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142 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES cient Macaulay. Again, of his oratory : " Yet there happened in my time one noble Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censo- rious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idle- ness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." And finally, after naming Lord Chancellor Egerton : " But his learned and able (though unfortunate) suc- cessor is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward : so that he may be named and stand as the mark and acme of our language." VI Jonson died in his sixty-fifth year, in August, 1637 ; according to Gifford, on the 6th, the funeral being on the 9th. But Col. Cunningham cites from "Notes and Queries" the following record, by Sir Edward Walker, Garter: "Thursday, 17 August. Died at Westminster, Mr. Benjamin Johnson, the most famous