circumstance was in all likelihood derived from Jonson's own mouth, and at the worst is innocent and probable enough; but Gifford (vol. i. p. 402) must needs say of it, "The story is highly worthy of the hypocrite who picked it up; and not at all discreditable to the loads of malignant trash which the reporter has so industriously heaped together to fling at Jonson !"

NOMINAL INDEX TO THE "CONVERSATIONS."

AITON, Sir Robert, 477.
Alexander, Sir William, 477.
Ariosto, 471.

Arlotte, mother of William the
Conqueror, 490.
Arthur, King, 476.
Aubigny, Earl of, 473, 482.

BACON, Sir Francis, 484, 485.
Bartas, Du, 470. 472.
Beaumont, Francis, 477, 479,
481, ib.

Bedford, Countess of, 473.
Bonefonius, 472, 486.
Boulstred, Mrs., 473, 493.
Bowes, Sir H., 490.

Buchanan, George, 490.
Butlar, 488.

CALVIN, John, 476.

Camden, William, 481, 482,

483, 486, 492.

Campion, Thomas, 470.

Cardan, Jerome, 490.

Casaubon, Isaac, 489.

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Joriate, Tom, 493.

Harington, Sir John, 471.
Henry VIII., 481.
Henry IV. of France, 488.
Henry, Prince, 475, 489.
Herbert, Sir E. (of Cherbury),
473, 475.
Heyward, Edward, 491.
Heywood, John, 490.
Hippocrates, 476.
Homer, 471.
Hooker, Richard, 476.
Horace, 470, 473, 476, 477, 487.

JAMES I., 486, 487, 490, ib.
Jones, Inigo, 484, 488.
Jonson, Ben, passim.
his father, 481.
grandfather, 481.
mother, 483.
wife, 482.

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Chapman, George, 472, 475, Lisle, Lord, 481, 485.

otton, Sir Robert, 482.

DANIEL, Samuel, 470, ib. ; 476,
480.
Davies, Sir John, 479, 486, 492.
Day, John, 472, 478.
Dekker, Thomas, 472.
Democritus, 488.
Devereux, Walter, 490.
Dod, John, 489.

Donne, Dr., 471, 473, ib.; 474,
475, 476, 479, 487.
Drayton, Michael, 470, 477, ib.;
479, ib.

Drummond, William, 474, 491.
Dyer, Sir Edward, 481.

ELIZABETH, Queen, 482, 484,

490.

Essex, Earl of, 478, 485, 490.
Essex, 2nd Earl of, 487.

FAIRFAX, Edward, 470.
Field, Nathan, 477.

Fletcher, John, 472, 478, 481.
France, Abraham, 472.

GUARINI, 472, 492.

HALL, Bishop, 492.

Lucan, 472, 492.

MARCELLINOS, 492.
Markham, Gervase, 477.
Marphorius, 488.
Marston, John, 477, 480, 483, ib.
Martial, 470, 474, 477, 492.
Mary, Queen of England, 481,
490.

Mary, Queen of Scots, 478.
Middleton, John, 478.
Minshew, John, 472.
Monsieur (of France), 485.
Murray, Sir James, 483.
Musæus, 481.

NORTHAMPTON, Earl of, 484.
Northumberland, Earl of, 488.

OVERBURY, Sir Thomas, 478,
480, 486.
Owen, John, 481.

PASQUIL, 488.
Pembroke, Earl of, 483, 485,
487.

Countess of,
485.

480,

Perron, Cardinal de, 473.

Persius, 476.

Petrarch, 472.

Petronius Aroiter, 473, 476.

Phaer, Thomas, 471.
Philip II., 485.
Piercy, Sir G., 490.
Pindar, 476.
Plautus, 487.

Plinius Secundus, 470, 476, 488,

492.

Plymouth, Mayor of. 400.

QUINTILIAN, 470, 476.

RALEIGH, Sir Walter, 470, 478,
480, 483.

Raleigh, Lady, 483.
Walter, 483.
Roe, Sir John, 477, 479.
Ronsard, 473.

Rutland, Countess of, 480, 481,
485, 487.

SALISBURY, Earl of, 484, 485.
Savile, Sir Henry, 486 (note).
Scaliger, Joseph, 489.
Sculler, The, 486.

Selden, John, 476, 483, 491.
Shakspeare, William, 471, 480.
Sharpham, Edward, 472.
Silvester, Joshua, 470.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 470, 476,
480, ib.; 481, 486, 492.
Sidney, Lady, 485.
Somerset, Earl of, 487.
Countess of, 487.
Southwell, Robert, 478.
Spencer, Gabriel, 482.
Spenser, Edmund, 470, 475,
478.

Stirling, Earl of, 477.
Stow, John, 491.
Suetonius, 476.
Suffolk, Lord, 477.
Lady, 486.

TACITUS, 470, 476; ib. 485, 491.
Tasso, 470.

Taylor, John, 486, 491.
Twyne, Thomas, 471.

VIRGIL, 471, 473.

WALSINGHAM, Sir Francis, 490
Warner, William, 471.
Wilkes, Rev. William, 480.
Worcester, Earl of, 481.

Wotton, Sir Henry, 474, 489.
Wroth, Lady Mary, 485, 487.
Sir Robert, 485.

Jonsonus Virbius: or, the Memory of

Ben Jonson.

REVIVED BY THE FRIENDS OF THE MUSES.

MDCXXXVIII.

THE PRINTER TO THE READER.

It is now about six months since the most learned and judicious poet, B. JONSON, became a subject for these Elegies. The time interjected between his death and the publishing of these, shows that so great an argument ought to be considered, before handled; not that the Gentlemen's affections were less ready to grieve, but their judgments to write. At length the loose papers were consigned to the hands of a Gentleman, who truly honoured him (for he knew why he did so). To his care you are beholding that they are now made yours. And he was willing to let you know the value of what you have lost, that you might the better recommend what you have left of him, to your posterity.

Farewell.

E. P.

1 It is now about six months.] Jonson died on the sixth of August, 1637; the Poems must therefore have appeared about the beginning of March, 1638. [Here and in the Memoir (vol. i. p. lix.), the date of Jonson's death seems to have been altered from the Old Style to the NewSir Edward Walker, Garter, has left the following record of the fact-"Thursday, 17 August. Died at Westminster, Mr. Benjamin Johnson, the most famous, accurate, and learned poet of our age, especially in the English tongue, having left behind him many rare pieces, which have sufficiently demonstrated to the world his worth. He was buried the next day following, being accompanied to his grave with all or the greatest part of the nobilitye and gentry then in the towne." (Notes and Queries, 1st Series, vi. 405.)-F. C.]

* This "gentleman," we find in Howell's Letters, was Dr. Bryan Duppa, Bishop of Winchester. Nor was the present collection of tributary offerings the only praise of this excellent man. The patron of learning when learning was proscribed, for the greater part of what is beautiful and useful in the writings of Mayne, Cartwright, and many others, religion and literature are indebted to the fostering protection of Doctor Bryan Duppa. He was born at Greenwich, 10th March, 1588, admitted of Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster School, in May, 1605. After passing through various honourable situations in the University and at Court, he was successively consecrated Bishop of Chichester, Salisbury, and Winchester, and died at his favourite residence, at Richmond, the 26th March, 1662. Charles II. visited him on his deathbed, and begged his blessing on his bended knees.

There is great pleasure in opposing these honourable and liberal proofs of the good understanding which subsisted between contemporary poets to the slight and imperfect premises from which dramatic editors have laboured to deduce proofs of most opposite and disgraceful feelings.GILCHRIST.

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