Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ That golden little book of noble thoughts and subtle observations is the one only province of his vast and varied empire which yet remains for us to examine; and in none other will there be found more ample and more memorable evidence how truly great a man demands our homage—'on this side idolatry'—for the imperishable memory of Ben Jonson. ”

“ Among the great dramatic poets of the Shakespearean age there are several who would still have a claim to enduring remembrance as poets, even had they never written a line for the theatre: there are two only who would hold a high rank among the masters of English prose. For Nash was not a poet or a dramatist who wandered occasionally into prose by way of change or diversion: he was a master of prose who strayed now and then into lyric or dramatic verse. Heywood, Middleton, and Ford have left us more or less curious and valuable works in prose ”

“ The case of Ben Jonson is the great standing example of a truth which should never be forgotten or overlooked; that no amount of learning, of labour, or of culture will supply the place of natural taste and native judgment—will avail in any slightest degree to confer the critical faculty upon a man to whom nature has denied it. ”

“ Chloral is not only more dangerous but very much less certain as a soporific: the sleeplessness which could resist the influence of Mr. Rutter's verse can be curable only by dissolution; the eyes which can keep open through the perusal of six consecutive pages must never hope to find rest but in the grave.
The many ceremonial or occasional poems addressed to friends and patrons of various ranks and characters, from the king and queen to a Mr. Burges and a Mr. Squib, are of equally various interest, now graver and now lighter, to a careful student of Ben Jonson as a poet and a man. ”

“ What they want is that magic without which the very best verse is as far beneath the very best prose as the verse which has it is above all prose that ever was or ever can be written. And there never was a generation of Englishmen in which this magic was a gift so common as it was in Jonson's. ”

“ The fourth and final poem of the little series is especially impressive and attractive. The turn of the sentences and the cadence of the verse are no less significant of the authorship than is a noble couplet in the poem immediately preceding them—which would at once be recognized by a competent reader as Jonson's:
So may the fruitful vine my temples steep,
And fame wake for me when I yield to sleep!
The 'epistle answering to one that asked to be sealed of the tribe of Ben' is better in spirit than in execution; manful, straightforward, and upright. ”

“ The Forest.there is none that is worthy of the highest. To come so near so often and never to touch the goal of lyric triumph has never been the fortune and the misfortune of any other poet. Vigour of thought, purity of phrase, condensed and polished rhetoric, refined and appropriate eloquence, studious and serious felicity of expression, finished and fortunate elaboration of verse, might have been considered as qualities sufficient to secure a triumph for the poet in whose work all these excellent attributes are united and displayed ”

“ Macaulay, in a well-known passage, has spoken of Ben Jonson's 'rugged rhymes'; but rugged is not exactly the most appropriate epithet. Donne is rugged: Jonson is stiff. And if ruggedness of verse is a damaging blemish, stiffness of verse is a destructive infirmity. Underwoods.Ruggedness is curable; witness Donne's Anniversaries: stiffness is incurable; witness Jonson's Underwoods. In these, as in the preceding series called The Forest, there is so lavish a display of such various powers as cannot but excite the admiration they demand and deserve. ”

“ And consequently not one devoted student in a thousand has a chance of knowing what he has a right to know of the gradations and variations in expression, the development and the self-discipline in display, of the most transcendent intelligence that ever illuminated humanity. ”

“ The version of one of Martial's gracefullest epigrams flows more pleasantly than usual till it ends with a horrible jolt, thus:—
He that but living half his days dies such,
Makes his life longer than 'twas given him, much.
And Echo answers—Much! Gifford, however, waxes ecstatic over these eight lines. 'It is the most beautiful of all the versions of this elegant poem,' and, if we may believe him, 'clearly and fully expresses the whole of its meaning.' Witness the second line—
Thou worthy in eternal flower to fare. ”

“ The fifth of these poems, A Nymph's Passion, is not only pretty and ingenious, but in the structure of its peculiar stanza may remind a modern reader of some among the many metrical experiments or inventions of a more exquisite and spontaneous lyric poet, Miss Christina Rossetti. The verses 'on a lover's dust, made sand for an hour-glass,' just come short of excellence in their fantastic way; those on his picture are something more than smooth and neat; those against jealousy are exceptionally sweet and spontaneous, again recalling the manner of the poetess just mentioned ”

“ And in the case of Shakespeare's most loyal comrade and panegyrist—though sometimes, it may be, his rather captious rival and critic—the neglect of his professed devotees and editorial interpreters has been scarcely less scandalous and altogether as incomprehensible. In every edition which makes any pretence to completeness, or to satisfaction of a serious student's indispensable requisites and inevitable demands, the first text of Every Man in his Humour should of course be given in full. ”

“ If a fit liver thou dost seek to toast.
Fate and fire did a double injury, if not a double injustice, to Ben Jonson, when his commentary on Horace's Art of Poetry was consumed and his translation of the text preserved. The commentary in which Donne was represented under the name of Criticus must have been one of the most interesting and valuable of Jonson's prose works: the translation is one of those miracles of incompetence, incongruity, and insensibility, which must be seen to be believed. ”

“ Another of the laureate's best effusions of official verse is the short ode which bids his 'gentle Muse' rouse herself to celebrate the king's birthday, 'though now our green conceits be grey,' with good wishes which have a tragic ring in the modern reader's ear. A more unequal poem than the elegy on the Marchioness of Winchester is hardly to be found anywhere ”

“ The little interlude, however broad and even coarse in its realistic pleasantry, is a quaint and spirited piece of work; but there are other matters in Colonel Cunningham's appendix which have no right, demonstrable or imaginable, to the place they occupy. It is incredible, it is inconceivable, that Jonson should ever have written such a line as this by way of a Latin verse:
Macte: tuo scriptores lectoresque labore (!!!) ”