Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/148

 wonder in such as have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their own vexation.

I cannot but imagine that Jonson must have witnessed this wonder in the crowning case of Shakespeare; the swiftness of whose 'style' or composition was matter of general note.

The anti-Gallican or anti-democratic view of politics can never be more vividly or happily presented than in these brilliant and incisive words:—

Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed: nor can it be otherwise in those public councils, where nothing is so unequal as the equality: for there, how odd soever men's brains or wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.

But the most cordial hater or scorner of parliaments, whether from the Carlylesque or the Bonapartist point of vantage, must allow that the truth expressed in the two first sentences following is more certain and more precious than the doctrine just cited.

Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good