Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/160

 drollery of such an utterance from the 'capacious mouth' which had so often and so loudly set forth under divers names and figures the claims and the merits of Ben Jonson.

We may hope that these wise and weighty words were not written without some regretful if not repentant reminiscence of sundry occasions on which this rule of conduct had been grossly and grievously transgressed by the writer, to his own inevitable damage and discomfiture.

The note on flattery and flatterers is as exalted in its austerity as trenchant in its scorn. And the following remark 'on human life' is the condensed or distilled essence of a noble satire or a powerful essay.

I have considered our whole life is like a play, wherein every man, forgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we cannot (when it is necessary) return to ourselves;