hen Rose asked timidly, "And who spoke
of the 'mighty line,' dear? It must have been another great poet. Only
three words, and such a roll and ring and brightness in them."

"Oh! Ben Jonson!" said Hildegarde. "He was another great dramatist, you
know; a little younger, but of the same time with Shakspeare and
Marlowe. He lived to be quite old, and he wrote a very famous poem on
Shakspeare, 'all full of quotations,' as somebody said about 'Hamlet.'
It is in that that he says 'Marlowe's mighty line,' and 'Sweet Swan of
Avon,' and 'Soul of the Age,' and all sorts of pleasant things. So nice
of him!"

"And--and was he an ancestor of Dr. Samuel's?" asked Rose, humbly.

"Why, darling, you are really quite ignorant!" cried Hildegarde,
laughing. "How delightful to find things that you don't know! No, he had
no _h_ in his name,--at least, it had been left out; but he came
originally from the Johnstones of Annandale. Think of it! he may have
been a cousin of Jock Johnstone the Tinkler, without knowing it. Well,
his father died when he was little, and his mother married a
brick-layer; and Ben used to carry hods of mortar up ladders,--oh me!
what a strange world it is! By-and-by he was made Laureate,--the first
Laureate,--and he was very great and glorious, and wrote masques and
plays and poems, and quarrelled with Inigo Jones--no! I can't stop to
tell you who he was," seeing the question in Rose's eyes,--"and grew
very fat. But when he was old they neglected him, poor dear! and when he
died he was buried standing up straight, in Westminster Abbey; and his
friend Jack Young paid a workman eighteenpence to carve on a stone 'O
Rare Ben Jonson!' and there it is to this day."

She paused for breath; but Rose said nothing, seeing that more was
coming. "But the best of all," continued Hildegarde, "was his visit to
Drummond of Hawthornden. Oh, Rose, that was so delightful!"

"Tell me about it!" said Rose, softly. "Not that I know who _he_ was;
but his name is a poem in itself."

"Isn't it?" cried Hildegarde. "He was a poet too, a Scottish poet,
living in a wonderful old house--"

"Not 'caverned Hawthornden,' in 'Lovely Rosabelle'?" cried Rose, her
eyes lighting up with new interest.

"Yes!" replied Hildegarde, "just that. Do you know why it is 'caverned'?
That must be another story. Remind me to tell you when we are doing our
hair to-night. But now you must hear about Ben. Well, he went on a
walking tour to Scotland, and one of h