Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/155

BEN JONSON 139 names, both of maidenhood and marriage, it will be long ere the next can be applied. The third ("Underwoods," xv.), perfect and un- equalled, unless by the second section of the above, is on the Countess of Pembroke : — " Underneath this sable herse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ; Death ! ere thou hast slain another, Learn'd and fair and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee." "Timber; or, Discoveries made upon Men and Matter. As they have flowed out of his Daily Read- ings, or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times." Under this somewhat quaint title we have some of " the last drops of Jonson's quill," in a collec- tion of notes, moral and critical, showing how great must have been the loss when fire destroyed those accumulated during twice twelve years, when his powers were in full vigour. Gifford more than once expresses his opinion that Jonson's prose was the best of the time. This is a rather hazardous judg- ment, considering that among his contemporaries were Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, Sir Walter Raleigh, together with such less ornate writers as Selden and Donne, not to speak of those who made the Authorised Version of the Bible. With- out exalting Ben's prose to this perilous elevation, we can recognise that it is truly admirable — terse, un- affected, perspicuous, sincere, weighty with knowledge and thought ; and so little out of date that it might have been written yesterday. In reading the moral reflections in these " Discoveries," one may often