No More Learning

He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end of
Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he showed
a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together with
that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged on
the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:--

"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men;
And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power. "

Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years of
the reign of James I. His _Volpone_, the _Silent Woman_, and the
_Alchemist_ first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of
Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of
James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste
from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was
weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a
short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of
the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and
their guide. Their own best efforts seemed best to them when they had
won Ben Jonson's praise. They valued above all passing honours man could
give the words, "My son," in the old poet's greeting, which, as they
said, "sealed them of the tribe of Ben. "

H. M.
SYLVA


_Rerum et sententiarum quasi ? ? ? dicta a multiplici materia et varietate
in iis contenta_. _Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam arborum
nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros
suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula temere congesta erant_,
Sylvas _appellabant antiqui_: Timber-trees.




TIMBER;
OR,
DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
NOTION OF THE TIMES.


_Tecum habita_, _ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex_ {11}

PERS. Sat. 4.

_Fortuna_. --Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived
not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer
side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things
she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she
might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance
between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not
met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can
happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens
to any man may to every man.