He unites in his genius the utmost elevation and the utmost depth, and the most foreign and apparently irreconcileable properties subsist in him peaceably together. The world of spirits and of nature, have laid all their treasures at his feet. In strength, a demigod-in profundity of view, a prophet-in all-seeing wisdom, a protecting spirit of a higher order. He lowers himself to mortals as if unconscious of his superiority, and is open and unassuming as a child."

It was with this gifted mortal, exalted as we have seen by the enthusiasm of the admiring critic, even to the station of a demigod, that Jonson had to struggle for the possession of popular favour; and if-with little sacrifice to art and less to study, by the mere grace and bounty of nature-he threw far into shade his learned and laborious competitor, is it wonderful that his defeat should engender discontent? and if they chanced to write, (as did frequently happen) for rival theatres, is it wonderful that this discontent should find utterance, and encouragement, until at length it ripened into settled envy? If we consider that Jonson was without a spark of enthusiasm― that he inherited a constitution, which rendered him more sensitive of defects, than alive to the beauties of composition-that he was of a temperament, in short, critical rather than poetical-we must suppose that he would submit, with the worst possible grace, to a verdict whose justness he would be the very last to perceive, and might even visit the preference shewn to his rival, with a resentment only to be justified by personal injury.

There is no direct contemporary proof, however, of Jonson's malignity towards Shakspeare. It is inferred, rather from the proud and censorious spirit of the man, from the qualified praise with which he ever speaks of this dramatic prodigy, both in his "Discoveries," and in his " Miscellanies," from his conversations with Drummond, and lastly from the undisguised manner in which, in his prologues and plays, he sneers at certain faults and extravagances, which, though they might (as Gifford suggests) be found in other authors, are unquestionably found in Shakspeare The charge was first preferred by Dryden or Rowe; Stevens and Malone have repeated it. But Gifford, who is certainly no half-way friend, who detects something of a kindred spirit in Jonson, and "looes him like a verra brither," strikes at his adversaries as venomously as though he repelled a personal assault. He expends much "excellent indignation," and leaves the trace of his critical scalping knife on each who had dared to question the amiable disposition of the great satirical dramatist. Alas for Gifford !

It was his conscience that quickened his zeal! In Jonson's fate, he beheld a type of his own; he forestalled futurity, and read by anticipation the doom that posterity would award to William Gifford! Dryden (he says) is naught, for Dryden had a convenient memory, "which was always subservient to the passion of the day." Rowe and Stevens escape with comparative impunity; but Malone undergoes the whole storm of his wrath. Malone has undertaken to prove, by quotations from Jonson, the fact of his hostility to Shakspeare. He relies chiefly on the prologue to "Every Man in his Humour," and it must be admitted, that it appears at first sight, as a direct attack upon his works. Now Gifford shews, that the play was acted in 1598, and prior to the performance of those very plays of Shakspeare, which are supposed to be aimed at. "A date,' "cries the editor in the pride of his discovery, "is the spear of Ithuriel to the enemies of Jonson; touch their facts with it, and they start up in loathsome and revolting deformity." He convicts Malone of the absurdity of supposing a censure intended on those plays, which, by his own shewing, had not then an existence; but Malone's errors, are not Jonson's acquittal.

He may have erred in affixing the dates to Shakspeare's plays for these are to a great extent conjectural-or admitting them to be correctly stated, it does not follow that the prologue was not interpolated, or altogether changed, for some of Jonson's plays are published with two; it does not follow that this was the original prologue, for it was not published until 1616, the year of Shakspeare's death, and eighteen years after the first acting of the piece! He next discovers that Malone had referred to a fabricated document, (Macklin's) as authority, after having, on another occasion, expended fifteen pages in proving it a forgery! And here he taxes him with intentionally giving his sanction "to a recorded lie." His zeal is not yet abated-he turns to the "Biographia Brittanica," and finds the following complimentary notice of Jonson, credited to the "Conversations" of Drummond. "Jonson was, in his personal character, the very reverse of Shakspeare-as surly, ill-natured, proud and disagreeable, as Shakspeare was gentle, good-natured, easy and amiable." He now refers to the "Conversations," and discovers that the passage, quoted as Drummond's, is the rascally interpolation of the Scotchman Shiels." But to show that the portrait was sketched by Shiels, and not by Drummond, is not to show that it wants resemblance. The true question is, is it a likeness? and the true difficulty to be solved, why have so many writers concurred in thinking it so? After all, there remains the testimony of Drummond as to

Jonson's general ill nature. It is at once contemporary and respectable.

In the year 1619, Jonson, then in the full vigour of his faculties, enjoying the reputation of his splendid talents, and the favour of the court, made a tour of recreation into Scotland, and passed some months in the house of Drummond of Hawthornden. Drummond, himself an author, made abstracts of Jonson's conversations, and sketched a character of the poet. He never published them, but they were published, thirty years afterwards, by his executors, who found these conversations among his papers. It is a curious and interesting document. It contains the most authentic, direct and particular account extant of the man, his habits and opinions. We proceed to gratify the reader with an extract.

"Heads of Conversations, &c.-Ben Jonson used to say that many epigrams were ill, because they expressed in the end what should have been understood by what was said before, as that of Sir John Davies. That he (Ben) had an intention to have made a play like Plautus' Amphytrio, but left it off, for that he could never find two so like, one to the other, that he could persuade the spectator that they were one; that he designed to write an epic poem, &c. He said he had written a discourse of poetry against Campion and Daniel, where he proves couplets to be the best sort of verses, &c. His censure of English poets was this-that Sidney did not keep a decorum in making every one speak as well as himself. Spenser's stanza pleased him not, nor his matter: the meaning of his Allegory of the Fairy Queen he had delivered in writing to Sir Walter Raleigh, which was, by the bleating beast, he understood the Puritans-and by the false Duessa, the Queen of Scots. He told that Spenser's goods were robbed by the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt-he and his wife escaped-and after died of want in King-street. Samuel Daniel was a good, honest, man--had no children-and was no poet; that he wrote the" Civil Wars," yet had not one battle in all his book. That Michael Drayton's "Polyolbion," if he had performed what he promised, had been excellent. That Sylvester's translation of "Du Bartas," was not well done, that he wrote his verses before he understood to confer, and those of Fairfax were not good. That the translations of Homer and Virgil, in long Alexandrines, were but prose; that Sir John Harrington's "Ariosto," under all translations, was the worst.

"He said Donne was originally a poet-his grandfather, on the mother's side, was Heywood the epigrammatist-that Donne, for want of being understood, would perish. He esteemed him the first poet in the world for some things: his verses of the lost Orchadine, he had by heart, and that passage of the Calm, "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. He told Donne that his Anniversary" was profane and full of blasphemies; that if it had been written on the Virgin Mary, it had been tolerable; to which, Donne answered,

He said

That Sir

'he had described the idea of a woman, and not as she was.' Shakspeare wanted art, and sometimes sense; for in one of his plays he brought in a number of men, saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there is no sea near by a hundred miles. Walter Raleigh esteemed more, fame than conscience-the best wits were employed in making his history. Ben himself had written a piece to him, of the Punick War, which he altered and set in his book. He said Owen was a poor, pedantic schoolmaster, sweeping his living from the posteriors of little children, and had nothing good in him, his epigrams being bare narrations. Francis Beaumont died before he was thirty years of age, who, he said, was a good poet, as were Fletcher and Chapman, whom he loved. He fought several times with Marston, and says that Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies!

"His judgment of stranger poets was, that he thought not Du Bartas a poet, but a verser, because he wrote not fictions. He cursed Petrarch for redacting verses into sonnets, which, he said, were like that tyrant's bed, where some who were too short, were racked, others too long, cut short. That Guarini, in his Pastor Fido, kept no decorum in making shepherds speak as well as himself. He said Petronius, Plinius secundus, and Plautus spoke best Latin; that Tacitus wrote the secrets of the Council and the Senate, as Suetonius did those of the Cabinet and Court; that Lucan, taken in parts, was excellent, but altogether naught; that Quintilian's six, seven and eight books, were not only to be read, but altogether digested; that Juvenal, Horace and Martial were to be read for delight, and so was Pindar; but Hippocrates for health. Of the English nation, he said that Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity" was best for church matter, and Selden's "Titles of Honour" for antiquities."

Such are the most prominent notices of Jonson's Conversations recorded by Drummond, and here follow his opinions of the

man.

"He was, (it is Drummond who speaks) a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others-given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived. A dissembler of the parts which reign in him, a bragger of some good that he wanted; thinketh nothing well done, but what himself or some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if he be well answered, at himself; interprets best sayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both; oppressed with fancy, which hath overmastered his reason-a general disease in many poets. His inventions are smooth and easy; but, above all, he excelleth in a translation."

The rage of Gifford at these confessions of Drummond, is irrepressible. He launches his bolts at him, as though he would VOL. VI.-NO. 11.

13

annihilate him. His page seems to glow with the corruscations of his anger, while he stigmatizes him as "the cankered hypocrite," who, under false pretence of friendship, had tempted him to unbosom himself, and the traitorous host, who should

We cannot forbear to remark, that while this Jupiter tonans is hurling his imprecations against Drummond, for basely violating the rites of hospitality, there is not a shadow of evidence to show, that he ever meditated the publication. If he had, we should leave it to casuists to determine, how far Drummond was defensible in disclosing the frailties of his guest. We might, in such conduct, see much reason to impeach his delicacy, but none to question his credibility: the outline might still be correct, though we might feel that the colours had been laid on by no friendly hand. But another contemporary has spoken of him in a different spirit. It is Lord Clarendon, who says he

"Owed all the little he knew, and the little good that was in him, to the friendships and conversation he had still been used to, of the most excellent men in their several kinds, that lived in that age; by whose learning and information he formed his studies and mended his understanding, and by whose gentleness and sweetness of behaviour, and justice, and virtue and example, he formed his manners, subdued that pride, and suppressed that heat and passion he was naturally inclined to be transported with. While he was only a student at law, and stood at gaze, and irresolute what course of life to take, his chief acquaintance were Ben Jonson, Selden, Cotton, Vaughan, Digby, May, Carew, and others of eminent faculties in their several ways.

"Ben Jonson's name can never be forgotten, having, by his very good learning and the severity of his nature and manners, very much reformed the stage, and, indeed, the English poetry itself. His natural advantages were judgment to order and govern fancy, rather than excess of fancy, his productions being slow and upon deliberation, yet then abounding with great wit and fancy, and will live accordingly; and surely as he did exceedingly exalt the English language in eloquence, propriety and masculine expressions, so he was the best judge of, and fittest to prescribe rules to poetry and poets, of any man who had lived with, or before him, or since, if Mr. Cowley had not made a flight beyond all men, with that modesty yet, to ascribe much of this to the example and learning of Ben Jonson. His conversation was very good, and with the men of most note, and he had for many years an extraordinary kindness for Mr. Hyde, till he found he betook himself to business, which he believed ought never to be preferred before his company. He lived to be very old, and until the palsy made a deep impression upon his body and his mind."