Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/157

BEN JONSON 141 candour; for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantsie, brave notions, and gentle expressions ; wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power ; would the rule of it had been so too." On the birthday of Lord Bacon, 22 nd January, 1621, when newly made Lord Chan- cellor, and at the height of his prosperity, Jonson had written beautifully (" Underwoods," Ixx.) : — " England's high Chancellor : the destined heir, In his soft cradle, to his father's chair : Whose even threads the Fates spin round and full, Out of their choicest and their whitest wool." It was not long, as we are all aware, before wool any- thing but white came into that spinning ; but Jonson, in his own old age, and after Bacon's death (who died ten years before him), writes thus nobly to the honour of both : " My conceit of his Person was never increased towards him by his place or honours ; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness which was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many Ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength ; for Greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest." And really, when one considers, it appears possible that Jonson knew Bacon quite as well as did Pope or even the omnis-