writings to which he applies it. Jonson is not a whit more metaphysical than Shakespeare. Are there not frequent passages in Shakespeare where almost every line would form a text for a treatise on Psychology? It were hard to classify the poetry of any age as metaphysical and not metaphysical; but to say of Jonson, in contradistinction to Shakespeare, that he was so, is simply incorrect. What we suspect is here meant by the word is, that Shakespeare read men, and Jonson books; that one drew his characters from the study of human nature, and the other from the pages of philosophy. If the word is thus used in the wrong sense, the statement is only partially, if in the right one, it is wholly erroneous.
Jonson's masques are beautiful. Though with occasional extravagant fancies and strained conceits, they are full of learning and taste. They were many of them written for great festive occasions. There may seem to us something grotesque and cumbrous in their scenic splendour; and our Lord Mayor's show, the only relic we have of such an entertainment as Jonson's on James I.'s coronation, does not fill us with rapture at its grandeur or dignity. Some beautiful songs are introduced into them. The genius of the architect and the painter came in to aid the poet. The art of stage decoration was not, however, far advanced, and the scenery must have then been inferior to the language, as the latter is now below the former in
"Those gew-gaws men-children love to see,"
now exhibited, much to the expulsion of tragedy and comedy, on the boards of our theatres. "The Sad Shepherd" we have already criticised. The following are the opening lines, which, beautiful as they are, are not better than the greater portion of the masque:
