animated dialogue, and some of the finest lyric passages to be found
in dramatic literature. They are the Laureate's true laurels. Had he
left nothing else, the "rare arch-poet" would have held, by virtue of
these alone, the elevated rank which his contemporaries, and our own,
freely assign him. Lamb, whose appreciation of the old dramatists was
extremely acute, remarks,--"A thousand beautiful passages from his
'New Inn,' and from those numerous court masques and entertainments
which he was in the daily habit of furnishing, might be adduced to
show the poetical fancy and elegance of mind of the supposed rugged
old bard." [12] And in excess of admiration at one of the Laureate's
most successful pageants, Herrick breaks forth,--

"Thou hadst the wreath before, now take the tree,
That henceforth none be laurel-crowned but thee." [13]

An aspiration fortunately unrealized.

It was not long before the death of Ben, that John Suckling, one of
his boon companions

"At those lyric feasts,
Made at 'The Sun,'
'The Dog,' 'The Triple Tun,'
Where they such clusters had
As made them nobly wild, not mad," [14]

handed about among the courtiers his "Session of the Poets," where an
imaginary contest for the laurel presented an opportunity for
characterizing the wits of the day in a series of capital strokes, as
remarkable for justice as shrewd wit. Jonson is thus introduced:--

"The first that broke silence was good old Ben,
Prepared with Canary wine,
And he told them plainly he deserved the bays,
For his were called works, while others' were but plays;

"And bid them remember how he had purged the stage
Of errors that had lasted many an age;
And he hoped they did not think 'The Silent Woman,'
'The Fox,' and 'The Alchymist' outdone by no man.

"Apollo stopt him there, and bid him not go on;
'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption,
Must carry it; at which Ben turned about,
And in great choler offered to go out;

"But those who were there thought it not fit
To discontent so ancient a wit,
And therefore Apollo called him back again,
And made him mine host of his own 'New Inn.'"

This _jeu d'esprit_ of Suckling, if of no value otherwise, would
be respectable as an original which the Duke of Buckinghamshire,[15]
Leigh Hunt,[16] and our own Lowell[17] have successfully and happily
imitated.

In due course, Laureate Jonson shared the fate of all p