Thirty years old at the death of Elizabeth, Ben Jonson was chief of the group of younger men who He had had begun to write plays in her reign. Every Man in his Humour" made his mark with " (in its present form) in 1598, and had then brought many an attack upon himself by tilting at follies of the City, of the Court, and of all poets who took low views of their calling, in three successive years, 1599, 1600, 1601, with three successive pieces that were dramatic satires rather than plays, "Every Man out of his Humour," "Cynthia's Revels," and "The Poetaster." Marston and Dekker, in 1602, administered to their friend what they thought needful correction with a play on himself, "Satiro-mastix." As he found himself persistently misunderstood, the words of a poet honouring his vocation being misread into their own dialect by men who lived on the broad flats of life and seldom breathed the keen air of the mountain heights, he turned from satire to tragedy, and in 1603 produced "Sejanus." Born poor, and owing his education in Westminster School to the interest taken in his quick wit by William Camden, then a master there, Ben Jonson left school to follow his father-in-law's business as a bricklayer. But he soon volunteered for the war in the Low Countries, fought bravely, came home, and attached himself to the theatre as but a poor retainer, till his wealth of wit, wisdom, and knowledge lifted him to supremacy above his fellows that was absolute after the death of Shakespeare. Though, except Shake

1 On ane know heid, on the top of a hillock.

2 To raik, to wreck.

Met ye bruke, may you possess or enjoy.

The lyaris face. The "lyar" was a carpet by the cushioned seat, the wife's seat at the fireside.

BEN JONSON.

From George Vertue's Engraving of his Portrait.

Of

the delight of the young singers who, in his later time, were proud to be called by him his sons. Ben Jonson as a dramatist there will be illustration in another volume of this Library, but here we have emphatic evidence that the true dramatist is also a lyric poet, and that if he excel in the higher exercíse of his genius, he will excel also in the lower. is one of ten lyric pieces entitled "A Celebration of Charis:"

HER TRIUMPH.

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And, enamoured, do wish, so they might But enjoy such a sight,

This

That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. 10
Do but look on her eyes, they do light

All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

Than words that soothe her!
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,
As alone there triumphs to the life

All the gain, all the good, of the element

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To see thee in our water yet appear,

"Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.

But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.

I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, and wonder of our stage!
My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses;
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
For names: but call forth thundering Eschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,

To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;

But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art,
My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion: and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muse's anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it that he thinks to frame;

Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;

For a good poet's made, as well as born.

And such wert thou! Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

In his well turnéd and true filéd lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were

Virtue's branches wither, Virtue pines.
O pity, pity, and alack the time!
Vice doth flourish, Vice in glory shines,

Her gilded boughs above the cedar climb.
Vice hath golden cheeks, O pity, pity!
She in every land doth monarchize.
Virtue is exiled from every city,
Virtue is a fool, Vice only wise.
O pity, pity! Virtue weeping dies.
Vice laughs to see her faint. Alack the time!

This sinks; with painted wings the other flies. Alack, that best should fall, and bad should climb!

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GEORGE CHAPMAN.

From the Portrait before his translation of Homer.

An elder poet and dramatist who first joined his juniors in their singing towards the close of Eliz beth's reign was George Chapman, whose portrait as here given appeared before his Homer with an inscription that made his age fifty-seven in 1616, the year in which Shakespeare died at the age of fiftyHe was born at Hitchin, as he himself says,

two.

Night," in 1594. In the same year with his first printed play appeared the beginning of his translation of Homer, being an instalment of seven books of the Iliad. In James I.'s reign he published twelve books of the Iliad, in 1610, and in the following year all twenty-four, to which the twenty-four books of the Odyssey and all known poems ascribed to Homer afterwards were added. Let us read the good verse prefixed to the "Twelve Books of the Iliad," which were dedicated to King James's son, Prince Henry; but allow a few minutes to take breath before starting, as the first sentence is twentyeight lines long, large in structure as in thought.

EPISTLE DEDICATORY

то THE HIGH-BORN PRINCE OF MEN, HENRY, THRICE ROYAL INHERITOR TO THE UNITED KINGDOMS OF GREAT BRITAIN,

ETC.

Since perfect happiness, by Princes sought,
Is not with birth born, nor exchequers bought,
Nor follows in great trains, nor is possess'd
With any outward state; but makes him blest
That governs inward and beholdeth there
All his affections stand about him bare,

That by his power can send to Tower and death
All traitorous passions, marshalling beneath
His justice his mere will, and in his mind
Holds such a sceptre as can keep confined
His whole life's actions in the royal bounds
Of virtue and religion, and their grounds.
Takes in to sow his honours, his delights,
And complete empire: you should learn these rights,
Great Prince of Men, by princely precedents
Which here, in all kinds, my true zeal presents
To furnish your youth's groundwork and first state,
And let you see one godlike Man create
All sorts of worthiest Men, to be contrived
In your worth only, giving him revived
For whose life Alexander would have given
One of his kingdoms, who (as sent from heaven,
And thinking well that so divine a creature
Would never more enrich the race of nature)

Kept as his crown His Works, and thought them still His angels, in all power to rule his will;

And would affirm that Homer's poesy

Did more advance his Asian victory

Than all his armies. Oh, 'tis wondrous much,

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20

Though nothing prized, that the right virtuous touch 30

Of a well-written soul to virtue moves;
Nor have we souls to purpose, if their loves

Of fitting objects be not so inflamed.

How much then were this kingdom's main soul maim'd,
To want this great inflamer of all powers

That move in human souls! All realms but yours
Are honour'd with him, and hold blest that state
That have His Works to read and contemplate:
In which humanity to her height is raised,

Which all the world, yet none enough, hath praised. 40
Seas, earth, and heaven, he did in verse comprise,
Out-sung the Muses, and did equalise
Their king Apollo; being so far from cause

Of Princes' light thoughts, that their gravest laws
May find stuff to be fashion'd by his lines.
Through all the pomp of kingdoms still he shines,
And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie

Your lutes and viols, and more loftily
Make the heroics of your Homer sung!
To drums and trumpets set his angel's tongue!
And, with the princely sport of hawks you use,
Behold the kingly flight of his high Muse,
And see how, like the phoenix, she renews
Her
age and starry feathers in your sun,
Thousands of years attending, every one
Blowing the holy fire, and throwing in

Their seasons, kingdoms, nations that have been
Subverted in them; laws, religions, all

Offer'd to change and greedy funeral:

Yet still your Homer lasting, living, reigning,

50

And proves how firm Truth builds in poets' feigning. 60
A Prince's statue, or in marble carved

Or steel or gold, and shrined, to be preserved,
Aloft on pillars or pyramidés,

Time into lowest ruins may depress;

But drawn with all his virtues in learn'd verse,
Fame shall resound them on oblivion's hearse,
Till graves gasp with her blasts, and dead men rise.
No gold can follow where true Poesy flies.
Then let not this Divinity in earth,
Dear Prince, be slighted as she were the birth
Of idle fancy, since she works so high;
Nor let her poor disposer, Learning, lie
Still bed-rid. Both which being in men defaced

In men with them is God's bright image rased.
For as the Sun and Moon are figures given

Of His refulgent Deity in heaven,
So Learning, and, her lightener, Poesy,

In earth present His fiery Majesty.
Nor are kings like Him since their diadems
Thunder and lighten and project brave beams,
But since they His clear virtues emulate,
In truth and justice imaging His state,
In bounty and humanity since they shine,
Than which is nothing like Him more divine:
Not fire, not light, the sun's admiréd course,
The rise nor set of stars, nor all their force
In us and all this cope beneath the sky,
Nor great Existence, term'd His Treasury;
Since not for being greatest He is blest,
But being just, and in all virtues blest.

What sets His justice and his truth best forth,
Best Prince, then use best, which is Poesy's worth.
For, as great Princes, well inform'd and deck'd
With gracious virtue, give more sure effect

To her persuasions, pleasures, real worth,
Than all th' inferior subjects she sets forth;

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Since there she shines at full, hath birth, wealth, state,
Power, fortune, honour, fit to elevate

Her heavenly merits, and so fit they are,
Since she was made for them, and they for her;
So Truth, with Poesy graced, is fairer far,
More proper, moving, chaste, and regular,
Than when she runs away with untruss'd Prose;
Proportion, that doth orderly dispose
Her virtuous treasure, and is queen of graces,
In Poesy decking her with choicest phrases,
Figures and numbers; when loose Prose puts on
Plain letter-habits, makes her trot upon
Dull earthly business, she being mere divine,
Holds her to homely cates and harsh hedge-wine,
That should drink Poesy's nectar, every way
One made for other, as the sun and day,
Princes and virtues. And, as in a spring,

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