MEMOIRS OF BEN JONSON.

sional gratuities were undoubtedly bestowed on occasional services; but an annual and determinate sam seems to have been issued, for the first time, in favor of Jonson. The nominal laureat or court poet, when our author first came into notice, was Daniel, who was long the favorite of Elizabeth and her ladies, and who did not witness the growing popularity of the youthful bard, or hear of his being called upon for those entertainments which he probably considered as within his own province, with very commendable fortitude. It is a subject of sincere regret that many of the latter days of this amiable poet and virtuous man should be overcast with unavailing gloom on this account, and that he should indulge any feeling of resentment against one who took no undue course to secure the favor from which he had apparently fallen. On the regular appointment of Jonson, Daniel withdrew himself entirely from court. He died about three years afterwards, beloved, honored, and lamented.1

We now approach the most unfortunate period of our author's life. In consequence of a warm invitation to Scotland, where he had many friends, especially among the connections of the Duke of Lenox, he determined, in the summer of this year, (1618,) to pay a visit to that country. His journey was made on foot, and he appears to have spent several months with the nobility and gentry in the neighborhood of Edinburgh. "At Leith (says Taylor, the water poet) I found my long-approved and assured good friend, Master Benjamin Jonson, at one Master John Stuart's house. I thank him for his great kindness; for, at my taking leave of him, he gave me a piece of gold of two and twenty shillings value to drink his health in England; and withal willed me to remember his kind commendations to all his friends. So,

2

interested, appears, on this occasion, to have applied to Selden for assistance in his researches; and Selden, who always found a singular pleasure in gratifying him, drew up expressly, and introduced into the second part of his learned work, Titles of Honor, a long chapter (the forty-third) "on the custom of giving crowns of laurel to poets." At the conclusion of which, he says, "Thus have I, by no unseasonable digression, performed a promise to you, my beloved Ben Jonson. Your curious learning and judgment inay correct where I have erred, and add where my notes and memory have left me short. You are

omnia carmina doctus,

Et calles mython plasmata et historiam.

And so you both fully know what concerns it, and your singular excellency in the art most eminently deserves it." 1 That Jonson's conduct towards Daniel had always been perfectly honorable, may be collected from many quarters The celebrated John Florio (author of the Dict. Ital.) was brother-in-law to Daniel, and apparently much attached to his interests; yet he always lived on terms of great friendship with our author. In his majesty's library is a very beautiful copy of The Fox, which once belonged to Florio, with the following autograph of the poet: "To his loving father and worthy friend, master John Florio, Ben Jonson seals this testimony of his friendship and love."

Sir Tobie Mathews has preserved a letter of Jonson's-it is an answer to Donne, who had besought him (doubtless on prudential motives) to abstain from justifying himself against some false charge. No name is given ; but I am inclined to think that the person alluded to in the letter was Lucy, Countess of Bedford. She had certainly been, at one time, ill disposed towards our author; and, as it would appear, by the unhappy jealousy of Daniel, whom, as well as Donne, she warmly patronized. In the Epistle to the Countess of Rutland, (p. 684,) there is an allusion to something of this kind; but whatever be the cause, the letter is honorable to the poet's feelings.

If this lady was meant, she was not long in discovering that Jonson had been calumniated. A steady friendship grew between them; she showed him many marks of favor, and he wrote some beautiful verses in her praise.

Sin: You cannot but believe how dear and reverend your friendship is to me, (though all testimony on my part hath been too short to express me,) and therefore would I meet it with all obedience. My mind is not yet so deafened by injuries but it hath an ear for counsel. Yet in this point that you presently dissuade, I wonder how I am misunderstood; or that you should call that an imaginary right, which is the proper justice that every clear man owes to his innocency. Exasperations I intend none, for truth cannot be sharp but to ill natures, or such weak ones whom the ill spirits suspicion, or credulity still possess. My lady may believe whisperings, receive tales, suspect and condemn my honesty, and I may not answer, on the pain of losing her- as if she, who had this prejudice of me, were not already lost! O, no; she will do me no hurt; she will think and speak well of my faculties. She cannot there judge me; or if she could, I would exchange all glory (if I had all men's abilities) which could come that way, for honest simplicity. But there is a greater penalty threatened the loss of you, my true friend; for others I reckon not, who were never had. You have so subscribed yourself. Alas! how easy is a man accused that is forsaken of defence! Well, my modesty shall sit down, and (let the world call it guilt or what it will) I will yet thank you that counsel me to a silence in these oppressures, when And lest yourself may undergo some hazard for my questioned confidence in my right and friends may abandon me. reputation, and draw jealousies, or hatred upon you, I desire to be left to mine own innocence, which shall acquit me. ot Your ever true lover, heaven shall be guilty.

BEN JONSON. This was a considerable present; but Jonson's hand and heart were ever open to his acquaintance. All his pleasures

with a friendly farewell, I left him as well as I hope never to see him in a worse cstate; for he is among noblemen and gentlemen that know his true worth and their own honors, where with much respective (respectful) love he is entertained." This was about the 20th of September. Jonson probably paid many other visits; but he reserved the last of them for Mr. William Drummond, the poet of Hawthornden, with whom he passed the greater part of the month of April, 1619.1

It is not known at what period, or in what manner, Jonson's acquaintance with Drummond began; but the ardor with which he cherished his friendship is almost unexampled: he seems, upon every occasion, to labor for language to express his grateful sense of it; and very depraved must have been the mind that could witness such effusions of tenderness with a determination to watch the softest moment, and betray the confidence of his guest. For this perfidious purpose no one ever afforded greater facilities than Jonson. He wore his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at. A bird of prey, therefore, like Drummond, had a noble quarry before him, and he could strike at it without stooping.

It is much to be lamented that our author did not fall into kindly hands. His learning, his judgment, his love of anecdote, his extensive acquaintance with the poets, statesmen, and eminent characters of the age, of whom he talked without reserve, would have rendered his conversations, had they been recorded with such a decent respect for the characters of the living as courtesy demanded, the most valuable body of contemporary criticism that had ever appeared. Such was not Drummond's object. He only sought to injure the man whom he had decoyed under his roof; and he therefore gave his remarks in rude and naked deformity. Even thus, however, without one qualifying word, without one introductory or explanatory line, there is little in them that can be disputed; while the vigor, perspicuity, and integrity of judgment which they uniformly display are certainly worthy of commendation. As these "Conversations" form the text from which our author's enemies draw their topics of abuse, and as they have hitherto been unfairly quoted," I subjoin a faithful copy of the criticisms from the old folio. What relates to our author's personal history has been already given.

"HEADS OF A CONVERSATION, &c.

"Ben Johnson used to say, that many epigrams were ill, because they expressed in the enu what should have been understood by what was said before, as that of Sir John Davies. That he had a pastoral intitled the May, Lord; his own name is Alkin, Ethra, the Countess of Bedford, Mogbel Overbury, the old Countess of Suffolk, an enchantress; other names are given to Somerset, his lady, Pembroke, the Countess of Rutland, Lady Wroth. In his first scene Alkin comes in mending his broken pipe. [He bringeth in, says our author, (Drummond,) clowns making mirth and foolish sports, contrary to all other pastorals.] He had also a design to

were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or his talents to thor who needed them. There is something striking in Taylor's concluding sentence, when the result of the visit to Drum mond is considered: but there is one evil that walks, which keener eyes than John's have often failed to discover. Taylor's "Penniless Pilgrimage" to Scotland gave rise to some ridiculous reports, and it is curious to see with what a serious air he sets about refuting them. "Many shallow-brained critics (he says) do lay an aspersion on me—that I was set on by others, or did undergo this project, either in malice or mockage of Master Benjamin Jonson. I vow, by the faith of a Christian, that their imaginations are all wide; for he is a gentleman to whom I am so much obliged for many undeserved courtesies that I have received from him, and from others by his favor, that I durst never be so impudent or ingrateful as to suffer any man's persuasions or mine own instigation to incite me to make so bad a requital for so much goodness."

I have only to add, in justice to this honest man, that his gratitude outlived the subject of it. He paid the tribute of a verse to his benefactor's memory. The verse, indeed, was mean; but poor Taylor had nothing better to give.

[1 No acquaintance seems to have existed between Jonson and Drummond till some months after the former had reached Edinburgh. The precise time of Jonson's visit to Hawthornden is uncertain, but it was undoubtedly previous te the 17th of January, 1619. See Mr. D. Laing's Preface to Notes of B. Jonson's Conversations, &c.

After the remarks which have been drawn forth, in various quarters, by Gifford's furious attack on the poet of Haw thornden, no reader perhaps may now require to be informed that it is altogether unjust; but whoever wishes to see a complete and circumstantial vindication of Drummond's motives and character, will find it in the Preface above menfioned. A. DYCE.]

2 They have, without any exception, been taken from Cibber's Lives of the Poets.

write a Fisher or Pastoral (Piscatory?) play, and make the stage of it in the Lomond Lake; and also to write his foot pilgrimage hither, and to call it a Discovery. In a poem, he called Edinburgh

The Heart of Scotland, Britain's other Eye.'

That he had an intention to have made a play like Plautus's Amphytruo, but left it off, for that he could never find two so like one to the other, that he could persuade the spectator that they were one.

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That he had a design to write an epic poem, and was to call it Chorologia, of the Worthies of his country, raised by Fame, and was to dedicate it to his country. It is all in couplets, for he detested all other rhymes. He said, he had written a Discourse of Poetry, both against Campion and Daniel, especially the last, where he proves couplets to be the best sort of verses, especially when they are broke like hexameters, and that cross rhymes and stanzas, because the purpose would lead beyond eight lines, were all forced.

“His censure (judgment) of the English poets was this: that Sidney did not keep a decorum in making every one speak as well as himself. Spenser's stanza 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 (blatant) beast, he understood the Puritans, and by the false Duessa, the Queen of Scots. He told, that Spenser's goods were robbed by the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt, he and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread in King Street. He refused twenty pieces sent him by my Lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to spend them. Samuel Daniel was a good, honest man, had no children, and was no poet; and that he had wrote the Civil Wars, and yet had not one battle in all his book. That Michael Drayton's Polyolbion, if he had performed what he promised, to write the deeds of all the Worthies, had been excellent. That he was challenged for intituling one book Mortimeriades. That Sir John Davies played on Drayton in an epigram, who, in his sonnet, concluded his mistress might have been the ninth Worthy, and said, he used a phrase like Dametas in Arcadia, who said his mistress for wit might be a giant.

"That Silvester's translation of Du Bartas was not well done; and that he wrote his verses before he understood to confer, and these of Fairfax were not good. That the translations of Homer and Virgil in long Alexandrines, were but prose." That Sir John Harington's Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst; that when Sir John desired him to tell the truth of his Epigrams, he answered him, that he loved not the truth, for they were narrations not epigrams. He said Donne was originally a poet- his grandfather on the mother side was Heywood the epigrammatist; that Donne for want of being understood would perish. He esteemed him the first poet in the world for some things. His verses of the lost Orchadine he had by heart, and that passage of the Calm, that dust and feathers did not stir, all was so 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 Meteμyyzwois, was that he sought the soul of that apple which Eve pulled, and thereafter made it the soul of a bitch, then of a she wolf, and so of a woman. His general purpose was to have brought it into all the bodies of the heretics from the soul of Cain, and at last left it in the body of Calvin. He only wrote one sheet of this, and since he was made a doctor, repented hugely, and resolved to destroy all his poems. He told Donne that his Anniversary was profane and full of blasphemies; 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. He said Shakspeare wanted art, and sometimes sense, for, in one of his plays, he brought in a number of men, saying, they had

1 Jonson explains himself in what he says below of Du Bartas-"He was no poet, but a verser, because he wrote not fiction." The allusion is to Daniel's narrative poem of the Civil Wars. He elsewhere expressly styles Daniel a verser in his sense.

? So Daniel in his answer to Campion: "I find my Homer-Lucan, as if he gloried to seem to have no bounds, passing over the rhyme, albeit he were confined within his measure, to be therein, in my conceit, most happy; for so thereby, they who care not for verse or rhyme, may pass it over without taking notice thereof, and please themselves with well-measured prose." This is pretty nearly what Jonson means: and, indeed, had his remarks been given to us ov anv but an enemy, we should, I am convinced, have found little to qualify or correct in them.

suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is no sea near by a hundred miles.' That Sir Walter Raleigh esteemed more fame than conscience. The best wits in England were employed in making his History. Ben himself had written a piece to him of the Punick War, which he altered and set in his book.

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He said there was no such ground for an Heroic Poem as King Arthur's fiction, and that Sir P. Sidney had an intention to have transformed all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthur. He said Owen was a poor, pedantic schoolmaster, sweeping his living from the posteriors of little children, and had 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 Sir William Alexander was not half kind to him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton. That Sir R. Ayrton loved him dearly." He fought several times with Marston; and says, that Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies." 3

Such are the remarks of Jonson on his contemporaries: set down in malice, abridged without judgment, and published without shame, what is there yet in them to justify the obloquy with which they are constantly assailed, or to support the malicious conclusions drawn from them by Drummond? Or who that leaned with such confidence on the bosom of a beloved friend, who treacherously encouraged the credulous affection, would have passed the ordeal with more honor than Jonson? But to proceed.

"His judgment of stranger poets was, that he thought not Bartas a poet, but a verser, because he wrote not fiction. He cursed Petrarch for redacting verses into sonnets, which he said was like that tyrant's bed, where some who were too short, were racked, others too long, cut short. That Guarini in his Pastor Fido kept no decorum in making shepherds speak as well as himself. That he told Cardinal du Perron (when he was in France, 1613) who showed him his translation of Virgil, that it was naught; that the best pieces of Ronsard were his Odes. [But all this was to no purpose, (says our author,) for he never understood the French or Italian languages.4] He said Petronius, Plinius Secundus, and Plautus spoke best Latin; and that Tacitus wrote the secrets of the council and senate, as Suetonius did those of the cabinet and court; that Lucan, taken in parts, was excellent, but altogether, naught; that Quintilian's 6, 7, and 8 books were not only to be read, but altogether digested; that Juvenal, Horace, and Martial were to be read for delight, and so was Pindar; but Hippocrates for health. "Of the English nation, he said that Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity was best for church matters, and Selden's Titles of Honor for antiquities. Here our author relates that the censure

1 This is the tritest of all our author's observations. No one ever read the play without noticing the "absurdity," as Dr. Johnson calls it: yet for this simple truism, for this casual remark in the freedom of conversation, Jonson is held up to the indignation of the world, as if the blunder was invisible to all but himself, or, as if he had uttered the most delib erate and spiteful calumny!

2" He was (Aubrey says) according to Mr. J. Dryden, who had seen his verses in MS., one of the best poets of his time He was acquainted with all the witts (learned men) of his time in England. Mr. Thomas Hobbes of Malmbury told mc he made use of him, together with Ben Jonson, for an Aristarchus, when he drew up the Epistle Dedicatory for his translation of Thucydides."— Letters, &c., vol. ii. p. 200.

3 The petty contentions in which Jonson was involved by the captiousness of Marston have been already noticed. What follows seems a humorous allusion to the sombre air of Marston's comedies, as contrasted with the cheerful tone of his father-in-law's discourses. But who was this father-in-law? Nay, who was Marston? None of his biographiers know any thing of either; and yet it appears to me that something on the subject of both has been, unconsciously, deliv ered by Wood. William Wilkes, he tells us, was chaplain to King James, before whom he often preached to his great content. This person "died at Barford S. Martin in Wiltshire, of which he was rector, leaving a daughter named Mary, who was married to John Marston, of the city of Coventry, gentleman. Which John dying 25 June, 1634, was buried in the church belonging to the Temple in London, near to the body of John Marston his father, sometimes a counsellor of the Middle Temple." I flatter myself that I have here recovered both father and son, since all that is known of the lat ter corresponds with these particulars.

4 It is observable that every addition by Drummond is tinctured with spleen. What a tissue of malevolence must the original record of these conversations have been! When Jonson says that he wrote his praise of Sylvester before he was able to compare the translation with the original, and, fifteen years afterwards, declares that he was wrong, I should conceive, without more authority, that he had made himself master of French in the interval. There can, indeed, be no doubt of it; (Drummond's assertion goes for nothing;) for he hardly conversed with Cardinal du Perron on the merits of French poetry without understanding the language. In fact, so common an acquirement was not a matter of boast, especially in one so much about the court as Jonson, and in the habit of hearing it spoken by almost every one around him,

{judgment) of his verses was - -that they were all good, especially his Epitaph on Prince Henry,' save that they smelled too much of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the times; for a child, says he, may write after the fashion of the Greek and Latin verse in running; yet that he wished for pleasing the king, that piece of Forth Feasting had been his own."

"As Ben Jonson (say the collectors of Drummond's works) has been very liberal of his censures (opinions) on all his contemporaries, so our author does not spare him."

But Jonson's censures are merely critical, or, if the reader pleases, hypercritical; and with the exception of Raleigh, who is simply charged with taking credit to himself for the labors of others, he belies no man's reputation - blasts no man's moral character. The apology for the slander of his host, therefore,

is weaker than water.

who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife himself,

"For he says, Ben Johnson was a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived; a dissembler of the parts which reign in him; a bragger of some good that he wanted; thinketh nothing well done but what either he himself or some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind and angry, careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if he be well answered at himself; interprets best sayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both; oppressed with fancy which hath overmastered his reason, a general disease in many poets; his inventions are smooth and easy, but above all he excelleth in a translation.3 When the play of the Silent Woman was first acted, there were found verses after on the stage against him, concluding that that play was well named the Silent Woman, because there was never one man to say Plaudite to it."— Drum., Works, folio, 1711, pp. 224-6. The writers of Jonson's life in the Bio. Brit., after selecting the most envenomed passages of the "Conversations," (always, however, with due admiration of the exemplary friendship of Drummond,) proceed thus: "In short (adds Drummond, folio, 1711, p. 222,) Jonson was," &c. Overcome by the tender enthusiasm of this exquisite burst of friendship, the biographers indulge in a beatific vision of our author's happiness. "He passed," they say, "some months

1 "Tears on the Death of Meliades."- Drum., Poems, folio, p. 15.

To attempt a refutation of the absurd abuse poured on Jonson by this cankered hypocrite would be useless, as the mstory of the poet's whole life is a refutation of it: but it may not be amiss to call the attention of the reader to this pas sage, of which the logic is only to be equalled by the candor-"He was well versed in theology, therefore he was without religion!" What religion Drummond was "versed" in, I know not-certainly not in that which says, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

* In this place Shiels interpolated the scurrilous passage already given. (p. 18.) I am not sure that Drummond himself is not indebted for some of his popularity to this forged panegyric on Shakspeare at the cost of Jonson, which is quoted with such delight by all that poet's biographers.

It may not be amiss, however, to observe that Drummond appears to have known or thought as little of Shakspeare as of any writer of the time. He never mentions him but once. To afford an opportunity of contrasting the "censures" of Ben with those of a master hand, his editors kindly subjoin to the passage quoted above "Mr. Drummond's character of several authors."

"The authors I have seen," saith he, "on the subject of love are, Sidney, Daniel, Drayton, Spenser-the last we have are Sir W. Alexander and Shakspeare, who have lately published their works."-folio, p. 226. Not a word more of the latter, though he recurs to Alexander, (whom he places next to Petrarch,) to Daniel, Drayton, Donne, Sylvester, and others. Such is his "character" of Shakspeare! In his letters several poets are mentioned, and notices of plays occasionally occur; but of Shakspeare's not a syllable. I much question whether Drummond ever read a play of our great poet. That he had no esteem for his writings is tolerably clear; as it is that he preferred the dull and lifeless Alexander to him.

About the year 1027 Drummond gave "a noble present of books and manuscripts to the college of Edinburgh.” — Su say the editors of his works, (folio, 1711,) or I should have termed it, generally speaking, a collection of rubbish not worth the hire of the cart that took it away. Of this rare present a catalogue was published, in which the books are carefully Arranged under the names of their respective authors. Under that of "William Shakspeare" there appears-wha, does the reader think? - Love's Labor Lost.

4 He paved some months.] This is forever repeated; although the persons who had the care of Drummond's papers,