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54 than the toils of the hod and trowel, the profession he had adopted left Jonson no leisure for the enjoyment of the "calm air of delightful studies." Like Coleridge, in our own day, he soon laid aside the sword for the pen. Both felt that with this weaker instrument their mission was to be worked out.

Jonson crossed the Channel for his home, bringing with him little money, and a not much larger stock of Dutch than that with which Goldsmith contemplated teaching English at Amsterdam, and leaving behind him among his comrades in arms, a reputation for valour. He always looked back upon his military career with satisfaction, and boasted "that while he was in the profession, he did not shame it by his actions." It has been said that he now returned to Cambridge, but there is no evidence whatever of the fact. After having thrown aside the bricks and mortar in disgust, and then abandoned the army, he appears to at once have turned his attention to the stage.

The English drama, at that time, if not in its infancy, had not advanced many steps beyond the Thespian condition. Only a few good plays of Shakespeare and others had succeeded the moralities, interludes, and translations which had as yet been presented at Court, in the Inns of Law, and in the Globe Theatre, Southwark. Jonson, like Shakespeare, embraced the profession of an actor, and with as little or less success. That he totally failed, as has been asserted, seems highly improbable, for we agree with Mr. Gifford "that with the advantages of youth, person, voice, and somewhat more of literature then fell to the share of every obscure actor in a strolling company, Jonson could scarcely fail to get a service among the mimics;" and we have the testimony of the Duchess of Newcastle, whose husband was the Mæcenas of his day: "I have never heard any man read well but my husband;