'SAD SHEPHERD.'

'No sun or moon, or other chearful star

Look'd out of heav'n! but all the cope was dark,
As it were hung so for her exequies!

And not a voice or sound to ring her knell,

But of that dismal pair, the screeching owl,

And buzzing hornet. Hark! hark! hark!

The foul bird. How she flutters with her wicker wings!
Peace! you shall hear her scritch!'

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Since the province of this work is not connected with the drama, it is useless to enter into the often vexed subject of Shakespeare's superiority to Ben Jonson, or to draw a parallel between them. Shakespeare, as Gifford remarks, 'wants no light but his own, he has never been equalled, and probably never will be equalled.' Jonson,-we cannot do better than use the words of his biographers,-'was familiar with the various combinations of the humours and affections, and with the nice and evanescent tints by which the extremes of opposing qualities melt into one another, and are lost to the vulgar eye.'

In spite of reports prevalent after Shakespeare's death, a great friendship subsisted between the poets. The meetings at the celebrated Mermaid Tavern have been often commemorated. Shakespeare, it is said, was godfather to one of Jonson's children. After the christening, Will' fell into a deep study, and on 'Ben' asking him the cause of his being so melancholy?

6

'No faith, Ben,' was the reply; 'not I, but I have been considering a long time what present I should bestow on my godchild, and I have resolved at last.'

'I prithee what?' cries Ben.

'I faith, Ben, I'll e'en give her a dozen Latin (latten) spoons, and thou shalt translate them.'

If the repartees of those times, observes Dr. Drake, were no better than this, it must be confessed we have no great reason to complain of the loss of many of them.'

6

This anecdote, and other traditions, seem to prove that

202

SHAKESPEARE AND JONSON BOON COMPANIONS.

these poets were friends, or rather boon companions; but, like many other persons, they stood on a precipice so far as a continuance of friendship might be expected, for Jonson was one of those who would rather lose his friend than his jest; he was jealous of every word or action of those around him, especially after drink,' which Drummond tells us, was 'one of the elements in which he lived.' And this propensity is said to have been 'notoriously true;' as, unhappily, it has been of many a literary man before and since Jonson's time.

Father as he was of poetry during the latter part of the seventeenth century, Jonson did not disdain to draw up in Latin verse rules for the Formation of the Tavern Academy, or, Laws for the Beaux Esprits. In this club the ladies, not spinsters, not the Englishwomen' of our day, but matrons, were to be admitted; and the club was to be so formed that such additions to the party could be with propriety introduced.

'As the fund of our pleasure let each pay his shot,
Except some chance friend whom a member brings in:

Far hence be the sad, the lewd fop, and the sot;
For such have the plagues of good company been.

'Let the learned and witty, the jovial and gay,

The generous and honest compose our free state;
And the more to exalt our delight while we stay,

Let none be debarred from his choice female mate.'

The club was held in the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, and the room in which it met was immortalized by the name Apollo. The Devil Tavern was at that time kept by Old Sim, or Simon Wadloe, handed down to posterity by the old catch beginning' Old Simon the King.'

We cannot quit the reference to Ben Jonson without recurring to his Masques. It would be in vain to enter minutely into his miscellaneous writings; for the field is too large, the subject too various. As the writer of Masques, he led the

tastes of the day. One thing which strikes the readers of these beautiful productions is the purity of their sentiments and language.

The tone of literature in Elizabeth's time was lofty, its expressions comparatively chaste. Gradually that tone deteriorated, until it sank to the lowest standard in the time of Charles the Second. Nothing can afford a plainer evidence of the demoralization of society after the civil war, than this changed and degenerated moral tone. Society had, in fact, been broken up, and after the Puritans had substituted artificial professions for vital religion, the reaction was sure to favour the cause of mad pleasure and licence.

It is agreeable to dwell, though but for a short time, on Jonson's Masques; for they were the features of a brighter day than those in which the 'new light,' as Butler termed it, began to shine.

'Whate'er men speak by this new light,

Still they're sure to be in the right.

'Tis a dark lanthorn of the spirit,

Which none see by but those that bear it.'

Not only did these delightful Masques of Jonson exercise an intellectual, but they also shed a moral influence over the youth of England. The young must have recreation; 'tis an obligation of nature. If disregarded, the intellect becomes enfeebled, the body languishes before its time. The Masque was an admirable change after the hunting field, or the heronry; it occupied the thoughts, it called out the ingenuity of the young and highly born; it brought both sexes into an agreeable intimacy. It promoted temperance-for insobriety and the performance of the Masque were incompatible; it gave to the indolent, motives of action; to the restless, a standing point. It was elegant, chaste, fanciful; to a certain extent, gently laborious. Even the Moralities or Mysteries exhibited before the Reformation had their use, and the various

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NOBLE SENTIMENTS IN JONSON'S MASQUES.

events of sacred history, which were displayed on pasteboard scenery, led, it is said, to the perusal more generally of the Old and New Testament, and so were these representations called the Elder Brothers of the Reformation.'

And so, the noble sentiments in the Masques of Jonson may have produced in the higher classes some of those chivalric notions which appeared so forcibly and so fully during the civil war. At all events the combination of literature, music, and scenery, were delights far more rational and elevating than the enfeebling and injurious dissipation, and the reckless gambling that came in with the Restoration.

CHAPTER X.

SAMUEL BUTLER, SON OF AN OBSCURE FARMER; HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH SELDEN'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. HIS LEARNING.

JOHN SELDEN.

LIBERALITY TO POOR SCHOLARS.

HUDIBRAS DISPUTED.

HIS BUTLER IS APPOINTED SECRETARY TO SIR MAY-DAY IN THE OLDEN TIME. THE CHARACTER OF SIR BUTLER RECEIVES A PRESENT FROM THE KING.