Truly does Coleridge say, that great as was the genius of Shakespeare, his judgment was at least equal to it.

[Every reader should possess a good edition of Shakespeare, an edition which, like the Cambridge Shakespeare, or the Shakespeare edited by the Rev. A. Dyce, has been made as perfect as love and scholarship can make it.

The Globe Shakespeare (Macmillan) may be recommended for cheapness of cost and accuracy of text, but the print is small, and the book cannot be carried in the pocket. A charming edition in twelve little volumes has been published by Kent and Co., and Messrs. Bradbury and Evans and George Bell and Sons have also issued a Shakespeare in a similar form. I do not know which is to be preferred. Separate plays with elaborate notes have been printed by the Clarendon Press and by the Pitt Press, and to these the student who needs to be "coached up" in Shakespeare may refer with confidence. They will tell him all that he ought to know. He will also do well to gain a thorough acquaintance with Dr. Abbott's "Shakesperian Grammar," which is "an attempt to illustrate some of the differences between Elizabethan and modern English." The most concise and, considering its brevity, the most useful introduction to Shakespeare is Professor Dowden's tiny volume-one of the "Literature Primers," published by Macmillan and Co. Coleridge, one of the few great poets who is also a great critic, has written the best comments upon Shakespeare which we possess, and his "Notes and Lectures" should be read with care. Hazlitt's "Lectures," Mrs. Jameson's "Characteristics," Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare," Landor's "Citation and Examination of Shakespeare," Guizot's "Shakespeare and his Times," and Gervinus's "Commentaries on Shakespeare," all deserve to be read or consulted. Gervinus stands, perhaps, at the head of the German critics, if we except the profound and subtle remarks of Goethe, the prince of German poets, on the greatest poet of England. The books that have been written on the sonnets of this great master are not generally to be commended. In endeavouring to unravel the purpose of the writer they make it more intricate.]

CHAPTER V.

THE ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN POETS

(Continued).

BEN JONSON-WILLIAM DRUMMOND-GEORGE SANDYS - GEORGE WITHER GEORGE HERBERT HENRY VAUGHAN-WILLIAM BROWNE-ROBERT HERRICK.

1573-1637.

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BEN JONSON, Shakespeare's friend and rival, is alike distinguished as a dramatist and Ben Jonson, as a lyrist, and his commanding genius was largely felt and amply acknowledged by the younger pocts of his age. His plays were popular; his masques won the applause of the court; his genius was appreciated and rewarded by the king; men of learning, like Camden and Selden, did honour to the learning of the poet; and it was owing to the faults of the man rather than to the forgetfulness of the age that he suffered in his latter days from poverty and neglect. Ben Jonson, like so many men of genius, neither knew how to treat friends nor how to use money. His temper was irritable, his pocket was a sieve, he loved wine

too well, and it was probably when under the influence of wine that he spoke unguardedly even of his friends. It has been said that he was envious; it is certain that he was rash, and that his innermost feelings found vigorous expression; but he had many sterling qualities, and in praising contemporary genius Jonson showed a generous nature. Donne, Constable, Francis Beaumont, Lord Bacon "England's High Chancellor," Selden, Chapman, Drayton, Browne, and Fletcher, are honoured in his verses; and above all, the lines, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare," bear the force and fervour of the most genuine enthusiasm and admiration.*

Ben Jonson was born in London in 1573, and his earliest education was received at a school in St. Martin's parish. From thence, thanks to the kindness of Camden, which Jonson always remembered with gratitude, he was sent to Westminster, where no doubt a solid foundation was laid for the learn

* Ben Jonson received much honour in return from his contemporaries. Here is a tribute by John Cleveland, which deserves note for its own merits :

"The Muses' fairest light in no dark time,
The wonder of a learnèd age; the line

Which none can pass; the most proportioned wit
To nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;
The voice most echoed by consenting men;
The soul which answered best to all well said
By others, and which most requital made;
Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome,
Returning all her music with his own;
In whom with nature study claimed a part,
And yet who to himself owed all his art."

ing which afterwards distinguished him. His stepfather was a master-bricklayer, and the boy was taken from school to follow that occupation. Fuller says that "he helped in the structure of Lincoln's Inn, when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket." The young man, full of ambition and of genius, was not likely long to follow so uncongenial an employment. In those days Englishmen of all ranks were in the habit of trying their fortune in foreign wars, and Jonson went to Flanders, where, as he afterwards boasted, he killed an enemy in single combat. Probably he soon tired of the life of a mercenary. At all events, we next hear of him in London, following the profession of playwright, for which he was endowed by

nature.

Like Shakespeare, and apparently with as little success, he also acted his part upon the stage. The first comedy written by Ben Jonson was "Every Man in his Humour," and there is a tradition, not perhaps of much account, that Shakespeare, then a member of the Globe Company, read the piece, recommended it to the theatre, and afterwards played in it himself. Certain it is that between the poets there was frequent intercourse, and this makes it delightful to read Ben Jonson's after assertion, "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory on this side idolatry as much as any can."

A characteristic and tragic incident occurred at the beginning of Jonson's London life. Having fought a duel with a player of the name of Gabriel Spencer and killed his man, he was thrown into

prison and narrowly escaped the gallows. The prospect of death made the impulsive poet serious, and, being visited by a Romish priest, he joined the Roman Catholic Church. Twelve years later he returned to the English communion. When Jonson was released from prison his means of living must have been extremely precarious, and so, to quote the words of Gifford, "with that happy mode of extricating himself from a part of his difficulties which men of genius sometimes adopt, he now appears to have taken a wife." Of her we know nothing beyond the statement made by Jonson twenty years later, that she was "shrewish but honest."

At a later period of life the poet was again imprisoned. A play called "Eastward Hoe!" written by Jonson in conjunction with Marston and Chapman, contained a passage reflecting upon the Scotch. His two associates were arrested, and Jonson, considering himself implicated, voluntarily accompanied them to prison. When they were first committed it was said the three dramatists would have their ears and noses slit, which was one of the barbarous punishments of the day. The news reached Ben Jonson's mother, and at an entertainment given by the poet on his release she drank to him, and showed him a paper containing poison, which, had the sentence taken effect, she intended to mix with his drink. "To show that she was no churl," her son adds, "she designed to have first drank of it herself."