Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/59

 music than will perhaps be found in any other poem of equal length from the same indefatigable hand. The fourth of these stanzas is simply magnificent: the loveliness of the next is impaired by that anatomical particularity which too often defaces the serious verse of Jonson with grotesque if not gross deformity of detail. No other poet, except possibly one of his spiritual sons, too surely 'sealed of the tribe of Ben,' would have introduced 'liver' and 'lights' into a sweet and graceful effusion of lyric fancy, good alike in form and sound; a commendation not always nor indeed very frequently deserved by the verse of its author. The variations in the burden of 'Hymen's war' are singularly delicate and happy.

The next was a memorable year in the literary life of Ben Jonson: it witnessed the appearance both of the magnificent Masque of Queens and of the famous comedy or farce of The Silent Woman. The marvellously vivid and dexterous application of marvellous learning and labour which distinguishes the most splendid of all masques as one of the typically splendid monuments or trophies of English literature has apparently eclipsed, in the