Shakspeare's name is not in the list of the principal comedians, it is probable he had now left the stage, to close his life in an easy and honourable retirement. The enemies of Jonson industriously gave out, that all he wrote was produced with extreme pains and labour, and that he was not less than a year about every play. This objection, had it been true, was really no disgrace to him; for the best authors know by experience, that what appeareth to be the most natural and easy writing, is frequently the effect of study, and the closest application; but their design was to insinuate, that Jonson had no parts, and a poor unfruitful imagination. To this objection, he hath retorted in the prologue to this play and from thence we learn, that the whole was finished by him in five weeks. About this time he joined with Chapman and Marston, in writing a comedy called Eastward-Hoe, wherein they were accused of reflecting on the Scots. For this they were committed to prison, and were in danger of losing their ears and noses: however, they received a pardon; and Jonson, on his releasement from prison, gave an entertainment to his friends, amongst whom were Camden and Seldon. In the midst of the entertainment, his mother, more an antique Roman than a Briton, drank to him, and shewed him a paper of poison, which she intended to have given him in his liquor, having first taken a potion of it herself, if the sentence for his punishment had passed.

A longer interval succeeded before the appearance of his next play; and it was not till the year 1609, that Epicone or the Silent Woman was first acted; but in these intervals his muse did not enjoy a perfect leisure, or cessation from business.

In the reigns of James the First, and his successor Charles, the exhibition of Masques became a principal diversion of the court. The queens to both these princes, not being natives of England, could not perhaps at first so readily understand the language; so that the musick and dancing and decorations of a masque, were to them a higher entertainment than what they could receive from any other dramatic composition; and their pleasure was increased, as they often condescended themselves to take a part in the perfor mance. But Jonson was the chief factor for the court; most of these Masques and Entertainments were written by him; and there seldom passed a year in which he did not furnish one or two poetical pieces of this kind. In March 1603, he composed a part of the Device, intended to entertain king James, as he passed through the city, from the Tower, to his coronation in Westminster-abbey; and in the month of June in the same year, a particular entertainment of his was performed at the lord Spencer's house at Althorp in Northamptonshire, for the diversion of the queen and prince, who rested there some days, as they came first into the kingdom. In 1604, there was a private entertainment of the king and queen, on May-day

morning, at sir William Cornwallis's house at Highgate, and of this likewise Jonson was the author. His first masque, which he hath called Of Blackness, was performed at court on the twelfthnight in 1605; and this masque, as all the others, was exhibited with the utmost magnificence and splendour, which the luxuriant elegance of a court could supply. In 1606, a marriage was solemnized between the earl of Essex, and the lady Frances, second daughter to the earl of Suffolk. This marriage had a much more auspicious beginning, than it proved in the issue. It was celebrated by a masque on one day, and by barriers on the day following. Jonson was the author of both. No expence was wanting on this occasion; and the poet hath lavished the profusions of his art and learning, to dignify the subject. In the same year the king of Denmark came into England, on a visit to his sister, consort to James the First: they were entertained on the 24th of July, by the earl of Salisbury, at Theobalds; and Jonson contributed his share of the festival, in Epigrams and Verses which were affixed to the walls of the house. The situation of Theobalds was particularly agreeable to the king, who in the next year exchanged his palace at Hatfield for this seat. Accordingly on the 22d of May 1607, the house with possession was delivered up by the earl of Salisbury to the queen. At this ceremony the king himself was present, with some foreign princes, and the chief nobility of his court. Jonson again solicited his muse, who supplied him with a compliment becoming the appearance. A second masque, which he hath styled Of Beauty, was presented in 1608: this was a counterpart to the first, and had the queen and her ladies for the performers, as that also had. On Shrove-tuesday in the same year, the lord Haddington was married, and Jonson was entrusted with the honour of adorning the solemnity by the celebration of a masque. The entrance of the following year gave him an employment of the like kind; when the queen called upon him for the third time, to serve her in the representation of another masque; and this he hath intitled the Masque of Queens, celebrated from the house of Fame. In the scenical decoration of these several entertainments, Jonson had Inigo Jones for an associate; and the necessary devices for each seem to have been designed and ordered by him with delicacy, and grandeur of taste. But these servants of the muses could not preserve an harmony with each other, and Discord subsisted between them during the greater part of thirty years, in which they administered to the pleasures of two successive sovereigns and their court.

But these lighter efforts were only the recreations of his muse; and we now return to those weightier labours which he dignified with the title of works. The Alchemist, a comedy, was acted in 1610; and though seemingly the freest from personal censure

and reflection, it could not secure him the general applauses of the people. A contemporary author, and a friend to Jonson, hath told us, that on some account or other, they expressed a dislike either to the poet, or his play. The scribblers of the age had indeed a loud and numerous party at their call; and they were constantly let loose on Jonson, whenever he brought a new play upon the stage. But their censure was his fame, whilst he was loved and respected by genius, wit, and candour; and could number in the list of his friends, the prodigies of poetry, and miracles of learning and science. Shakspeare had cherished his infant muse, Beaumont and Fletcher esteemed and revered him, Donne had commended his merit, and Camden the Strabo of Britain, and Selden a living library, knew how to prize his literature and judgment.

Mr. Dryden hath supposed that the Alchemist of Jonson was wrote in imitation of the comedy intitled, Albumazer. I can oppose nothing certain to this tradition. The author of Albumazer is unknown; but the earliest edition of that play is several years later than the Alchemist; and as the silence of Jonson's enemies is a presumption in his favour, it is possible that Dryden might be misinformed or mistaken.

The tragedy of Catiline was his next labour, which appeared in 1611. The long and frequent translations in this play, from Sallust and Tully, were fresh matter of calumny and malice to his railing adversaries; but the manner in which he appears to have received these attacks, sheweth us that he thought himself in no great danger of being hurt by them. There was now an intermission of three years, before the next performance of his next play but he had full employment for his muse at court, though he denied her labours to the people. The annual custom of a masque at Christmass, and some intervening marriages of the nobility, contributed to keep his hand in use: so that we have a succession of these pieces, though some of them indeed without date, from the year 1609 to 1615. Two of them were written for the entertainment of prince Henry; and the rest were presented by the queen and her ladies, or by the lords and others, servants of the king.

It appears that in 1613 Jonson was in France; but the occasion of his going, and the stay he made, are alike uncertain. During his continuance there, he was admitted to an interview and conversation with cardinal Perron: their discourse, we may imagine, turned chiefly upon literary subjects; the cardinal shewed him his translation of Virgil; and Jonson, with his usual openness and freedom, told him it was a bad one.

His next play was the comedy called Bartholomew Fair, acted in 1614; and that was succeeded by The Devil is an Ass, in 1616. In this year he published his works in a fair volume in folio, many

of which had been separately printed before in quarto. In this volume were inserted all the plays excepting the two last, with his Masques and Entertainments; and to these were added a book of Epigrams, and a collection of longer Poems, which he intitled The Forest.

The pompous title of works, which Jonson gave to his Plays and Poems, was immediately carped at by those who had a mind to cavil; and we meet with this Epigram addressed to him upon that occasion:

Pray tell me, Ben, where does the myst'ry lurk ? "What others call a Play, you call a Work.”

And the following answer was returned, in behalf of Jonson; "The author's friend thus for the author says;

"Ben's plays are works, when others' works are plays."

On

We are now to look for him in the bosom of the muses; and we find that soon after this, he resided in Christ-church college, in Oxford, to which place he had been invited by some members of the university, and particularly by Dr. Corbet, a poet, and an admirer of Jonson. Mr. Wood saith, that whilst he continued there he wrote some of his plays; but that matter is not very certain. This however is unquestionable, that there he received a very ample and honourable testimony to his merit; being created in a full house of convocation, a master of arts of that university, in July 1619. the death of Samuel Daniel in October following, he succeeded to the vacant laurel. It is something strange, that when Daniel was laureat, his province for many years should have been discharged by Jonson although Daniel wanted not for genius, and was honoured with the good opinion of the queen. The laureat's pay was originally a pension of one hundred marks per annum; but in 1630, Jonson presented a petition to king Charles, requesting him to make those marks as many pounds. His petition was granted; and accordingly on the surrendry of his former letters patent, new ones were issued, appointing him the annual pension of one hundred pounds, and a tierce of Spanish wine, The same salary is continued to this day. At the latter end of this year, he went on foot into Scotland, on purpose to visit Drummond of Hawthornden. His adventures in this journey, he wrought into a poem; but that copy, with many other pieces, was accidentally burned. During his stay with Drummond he gave him an account of his family, and several particulars relating to.his life; nor was he less communicative of his sentiments with regard to the authors, and poets of his own times. Drummond committed the heads of their conversation to writing; and they are published in a folio edition of his works, printed at Edinburgh. From these minutes we learn

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several circumstances concerning Jonson, which do not occur in any other relation, and the account is authentic, as it was taken from his own mouth.

His opinion and censure of the poets will be entertaining to the reader; and we shall give it him in Mr. Drummond's words, with some necessary remarks and observations. He said that Sidney did not keep a decorum, in making every one speak as well as himself. Spenser's stanzas 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 beast he understood the puritans, and by the false Duessa the queen of Scots. Spenser's goods, he said, 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 he wrote the civil wars, and yet hath not one battle in all his book. Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion, if he had performed what he promised, to write the deeds of all the worthies, had been excellent; that he was challenged for intitling one book Mortimeriades. Sir John Davis played on Drayton in an Epigram, who in a 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. Silvester's translation of Du Bartas, was not well done, and that he wrote his verses before he understood to confer; and those of Fairfax were not good. He thought that the translation of Homer and Virgil in long alexandrines, were but prose: that Sir John Harrington's Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst. When Sir John Harrington 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's side was Heywood the epigrammatist; that Donne for not being understood would perish. He esteemed him the first poet in the world for some things; his verses of The lost Ochadine 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 Denne's Transformation or Metempsychosis was, that he sought the soul of that apple which Eva pulled; and hereafter 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 hereticks, 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 doctor, repented hugely, and resolved to destroy all his poems. He told Donne, that his