ster's drama, and he is a poet of some genius, though it is not quite so sufficient as Shakspeare's, to give a "sweet oblivious antidote" to such "perilous stuff." It is not, however, either in favour of Shakspeare's or of Webster's genius that we shall be called on to make allowance, if we justify in the drama the lapse of such a number of years as may change the apparent identity of an individual. If romantic unity is to be so largely interpreted, the old Spanish dramas, where youths grow graybeards upon the stage, the mysteries and moralities, and productions teeming with the wildest anachronism, might all come in with their grave or laughable claims to romantic legitimacy. Nam sic Et Laberi mimos ut pulchra poemata mirer.-HOR. On a general view, I conceive it may be said, that Shakspeare nobly and legitimately enlarged the boundaries of time and place in the drama; but in extreme cases, I would rather agree with Cumberland, to waive all mention of his name in speaking of dramatic laws, than accept those licenses for art which are not art, and designate irregularity by the name of order. There were other poets who started nearly coeval with Ben Jonson in the attempt to give a classical form to our drama. Daniel, for instance, brought out his tragedy of Cleopatra in 1594; but his elegant genius wanted the strength requisite for great dramatic efforts. Still more unequal to the task was the Earl of Sterline, who published his cold " monarchic tragedies," in 1604. The triumph of founding English classical comedy belonged exclusively to Jonson. In his tragedies it is remarkable that he freely dispenses with the unities, though in those tragedies he brings classical antiquity in the most distinct and learnedly authenticated traits before our eyes. The vindication of his great poetic memory forms an agreeable contrast in modern criticism with the bold bad things which used to be said of him in * "If the ancients," says Headley, "were to reclaim their own, Jonson would not have a rag to cover his nakedness:" a remark that called a taunting reply from Gifford in one of his most bitter moods. Dryden has beautifully said of Jonson, that you may track him everywhere in the snow of the ancients.-C. Namely, the song of Night, in the masque of "The Vision of Delight." "Break, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud."-p. 117. His lyrical poetry forms, perhaps, the most delightful a former period; as when Young compared him to a blind Samson, who pulled down the ruins of antiquity on his head and buried his genius beneath them.* Hurd, though he inveighed against the too abstract conception of his characters, pronouncing them rather personified humours than natural beings, did him, nevertheless, the justice to quote one short and lovely passage from one of his masques, and the beauty of that passage probably turned the attention of many readers to his then neglected compositions.† It is indeed but one of the many beauties which justify all that has been said of Jonson's lyrical powers. In that fanciful region of the drama (the Masque) he stands as pre-eminent as in comedy; or if he can be said to be rivalled, it is only by Milton. And our surprise at the wildness and sweetness of his fancy in one walk of composition is increased by the stern and rigid (sometimes rugged) air of truth which he preserves in the other. In the regular drama he certainly holds up no romantic mirror to nature. His object was to exhibit human characters at once strongly comic and severely and instructively true; to nourish the understanding, while he feasted the sense of ridicule. He is more anxious for verisimilitude than even for comic effect. He understood the humours and peculiarities of his species scientifically, and brought them forward in their greatest contrasts and subtlest modifications. If Shakspeare carelessly scattered illusion, Jonson skilfully prepared it. This is speaking of Jonson in his happiest manner. There is a great deal of harsh and sour fruit in his miscellaneous poetry. It is acknowledged that in the drama he frequently overlabours his delineation of character, and wastes it tediously upon uninteresting humours and peculiarities. He is a moral painter, who delights overmuch to show his knowledge of moral anatomy. Beyond the pale of his three great dramas, "The Fox," "The Epicene, part of his poetical character. In songs and masques, and interludes, his fancy has a wildness and a sweetness that we should not expect from the severity of his dramatic taste. It cannot be said, indeed, that he is always free from metaphysical conceit, but his language is weighty with thought, and polished with elegance. Upon the whole, his merits, after every fair deduction, leave him in possession of a high niche in our literature, and entitle him to be ranked (next to Shakspeare) as the most important benefactor of our early drama.-CAMPBELL, article Jonson, in Brewster's Encyclopædia.-C. or Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist," it would not be difficult to find many striking exceptions to that love of truth and probability, which, in a general view, may be regarded as one of his best characteristics. Even within that pale, namely, in his masterly character of Volpone, one is struck with what, if it be not an absolute breach, is at least a very bold stretch, of probability. It is true that Volpone is altogether a being daringly conceived; and those who think that art spoiled the originality of Jonson, may well rectify their opinion by considering the force of imagination which it required to concentrate the traits of such a character as "The Fox;" not to speak of his Mosca, who is the phoenix of all parasites. Volpone himself is not like the common misers of comedy, a mere money-loving dotard—a hard, shrivelled old mummy, with no other spice than his avarice to preserve him; he is a happy villain, a jolly misanthrope-a little god in his own selfishness, and Mosca is his priest and prophet. Vigorous and healthy, though past the prime of life, he hugs himself in his arch humour, his successful knavery and imposture, his sensuality and his wealth, with an unhallowed relish of selfish existence. His passion for wealth seems not to be so great as his delight in gulling the human "vultures and gorecrows" who flock round him at the imagined approach of his dissolution; the speculators who put their gold, as they conceive, into his dying gripe, to be returned to them a thousand-fold in his will. Yet still, after this exquisite rogue has stood his trial in a sweat of agony at the scrutineum, and blest his stars at having narrowly escaped being put to the torture, there is something (one would think) a little too strong for probability, in that mischievous mirth and love of tormenting his own dupes, which bring him, by his own folly, a second time within the fangs of justice. Fox" and "The Alchemist" seem to have divided Jonson's admirers as to which of them may be considered his masterpiece. In confessing my partiality to the prose comedy of "The Silent Woman," consi "The *The plot of The Fox is admirably conceived; and that of The Alchemist, though faulty in the conclusion, is nearly equal to it. In the two comedies of Every Man in his Humour, and Every Man out of his Humour, the plot deserves much less praise, and is deficient at once in interest and unity of action; but in that of The Silent dered merely as a comedy, I am by no means forgetful of the rich eloquence which poetry imparts to the two others. But "The Epicene," in my humble apprehension, exhibits Jonson's humour in the most exhilarating perfection. With due admiration for “The Alchemist," I cannot help thinking the jargon of the chemical jugglers, though it displays the learning of the author, to be tediously profuse. "The Fox" rises to something higher than comic effect. It is morally impressive. It detains us at particular points in serious terror and suspense. But "The Epicene" is purely facetious. I know not, indeed, why we should laugh more at the sufferings of Morose than at those of the sensualist, Sir Epicure Mammon, who deserves his miseries much better than the rueful and pitiable Morose. Yet so it is, that, though the feelings of pathos and ridicule seem so widely different, a certain tincture of the pitiable makes comic distress more irresistible. Poor Morose suffers what the fancy of Dante could not have surpassed in description, if he had sketched out a ludicrous Purgatory. A lover of quiet man exquisitely impatient of rude sounds and loquacity, who lived in a retired street-who barricadoed his doors with matresses to prevent disturbance to his ears, and who married a wife because he could with difficulty prevail upon her to speak to him-has hardly tied the fatal knot when his house is tempested by female eloquence, and the marriage of him who had pensioned the city-wakes to keep away from his neighbourhood, is celebrated by a concert of trumpets. He repairs to a court of justice to get his marriage, if possible, dissolved, but is driven back in despair by the intole rable noise of the court. For this marriage how exquisitely we are prepared by the scene of courtship! When Morose questions his intended bride about her likings and habits of life, she plays her part so hypocritically, that he seems for a moment impatient of her reserve, and with the most ludicrous cross-feelings wishes her to speak more loudly, that he may have a proof of her taciturnity from her own lips; but, re -a Woman, nothing can exceed the art with which the cir cumstance upon which the conclusion turns is, until the very last scene, concealed from the knowledge of the reader, while he is tempted to suppose it constantly within his reach.-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Misc. Prose Works, vol. vi. p. 341.-C. collecting himself, he gives way to the rapturous satisfaction of having found a silent woman, and exclaims to Cutbeard, "Go thy ways and get me a clergyman presently, with a soft, low voice, to marry us, and pray him he will not be impertinent, but brief as he can." The art of Jonson was not confined to the cold observation of the unities of place and time, but appears in the whole adaptation of his incidents and characters to the support of each other. Beneath his learning and art he moves with an activity which may be compared to the strength of a man who can leap and bound under the heaviest armour.* The works of Jonson bring us into the seventeenth century; and early in that century, our language, besides the great names already mentioned, contains many other poets whose works may be read with a pleasure independent of the interest which we take in their antiquity. Drayton and Daniel, though the most opposite in the cast of their genius, are preeminent in the second poetical class of their age, for their common merit of clear and harmonious diction. Drayton is prone to Ovidian conceits, but he plays with them so gayly, that they almost seem to become him as if natural. His feeling is neither deep, nor is the happiness of his fancy of long continuance, but its short April gleams are very beautiful. His Legend of the Duke of Buckingham opens with a fine description. Unfortunately, his descriptions in long poems are, like many fine mornings, succeeded by a cloudy day. "The lark, that holds observance to the sun, .... Of the grand beauties of poetry he has none; but of the sparkling lightness of his best manner an example may be given in * He (Jonson) was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them; there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what Daniel is "somewhat a-flat," as one of his contemporaries said of him,† but he had more sensibility than Drayton, and his moral reflection rises to higher dignity. The lyrical poetry of Elizabeth's age runs often into pastoral insipidity and fantastic carelessness, though there may be found in some of the pieces of Sir Philip Sydney, Lodge, Marlowe, and Breton, not only a sweet, wild spirit, but an exquisite finish of expression. Of these combined beauties Marlowe's song, "Come live with me, and be my love," is an example. The "Soul's Errand," by whomsoever it was written, is a burst of genuine poetry. I know not how that short production has ever affected other readers, but it carries to my imagination an appeal which I cannot easily account for from a few simple rhymes. It places the last and inexpressibly awful hour of existence before my view, and sounds like a sentence of vanity on the things of this world, pronounced by would be theft in other poets is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represented old Rome to us in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies we had seen less of it than in him.-DRYDEN.-C. † Bolton, in his Hypercritica, 1622.-C. Vide these Selections, p. 116. D a dying man, whose eye glares on eternity, and whose voice is raised by strength from another world.* Raleigh, also (according to Puttenham), had a "lofty and passionate" vein. It is difficult, however, to authenticate his poetical relics. Of the numerous sonnetteers of that time (keeping Shakspeare and Spenser apart), Drummond and Daniel are certainly the best. Hall was the master satirist of the age; obscure and quaint at times, but full of nerve and picturesque illustration. No contemporary satirist has given equal grace and dignity to moral censure. Very unequal to him in style, though often as original in thought, and as graphic in exhibiting manners, is Donne, some of whose satires have been modernized by Pope.† Corbet has left some humorous pieces of raillery on the Puritans. Wither, all fierce and fanatic on the opposite side, has nothing more to recommend him in invective, than the sincerity of that zeal for God's house, which ate him up. Marston, better known in the drama than in satire, was characterized by his contemporaries for his ruffian style. He has more will than skill in invective. "He puts in his blows with love," as the pugilists say of a hard but artless fighter; a degrading image, but on that account not the less applicable to a coarse satirist. Donne was the "best good-natured man, with the worst-natured Muse." A romantic and uxorious lover, he addresses the object of his real tenderness with ideas that outrage decorum. He begins his own epithalamium with a most indelicate invocation to his bride. His ruggedness and whim are almost proverbially known. Yet there is a beauty of thought which at intervals rises from his chaotic imagination, like the form of Venus smiling on the waters. Giles and Phineas Fletcher possessed harmony and fancy. The simple Warner has left, in his "Argentile and Curan," perhaps the finest pastoral episode in our language. Browne was an elegant describer of rural scenes, though incompetent to fill them with life and manners. Chalkhill is a writer of pastoral romance, from whose work of Thealma and Clearchus a specimen should have been given in the body of these Selections, but was omitted by an accidental oversight. Chalkhill's numbers are as musical as those of any of his contemporaries, who employ the same form of versification. It was common with the writers of the heroic couplet of that age to bring the sense to a full and frequent pause in the middle of the line. This break, by relieving the uniformity of the couplet measure, sometimes produces a graceful effect and a varied harmony which we miss in the exact and unbroken tune of our later rhyme; a beauty of which the reader will probably be sensible, in perusing such lines of Chalkhill's as these: "And ever and anon he might well hear This relief, however, is used rather too liberally by the elder rhymists, and is perhaps as often the result of their carelessness as of their good taste. Nor is it at all times obtained by them without the sacrifice of one of the most important uses of rhyme; namely, the distinctness of its effect in marking the measure. The chief source of the gratification which the ear finds in rhyme is our perceiving the emphasis of sound coincide with that of sense. In other words, the rhyme is best placed on the most emphatic word in the sentence. But it is nothing unusual with the ancient couplet writers, by laying the rhyme on unimportant words, to disappoint the ear of this pleasure, and to exhibit the restraint of rhyme without its emphasis. As a poetical narrator of fiction, Chalkhill is rather tedious; but he atones for the slow progress of his narrative by many touches of rich and romantic description. Nothing could have made Donne a poet, unless as great a change had been worked in the internal structure of his ears, as was wrought in elongating those of Midas.-SOUTHEY, Specimens, p. xxiv.-C. ? Chalkhill was a gentleman and a scholar, the friend of Spenser. He died before he could finish the fable of his "Thealma and Clearchus," which was published, long after his death, by Isaak Walton. And has been since reprinted; one of Mr. Singer's numerous contributions to our literature.-C. FROM "THEALMA AND CLEARCHUS." DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIESTESS OF DIANA. Within a little silent grove hard by, The curiosity of ear and eye. Thorough the thick-leaved boughs he makes a way, A hundred virgins there he might espy, Prostrate before a marble deity, Which, by its portraiture, appear❜d to be They tended their devotions with sweet airs, And cross their snowy silken robes they wore Under their vestments, something short before, Was blest with the sweet words that came from her. THE IMAGE OF JEALOUSY IN THE CHAPEL OF DIANA. Might see some relics of a piece of art That Psyche made, when Love first fired her heart; ABODE OF THE WITCH ORANDRA. Her cell was hewn out in the marble rock At the world's birth; so starlike bright they shone, They served instead of tapers, to give light To the dark entry.. In they went: The ground was strewn with flowers, whose sweet scent, His credulous sense. The walls were gilt, and set To the quickest eye they more than seem'd to grow. And circle in the stranger in a ring; She represents a banquet, usher'd in His appetite to taste-so like she was Hardly did he refrain Of your choice counsel? Hath some worthier love ...... With that she wept afresh.... ! The lights went out, In classical translation Phaer and Golding were the earliest successors of Lord Surrey. Phaer published his "Virgil" in 1562, and Golding his "Ovid" three years later.* Both of these translators, consi [* The seven first books of Phaer's Virgil were first printed in 1558, the eighth, ninth, and the fragment of |