In fashion and collection of himself:

And then as clear and confident as Jove.

Gal. And yet so chaste and tender is his ear,
In suffering any syllable to pass,

That he thinks may become the honour'd name
Of issue to his so examined self;

That all the lasting fruits of his full merit

In his own poems, he doth still distaste;
As if his mind's piece, which he strove to paint,
Could not with fleshly pencils have her right.

Tib. But to approve his works of sovereign worth,
This observation (methinks) more than serves ;
And is not vulgar. That which he hath writ,
Is with such judgment labour'd, and distill'd
Through all the needful uses of our lives,
That could a man remember but his lines,
He should not touch at any serious point,
But he might breathe his spirit out of him.
Cæs. You mean he might repeat part of his works,
As fit for any conference he can use?

Tib. True, royal Cæsar.

Cas. Worthily observed:

And a most worthy virtue in his works.
What thinks material Horace of his learning?

Hor. His learning savours not the school-like gloss,
That most consists in echoing words and terms:
And soonest wins a man an empty name :
Nor any long, or far fetch'd circumstance,
Wrapt in the curious general'ties of arts;
But a direct and analytic sum

Of all the worth and first effects of arts.
And for his poesy, 'tis so ramm'd with life,
That it shall gather strength of life, with being,
And live hereafter more admired than now.

Cæs. This one consent, in all your dooms of him,

See here comes Virgil; we will rise and greet him:
Welcome to Cæsar, Virgil. Cæsar and Virgil
Shall differ but in sound; to Cæsar, Virgil
(Of his expressed greatness) shall be made
A second sir-name; and to Virgil, Cæsar.
Where are thy famous Æneids? do us grace
To let us see, and surfeit on their sight.

Vir. Worthless they are of Cæsar's gracious eyes, If they were perfect; much more with their wants: Which yet are more than my time could supply. And could great Cæsar's expectation

Be satisfied with any other service,

I would not shew them.

Cæs. Virgil is too modest;

Or seeks, in vain, to make our longings more.
Shew them, sweet Virgil.

Vir. Then, in such due fear

As fits presenters of great works to Cæsar,
I humbly shew them.

Cas. Let us now behold

A human soul made visible in life:

And more refulgent in a senseless paper,
Than in the sensual complement of kings.
Read, read, thyself, dear Virgil; let not me
Prophane one accent with an untuned tongue :
Best matter, badly shown, shews worse than bad.
See then this chair, of purpose set for thee,
To read thy poem in; refuse it not.
Virtue, without presumption, place may take
Above best kings, whom only she should make.
Vir. It will be thought a thing ridiculous

To present eyes, and to all future times
A gross untruth; that any poet (void
Of birth, or wealth, or temporal dignity),
Should, with decorum, transcend Cæsar's chair.
Poor virtue raised, high birth and wealth set under,
Crosseth heav'ns courses, and makes wordlings wonder.
Cæs. The course of heaven, and fate itself, in this
Will Cæsar cross; much more all wordly custom.
Hor. Custom in course of honour ever errs:
And they are best, whom fortune least prefers.

Cæs. Horace hath (but more strictly) spoke our thoughts.

The vast rude swinge of general confluence

Is, in particular ends, exempt from sense:

And therefore reason (which in right should be
The special rector of all harmony)

Shall shew we are a man, distinct by it

From those, whom custom rapteth in her press.
Ascend then, Virgil; and where first by chance
We here have turn'd thy book, do thou first read.

Vir. Great Cæsar hath his will: I will ascend. 'Twere simple injury to his free hand,

That sweeps the cobwebs from un-used virtue,
And makes her shine proportion'd to her worth,
To be more nice to entertain his grace,
Than he is choice and liberal to afford it.

Cæs. Gentlemen of our chamber, guard the doors,
And let none enter; peace. Begin, good Virgil.

VIRGIL reads part of his fourth Eneid.
Vir. Mean while, the skies 'gan thunder, &c.

[This Roman Play seems written to confute those enemies of Ben. Jonson in his own days and ours, who have said that he made a pedantical use of his learning. He has here revived the whole court of Augustus, by a learned spell. We are admitted

to the society of the illustrious dead. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, converse in our own tongue more finely and poetically than they expressed themselves in their native Latin.-Nothing can be imagined more elegant, refined, and court-like than the scenes between this Lewis the Fourteenth of Antiquity and his Literati.-The whole essence and secret of that kind of intercourse is contained therein. The economical liberality by which greatness, seeming to wave some part of its prerogative, takes care to lose none of the essentials; the prudential liberties of an inferior which flatter by commanded boldness and soothe with complimental sincerity.]

THE SAD SHEPHERD: OR, A TALE OF ROBIN HOOD. BY BEN. JONSON.

Alken, an old Shepherd, instructs Robin Hood's Men how to find a Witch, and how she is to be hunted.

ROBIN HOOD. TUCK. LITTLE JOHN. SCARLET. SCATHLOCK. GEORGE. ALKEN. CLARION.

Tuck. Hear you how

Poor Tom, the cook, is taken! all his joints
Do crack, as if his limbs were tied with points:
His whole frame slackens, and a kind of rack
Runs down along the spondils of his back;
A gout, or cramp, now seizeth on his head,
Then falls into his feet; his knees are lead;
And he can stir his either hand no more
Than a dead stump to his office, as before.
Alk. He is bewitch'd.

Cla. This is an argument

Both of her malice, and her power, we see.

Alk. She must by some device restrained be, Or she'll go far in mischief.

Rob. Advise how,

Sage shepherd; we shall put it straight in practice.

Alk. Send forth your woodmen then into the walks, Or let them prick her footing hence; a witch

Is sure a creature of melancholy,

And will be found, or sitting in her fourm,

Or else at relief, like a hare.

Cla. You speak,

Alken, as if you knew the sport of witch-hunting,
Or starting of a hag.

Rob. Go, Sirs, about it,

Take George here with you, he can help to find her. John. Rare sport, I swear, this hunting of the witch Will make us.

Scar. Let's advise upon't, like huntsmen.

Geo. An we can spy her once, she is our own.

Scath. First think which way she fourmeth, on what wind:

Or north, or south.

Geo. For, as the shepherd said,

A witch is a kind of hare.

Scath. And marks the weather,

As the hare does.

John. Where shall we hope to find her?

Alk. Know you the witches dell?

Scar. No more than I do know the walks of hell.
Alk. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell,
Down in a pit o'er grown with brakes and briars,
Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey,

Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground,
'Mongst graves, and grots, near an old charnel house,
Where you shall find her sitting in her fourm,
As fearful, and melancholic, as that

She is about; with caterpillars' kells,

And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells.