Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakspeare far above him.

Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had with the advantage of Shakspeare's wit, which was their precedent, great natural gifts, improved by study; Beaumont especially being so accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted all his writings to his censure, and, 'tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots. What value he had for him appears by the verses he writ to him, and therefore I need speak no further of it.

The first play which brought Fletcher and him in esteem, was their "Philaster," for before that they had written two or three very unsuccessfully, and the like is reported of Jonson, before he writ "Every Man in his Humour." Their plots were generally more regular than Shakspeare's, especially those which were written before Beaumont's death; and they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better, whose wild debaucheries and quickness of repartee no poet can ever paint as they have done. That humour which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe; they represented all the passions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language arrived in them to its highest perfection; what words have been taken in since, are rather superfluous than necessary.

Their plays are now the most pleasant ana frequent entertainments of the stage, two of theirs being acted throughout the year for one of Shakspeare's or Jonson's. The reason is, because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally all men's humour. Shakspeare's language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs.

As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had.

He

was a most severe judge of himself as well as of others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language and humour also we had before him; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any that preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such a height. Humour was his proper sphere, and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people.

He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them; there is not a poet or historian among the Roman authors of these times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus, and Cataline. But he has done his robberies so openly that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in others, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen no more of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, it was that he weaved it too closely and laboriously in his serious plays; perhaps, too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them; wherein, though he learnedly followed the idiom of their language, he did not enough comply with ours.

If I would compare him with Shakspeare, I would acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing. I admire him, but I love Shakspeare.

H

ROBERT SOUTH.

ROBERT SOUTH, sometimes cited as the "wittiest of English divines," was born A.D. 1633, distinguished himself at Oxford, where he was public orator, and by the eminence of his gifts, and the loyalty of his political opinions, obtained several valuable church livings. He is said to have been singularly conscientious in the discharge of his parochial duties, spending the surplus of his pluralities in charity. His death occurred in 1716.

MAN BEFORE THE FALL.

THE understanding, the noblest faculty of the mind, was then sublime, clear and aspiring, and, as it were, the soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and disturbance of the inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the passions wore the colour of reason; it did not so much persuade as command; it was not consul, but dictator.

Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it can discuss. Like the the sun it had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion, no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly apprehend as irradiate the object; not so much find as make things intelligible. It arbitrated upon the several reports of sense and all the varieties of imagination; not like a drowsy judge only hearing, but directing their verdict. In short it was vegete, quick and lively; open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of the innocence and sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and full view into all things, and was not only a window, but was itself the prospect.

Adam came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without the comment of their respective properties; he could see consequences yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn in the womb of their

causes; his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents, his conjectures improving even to prophecy or the certainties of prediction; till his fall he was ignorant of nothing but sin; or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been as easy as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his enquiries was an "I have found it, I have found it ”—the offspring of his brain without the sweat of his brow.

Study was not then a duty, night watchings were needless; the light of reason wanted not the assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen man, to labour in the fire, to seek truth in the deep, to exhaust his time and impair his health, and perhaps to spin out all his days and himself into one pitiful controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for invention; his faculties were quick and expedite; they answered without knocking; they were ready upon the first summons; there was freedom and firmness in all their operations.

I confess it is as difficult for us, who date our ignorance from our first being, and were still bred up with the same infirmities about us with which we were born, to raise our thoughts and imaginations to those intellectual perfections that attended our nature in the time of innocence, as it is for a peasant bred up in the obscurities of a cottage to fancy in his mind the unseen splendours of a court. But by rating positives by their privatives, and other aids of reason by which discourse supplies the want of the reports of sense, we may collect the excellency of the understanding then by the glorious resemblance of it now, and guess at the stateliness of the building from the magnificence of its ruins. All those arts, rarities, and inventions which vulgar minds gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, are but the relics of an intellect defaced with sin and time. We admire it now only as antiquaries do a piece of old coin, for the stamp it once bore, and not for those vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts

that remain upon it at present. And certainly that must needs have been very glorious the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

JONATHAN SWIFT, dean of St. Patrick's, born A.D. 1667, died 1731. His writings, which are all more or less political satires, are: Gulliver's Travels, Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books, Polite Conversation, etc.

PROPOSAL TO ABOLISH CHRISTIANITY.

I AM very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure are apt to murmur and be shocked at the sight of so many daggle-tailed parsons, who happen to fall in their way and offend their eyes; but, at the same time, these wise reformers do not consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and improve their talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each other or on themselves; especially when all this may be done without any imaginable danger to their own persons.

And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: If Christianity were abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning, be able to find another subject so calculated in all respects to display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of from those whose genius, by continual practice, hath been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would therefore be never able to shine or distinguish themselves on any other subject!

We are daily complaining of the decline of wit among