here as elsewhere to challenge the first place of his age as a master of vigorous, idiomatic English prose. There is internal evidence, too, pointing to an intent to publish, in the words: "I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted" (De Shakespeare nostrati, 23 14-16), to which may possibly be added the several passages susceptible of an autobiographical interpretation (18 8-19 2, 31 28-32 3, 43 24-44 23, etc.)

The date of the composition of the Discoveries cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy; and it is highly probable, from the nature of the work, that it was written from time to time through a series of years. One piece of external evidence we have in a letter of James Howell to Jonson, dated June 27, 1629, and containing a series of quotations on the madness of poets, nearly all of which are to be found in a passage of the Discoveries (see 75 24–76 8, and the notes thereon, in which Howell's letter is quoted). Unfortunately for this bit of evidence, the letter mentions The Magnetic Lady as a finished work, and that play was not acted until 1632. It is unlikely that Jonson kept the finished manuscript of his play in his desk three years before performance, and still more improbable that Howell should write thus familiarly of a play as yet untried. Moreover, Anthony à Wood declares (Athena Oxonienses, ed. 1817, iii. col. 746) that "many of the said letters were never written before their author was in the Fleet [1642], as he pretends they were, only feigned (no time being kept with the dates), and purposely published to gain money to relieve his necessities." Hence, while it is quite possible that Howell sent such a letter to Jonson, the date can prove nothing as to the composition of Jonson's note, if indeed the evidence of Anthony à Wood does not raise a presumption of direct borrowing on the part of Howell from Jonson's already published Discoveries.

A few parallel passages between the Discoveries and other works of Jonson may be found, as the statement" that poets are far rarer births than kings" (Disc. 76 12, Epigram, 79, and the Epilogue to New Inn), or the allusion to the passage of Julius Cæsar (Disc. 23 27, and the Induction to The Staple of Newes); but such points prove little, and need not be pressed. The two or three parallels between the Discoveries and works of contemporary authors (Bacon's Advancement of Learning, 31 13, 66 12, 17; Selden's Table Talk, 73 3) are of about equal uncertainty. Several allusions to contemporary persons and events are somewhat more fruitful. The disgrace of Lord Bacon in 1621 was assuredly prior to the writing of the note (31 28-32 3); whilst that concerning his eloquence (30 10-21) — unless the literality of the translation from Seneca mislead must have been written subsequent to the chancellor's death in 1626. The allusions to Taylor, the Water Poet (22 9 and 14), amount to nothing, as Taylor continued the production of his booklets long after the death of Jonson; that to Heath's Epigrams (22 8) is more definite, unless reminiscent, as Heath does not appear to have written subsequent to 1620. These allusions lead to 1620 or 1621, as the earliest possible date assignable to the composition of any of the notes constituting the Discoveries; while the date, 1630, contained in the note on Archy Armstrong (13 18), the reminiscent character of Jonson's remarks on Bacon, Shakespeare, and others, the adaptation of Seneca's words on the failure of his memory to Jonson himself (18 12–29) and his frequent bitterness of spirit (11 18–29, 21 16 seqq., 43 24–44 23), all point to a still later period as the probable date of composition. It is likely that little violence will be done to the truth in assigning the composition of the Discoveries to the last years of the poet's life.

3. LITERARY INFLUENCES.

The nature of this work is not such as to warrant the treatment of so extended a topic as the learning of Ben Jonson. We must therefore be content with a brief consideration of the literary influences discernible in the Discoveries. In view of the restoration of some scores of passages to their respective owners for which the reader is referred to the notes it is to be hoped that the Discoveries may thenceforth be regarded in a very different light from a production of original English prose. As Whalley said long ago (ed. Jonson, vii. p. 71), and as the title of the work imports, "Many of the following passages are imitations or observations made upon the authors of Jonson's daily reading"; and I may add that quite as many are literal quotations, Jonson's own merely in the sense that he has translated them, and applied their very words to the changed conditions of his time. It is notable that to this latter class belong several of the passages most commonly quoted as autobiographical or reminiscent of the poet's contemporaries > (e.g. 18 10-29, 28 17 seqq., and the notes thereon), and not a few which have been enthusiastically admired as Jonson's by those imperfectly conversant with their originals. See especially the passage of Euripides, translated at 4 15, and highly extolled by Mr. Swinburne in his Study of Ben Jonson, p. 131; and the discussion of the advantages of a public over a private education at 53 21 seqq., a literal transcript of a well-known passage of Quintilian, equally exalted as Jonson's with the lavish panegyric of which the same critic is so consummate a master (ibid. p. 167–168, and my note on 54 16), and pronounced by Professor Ward "very English in spirit" (English Dramatic Literature, i. p. 542, note 2).

In reading the Discoveries, it is not difficult to discern the influences under which a given series of notes was written. Now the author was reading the elder Seneca, and

the reminiscent character of the proemia to the several books of his Controversies led Jonson into an application of the rhetorician's words to himself (18 8-29, 28 17–29 3), to the eloquence of Lord Bacon (30 10-21), or to his recollection of Shakespeare (23 22-24). A diligent study of the Institutes of Quintilian and the Poetics of Aristotle inspires respectively the essays on style and poetry. In another place we find traces of Plutarch running through several pages, dipping into the various topics of the Morals, gleaning an anecdote here and there from the Lives, and diverted through similarity of subject-matter into other allusions. The more usual Greek and Latin classics are of course pervading; and quotations from the writings of Petronius Arbiter, Varro, Aulus Gellius, Vitruvius, and the collections of Stobæus are sufficient to prove the range and the diversity of Jonson's classical reading. Of the moderns he has made no less use; and we find frequent reference or familiar allusion to the commentaries and original works of the famous scholars of the classical Renaissance, such as the Scaligers, Erasmus, Vives, Lipsius, Heinsius, and others. Elsewhere a consideration of the attributes of princes brings into discussion tenets of Macchiavelli, and involves the citation of several passages of The Prince (see pp. 37–39 passim); whilst other notes are the result of a recent study of the essay On the Advancement of Learning or other parts of the Instauratio Magna. (For references to these several authors, see the Index and Notes.)

Thus we find the Discoveries, like all the other productions of this veritable Titan, attesting Jonson's unparalleled reading and that audacious power with which he has appropriated the literary spoils of all ages to his royal will and disposal, holding a reckless course beneath a burden of learning that must have overpowered a less than colossal frame. In the words of Mr. Symonds (Ben Jonson, English Worthies, p. 52): "This wholesale and indiscriminate trans

2

lation is managed with admirable freedom. He held the prose writers and poets of antiquity in solution in his spacious memory. He did not need to dovetail or weld his borrowings into one another, but rather, having fused them in his own mind, poured them plastically forth into the mould of thought."

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In a case like the present we should guard against applying our own conditions to a consideration of the past. In the essay on style (see 77 14) Jonson speaks of an ability "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use as a requisite in our poet" only second to "natural wit" and the exercise of his powers. And Dryden shows his appreciation of this theory, as well as of its practice, in the words: "The greatest man of the last age, Ben Jonson, was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow. . . . 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" (An Essay on Dramatic Poesy, Arber's English Garner, iii. pp. 551 and 519). Plagiarism has been well termed an invention of the nineteenth century," and, in view of the extended borrowings of Shakespeare and other lesser Elizabethans, may properly be considered a crime little recognized as such to that age. Jonson was consistent in theory and practice, and believed a great thought to be always his who expresses it best. As to Jonson's power in this respect, we may agree with the judicious Fuller when he says: "What was ore in others he was able to refine unto him" (Worthies of England, ed. 1840, ii. p. 425).

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Finally, whatever may be said of Jonson's other works, in that under consideration the very title disarms criticism in this particular. "Silva, timber, the raw material of facts and thoughts," are the author's words; and such is the