meetings at the Mermaid Tavern were attended by Shakspere also. On the other hand, his irritable and conceited temper engaged him in many squabbles with fellow authors and actors. In 1618 he travelled on foot to Scotland, and stayed for three weeks with the poet Drummond of Hawthornden, who has left us very interesting notes of his conversations with Jonson. In his old age he had much to suffer from illness and poverty. He died at London in 1637, and was buried in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, where the slab over his grave is inscribed 'O Rare Ben Jonson'. Jonson may be called the creator of the English comedy of character. His portraits of particular 'humours' or idiosyncrasies, though sometimes exaggerated into caricatures or mere personified abstractions, are forcibly and skilfully drawn and full of wit and satire. The three comedies Volpone, or the Fox (act. 1605), Epicone, or the Silent Woman (act. 1609), and The Alchemist (act. 1610) are generally considered his masterpieces. The tragedies he wrote are rather stiff, and closely based on classical models. As the courtpoet of James I. he wrote a long series of masques and entertainments, for which his friend Inigo Jones, the famous Renaissance architect, supplied the decorations. They are undoubtedly the most poetical of all English masques. His last play was the graceful, unfinished pastoral The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood. Besides his dramas he composed also a great many lyrics of various kinds, especially love-poems of rare classical grace, which were collected in the first edition of his works (1616–1640) under the titles of The Forest and Underwoods. His great critical faculty is to be seen in a collection of aphoristic prose-notes on art, politics, history, and education, known under the title of Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter (publ. 1641). See the chariot at hand here of Love, And from her arched brows, such a (Sir Epicure Mammon, deceived by the pretensions of Subtle, the Alchemist, and Face, his abetter, glories in the prospect of obtaining the philosopher's stone, and promises what rare things he will do with it.) Enter Mammon and Pertinax Surly, a gamester. Mam. Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru: And there within, sir, are the golden mines, Great Solomon's Ophir! he was sailing to't 5 Three years, but we have reach'd it in ten months. This is the day, wherein, to all my friends, You shall no more deal with the hollow die, 10 Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping To be displayed at Madam Augusta's, make Or go a-feasting after drum and ensign. No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho! 25 Face (within). Sir, he'll come to you by and by. His lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals, You are not faithful, sir. This night I'll change 30 All that is metal in my house to gold: And, early in the morning, will I send To all the plumbers and the pewterers, And buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury Sur. 85 What, and turn that too? Mam. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, And make them perfect Indies! You admire now? Sur. No, faith. Mam. But when you see th' effects of the Great Medicine, Of which one part projected on a hundred 40 Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon, Sur. No doubt; he's that already. Mam. Nay, I mean, Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, 55 To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters, 60 Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids. Sur. The decayed vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you, That keep the fire alive there. "Tis the secret Mam. Sur. And I'll 70 Be bound, the players shall sing your praises then, Mam. Sir, I'll do't. Meantime, I'll give away so much unto my man, Shall serve the whole city with preservative Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate 75 Sur. As he that built the Water-work does with water? Pertinax, my Surly, Will you believe antiquity? records? 80 I'll show you a book where Moses and his sister, Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam How! Sur. 85 Which proves it was the primitive tongue. Sur. Mam. On cedar board. Will last 'gainst worms. Mam. He did; What paper? O that, indeed, they say, "Tis like your Irish wood, 'Gainst cobwebs. I have a piece of Jason's fleece too, 90 Writ in large sheepskin, a good fat ram-vellum. Herrig-Forster, British Authors. 5 Such was Pythagoras' thigh, Pandora's tub, The manner of our work: the bulls, our furnace, That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting; Th' alembic, and then sowed in Mars his field, TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED, THE AUTHOR MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US. [From the First Folio Edition of Shakspere (1623)] To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age! And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, |