umour also, in some measure, 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 who succeeded 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 an 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 scarce
a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he
has not translated in 'Sejanus' and 'Catiline.' 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 other poets is only victory in him. With the spoils of those
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 less 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 comedies especially. 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 their language, he did not enough follow with
the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakspeare, I must
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. To conclude of him, as he has given us
the most correct plays, so, in the precepts which he has laid down
in his 'Discoveries,' we have as many and profitable rules for
perfecting the stage as any wherewith the French can furnish us."

Samuel Johnson truly says of the Dialogue, "that it will not be easy to
find, in all the opulence of our language, a treatise so artfully
variegated with successive representations of opposite probabilities, so
enlivened with imagery, and heightened with illustration." But we have
some difficulty in going