grace and musical expression on parts of his masques and interludes which could hardly have been expected from his massive and ponderous hand. In some of his songs he equals Carew and Herrick in picturesque images, and in portraying the fascinations of love. A taste for nature is strongly displayed in his fine lines on Penshurst, that ancient seat of the Sidneys. His prose,

especially the Discoveries, is distinguished by admirable judgment, critical insight, and force and purity of diction.

To Celia-from 'The Forest.'

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent'st it back to me;

Since when, it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

Richard Cumberland was surprised to find that Jonson's famous song was based on the Greek of Philostratus; and Gifford was surprised at his surprise. But the fact is seldom sufficiently remembered; and nobody who does not look up the Greek will believe how close the noble English lyric is to the florid prose of the Greek sophist, Philostratus of Lemnos, who lived about 170-250

A.D.

He is probably best known in England by his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, part of which was translated and annotated by Charles Blount, the freethinker, in 1680, and issued as a freethinking attack on Christianity. Other works were Lives of the Sophists, sixty-four Imagines, a Heroicus, and twenty-four epistles, mostly amatory and full of ingenious but strained conceits. These letters, mostly quite short, are variously arranged; but in three of the epistles (Nos. 24, 30, and 31 in some old editions; in Kayser's ed., Teubner, 1870-71, Nos. 33, 2, and 46) occur the following sentences, providing the ideas of the first half of the first verse, and of both halves of verse 2 (there is no close parallel for the second part of verse 1):

Ἐμοὶ δε μόνοις πρέπινε τοῖς ὄμμασιν, ὧν καὶ ο Ζεὺς γευσάμενος οινοχόον παρεστήσατο. εἰ δὲ βούλει, τὸν μὲν οἶνον μὴ παρα πόλλυς, μόνου δὲ ἐμβαλοῦσα ὕδατος καὶ τοῖς χείλεσι προσφέρο ουσα πλήρου φιλημάτων τὸ ἔκπωμα καὶ οὕτως δίδου τοῖς δεομένοις.

Πέπομφά σοι στέφανον ῥόδων, οὐ σὲ τιμῶν, καὶ τοῦτο μὲν· γὰρ, ἀλλ' αὐτοῖς τι χαριζόμενος τοῖς ῥόδοις, ἵνα μὴ μαρανθῇ. εἰ δὲ βούλει τι φίλῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τὰ λείψαντα αὐτῶν ἀντίπέμψον μηκέτι πνέοντα ῥόδων μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ σοῦ.

The Sweet Neglect-from 'Epicone, or The Silent Woman.'

[From the Latin of Jean Bonnefons, French erotic poet, 1554-1614.] Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As you were going to a feast ;

Still to be powdered, still perfumed :
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art:
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

To Celia-from 'Volpone.'
[Suggested by Catullus: see page 401.]

Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we can the sports of love;
Time will not be ours for ever,

He at length our good will sever:
Spend not then his gifts in vain,
Suns that set may rise again;
But if once we lose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumour are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies?
Or his easier ears beguile,
So removed by our wile?
'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal,
But the sweet theft to reveal :
To be taken, to be seen,

These have crimes accounted been.

Hymn to Diana-from 'Cynthia's Revels.'
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear when day did close;
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal shining quiver:
Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

To Night-from 'The Vision of Delight.'
Break, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings;
Now all thy figures are allow'd,

And various shapes of things;
Create of airy forms a stream;

It must have blood, and nought of phlegm; And though it be a waking dream,

Yet let it like an odour rise

To all the senses here,

And fall like sleep upon their eyes,

Or music in their ear.

Song-from 'Underwoods.'

Oh, do not wanton with those eyes,

Lest I be sick with seeing;

Nor cast them down, but let them rise,
Lest shame destroy their being.

Oh, be not angry with those fires,
For then their threats will kill me ;
Nor look too kind on my desires,

For then my hopes will spill me.

Oh, do not steep them in thy tears,
For so will sorrow slay me;

Nor spread them as distraught with fears;
Mine own enough betray me.

me, all you This little story:

And know, for whom a tear you shed Death's self is sorry.

'Twas a child that so did thrive

In grace and feature,

As heaven and nature seem'd to strive
Which own'd the creature.

Years he number'd scarce thirteen
When fates turn'd cruel,

Yet three fill'd zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;

And did act, what now we moan,
Old men so duly,

As, sooth, the Parca thought him one,
He play'd so truly.

So by error to his fate

They all consented;

But viewing him since, alas too late!
They have repented;

And have sought, to give new birth,
In baths to steep him;

But being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.

The Triumph of Charis.

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 enamour'd do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side,

Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

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 elements' strife.
Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall o' the snow
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Have you felt the wool of the bever?
Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud of the briar?
Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

Epigram. To my Bookseller.
Thou that mak'st gain thy end, and wisely well,
Call'st a book good or bad as it doth sell,
Use mine so too; I give thee leave: but crave,
For the luck's sake, it thus much favour have,
To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought;
Not offer'd, as it made suit to be bought;
Nor have my title-leaf on posts or walls,
Or in cleft-sticks, advanced to make calls
For termers, or some clerk-like serving-man,

Who scarce can spell th' hard names; whose knight less can.
If without these vile arts it will not sell,

Send it to Bucklers-bury, there 'twill well.

Epigram.-To Dr Donne.

Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse,

Who to thy one all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet :
Longer a knowing than most wits do live,
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife;
All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!

You were not tied by any painter's law
To square my circle, I confess, but draw
My superficies that was all you saw.

Which if in compass of no art it came
To be described by a monogram,

With one great blot you had form'd me as I am.

Good Life, Long Life.

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be,

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear.
A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of light!

In small proportions we just beauties see :
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke.
Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

This epitaph on Sidney's noble and accomplished sister, the Countess of Pembroke, for whose delectation the Arcadia was written, was first printed as Jonson's by Whalley in his edition of 1756. 'This delicate epitaph is universally attributed to our author, though it hath never yet been printed with his works; it is, therefore, with some pleasure that I have given it a place here.' But about a hundred years before Aubrey had expressly said that the epitaph was by William Browne of Tavistock. Critical opinion is divided as to the provenance; Mr Bullen takes it as Browne's, Mr Sidney Lee as Jonson's.

Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H.
Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little?-reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.

If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth;

The other, let it sleep with death :
Fitter where it died to tell,
Than that it lived at all. Farewell.

On My First Daughter.

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth:
Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,

It makes the father less to rue.

At six months' end she parted hence

With safety of her innocence;

Whose soul Heaven's queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath placed among her virgin train : Where, while that severed doth remain, This grave partakes the fleshly birth, Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

To Penshurst (the home of the Sidneys].
Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show
Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row
Of polished pillars or a roof of gold:

Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told;
Or stair, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile,
And these grudged at are reverenced the while.
Thou joy'st in better marks of soil, of air,

Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair.
Thou hast thy walks for health as well as sport;
Thy mount to which the Dryads do resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made
Beneath the broad beech, and the chestnut shade;
That taller tree which of a nut was set

At his great birth where all the Muses met.
There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names
Of many a sylvan, taken with his flames.
And thence the ruddy satyrs oft provoke
The lighter fauns to reach thy Lady's Oak.

Thy copse, too, named of Gamage, thou hast here,
That never fails, to serve thee, seasoned deer,
When thou wouldst feast or exercise thy friends.
The lower land that to the river bends,
Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine, and calves do feed:
The middle ground thy mares and horses breed.
Each bank doth yield thee conies, and the tops
Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydney's copse,
To crown thy open table, doth provide
The purpled pheasant with the speckled side:
The painted partridge lies in every field,
And for thy mess is willing to be killed.
And if the high-swoln Medway fail thy dish,
Thou hast thy ponds that pay thee tribute fish,
Fat aged carps that run into thy net,
And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat,
As loth the second draught or cast to stay,
Officiously at first themselves betray.
Bright eels that emulate them, and leap on land
Before the fisher, or into his hand.

Thou hast thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers,
Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours.
The early cherry with the later plum,

Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come:

The blushing apricot and woolly peach
Hang on thy walls that every child may reach.
And though thy walls be of the country stone,

They're reared with no man's ruin, no man's groan;
There's none that dwell about them wish them down;
But all come in, the farmer and the clown,

And no one empty-handed, to salute

Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit.

Some bring a capon, some a rural cake,

Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make
The better cheeses, bring them, or else send

By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands; and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves, in plum or pear.
But what can this (more than express their love)
Add to thy free provisions, far above

The need of such? whose liberal board doth flow
With all that hospitality doth know! . . .

Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee With other edifices, when they see

Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else, May say their lords have built, but thy lord dwells. Touch or touch-stone is black basalt; it was Sir Philip Sidney 'at whose birth all the Muses met;' Barbara Gamage was the wife of Sir Robert Sidney (Philip's brother), Earl of Leicester.

To the Memory of my beloved Master William
Shakespeare, and what he hath left us.
[Originally in the First Folio of Shakespeare, 1623.]
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest 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 urges all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.
These are as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
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, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, 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 Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe'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 thund'ring Eschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova 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 shew,
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 Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

Seneca

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 Muses' 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-turned and true-filed 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
To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay; I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage

Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like
night,

And despairs day but for thy volume's light!

On the Portrait of Shakespeare.
[Under the Portrait by Droeshout in the First Folio.]
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to outdo the life:

O could he but have drawn his wit,
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.

Jonson's prose other than in drama may be illustrated by three paragraphs containing his judgment on Lord Bacon, taken from his Discoveries, which are in part a commonplace book of suggestions, in part a series of short essays on very various subjects, somewhat on the Baconian model :

From 'Discoveries.'

Dominus Verulamius.-One, though he be excellent, and the chief, is not to be imitated alone: for no imitator ever grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.

Scriptorum Catalogus.-Cicero is said to be the only wit that the people of Rome had equalled to their empire. Ingenium par imperio. We have had many, and in their several ages (to take in but the former seculum) sit

Thomas Moore, the elder Wiat, Henry earl of Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B. Gardiner, were for their times admirable; and the more, because they began eloquence with us. Sir Nicholas Bacon was singular and almost alone in the beginning of queen Elizabeth's time. Sir Philip Sidney and Mr Hooker (in different matter) grew great masters of wit and language, and in whom all vigour of invention and strength of judgment met. The earl of Essex, noble and high; and sir Walter Raleigh, not to be contemned either for judg ment or style. Sir Henry Savile, grave, and truly lettered; sir Edwin Sandys, excellent in both; lord Egerton, the chancellor, a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked. But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view and about his times were all the wits born that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and akun of our language.

De Augmentis Scientiarum.—Julius Cæsar.-Lord St Alban. I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs of the state, to take care of the commonwealth of learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of state; and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman than that part of the republic which we call the advancement of letters. Witness the care of Julius Cæsar, who in the heat of the civil war writ his books of Analogy and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late lord St Alban entitle his work Novum Organum: which though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, it is not penetrated nor understood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book

Qui longum noto scriptori proroget ævum.

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or honours: but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.

It was Ben who said—what is better applicable to another court than he knew 'A virtuous court a world to virtue draws;' 'Contempt of fame begets contempt of virtue;' 'Apes are apes though clothed in scarlet;' 'Posterity pays every man his honour ;' and who spoke of one plagued with an itching leprosy of wit.' 'Spread yourself on his bosom publicly whose heart you would eat in private' is one of his most cynical phrases; only less caustic is 'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean to be entreated either to begin or end.'

The standard edition of Jonson is the far from perfect one of Gifford (9 vols. 1816; reissued with some additional notes by Colonel Cunningham in 1875); a selection of the plays was edited by Brinsley Nicholson and C. H. Herford for the Mermaid Series' (3 vols. 1893-95); there are selections of plays and poems by Morley

(1884) and J. A. Symonds (1886); and Mr Wheatley's edition of Every Man in his Humour has a valuable introduction. See the Life by Gifford, Symonds's Ben Jonson in the English Worthies' series (1886), Mr Swinburne's brilliant Study of Ben Jonson (1890), and the valuable section on Jonson in Dr A. W. Ward's English Dramatic Literature (new ed. 1899).

John Donne, gallant and courtier, wit and poet, lived to be one of the greatest preachers of the English Church, and died the saintly Dean of St Paul's. He was born in London in 1573, his father, a prosperous ironmonger, being possibly of Welsh descent. His mother, daughter of John Heywood, epigrammatist and writer of interludes (supra, page 153), was descended from Sir Thomas More's sister; the family on both sides were devout Catholics, and several of them suffered danger and exile for the Catholic cause. John Donne, whose father died in 1576, leaving his widow with six children, was sent to Hart Hall, Oxford, but graduated at Cambridge, and was entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1592. He read much law and controversial theology, was bookish but sprightly and even wild, and allowed his exuberant vitality to carry him into unbecoming dissipations. His early poems, many of them outspokenly sensual and at times cruelly cynical, are held by Mr Gosse to contain a sincere autobiographical record of a scandalous liaison with a married woman, besides other lesser irregularities. He travelled abroad, took part in Essex's Cadiz expedition, and on his return was appointed secretary to the Lord-Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Ellesmere and Chancellor. He now came to know many of the most eminent men of the day, and wrote, without printing it, great part of his poetry. A characteristic poem of this time, The Progress of the Soul (1601), or Metemp sychosis, pursues a deathless soul through its transmigrations into many bodies, including those of a sparrow, a fish eaten by a pike, which is swallowed by a bird, and that by a whale. He fell violently in love with a niece of the LordKeeper's wife, and the pair were clandestinely married at the end of 1601; in consequence Donne was dismissed, and even for a time imprisoned. In the trying years of poverty that followed he showed an amount of servility to unworthy courtiers, such as Somerset and Buckingham, that even the custom of the age cannot justify; he did much of Somerset's dirty work in securing the divorce of his paramour, the afterwards so infamous Countess of Essex, and even wrote a gushing epithalamium for their remarriage. Having become an Anglican, Donne helped Dean (afterwards Bishop) Morton in his controversial writings against the Catholics, and himself indited a volume on the Catholics and the oaths of allegiance (The Pseudo-Martyr) and against the Jesuits (Ignatius his Conclave). Biathanatos, also a prose work, proved suicide to be no very heinous sin. Donne's Divine Poems mostly belong to this period, and include Holy Sonnets and A Litany. The first poem he printed was an elegy (1611) on Sir Robert Drury's