Shakspeare. To conclude of him, as he has given us the most correct plays, so in the precepts laid down, in his Discoveries, we have as many and profitable rules for perfecting the stage, as any wherewith the French have furnished us." P. 217. An accession or conformation of learning.] This word should be confirmation, as in the folio. P. 224. For the structure he would raise.] This should of course be "the structure we would raise," as in the folio. P. 227. The rest of his journey, his error by sea.] His "error" is direct from Cicero's Ulyssis errores. NOTES TO THE ENGLISH GRAMMAR. HE want of general interest in the subject prevents my going into the text of the grammar with the same pains I have bestowed upon the Discoveries, but the reader may be assured that the much-abused folio has been equally badly treated. Horne Tooke, who was a warm admirer of Jonson, pronounces this to be "the first, as well as the best, English Grammar." P. 230. Howell writes to him.] Howell's letter is short, and should be given entire. "Father Ben, you desired me lately to procure you Dr. Davies' Welsh Grammar, to add to those many you have; I have lighted upon one at last, and I am glad I have it in so seasonable a time, that it may serve for a New Year's gift, in which quality I send it you; and because it was not you, but your muse, that desired it of me, for your Letter runs on feet, I thought it a good Correspondence with you to accompany it with what follows. "1629 [1630]. Your Son and Servitor, J. H." Howell's rhymes are not worth transcribing. It is a pity he did not give those which Jonson appears to have written to him. P. 275. The monstrous syntax of the pronoun his joining with a noun betokening a possessor.] On this Mr. Fitzedward Hall remarks: "Jonson, however, published in 1605-as I see by the original edition now lying before me-his drama, entitled Sejanus His Fall, in the preface to which he speaks of my observations upon Horace, his Art of Poetry,' and he has like expressions elsewhere." Mr. Hall might have added the intended title of another play, Mortimer His Fall. P. 317. Hither pertaineth a parenthesis.] By some accident a note of Jonson's has been allowed to slip out at this place. "The Hebrewes have no peculiar note to discover a Parenthesis by, nor the Interrogation and Admiration following." NOTES TO JONSONUS VIRBIUS. P. 421. OWELL'S Letter to Bishop Duppa ought to be inserted in "To Dr. Duppa, L.B. of Chichester, His "My Lord, May 1, 1636. "It is a well-becoming, and very worthy work you are about, not to suffer Mr. Ben Johnson to go so silently to his grave, or not so suddenly: Being newly come to town, and understanding that your Johnsonus Virbius was in the Press, upon the solicitation of Sir Thomas Hawkins, I suddenly fell upon the ensuing Decastich, which, if your Lordship please, may have room among the rest."-Letters, p. 266. Here follows the Decastich, winding up with "Sic vaticinatur Hoellus." SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. INCE the last page of this work was printed off, I have stumbled upon two pieces of information which ought to have been noted at their proper places. At vol. viii. p. 114, is what Jonson calls A Corollary, addressed to Inigo, Marquis Would-be, the point of which turns on the assumption that the king of Spain had raised his architect to that rank of nobility, and that Jones aspired to a similar honour. But had the king of Spain done this? I turned over every accessible book on the subject without discovering any allusion to the circumstance, and at last bethought me of consulting Mr. Cosens, of Queen's Gate, whose acquaintance with Spanish art and Spanish literature is so well known to every student. Mr. Cosens' own library did not supply the information, but he was kind enough to apply for it to a learned friend at Madrid, who in due time told him that Philip the Fourth, on the completion of the Pantheon at the Escurial, had made Crescentio, the architect, Marquis della Torre (Marquis of the Tower), the same title which is now borne by Marshal Serrano. This was not only interesting as explaining the beginning of the Epigram, but also as throwing unexpected light on its concluding line, where Jonson, as his "Corollary," tells Inigo "We'll have thee styled the Marquis of TOWER DITCH.” The other point has reference to Gifford's note at vol. v. p. 217, where he says, "I cannot give the reader the three names of the Infanta Maria of Spain, but this is plainly an allusion to them." I was myself equally unsuccessful, but found eventually that Gifford had put me on the wrong track. When Jonson called his imaginary personage Aurelia Clara Pecunia, the Infanta whom he had in view was not the lady whom prince Charles had sought to win, but her far more celebrated aunt, the daughter of Philip the Second, and governess of the Netherlands, whose names of Isabella Clara Eugenia, so exactly chiming in with those of Jonson's ideal princess, I discovered in the notes of the "Discourses held between the Sieurs Rubens and Gerbier," Saintsbury's Rubens, p. 69. F. C. |