arithmetic of generations Beaumont's times and thought are after all not so far removed from our own. Two more such spans of human existence would link his day with that of Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne. FOOTNOTES: [109] _Works of B. and F._, I, ii-iii. [110] Hasted's _History of Kent_ (1797), II, 433; III, 146, 154, 186. [111] For Sundridge and the Isleys, see Hasted's _Kent_, II, 513-521; III, 128-132, 143-145; and _Cal, S. P._ (_Dom._) Jan. 23, Feb. 24, 1554. [112] Jonson's statement to Drummond "ere he was thirty years of age" is incorrect, or was misreported. [113] _Introduction to The Works of B. and F._, ed. 1866, I, xviii. [114] According to the Register of burials in Westminster Abbey, 1627; but some authorities say 1628. See Dyce, I, xxi; Chalmer's _English Poets_, VI, 3, and Grosart's edition of his poems. [115] This is certainly not the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, as Grosart opines,--for the simple reason that the Master died thirteen years before Sir John. [116] Nichols, _Coll. Hist., Leic.,-Bibl. Top. Britt._, VIII, 1329, 1341. [117] A. B. Grosart, in _D. N. B._, art. _Francis Beaumont_. [118] Preface to _B. and F.'s Works_, ed. 1711, p. 1. [119] Dyce, Vol. I, p. 211, from _MS., Vincent's Leicester_, 1683. [120] James Wills, _Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen_, 1841, Vol. III, Pt. ii, p. 244. CHAPTER XIII THE PERSONALITY, AND THE CONTEMPORARY REPUTATION OF BEAUMONT Our poet's contemporaries saw him, not as one of my scholarly friends, Professor Herford, judging apparently from the crude engraving of 1711,[121] or from that of 1812, sees him, "of heavy and uninteresting features," but as Swinburne saw him, probably in Robinson's engraving of 1840, "handsome and significant in feature and expression alike ... with clear thoughtful eyes, full arched brows, and strong aquiline nose with a little cleft at the tip; a grave and beautiful mouth, with full and finely-curved lips; the form of face a long pure oval, and the imperial head, with its 'fair large front' and clustering hair, set firm and carried high with an aspect at once of quiet command and kingly observation";[122] as we see him to-day in the soft and speaking photogravure[123] recently made from the portrait at Knole Park or in the reproduction of 1911[124] of the portrait which belongs to the Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt at Nuneham,--a courtly gentleman of noble mien, of countenance dignified, beautiful, and mobile, and of dreamy eyes somewhat saddened as by physical suffering, or by sympathetic pondering on the mystery of life. The original at Knole was already there, in the time of Lionel, seventh Earl of Dorset, 1711, and in default of information to the contrary we may conclude that it has always been in the possession of the Sackville family, and was painted for Beaumont's contemporary, and I have ventured to surmise friend as well as neighbour, Richard, third Earl of Dorset,--who had succeeded to the