Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/173

 BEN JONSON 157 next century, and as no places at all in ours — for our clubs have expanded far beyond the bounds of sociability. Frank and fearless, he rather exaggerated than sought to hide his jovial tastes ; and the younger men, who exulted in being of his society, did so too. But we know that there was a serious side to his character which he could assert on occasion, as in the apologetical Dialogue to the " Poetaster," already quoted from : — " I, that spend half my nights, and all my days, Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face. To come forth worth the ivy or the bays, And in this age can hope no other grace." Garth Wilkinson says : " It is at banquets like Plato's that wine is vindicated. Their guests show the scope of human assimilation. . . . The spirit of playmates with the spirit of wine; the pleasant emotions and the brilliant saws and dreams of society, like wine- lilies naturally rock upon the cup, and dip their spirity roots into the beakers. The imaginative skies are vinous then ; Valhalla has its mead, and great Odin never eats, but all sustenance is liquor to All- father, who drinks only wine. Elysium, too, would be a poor Elysium without nectar and ambrosia." Try to Fancy an Elysium full of Anti-Tobacco Tee- totalers ! Who that is sane would not prefer Tar- tarus ? Now, the banquets at which rare Ben revelled were like Plato's, and their wine was fully vindicated by the genial genius and wit that flowed more freely than its freest flowing. Hackneyed as they are, I could not but give Beaumont's verses on the Mer- maid, and, though they are equally hackneyed, I must give those of Herrick on other taverns : —