Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/161

 like children that imitate the vices of stammerers so long, till at last they become such; and make the habit to another nature, as it is never forgotten.

There is a noble enthusiasm for goodness in the phrase which avers that 'good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.' After an enumeration of scriptural instances, the poet adds this commentary: 'These, sensual men thought mad, because they would not be partakers or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage of the world, and contemned the play of fortune. For though the most be players, some must be spectators.'

And there is a fine touch of grave and bitter humour in the discovery 'that a feigned familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others, to make those slaves to them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, &c., that they may be food to him.'

But finer by far and far more memorable than this is the following commentary on the fact that the emperor whose 'voice was worthier a headsman than a head, when he wished the people of Rome