action, and moderateth desire in such good proportion that no Excess is found in the over-flow of their affections. Lastly, Fortitude enableth the Mind to undergo the travail and exchange of Weathers with a healthful ease, and not to despair with a little expence of time, but to persevere with a constant imagination in the end to obtain pleasure and satisfaction. Now for the Antiquity thereof (for all pleasures, like Gentry, are held to be most excellent, which is most ancient) it is by some Writers said to be found out by Deucalion and Pyrrha his Wife after the general Flood. Others write, It was the invention of Saturn, after the Peace concluded betwixt him and his Brother Titan: And others, That it came from Belus the Son of Nimrod who first invented all 'holy and vertuous Recreations. And all these though they savour of fiction, yet they differ not from truth, for it is most certain, that both Deucalion, Saturn, and Belus are taken for figures of Noah and his family, and the invention of the Art of Angling is truly said to come from the sons of Seth, of which Noah was most principal. Thus you see it is good, as having no coherence with evil: worthy of use, in as much as it is mixt with a delightful profit and most antient, as being the Recreation of the first Patriarchs; Wherefore now I will proceed to the Art it self, and the means to attain it. . . . Now for your Lines, you shall understand that they are to be made of the strongest, longest, and best grown Horse-haire that can be got; not that which groweth on his Main, nor upon the upper part or setting on of his tayl, but that which groweth from the middle and inmost part of his dock, and so extendeth it self down to the ground, being the biggest and strongest hairs about the Horse neither are these hairs to be gathered from poor, lean and diseased Jades of little price or value, but from the fattest, soundest, and proudest Horse you can find, for the best Horse hath ever the best hair; neither would your hairs be gathered from Nags, Mares, or Geldings, but from ston'd Horses only, of which the black hair is the worst, the white or gray best, and other colours indifferent. Those Lines which you make for small fish, as Gudgeon, Whiting or Menew, would be composed of three hairs: those which you make for Pearch or Trout would be of five hairs, and those for the Chub or Barbel would be of seven: To those of three hairs, you shall add one thread of silk; To those of five, two threads of silk; and to those of seven, three threads of silk. You shall twist your hairs neither too hard nor too slack, but even so as they may twind and couch close one within another, and no more, without either snarling or gaping one from another; the end you shall fasten together with a fishers knot, which is your ordinary fast knots, foulded four times about, both under and above, for this will not loose in the water, but being drawn close together, will continue, when all other knots will fail; for a hair being smooth and stiff, will yield and go back, if it be not artificially drawn together. Your ordinary line would be between three and four fadom in length; yet for as much as there are diversities in the length of rods, in the depth of waters, and in the places of standing to angle in, it shall be good to have lines of divers lengths, and to take those which shall be fittest for your purpose. See the articles by Sir Clements Markham in the Dictionary of National Biography, Arber's reprint (1871) of the Revenge poem, and Grosart's edition (1871) of the poems on St John and Mary Magdalene's lamentations. Thomas Storer (1571-1604), a Londoner, studied at Christ Church, became notable as a poet, and wrote a long poem in seven-line decasyllabic stanzas on the Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinall (1599). Malone thought that this work might, as well as Cavendish's Life, have helped to mould the conception and wording of the drama of Henry VIII. But even without that it is inevitable that the drama, which obviously follows Cavendish's words at times, should also present reflections in some measure parallel to such as these from Storer: Perchance the tenor of thy mourning verse . Seek'st thou for fame? hee's best that least is knowne. Or prince's favours? that's no common grant. Serv'st thou for wealth? a courtier knows his owne. Or for degree? preferment waxeth scant. Want'st thou to live? no hell to courtiers want. O rather yet embrace thy private lot With honest fame and riches purely got. Looke how the God of Wisedom marbled stands In Delphos Isle, at whose unpartiall hands If once we fall, we fall Colossus like, We fail at once like pillars of the sunne; They that betweene our stride their sailes did strike, Making us sea-markes where their shippe did runne, Even they that had by us their treasure wonne, Rise as we may by moderate degrees, If once we stoope, they'll bring us on our knees. Richard Barnfield (1574-1627) studied at Oxford, and while he was yet a young man settled on his estate in Staffordshire. His works are three small volumes of poetry, The Affectionate Shepherd (1594); Cynthia, with Certain Sonnets, and the Legend of Cassandra (1595); and a collection, The Encomion of Lady Pecunia, &c. (1598). He has a large measure of the melodiousness and sonority so strangely common to the Elizabethans; but he is best known from the two pieces believed to be his, printed as by Shakespeare, in the miscellany called The Passionate Pilgrim (see page 257). These pieces both from his last volume-are the ode, 'As it fell upon a day,' and the sonnet, ‘If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree;' and Professor Saintsbury still hints that 'As it fell' is much above Barnfield's usual level and really very like Shakespeare. Grosart (1876) and Arber (1882) in their editions of Barnfield denounce Collier's view that it is really two odes and is by Shakespeare. As it fell upon a day, In the merrie month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade, Which a grove of myrtles made ; Trees did grow, and plants did spring; That, to hear her so complaine, All thy friends are lapt in lead ; Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled, Is no friend in miserie. Words are easie, like the winde; Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend ; Sonnet to R. L. If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree Thou lov'st to heare the sweete melodious sound That Phoebus lute, the Queene of Musique, makes: One knight loves both, and both in thee remaine. It should be noted that the reference in the ode to Pandion, father of Philomela and Procne, brings in a very unmistakable echo of Spenser. For in the Shepherd's Calendar Cuddy lamented: And great Augustus long agoe is dead, And all the worthies liggen wrapt in lead That matter made for poets on to play. Thomas Campion (c. 1575-1620), physician, musician, and poet, was born at Witham, in Essex, studied at Cambridge and abroad, left Gray's Inn and the law for medicine, and practised as M.D. in London for the rest of his life, but found time to compose much good music and to write four masques and a large number of admirable lyrics. His first publication was a book of Latin epigrams (1595; enlarged, 1619); another was Observations on the Art of Poesie (1602), in which he, a born lyrist, advocated unrhymed verse; and a third was a small treatise on counterpoint. But it is as a writer of masques, and especially of lyrics, that he is best known. Some of his best songs are in his masques; others in a series of song-books or 'Bookes of Ayres,' the first edited by Rosseter in 1601, the third about 1617. The greater number of the best were actually written to music, usually his own, and are admirably singable. He was the contemporary of both Sidney and of Ben Jonson, and, like Jonson, is a connecting-link between Elizabethans and Jacobeans. Noteworthy is it, as Mr Gosse has pointed out, that he sang before Donne had exercised his masterful and disturbing influence on English poetry. His note is all his own, but in its peculiar combination of gracefulness and unstudied art has been compared with Fletcher's, Carew's, and Herrick's. Herrick evidently knew Campion's verse, and showed this in his own working out of suggestions from Campion's Cherry Ripe.' Now Winter Nights Enlarge. The number of their houres; Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o'erflow with wine, Shall waite on hunny love, While youthfull Revels, Masks, and Courtly sights, This time doth well dispence With lovers' long discourse; Much speech hath some defence, Though beauty no remorse. All doe not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted Ridles tell, Some Poems smoothly read. The Summer hath his joyes, And Winter his delights; Though Love and all his pleasures are but toyes, They shorten tedious nights. Cherry Ripe. There is a Garden in her face, Where Roses and white Lillies grow; A heav'nly paradice is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits doe flow. There Cherries grow which none may buy Till Cherry ripe themselves do cry. Those Cherries fayrely doe enclose Of Orient Pearle a double row; Which when her lovely laughter showes, They look like Rose-buds fill'd with snow. Yet them nor Peere nor Prince can buy Till Cherry ripe themselves doe cry. Her Eyes like Angels watch them still; Her Browes like bended bowes doe stand, Threatning with piercing frownes to kill All that attempt, with eye or hand, Those sacred Cherries to come nigh, Till Cherry ripe themselves do cry. To Lesbia. My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love; And though the sager sort our deedes reprove, If all would lead their lives in love like mee, When timely death my life and fortune ends, This poem, like Jonson's 'Come, my Celia' (page 409), is suggested by, rather than imitated from, the Vivamus, mea Lesbia, et Amemus of Catullus. Campion wrote songs of mourning on the death of Prince Henry in 1612, like so many of his contemporaries, but was happier in his Divine and Moral Songs. The first verse of 'When the god of merrie love' presents a very notable parallel to Burns's autobiographical 'Rantin' Rovin' Robin': When the god of merrie love Thus his wither'd nurse did say: For by thy continuall smiling I see thy power of beguiling.' In Burns's song it is the 'gossip' who 'keeks in the lufe' of the new-born Robin and foretells his character, especially his devotion to women and his fascination over them. The best of his masques, performed at Whitehall on Twelfth Night 1606-7 in honour of the marriage of Sir James Hay, is usually called 'The Lord Hayes Masque.' 'The Lord's Masque' celebrated in 1613 the more notable marriage of the Elector Palatine and the Princess Elizabeth. A third (1613) was performed before the queen at Caversham House on a progress to Bath; the fourth had for its occasion the ill-omened wedding of Somerset and his paramour, the divorced and infamous Countess of Essex (also 1613). Renewed interest in Campion, who had long been forgotten, is due wholly to Mr A. H. Bullen's edition of him in 1889. A good selection was published by Mr Ernest Rhys in 1896; a smaller selection of fifty of his songs appeared in the same year. Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson, the most conspicuous and accomplished dramatist after Shakespeare, was rarely called Benjamin in his own days, and never has been since. Thomas Heywood said in 1635: And Jonson, though his learned pen Was dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben. And of the sixty Johnsons in the Dictionary of National Biography he is, with the doubtful exception of a sixteenth-century Latin poet, the only one who preferred the contracted form of the family name. He was, according to his own account, the grandson of a gentleman from Carlisle originally, he believed, from Annandale -whose son (Ben's father) lost his estate and became a minister in Westminster. Ben, whose early years were full of hardship and vicissitude, was born some nine years after Shakespeare -in 1572-73. His father died a month before Ben's birth, and his mother marrying again, Ben was brought from Westminster School and put to the bricklayer's craft of his stepfather. Disliking the trade, he enlisted as a soldier and served in the Low Countries. He challenged and killed one of the enemy in single combat, in the view of both armies, and ever after reverted with pride to his conduct as a soldier. Fuller says he entered St John's College, Cambridge; but there is no evidence that either before or after his military escapade he was enrolled of the university--for, about the age of twenty, he is found married, and an actor in London. He made his début at a low theatre near Clerkenwell, and, as his opponents afterwards reminded him, failed completely as an actor. His wife was 'virtuous, but a shrew,' and they lived apart for a number of years. None of the children survived their father. As early as 1595 he was engaged in writing for the stage, either by himself or conjointly with others. He quarrelled with another performer, killed his antagonist in some kind of fight or duel, and being imprisoned, pled guilty, and was released through benefit of clergy. At this time he became a Roman Catholic, and did not return to the Anglican communion for twelve years. On regaining his liberty, he produced, in 1596, his Every Man in his Humour, which, revised, was brought out at the Globe Theatre in 1598. Shakespeare, who was one of the performers, had produced some of his finest comedies by this time, but Jonson was no imitator of his great rival. Jonson opened at new line in the drama: he felt his strength, and the public cheered him on with its plaudits. Queen Elizabeth patronised the new poet, and ever afterwards he was 'a man of mark and likelihood.' In 1599 appeared Every Man out of his Humour, less notable than its predecessor. Cynthia's Revels and the Poetaster followed, and the fierce rivalry and contention which clouded Jonson's after-life was fairly begun. He had attacked Marston and Dekker, two of his brotherdramatists, in present on this joyous occasion, and was reported to have produced a paper of poison which she intended to give her son in his liquor, rather than that he should submit to personal mutilation and disgrace, and another dose which she meant afterwards to have taken herself. Jonson's own conduct in this affair was spirited. He had no considerable share in the composition of the piece, and was, besides, in such favour that he would not have been molested; but this did not satisfy him,' BEN JONSON. After the National Portrait Gallery old copy of the Portrait by Gerard Honthorst. these plays (see page 423). Dekker replied with spirit in his Satiromastix, and Ben was silent for two years, 'living upon one Townsend, and scorning the world,' as is recorded in the diary of a contemporary. In 1603 he tried 'if tragedy had a more kind aspect,' and produced his classical drama Sejanus. Shortly after the accession of King James, a comedy called Eastward Hoe was written conjointly by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston. Some passages in this piece reflected on the Scottish nation; and the matter was represented to the king by one of his courtiers -Sir James Murray-in so strong a light that the authors were thrown into prison, and threatened with the loss of their ears and noses. They were not tried; and when Ben was set at liberty he gave an entertainment to his friends-Selden and Camden being of the number. His mother was to says Gifford; 'and he, therefore, with a high sense of honour, voluntarily accompanied his two friends prison, determined to share their fate.' We cannot now be certain what precisely was the deadly satire that moved the patriotic indignation of James; it was doubtless softened before publication; but in some copies of Eastward Hoe (1605) there is a passage in which the Scots are said to be dispersed over the face of the whole earth;' and the dramatist sarcastically adds: But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on't, in the world, than they are; and, for my part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [i.e. had been transported to Virginia], for we are all one countrymen now, you know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.' The offended nationality of James must have been laid to rest by subsequent adulation in court-masques, in which Jonson eulogised the conceited monarch as destined to raise the glory of England higher than Elizabeth! Jonson's three great comedies, Volpone, or the Fox; Epicone, or the Silent Woman; and The Alchemist, were his next serious labours; his second classical tragedy, Catiline, appeared in 1611. His fame had now reached its zenith; but he produced several other comedies and a vast number of masques, learned pageants, and court entertainments ere his star began visibly to decline. In 1618 he made a journey on foot to Scotland, where he had many friends. He was well received by the Scottish gentry, wrote a poem on Edinburgh (now lost), and meditated a pastoral or fisher play with its scene laid on Loch Lomond -which he did not visit but had described to him. The last of his visits was made to Drummond of Hawthornden, with whom he lived three weeks; and Drummond kept notes of his conversation, which were long after communicated to the world. Drummond entered in his journal the following very candid friend's character of Ben himself: 'He is 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 liveth; a dissembler of ill parts which reign in him; a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done; he is passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if well answered, at himself; for any religion, as being versed in both; interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst; oppressed with fantasy, which hath ever mastered his reason, a general disease in many poets.' This character is far from flattering, and though doubtless unconsciously surcharged (owing to the recluse habits and staid demeanour of Drummond), is probably substantially correct. Inured to hardships and to a free, boisterous life in his early days, Jonson contracted a marked roughness of manner and habits of intemperance. Priding himself immoderately on his classical acquirements, he was apt to slight and condemn his less learned associates; he was, and shows himself in his works, somewhat provokingly self-complacent ; while the conflict between his limited means and his love of social pleasures rendered him severe and saturnine in temper. Whatever he did was done with labour, and hence was highly appraised by himself. His contemporaries seemed fond of mortifying his pride, and he was often at war with actors and authors. With the celebrated architect, Inigo Jones, who was joined with him in the management of the court-masques, Jonson waged a long and bitter feud. The old story that he was so jealous of Shakespeare as to be 'malignant' towards him it is impossible to reconcile with his own words; but it had been constantly reaffirmed, with the support of proofs from words and allusions in the plays perverted to that sense, until Gifford annihilated the contention by an examination of the so-called 'proofs.' When his better nature prevailed, Jonson was capable of a generous warmth of friendship, and of just discrimination of genius and character. By James I. Jonson was appointed court-poet or laureate, and a little later he seems to have Sir refused the honour of knighthood. His literary reputation, his love of conviviality, and his colloquial powers now made his society much courted, and he became the centre of a band of wits. Walter Raleigh had founded a club, known to all posterity as the Mermaid Club, at which Jonson, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other poets had exercised themselves with 'wit-combats' more sparkling than their wine. Fuller says: Many were the wit-combats betwixt Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-ofwar: Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.' Another of their haunts was the Falcon Tavern, near the theatre in Bankside, Southwark. This society was now disbanded, but in a circle of younger contemporaries Jonson was a kind of venerated chief, a literary dictator, a Great Cham of the world of wits. The younger poets were mostly his 'sons,' or were 'sealed of the tribe of Ben'-Carew, Shackerley Marmion, Brome, Herrick, Cleveland, Suckling, and many others. The later days of Jonson were dark and painful. Attacks of palsy confined him to his house, and his necessities compelled him to write for the stage when his pen had lost its vigour and his work lacked the charm of novelty. In 1629 he produced his comedy the New Inn, which was damned by the audience. The king sent him a present of £100, and raised his laureate pension to the same sum per annum, adding a yearly tierce of Canary. Next year, however, we find Jonson, in an Epistle Mendicant, soliciting assistance from the Lord-Treasurer. He continued writing to the last. Dryden styled the later works of Jonson his dotages; some are certainly unworthy of him, but the Sad Shepherd, which he left unfinished, exhibits the poetical spontaneity of a youthful creation. He died on the 6th of August 1637, and was buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. The political confusions that followed prevented the erection of a sumptuous monument; but on the slab which covers his remains a visitor subsequently caused to be engraved the memorable epitaph, 'O RARE BEN JONSON!' Jonson founded a style of regular English comedy, massive, of permanent interest, yet not very attractive in its materials. His works consist of about fifty dramatic pieces, but by far the greater part are masques and interludes. His principal comedies are four in number-Every Man in his Humour, Volpone, the Silent Woman, and the Alchemist. After them come Bartholomew Fair, The Devil is an Ass, and The Staple of News. Jonson came forward with a conscious and deliberate intention-fully indicated in the |