[The recovery of these Notes is one of the innumerable services rendered to the literature of his country by Mr. David Laing, to regard whom with affection and respect is in my case an hereditary obligation. I extract the following from his introductory remarks to the Shakspeare Society reprint: "While examining some of the manuscript collections of sir Robert Sibbald, a well-known antiquary and physician in Edinburgh, I was agreeably surprised to find in a volume of Adversaria what bears very evident marks of being a literal transcript of Drummond's original notes. The volume has no date, but was probably anterior to 1710, when Sibbald was in his seventieth year. It is transcribed with his own hand; and the volume containing it was purchased after his death, with the rest of his MSS., for the Faculty of Advocates, in 1723. He might either have been a personal acquaintance of sir William Drummond, or have obtained the use of the original papers through his friend, bishop Sage, who contributed to the publication of Drummond's Works in 1711. At all events, sir Robert Sibbald was merely an industrious antiquary, with considerable learning and unwearied assiduity, and no doubt copied these Notes on account of the literary information they contained; while his character is a sufficient warrant for the accuracy of the transcript. Conceiving it, therefore, to be a literary document of considerable interest, after communicating it to sir Walter Scott, and other gentlemen well qualified to judge of its genuineness and no doubt has ever been expressed on this head -it was communicated to a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries and printed in the Archæologia Scotica as a sequel to the Account of the Hawthornden Manuscripts." Jonson set out from London in the summer of 1618, when he was in his forty-sixth year. F. C.] CONVERSATIONS WITH WILLIAM DRUMMOND. CERTAIN INFORMATIONS AND MANERS OF BEN I. HAT he had ane intention to perfect ane and was to dedicate it to his Country: it is all in couplets, for he detesteth all other rimes. Said he had written a Discourse of Poesie both against Campion' and Daniel, especially this last, wher he proves couplets to be the bravest sort of verses, especially when they are broken, like Hex 1 "Observations in the Art of English Poesie. By Thomas Campion. Wherein it is demonstratively prooved, and by example confirmed, that the English toong will receive several kinds of numbers, proper to itselfe, which are all in this booke set forth, and were never before this time by any man attempted. Printed at London by Richard Field for Andrew Wise. 1602." 2 Daniel's Reply to Campion was published in 1602 in a volume with the following title: "A Panegyrike Congratulatory delivered to the King's most excellent Majesty at Burleigh Harrington, in Rutlandshire. By Samuel Daniel. Also certaine Epistles, with a Defence of Ryme heretofore written, and now published by the author. Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit. At London, printed by V. S. for Edward Blount." ameters; and that crosse rimes and stanzaes (becaus the purpose would lead him beyond 8 lines to conclude) were all forced. II. He recommended to my reading Quintilian (who he said would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he lived with me), and Horace, Plinius Secundus Epistles, Tacitus, Juvenall, Martiall; whose Epigrame Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem, &c., he hath translated.3 III. HIS CENSURE OF THE ENGLISH POETS WAS THIS: That Sidney did not keep a decorum in making every one speak as well as himself. Spenser's stanzaes pleased him not, nor his matter; the meaning of which Allegorie he had delivered in papers to Sir Walter Raughlie. Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no children; but no poet. That Michael Drayton's Polyolbion, if [he] had performed what he promised to writte (the deeds of all the Worthies) had been excellent: His long verses pleased him not. That Silvester's translation of Du Bartas was not well done; and that he wrote his verses before it, ere he understood to conferr:" Nor that of Fairfax his." 3 This translation was discovered by Mr. Collier at Dulwich. See ante, p. 345. 4 See post, xii. p. 380. This communication took place most probably in 1589, when Raleigh visited Spenser at Kilcolman Castle, and listened to the "Rude rhymes the which a rustick muse did weave, In savadge soyle, far from Parnasso mount." 5 See Gifford's note on this passage, vol. i. p. civ. 6 Neither Ben Jonson nor Samuel Johnson have been fortunate in their criticisms on Fairfax's Tasso. James I. is said to have valued it "above all other English poetry." That the translations of Homer and Virgill in long Alexandrines were but prose.' That [Sir] John Harington's Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst. That when Sir John Harington desyred him to tell the truth of his Epigrames, he answered him, that he loved not the truth, for they were Narrations, and not Epigrames. That Warner, since the King's comming to England, had marred all his Albion's England." That Done's Anniversarie was profane and full of blasphemies that he told Mr. Done, if it had been written of the Virgin Marie it had been something; to which he answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was. That Done, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging.1 7 Chapman's complete Iliad was first published about 1612, and his Odyssey about 1614. Keats' noble sonnet, On first looking into Chapman's Homer, is familiar to every reader, and (post, p. 374), Jonson himself had one passage of the 13th Iliad by heart. The translation of Virgil, by Thomas Phaer, Esquire, and Thomas Twyne, Gentleman, is a work of a very inferior order. 8 This remark is quite in accordance with what Gifford gives (ante, vol. vii. p. 142) as Jonson's idea of an Epigram: "a short poem chiefly restricted to one idea, and equally adapted to the delineation and expression of every passion incident to human life." Only it must not be narrative. The translation of the Orlando Furioso was published in 1589. 9 "Albion's England. Or Historical Map of the same Island: prosecuted from the Lives, Actes, and Labors, of Saturne, Jupiter, Hercules, and Æneas: Originalles of the Bruton and Englishmen, and occasion of the Brutons their first aryvall in Albion. With Historicall Intermixtures, Invention, and Varietie, proffitably, briefly, and pleasantly performed in Verse and Prose, by William Warner. London. 1586." The marring referred to by Jonson will be found in the edition of 1612, when he added "the most chiefe Alterations and Accidents happening unto and in the happie Raigne of our now most Soveraigne Lord King James. Not barren in Varietie of Inventive and Historicall Intermixtures." 1 It is impossible to read Donne's "Anatomie of the World. The first Anniversary," and "The Progress of the Soul. The second Anniversary," without admitting the truth of Jonson's criticism. |