searching for them. Others may be more fortunate. Donne is more celebrated as a poet, than as a prose-writer; and his talents, and particularly his wit, are generally acknowledged. His other works are:

4. Essays in Divinity, &c. being several Disquisitions interwoven with Meditations and Prayers, before he went into holy orders.. Lond. 1651, 12mo. published by his son.

5. Letters to several Persons of Honour. Lond. 1654, 4to. published by his son. There are also several of his letters, and others to him from the queen of Bohemia, the earl of Carlisle, archbishop Abbot, and Ben. Jonson, printed in a book, entitled "A Collection of Letters, made by Sir Tobie Mathews, knight. 1660, 8vo.”

6. "The Ancient History of the Septuagint;" translated from the Greek of Aristeas, London, 1633, 12mo. This translation was revised and corrected by another hand, and published in 1685, 8vo.

7. Blabavatos: or a Declaration of that Paradox or Thesis, that Self-homicide is not so na

turally a Sin, that it may not be otherwise. Lond. 1644, 1648, &c. 4to. It was dedicated to lord Herbert of Cherbury.

Besides the above works, he left, according to his biographer, "The Resultance of Fourteen Hundred Authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand. All the business likewise that passed of any public consequence, either in this, or any of our neighbouring nations, he abbreviated either in Latin, and in the language of that nation, and kept them by him for useful memorials. So he did the copies of divers letters and cases of conscience, that had concerned his friends, with his observations and solutions of them, and divers other matters of importance, all partically and methodically digested by him."

Walton's character of him is a very interesting one. "He was (he says) of stature, moderately tall, of a strait and equally proportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave inexpressible addition of comeliness. The melancholy and pleasant humours were in him so contempered, that each gave advantage to the other, and made his company one of the delights of mankind. His fancy was 'inimitably high, equalled only by his great wit, both being made useful by a commanding judgment. His aspect was cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a

clear knowing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself. His melting eye shewed, that he had a soft heart, full of noble compassion; of too brave a soul to offer injuries, and too much a christian not to pardon them in others. He was, by nature, highly passionate; yet very humane, and of so tender a spirit, that he never beheld the miseries of mankind without pity and relief.”

JONSON,

BENJAMIN JONSON, or JOHNSON, was the son of a clergyman in Westminster, and born in 1574, about a month after his father's death. He was educated at Westminsterschool, under the learned Camden; but his mother having taken a bricklayer for her second husband, removed him from school when he had made an extraordinary progress, to work under his step-father., From this tyranny of condition he soon escaped, and enlisted himself for a soldier in the army then serving against the Spaniards in the Netherlands. On his return he entered himself at St. John's College, Cambridge; but the failure of pecuniary resources obliging him soon to quit the university, he applied to the theatres for employment, yet obtained only a low situation in an obscure play-house in the suburbs. He subsequently became, as is well-known, a dramatic writer of

celebrity, and was familiarly acquainted with Shakespeare, and the wits of his time. He died in 1637.

The only prose composition of Ben. Jonson, is a small tract entitled "Discoveries, or Observations on Poetry and Eloquence."

I extract without comment, the following sensible observations:

In the difference of wits, I have observed there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to know them; to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear: for, before we sow our land, we should plow it. There are no fewer forms of minds, than of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible; and, therefore, we must

search. Some

are fit to make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some physicians, some to be sent to the plough and trades.

There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling and high; others low and still some hot and fiery, others cold and dull: one must have a bridle, the other a spur.

There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do every little thing easily; I mean that is hard by, and next them, which they will utter, unretarded without any shamefastness. These never perform much, but quickly. They are what they are