Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/117

 of the authorship than is a noble couplet in the poem immediately preceding them—which would at once be recognized by a competent reader as Jonson's:

So may the fruitful vine my temples steep, And fame wake for me when I yield to sleep!

The 'epistle answering to one that asked to be sealed of the tribe of Ben' is better in spirit than in execution; manful, straightforward, and upright. The 'epigram' or rather satire 'on the Court Pucelle' goes beyond even the license assumed by Pope in the virulent ferocity of its personal attack on a woman. This may be explained, or at least illustrated, by the fact that Ben Jonson's views regarding womanhood in general were radically cynical though externally chivalrous: a charge which can be brought against no other poet or dramatist of his age. He could pay more splendid compliments than any of them to this or that particular woman; the deathless epitaph on 'Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother,' is but the crowning flower of a garland, the central jewel of a set; but no man has said coarser (I had well-nigh written, viler) things against the sex to which these exceptionally honoured patronesses belonged. This characteristic is not more significant than the