thern in Bartholomew Fair, confifts in the title there given him of Parcel-Poet.'

Bartholomew Fair' was fucceeded by the Devil's an Afs,' in 1616. This year he published his works in one folio volume, and the Poet-Laureat's falary, of 100 marks per annum, was fettled upon him for life by King James I. the fame year. Crowned with these honours by his Prince, he faw the moft diftinguishing wits of his time crouding his train and courting his acquaintance. And, in that spirit, he was invited to Chriftchurch, in Oxford, by Dr. Corbet, then fenior student of that college. Our poet gladly accepted the invitation; and, having paffed fome time in cultivating his muse in that delightful feat, he received an additional atteftation of his merit from the University, who prefented him with the honorary degree of Mafter of Arts, at the act in 1619. On the death of the Laureat, Samuel Daniel, in October following, Jonfon fucceeded to that poft, the duty of which had been chiefly performed by him a long time before. The year had not expired, when our newcrowned Laureat took a tour into Scotland, on purpose to vifit a favourite brother-poet, Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden in that country. He passed some months with this ingenious friend, to whom he opened his heart with a moft unreserved freedom and confidence, the fweeteft gift of friendship.

Our author was much pleased with the adventures of this journey, and celebrated them in a particular poem; which, together with feveral more of his productions, being accidentally burnt, about two or three afterwards, that lofs drew from him a poem, which he called An Execration upon Vulcan.' It begins with these lines:

years

And why to me this, thou lame Lord of fire? What had I done, that might call on thine ire, Or urge thy greedy flames thus to devour So many my years labour in an hour? I ne'er attempted, Vulcan, 'gainst thy life.Had I wrote treafon there, or herefy, Impofture, witchcraft charms, or blafphemy, I had deferv'd then thy confuming looks. In proceeding, he enumerates the feveral kinds of loose or low writing, and particularly the unnatural romances, fpawned in the age of chivalry, together with the factious pamphlets, written especially by the Puritans in this and the preceding age; all which being condemned to the flames, he goes on thus:

Thefe,had'st thou pleafed either to dine or fup, Had made a meal for Vulcan to lick up.

He feems to have let no year pafs without the amusement of writing fome of thefe

par

fmaller pieces. And thofe, with the mafques, which the office of Poet-Laureat then ticularly called for every Christmas, filled up the interval to the year 1625; when his comedy, intitled The Staple of News,' appeared upon the ftage. Not long afterwards he fell into an ill ftate of health, which, however, did not hinder the discharge of his duty at Court. And he found time alfo to gratify the more agreeable exercife of playwriting; for, in 1629, he brought another comedy, called The New Inn, or the Light Heart,' to the theatre. But here his adverfaries prevailed over him; the play was hiffed out of the house on its first appearance there; and our Laureat had recourse to his pride for a revenge, which dictated an Ode to himself,' threatening to leave the ftage. It confifts of fix ftanzas. The two firft are as follow:

Come leave the loathed stage, And more the loathsome age, Where pride and impudence in fashion knit, Ufurp the chair of wit; Indieting and arraigning every day Something they call a play. Let their faftidious, vain, Commiffion of the brain

Run on and rage, fweat, cenfure, and condemn;

They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat, Twere fimple fury still thyself to wastę And they will acorns eat :

On fuch as have no taste. To offer them a furfeit of pure bread, Whofe appetites are dead; No, give them grains their fill, Husks, draft to drink and fwill. If they love lees, and leave the lufty wine, Envy them not their palates with the fwine.

This disappointment added to the continuance of his illness; and, the poet's ordinary foible, bad œconomy, having reduced his finances to a low ebb, the King graciously fent him a purse of a hundred pounds. That goodness was properly and in character repaid by an epigram, addressed to his royal benefactor:

Great Charles, amongst the holy gifts of grace,

Annexed to thy perfon and thy place,
'Tis not enough (thy piety is fuch)
But thou wilt yet a kinglier maft ry try,
To cure the call'd King's evil with a touch,
To cure the poet's evil, poverty:
And in thefe cures doft to thyfelf enlarge,
As thou do cure our evil at thy charge,

Nay,

ay, and in this thou fheweft to value more ne poet, than of other folks ten score. piety! fo to weigh the poor's eftates. bounty! fo to difference the rates. 7hat can the poet with his King may do, at that he cure the people's evil too.

The two last lines allude to the murmurs that time upon the diffolution of the Par¡ment. But his Majefty's munificence did t ftop there; he augmented the Laureat's lary of a hundred marks to a hundred unds a year, together with the addition of tierce of Canary wine; which penfion has en continued to his fucceffors in that office er fince. Our poet drew up a petition for is favour in the following form:

The humble petition of poor Ben,
To th' best of Monarchs, mafters, men,
King Charles.

Doth most humbly shew it,
To your Majefty, your poet:
That whereas your royal father,
James the bleffed, pleas'd the rather,
Of his fpecial grace to letters,
To make all the mufes debtors
To his bounty: By extenfion
Of a free poetic pension,
A large hundred marks annuity,
To be given me in gratuity,
For done fervice, and to come:
And that this fo accepted fum,
Or difpenfed in books or bread,
(For on both the mufe was fed)
Hath drawn on me from the times
All the envy of the rhimes,
And the rattling pit-pat noise
Of the lefs poetic boys,
When their pot-guns aim to hit,
With their pellets of fmall wit,
Parts of me (they judg'd) decay'd,
But we laft out ftill, unlay'd.
Please your Majefty to make,
Of your grace, for goodness fake,
Thofe your father's marks your pounds:
Let their spite (which now abounds)
Then go on, and do its worst,
This would all their envy burft:
And fo warm the poet's tongue,
You'll read a fnake in his next fong.

Notwithstanding the handsome addition here made to him, his finances were continually in diforder and deficient, and that defect made him a beggar. There is good reafon to believe, that he had alfo a penfion from the city, from feveral of the Nobility and Gentry; and particularly from Mr. Sutton, the founder of the Charter-houfehofpital, in London. It is certain the applications we have of his, in this way, thew, that Ben's foibles were the ufual ones gens

rally incident to a head poetically turned, heedleffness and extravagance. This fuffi ciently appears from the following address:

To Mr. JOHN BURGES.
Father John Burges,
Neceffity urges
My woeful cry
To Sir Robert Pye,
And that he will venture
To fend my debenture.
Tell him his Ben
Knew the time when
He lov'd the muses,
Though now he refufes
To take apprehenfion
Of a year's penfion,
And more is behind:
Put him in mind,
Christmas is near;
And neither good chear,
Mirth, fooling nor wit,
Nor any leaft fit
Of gambol or fport
Will come at the Court
If there be no money,
No plover or coney
Will come to the table"
Or wine to enable
The mufe or the poet,
The parish will know it.

Nor any quick warming-pan help him to bed;
If th' Chequer be empty, fo will be his head.
To this purpose Cowley comforts himself,
that

-Such were all th' inspired tuneful men, Such all his grandfires from Homer down to Ben.

King Charles the Firft's perfonal character makes it no improbable fuppofition, that thefe acts of favour might be in fome meafure the effects of his compaffion for this fervant, who began now to fink into a visible decay both of body and mind. It is true, we have two comedies wrote by him afterwards; but they are fuch as have not unfitly been called his dotage; and he found himself under a neceffity of abfolutely laying down his pen foon after the year 1634. His laft mafque, called Love's Welcome," &c. was perfonated July 30, 1634. The only piece we have with a date after that is his New-year's ode for 1635. There are indeed two dramatic pieces left unfinished; the time of writing them is uncertain. Thefe are intitled, The Sad Shepherd, a Paftoral Tragedy, and the Fall of Mortimer.' Of this laft there is only the plan of the drama, and one or two fenes. It is faid he died and left it unfinifd. His editor is of opi

nion that, had he completed his defign with the fame fpirit in which he began it, we fhould have been able to boast of one perfect tragedy at least, formed upon the ancient model, and giving us the happiest imitation of the ancient drama. The Sad Shepherd is carried on almoft to the conclufion of the third act, and in act I, fcene V, we read the following lines of a true poetical inspiration: No fun or moon, or other chearful star, Look'd out of heaven! but all the cope was dark

As it were hung fo for her exequies!

And not a voice or found to ring her knell, But of that difinal pair, the fcreeching owl, And buzzing hornet! Hark! hark! hark! The foul bird! How the flutters with her wicker wings.

Peace! You fhall hear her fcritch.

The remaining pieces of our author, are his tranflation of Horace's Epiftola ad Pifones; an English Grammar; and his observations on men and things, called Dif coveries. The first of these was tranflated in his youth. In the preface to Sejanus he fays, he intended shortly to publish it with notes; but it did not appear in print till after his death, and then without notes, the fate of which has been already mentioned; and much of what was intended for them, is inferted in the Discoveries.' Thefe make a very excellent piece, the fruits of matare and judicious age, valuable not only for the fentiments and obfervations, but as a pattern of a nervous and concife ftile. His Grammar was also written by him when advanced in years; and Mr. Wotton fpeaking of it, obferves, that it was the first confiderable attempt with regard to the fubject. But we muft agree with that author, that herein Fonfon made Lilly's Grammar his pattern; and for want of reflecting upon the grounds of a language, which he understood as well as any man of his age, he drew it by violence to a dead language that was of a quite different make, and fo left his book imperfect.

His diforder was the palfy, which put a period to his life, August 6, 1637, in the 63d year of his age. He was interred three days afterwards in Westminster abbey, at the north-west end near the belfrey: Over his grave was laid a common pavementftone, with this laconic infcription, Rare Ben Jonfor. It was done at the expence of Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Young of Great Milton, in Oxfordshire. But a much better monument was raifed to his memory fix months afterwards, when there came out a collection of elegies and poems, intitled, Jonfonius Virbius » Or, the Memory of Ben

Jonfon revived by the Friends of the Mufes." And, prefently after, there was a defign fet on foot to erect a marble monument with his ftatue, and a confiderable fum of money was.collected for the purpose; but the breaking out of the rebellion prevented the carrying of it into execution, and the money was returned. The buft, in bas-relievo, with the former infcription under it, that is now fixed to the wall in the poets corner, near the fouth-eaft entrance into the abbey, was fet up by that great patron of learning, the fecond Earl of Oxford of the Harley family.

As to our poet's own family, it became children. It remains that we exhibit a kind. extinct with him, for he furvived all his of portrait of his perfon and character. As to the first, then, if we may depend upon his own defcription, his body was large, corpulent, and bulky, and his countenance hard and rocky; fo that his figure greatly refembled that of Sir John Falstaff, and confequently could not be much lefs apt to raife laughter. Nor was the caft off his temper and natural difpofition at all more refpectable, as reprefented by his friend Mr. Drummond, who obferves him to be A great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and fcorner of others; chufing rather to lose his friend than his jeft; jealous of every word and action of thofe about him, efpe cially after drink, which was one of the elements in which he lived; a diffembler of the parts which reigned in him; a bragger of fome good that he wanted; he thought nothing right, but what either himself or fome of his friends had faid or done. He was paffionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if he was well anfwered, greatly chagrined; interpreting the beft fayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for any religion, being verfed in both; oppreffed with fancy, which overmattered his reafon, a general disease among the poets. As an inftance of this, he told this friend, that he had spent many a night in looking at his great toe, about which he had seen Turks and Tartars, Romans and Carthaginians, fight in his imagination.

He had a very ftrong memory; for he tells us himself in his Difcoveries, that in his youth he could have repeated whole books that he had read, and poems of fome felect friends, which he thought worth charging his memory with. Laftly, as to his genius, the character of it, in refpect to dramatic poetry, has been already touched upon. which must be added Mr. Pope's remark, that, When our author got poffeffion of the stage, he brought critical learning into vogue; and that this was not done without difficulty, which appears from those frequent

To

leffons

must be fimple enough to be perceived, and varied enough to be perceived with pleasure. There are fome things which appear varied, and are not fo; and others which appear uniform, and are much varied.

The Gothic architecture appears extremely varied; but the confufion of its ornaments fatigues us by their fmallness, which makes it impoffible for us to diftinguish them from each other; and their number prevents the eye from fixing upon any one of them; fo that it difgufts us by thofe very parts which were intended to render it agreeable.

A building of the Gothic order is a kind of riddle to the eye which beholds it; and the mind is embarraffed, in the fame way as when an obfcure poem is prefented to it.

The Grecian architecture, on the contrary, appears uniform; but, as it has as many divifions as it ought, and are proper to make the mind fee precifely as much as it can without being fatigued, and, at the fame time, enough to give it employment, has that variety which makes it be beheld with pleasure.

Great objects ought to have great parts; large men have large arms, great trees have great branches, huge mountains are divided into other mountains bigger and lefs in proportion; it is the nature of things which does this.

The Grecian architecture, which has few divifions and grand ones, imitates the nature of things; the foul is ftruck with a certain majesty, which every-where abounds in it.

It is thus that painting divides, into groupes of three or four figures, what it reprefents in a picture; it imitates Nature; a numerous troop is always divided into platoons; it is thus too, that the painter makes grand divifions of his light and shade. I have faid, that the mind loves variety; however, in most things, it loves to fee a certain fymmetry. This feems to imply a fort of contradiction: I thus explain it.

One of the principal caufes of the pleasure of our foul, when it perceives objects, is the facility with which it perceives them; and the reason that makes proportion please the mind is, that it fayes it trouble, that it gives it eafe, and that, fo to speak, it cuts the work into halves.

From this a general rule is derived; every-where that fymmetry is useful to the foul, and can affift its functions, it is agreeable to it; but, wherever it is ufelefs to it, it is infipid, because it takes away variety. Now thofe things which we fee in fucceffion ought to have variety, for our mind has no difficulty to perceive the; thofe, on the contrary, which we perceive all at once, ought to have

fymmetry. Thus, as we perceive with one glance of our eye the front of a building, a parterre, a temple, they are with propriety proportioned; which pleafes the mind, by that facility which it gives it of embracing all at once the whole object.

As it is neceffary that an object, which we ought to see all at once, fhould be fimple, it is neceffary too that it be one, and that all its parts have a relation to the principal objest; it is for this reafon alfo that we love fymmetry, it makes an united whole.

It is according to nature, that a whole be complete; and the mind, which fees this whole, wishes that it may have no part imperfect. It is on this account alfo that we love fymmetry; there must be a fort of poifing or balancing; and a building with one wing, or one wing fhorter than another, is as unfinished, as a body with one aim, or one arm too short.

The foul loves fymmetry, it alfo loves contrafts; this requires to be a good deal explained. For example: If Nature requires of painters and fculptors, to proportion the parts of their figures, it requires alfo, that they contraft their different attitudes. One foot placed like another, one member extended like another, are infupportable; the reafon of it is, because this fymmetry makes the attitudes be almost always the fame; which we may obferve in Gothic figures, which by this almost always resemble each other; thus there is no more variety in the works of art. Besides, Nature has not made us thus; and, as the has given us motion, she has not formed us in our actions and manners like pagods; and, if men thus ftiff and constrained are intolerable, what must it be in the productions of art?

The attitudes must then be contrasted, especially in works of sculpture, which, naturally languid, cannot be animated, but by the force of contraft and fituation.

But, as we faid that the variety, which they have endeavoured to give the Gothic, has made it quite uniform; it has often happened, that that variety, which they have endeavoured to give us by the means of contrafts, has become a vicious fymmetry and uniformity.

This is not perceived in certain works of painting and sculpture only, but alfo in the ftyle of fome writers, who, in every phrase, contraft the beginning with the end by perpetual antithefes; fuch as St. Auguftine and other authors of the low Latin; and fone of our moderns, as St. Evremont. The turn of the phrafe always the fame, and always uniform, difpleafes extremely; perpetual contraft becomes fymmetry,

this