the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the
fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall,"
and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The
Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting 'English Grammar'
"made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation
of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and
'Timber, or discoveries' "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out
of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the
times." The 'Discoveries', as it is usually called, is a commonplace book
such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled,
passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing
opinions noted. Many passage of Jonson's 'Discoveries' are literal
translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference,
noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he
follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of
princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by
recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca
the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an
orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting
it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such
passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication -- plagiarism, is
to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing
them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his
dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the
'Discoveries', is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is
it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction.

When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory.
But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not
insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the