somewhat overweighted
with learning. _Volpone_ is the most powerful of all his dramas, but
is a harsh and disagreeable piece; and the state of society which it
depicts is too revolting for comedy. The _Silent Woman_ is, perhaps,
the easiest of all Jonson's plays for a modern reader to follow and
appreciate. There is a distinct plot to it, the situation is extremely
ludicrous, and the emphasis is laid upon single humor or eccentricity,
as in some of Moliere's lighter comedies, like _Le Malade Imaginaire_,
or _Le Medecin malgre lui_.

In spite of his heaviness in drama, Jonson had a light enough touch in
lyric poetry. His songs have not the careless sweetness of
Shakspere's, but they have a grace of their own. Such pieces as his
{123} _Love's Triumph_, _Hymn to Diana_, _The Noble Mind_, and the
adaptation from _Philostratus_,

"Drink to me only with thine eyes,"

and many others entitle their author to rank among the first English
lyrists. Some of these occur in his two collections of miscellaneous
verse, the _Forest_ and _Underwoods_; others in the numerous masques
which he composed. These were a species of entertainment, very popular
at the court of James I., combining dialogue with music, intricate
dances, and costly scenery. Jonson left an unfinished pastoral drama,
the _Sad Shepherd_, which, though not equal to Fletcher's _Faithful
Shepherdess_, contains passages of great beauty, one, especially,
descriptive of the shepherdess

"Earine,
Who had her very being and her name
With the first buds and breathings of the spring,
Born with the primrose and the violet
And earliest roses blown."

1. Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature.

2. Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics.

3. The Courtly Poets from Raleigh to Montrose. Edited by J. Hannah.

4. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. (First and Second Books.)

5. Bacon's Essays. Edited by W. Aldis Wright

{124}

6. The Cambridge Shakspere. [Clark & Wright.]

7. Charles Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.

8. Ben Jonson's Volpone and Silent Woman. (Cunningham's or Gifford's
Edition.)

[1] Francis Beaumont. _Letter to Ben Jonson_.

{125}

CHAPTER IV.

THE AGE OF MILTON.

1608-1674.

The Elisabethan age proper closed with the death of the queen, and the
accession of James I., in 1603, but the literature of the fifty years
following was quite as rich as that of the half-century that had