published his works in a fair volume in folio, many of which had been separately printed before in quarto. In this volume were inferted all the plays excepting the two last, with his Masques and Entertainments; and to these were added a book of Epigrams, and a collection of longer Poems, which he entitled The Foreft.

The pompous title of works, which Jonfon gave to his Plays and Poems, was immediately carped at by those who had a mind to cavil; and we meet with this Epigram addreffed to him upon that occafion :

66

Pray tell me, Ben, where does the myst'ry lurk ? "What others call a Play, you call a work."

And the following anfwer was returned, in behalf of Jonfon;

"The author's friend thus for the author fays; "Ben's plays are works, when others works are

plays."

We are now to look for him in the bofom of the mufes; and we find that foon after this, he refided in Chrift-church college, in Oxford, to which place he had been invited by fome members of the university, and particularly by Dr. Corbet, a poet, and an admirer of Jonfon. Mr. Wood faith, that whilft he continued there he wrote fome of his plays; but that matter is not very certain. This however is unqueltionable, that there he received a very ample and honourable teftimony to his merit; being created in a full house of convocation, a mafter of arts of that univerfity, in July 1619. On the death of Samuel Daniel in October following, he fucceeded to the vacant laurel. It is fomething ftrange, that when Daniel was laureat, his province for many years fhould have been difcharged by Jonfon although Daniel wanted not for genius, and was honoured with the good opinion of the

queen.

queen. The laureat's pay was originally a penfion of one hundred marks per annum; but in 1630, Jonfon prefented a petition to king Charles, requesting him to make thofe marks as many pounds. His petition was granted; and accordingly on the furrendry of his former letters patent, new ones were iffued, appointing him the annual penfion of one hundred pounds, and a tierce of Spanish wine. The fame falary is continued to this day. At the latter end of this year, he went on foot into Scotland, on purpose to visit Drummond of Hawthornden. His adventures in this journey, he wrought into a poem; but that copy, with many other pieces, was accidentally burned. During his ftay with Drummond he gave him an account of his family, and feveral particulars relating to his life; nor was he lefs communicative of his fentiments with regard to the authors, and poets of his own times. Drummond committed the heads of their converfation to writing; and they are published in a folio edition of his works, printed at Edinburgh. From these minutes we learn several circumftances concerning Jonfon, which do not occur in any other relation, and the account is authentic, as it was taken from his own mouth.

His opinion and cenfure of the poets will be entertaining to the reader; and we fhall give it him in Mr. Drummond's words, with fome neceffary remarks and obfervations. He faid that Sidney did not keep a decorum, in making every one speak as well as himfelf. Spenfer's ftanzas pleased him not, nor his matter : the meaning of the allegory of his Fairy Queen, he had delivered in writing to Sir Walter Raleigh; which was, that by the bleating beaft he understood the puritans, and by the falfe Dueffa the queen of Scots. Spenfer's goods, he faid, were robbed by the Irifh, and his houfe, and a little child burnt; he and his wife efcaped, and after died for want of bread in King-street: he refufed twenty pieces fent him by my lord Effex,

and

and faid he was fure he had no time to fpend them. Samuel Daniel was a good honeft man, had no children, and was no poet: he wrote the civil wars, and yet hath not one battle in all his book. Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion, if he had performed what he promised, to write the deeds of all the worthies, had been excellent; that he was challenged for intitling one book Mortimeriades. Sir John Davis played on Drayton in an Epigram, who in a fonnet, concluded his mistress might have been the ninth worthy; and faid, he used a phrafe like Dametas in Arcadia, who faid his mistress for wit might be a giant. Silvefter's tranflation of Du Bartas, was not well done, and that he wrote his verfes before he understood to confer; and thofe of Fairfax were not good. He thought that the translation of Homer and Virgil in long alexandrines, were but profe: that Sir John Harrington's Aricfto, under all translations, was the worst. When Sir John Harrington defired him to tell the truth of his Epigrams, he answered him, that he loved not the truth; for they were Narrations not Epigrams; he faid, Donne was originally a poet, his grandfather on the mother's fide was Heywood the epigrammatift; that Donne for not being understood would perifh. He efteemed him the first poet in the world for fome things; his verfes of The loft Ochadine he had by heart; and that paffage of The Calm, that duft and feathers did not ftir, all was fo quiet. He affirmed that Donne wrote all his best pieces, before he was twenty-five years of age. The conceit of Donne's Transformation or Metempfychofis was, that he fought the foul of that apple which Eva pulled; and hereafter made it the foul of a bitch, then of a fhe wolf, and fo of a woman: his general purpose was to have brought it into all the bodies of the heretics, from the foul of Cain, and at laft left it in the body of Calvin. He only wrote one fheet of this, and fince he was made doctor repented hugely, and

re

refolved to destroy all his poems. He told Donne, that his Anniversary was prophane and full of blafphemies; that if it had been written on the Virgin Mary it had been tolerable; to which Donne answered, that he described the idea of a woman, and not as she was: and we may add, from Donne's Letters, that he never faw the lady, whom he had made the subject of his poem. It is to the honour of Jonfon's judgment, that the greatest part of our nation had the fame opinion of Donne's genius and wit; and hath preserved part of him from perishing, by putting his thoughts and satire into modern verfe. Jonfon's objections to the verses of Fairfax, must have proceeded from the fame principle as his objections to Spenfer; and that is, his diflike to the stanza form in Epic poetry. He faid further to Drummond, Shakespear wanted art, and fometimes fenfe; for in one of his plays he brought in a number of men saying they had fuffered fhipwreck in Bohemia, where is no fea near by an hundred miles. What Jonfon alluded to, is in the 6th and 7th fcenes of the third act of the Winter's Tale. Shakespear, we may suppose, copied implicitly the novel from whence he took the plot. Sir Walter Raleigh, he faid, efteemed fame more than confcience: the best wits in England were employed in making his hiftory; and he himself had written a piece to him of the Punic War, which he altered, and fet in his Book. He faid, there was 'no fuch ground for an Heroic poem as king Arthur's fiction; and that Sir P. Sidney had an intention to have transferred all his Arcadia to the ftories of king Arthur. Owen was a poor pedantic schoolmafter, fweeping his living from the pofteriors of little children, and has nothing good in him, his epigrams being bare narrations. Francis Beaumont died before he was thirty years of age; who, he said, was a good poet, as were Fletcher and Chapman, whom he loved. That fir William Alexander

But

was

was not half kind to him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton; that fir R. Ayton loved him dearly. He fought feveral times with Marfton, and faid that Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies. His judgment of ftranger poets was, that he thought not Bartas a poet, but a verfer, becaufe he wrote no fiction. He curfed Petrarch for redacting verfes into fonnets, which he faid was like that tyrant's bed, where fome who were too fhort were racked, others too long cut fhort. That Guarini, in his Paftor Fido, kept no decorum, in making fhepherds speak as well as himself; that the beft pieces of Ronfard were his Odes. But all this was to no purpofe, fays Drummond, for he never understood the French or Italian languages. It is true, that Jonfon was ignorant of French, but I think there are plain proofs, that he was a competent mafter of the Italian Language; and as to his judgment of Ronfard, it is probable that he took it from cardinal Perron, whom he converfed with in France in 1613 for Ronfard was the favourite poet of his eminence, who, as it appears, profeffed an uncommon admiration of his odes. Petronius, Plinius Secundus, and Plautus, as he faid, fpoke best Latin, and Tacitus wrote the fecrets of the council and fenate, as Suetonius did thofe of the cabinet and court; that Lucan taken in parts was excellent, but altogether naught; that Quintilian's 6th, 7th and 8th books were not only to be read, but altogether digefted. That Juvenal, Horace, and Martial were to be read for delight, and fo was Pindar, but Hippocrates for health. Of the English nation, he faid, that Hooker's Ecclefiaftical Polity was beft for church-matters, and Selden's titles of honour for antiquities. Such was Jonfon's opinion of authors antient and modern; and if we except an inftance or two, where he feemeth to have been influenced by perVOL. I.

d

fonal