Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/116

 this collection it need only be said that there is much thoughtful and powerful writing in most if not in all of them, with occasional phrases or couplets of rare felicity, and here and there a noble note of enthusiasm or a masterly touch of satire. In the epistle to Sir Edward Sackvile the sketch of the 'infants of the sword' who 'give thanks by stealth' and in whispers for benefits which they are ready to disown with imprecations in public is worthy of the hand which drew Bobadil and Tucca. The sonnet to Lady Mary Wroth, good in itself, is characteristic in its preference of the orthodox Italian structure to the English or Shakespearean form. The four very powerful and remarkable elegies on a lover's quarrel and separation I should be inclined to attribute rather to Donne than to Jonson; their earnest passion, their quaint frankness, their verbal violence, their eccentric ardour of expression, at once unabashed and vehement, spontaneous and ingenious, are all of them typical characteristics of the future dean in the secular and irregular days of his hot poetic youth. The fourth and final poem of the little series is especially impressive and attractive. The turn of the sentences and the cadence of the verse are no less significant