Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/167

 BEN JONSON 151 " ' The Alchemist,' a play for strength of wit, And true art, made to shame what hath been writ In former ages ; I except no worth Of what or Greeks or Latins have brought forth ; Is now to be presented to your ear, For which I would each man were a Muse here To know, and in his soul be fit to be Judge of this master-piece of comedy ; Which, though some men that never reached him may Decry, that love all folly in a play ; The wiser few shall this distinction have, To kneel, not tread, upon his honoured grave." Strange scurrile enmity this ! — as strange, in its kind, as the loving friendliness of "your loving friend, W. D." VII Two striking proofs of Ben's magnanimous gene- rosity must be noted : he fostered all possible rivals in the young and promising talents, who were proud to call him father, and whom he adopted as his literary sons ; he praised all actual rivals in direct proportion to their merits, the most fervid praise to the most formidable rivals, the very men whom, had he really been jealous and envious, he would have most striven to depreciate. One capital and crucial instance suffices on this point, the instance of Him who easily outrivalled all competitors, but who in his own and the next two or three ages was scarcely, in popular estimation, ranked above Jonson or Beau- mont and Fletcher. How did Jonson speak of Shakespeare? His verdict in prose I gave in a previous number ; his verdict in poetry we have in