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That offices are entailed, and that there are
Perpetuities of them, lasting as far

As the last day; and that great officers
Do with the pirates share and Dunkirkers."1

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I, more amazed than Circe's prisoners, when
They felt themselves turn beasts, felt myself then
Becoming traitor; and, methought, I saw
One of our giant statues ope his jaw

To suck me in for hearing him.

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But the hour

Of mercy now was come.

He tries to bring

Me to pay a fine, to 'scape his torturing,

And says, "Sir, can you spare me"-I said, "Willingly."
"-Nay, Sir, can you spare me a crown?" Thankfully I
Gave it as ransom: but as fiddlers still,
Tho' they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
Thrust one more jig upon you; so did he
With his long complimented thanks vex me.
But he is gone, thanks to his needy want,
And the prerogative of my crown.

HYMN TO CHRIST.

"At the Author's last going into Germany."

In what torn ship soever I embark,

That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark;
What sea soever swallow me, that flood

Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood.

Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise

Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes,
Which, though they turn away sometimes,

They never will despise.

I sacrifice this island unto thee,

And all, whom I love here, and who love me ;
When I have put this flood 'twixt them and me,
Put thou thy blood betwixt my sins and thee.
As the tree's sap doth seek the root below

In winter, in my winter now I go,

Where none but thee, th' eternal root
Of true love, I may know.

1 Dunkirk was a nest of smugglers and privateers.

2 See Odyssey, x. 136.

The Guildhall Gog and Magog fabulous giants, part of the pageant of a Lord Mayor's Day.

4 An English version of "Sic me servavit Apollo."-Hor. Sat. ix. v. 1.

DETACHED PASSAGES.

DETACHED PASSAGES FROM DONNE.

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,

While some of their sad friends do say

"The breath goes now"-and some say, "No:" So let us melt and make no noise

No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks and so distinctly wrought
That one would almost say her body thought.

When goodly, like a ship in her full trim,
A swan-so white that you may unto him
Compare all whiteness, but himself to none-
Glided along, and as he glided watch'd,

And with his arched neck this poor fish catch'd;
It moved with state, as if to look upon
Low things it scorned.

Oh, to confess we know not what we should
Is half excuse, we know not what we would.
Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills;
We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills;
As new philosophy arrests the sun

And bids the passive earth about it run,1
So we have dull'd our mind.

139

BEN JONSON.
(1573-1637.)

BENJAMIN, or, according to his own abbreviation of signature, Ben Jonson, was born in Westminster. His family is said to have been originally from Annandale. Losing his father, a preacher in Westmin ster, before his birth, the benevolence of a friend placed him at West minster School, where he attracted the notice of the celebrated Camden, at that period second master in the establishment. His mother having married a bricklayer, Ben was taken from school and made to work at his stepfather's business. From this disagreeable occupation he escaped by enlisting into the army. He served one campaign in the Low Countries, and on his return he is said to have been a short time at St. John's

1 This is one of the earliest popular notices of the Copernican system, then recently confirmed by Galileo. Milton in Paradise Lost adheres to the Ptolemaic astronomy.

College, Cambridge, but this wants confirmation. At the age of twenty he was on the stage in London. He fought a duel with a brother actor, whom he killed, and was thrown into prison. In prison he became a convert to the Roman Catholic religion, which he professed for a number of years afterwards.

On his release he resumed his efforts to procure a subsistence from a connection with the theatres. Slender as were his resources and prospects, at the age of twenty he married; and pursued with indomitable perseverance, under great disadvantages, those studies which ultimately rendered him one of the most learned men of his time. Although his talents procured him notice and distinction, his circumstances continued still straitened. Gifford disproves satisfactorily the frequently alleged generous patronage of Jonson in his necessity, by Shakespeare, and, equally satisfactorily, the alleged ingratitude and malignity of Jonson. His early efforts, as was the custom of the time, were made in joint works with Marston, Decker, and others. His first acknowledged piece that has descended to us is "Every man in his Humour." Its success, if not materially improving his finances, prodigiously increased his reputation. A rapid succession of pieces of great excellence placed him in the first rank of dramatic writers. Fairer prospects of emolument opened to him on the accession of James I. From that period he almost abandoned the stage, and employed himself in the production of his series of beautiful masques for the amusement of the Court and of the nobility. This species of writing Jonson may claim the credit of having brought to perfection, and it may almost be said to have died with him.

It was during these happier years that he acquired those habits of conviviality to which his enemies have given a less gentle name. His company was courted by all the talent of the time, and the suppers of the "Mermaid" are mentioned with enthusiasm by those who had enjoyed their keen encounters of contending wits. Much of the obloquy against Jonson has arisen from a journey he undertook to Scotland in 1618, during which he visited the poet Drummond of Hawthornden. Drummond's notes of their conversation were published partially, under the sanction of his son, in 1711, long after his own and Jonson's death. They contained strictures, reckoned to be malignant, on many of Jonson's contemporaries and on some of his patrons. Jonson's biographer, Gifford, falls furiously on Drummond for the treachery implied in the noting down of confidential conversations, but they were merely private memoranda, not published by Drummond, and containing literary anecdote.

The death of James deprived Jonson of a kind and indulgent patron. He had succeeded Daniel in the hitherto honorary office of laureate, and received for it a small pension; but he was neglected by Charles I., and the concluding years of his life were spent under the pressure of poverty and disease, during which, however, his indefatigable pen was seldom unemployed. He died in 1637, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The flagstone over his grave was inscribed by some familiar friend with the words "O rare Ben Jonson !"

Gifford heroically defends Jonson from the calumnies heaped on his memory, especially by the commentators of Shakespeare, and vindicates for his author the possession of qualities that commanded the affection and respect of the first men of the time, and caused his death to be felt as a public loss. The irritable critic, however, would have been mortified to find that Jonson (as appears from letters recently discovered in the

1 A tavern in Cornhill.

FROM CYNTHIA'S REVELS.

141

State Paper Office) condescended to act as a Government spy about the period of the Gunpowder Plot. The over-convivial habits of Jonson kept him constantly in difficulties, and increased his constitutional arrogance and jealousy, but he possessed many manly and noble qualities, and was the most learned poet of his age. His plays have not continued to be popular. His characters want individuality, and illustrate "humours" or eccentricities rather than minds. His two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, lofty, ornate, and correct in the costume of Roman manners, are frigid and passionless. In the plots of his comedies he is deserving of undisputed praise. Aristophanes, Terence, and Plautus are his models. At the head of his comedies in reputation stand

"The Fox, the Alchemist, and Silent Woman,

Done by Ben Jonson, and outdone by no man.'

"

His language is nervous and masculine; "perhaps," says Dryden, "he did a little too much Romanize our tongue." His masques abound in passages of the most airy and animated beauty.

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You might have lived in servitude or exile,
Or safe at Rome, depending on the great ones,
But that you thought these things unfit for men;
And in that thought you then were valiant;

For no man ever yet changed peace for war
But that he meant to conquer. Hold that purpose.
There's more necessity you should be such,

In fighting for yourselves, than they for others.
He's base that trusts his feet, whose hands are arm'd.
Methinks I see Death and the Furies waiting
What we will do, and all the heaven at leisure
For the great spectacle. Draw then your swords;
And if our destiny envy our virtue

The honour of the day, yet let us care

To sell ourselves at such a price as may

Undo the world to buy us, and make Fate,
While she tempts ours, fear her own estate.

FROM THE EPILOGUE TO "EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR."

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Yet humble as the earth do I implore,
O Heaven, that she1 *

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* may suffer most late change
In her admired and happy government:
May still this Island be called Fortunate,
And rugged Treason tremble at the sound,
When fame shall speak it with an emphasis.
Let foreign Polity be dull as lead,

And pale Invasion come with half a heart,
When he but looks upon her blessed soil.
The throat of war be stopped within her land,
And turtle-footed Peace dance fairy rings
About her court; where never may there come
Suspect or danger, but all trust and safety.
Let Flattery be dumb, and Envy blind

In her dread presence! Death himself admire her;
And may her virtues make him to forget

The use of his inevitable hand!

Fly from her, Age; sleep, Time, before her throne!
Our strongest wall falls down when she is gone. *

FROM "THE FOREST."

FAREWELL TO THE WORLD.

False world, good night!-Since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age,
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,

My part is ended on thy stage.

1 Elizabeth.

3 Suspicion.

2 Compare Milton's "Peace with turtle-wing." Nativity Hymn.

4 Compare Shakespeare, Henry VIII., Act V. Sc. 4. Cranmer's Prophecy;"This royal infant," etc.

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