This is all there is of Jonson's labored verses, of which very few Shakespeareans care to quote more than isolated passages of a line or two each. But taking them either as a whole (with their involved metaphors and most execrable and inapposite pun about Shakespeare's lines "shaking a lance at Ignorance")--or in spots (whichever spots the Shakespeareans prefer), what sort of historical proof does this poem afford? What sort of testimony is this as to a fact? Is it the sort we accept in our own personal affairs--in our business--in our courts of justice--in matters in which we have any thing at stake, or any living interest? Will any insurance company pay its risk on the ship Dolphin, on being furnished, by the Dolphin's owners, with a thrilling poem by Mr. Tennyson or Mr. Tup-per, describing the dreadful shipwreck of the Dolphin, the thunderous tempest in which she went down--the sky-capping waves, rent sails, creaking cordage, etc., etc.? Will any jury of twelve men hang a thirteenth man for murder on production, by the State, of a harrowing copy of verses, dwelling on midnight assassina{132}tion, stealthy stabs, shrieking victims, inconsolable widows, orphans, and the like? And shall we require less or more proof, in proportion as the fact to be proved is nearer or more remote? However, since the Shakespeareans rest their case on these verses, (for any one who cares to examine for himself will find the residue of the so-called "contemporary testimony," which is usually in rhyme, to be rather criticism--that is to say _eulogy_, for we find very little of any other sort of literary criticism in those days--as to the compositions than chronicle as to the man) we can well afford to waive these questions, and cross-examine Ben Jonson and his verses without pressing any objection to their competency. For criticism of the works is what Meres's * opinion that "the sweete wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare; witness his "Venus and Adonis," his "Lucrece," his sugared sonnets among his private friends...." As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.... * "Palladis Tamia." As Epius Stoio said that the Muses would speake with Plautus' tongue, if they would speake Latin, so I say that the Muses would speake with Shakespeare's fine-filed phrase, if they would speake English, etc., etc., etc., amount to; and so Weever's= ```"Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue, ```I swore Apollo got them, and none other"--=