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And through the earth's dark shadow, shrieking

cries;

Nor do her eyes once bend to taste sweet sleep;

By day on tops of houses she doth keep,

Or on high towers; and doth thence affright
Cities and towns of most conspicuous site :
As covetous she is of tales and lies,

As prodigal of truth: this monster

At this point the reading is permanently interrupted. Is the reference here to the real Virgil? The life of Virgil by the so-called Donatus mentions 'his modest and retiring disposition, his singular freedom from vanity and jealousy, his patient and affectionate temper, his generous liberality, his temperate and frugal habits, his attachment to his friends, his dutiful conduct towards his parents, his learning, his care and fastidiousness in the composition of his verses, his taciturnity, his love of philosophical studies, his intimacy with Augustus and Mæcenas';1 and there is clearly something of this in the Virgil of Jonson's play, especially as shown in Horace's speech beginning I judge him of a rectified spirit,' and in his behaviour with Cæsar. But the correspondence of Jonson's lines to the real Virgil is only in respect to personal character and habit. Jonson's reference to his Virgil's works is not applicable to the works of the real Virgil: one could not enjoy the 'Eneid' 'like another soul' (No. 1); one does not, in the account of Æneas's wanderings and fightings, behold a human soul made visible in life, and more refulgent in a senseless paper than in the sensual compliment of kings' (No. 15); nor

1 The works of Virgil, trans. Lonsdale and Lee. Intro., p. 2.

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does Virgil, in any of his works, let us see his soexamined self,' nor strive to paint his mind's peace' (No. 5); nor does his work touch on life at every point (Nos. 6 and 9); nor was he 'not learned in the schools' (No. 10). Yet Jonson's reference to Virgil is instinct with unity. Is there not one to whom the whole applies?

In his edition of Jonson's works (1816)1 Gifford made the note: The great and glorious character of Virgil, given in the two preceding speeches, [i.e., Nos. 4 and 5] is at once discriminative and just. What follows, however, is of a different description, and can by no means be applied to him. It is evident that, throughout the whole of this drama, Jonson maintains a constant allusion to himself and his contemporaries: and were it not that it is fully settled by the critics, from Theobald to Chalmers, that the whole purport of his writings was to "malign " Shakespeare, I should incline to believe that this speech, [No. 6] and that of Horace, which immediately follows, [No. 10] were both intended for him. Jonson could not think that Virgil was the poet of common life, as Tibullus affirms; or, as Horace, that he was unostentatious of literature, and averse from echoing the terms of others: whereas all this is as undoubtedly true of Shakespeare, as if it were pointedly written to describe him. Indeed, the speech of Tibullus is so characteristic of our great poet, that I am persuaded nothing but the ignorance of his numerous editors of the existence of such a passage, has prevented its being taken for the motto to his works.' It may be noted that that speech (No. 6) says just what was directly said of Shakespeare

1 Vol, ii. p. 500,

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seven years later by the pirate-publishers of 'Troilus and Cressida': 'this author's comedies, that are SO framed to the life that they serve for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives.'1

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In his 'Life of Shakespeare'2 Mr. Sidney Lee writes: Jonson figures personally in the "Poetaster under the name of Horace. Episodically Horace and his friends, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogise the work and genius of another character, Virgil, in terms so closely resembling those which Jonson is known to have applied to Shakespeare that they may be regarded as intended to apply to him.' Mr. Lee then quotes the speeches of Tibullus and Horace which we have numbered 6 and 10, and his acceptance of Jonson's reference to Shakespeare is evidently limited to those two speeches, where, of course, the reference is to Shakespeare as dramatist. But, perfectly as those lines so describe Shakespeare, all do not accept them as meant for him. The opinion that Jonson and Shakespeare were then at war prevents some, and others point out that the references to Virgil in speeches numbered 1, 4, 5, and 15, do not apply to Shakespeare. It is with these speeches that we are concerned.

We do not see how anyone holding any current view of Shakespeare's Sonnets can consider that Jonson was speaking of Shakespeare in speeches numbered 1, 4, 5, and 15. But when our view of the Sonnets is that Shakespeare set out to show in them his mind and heart, and that he is seen to be possessed by Love of Beauty and

1 They spoke of Troilus and Cressida as a comedy.

2 p. 217.

Love of Fame, and that recognising the latter as a lust injurious to his Love of Beauty he strives to overcome it-that passion which, according to Milton, is the last infirmity of noble minds; that infirmity to which Spenser's knight perfected in the twelve private moral virtues was still subject--then we see that Jonson's words in those speeches do apply to Shakespeare the Shakespeare of the Sonnets,-and are as truly descriptive of the Shakespeare of the Sonnets as speeches numbered 6 to 10 are of the Shakespeare of the plays. In 1601, eight years before they were printed, and three years after Meres had mentioned Shakespeare's 'sugared sonnets among his private friends,' his private friend Jonson may well write of him and them:

No. 1. Now he is come out of Campania,

I doubt not he hath finished all his Eneids,
Which, like another soul, I long to enjoy.'

No. 3. Say then, loved Horace, thy true thought of Virgil.'

No. 4.

'I judge him of a rectified spirit,

By many revolutions of discourse

(In his bright reason's influence) refined

From all the tartarous moods of common men;

Bearing the nature and similitude

Of a right heavenly body; most severe

In fashion and collection of himself;

And then as clear, and confident, as Jove.'

No. 5. And yet so chaste and tender is his ear,
In suffering any syllable to pass,

That he thinks may become the honoured name
Of issue to his so-examined self,

That all the lasting fruits of his full merit,
In his own poems, he doth still distaste;

As if his mind's peace, which he strove to paint,
Could not with fleshly pencils have her right.'

No. 15. 'Let us now behold

A human soul made visible in life;
And more refulgent in a senseless paper,
Than in the sensual compliment of kings.
Read, read thyself, dear Virgil; let not me
Profane one accent with an untuned tongue.'

Are not the words,

'That all the lasting fruits of his full merit,
In his own poems, he doth still distaste;
As if his mind's peace, which he strove to paint,
Could not with fleshly pencils have her right,'

a specific endorsement of our theory? Do they not mean that in showing his state of mind Shakespeare made it evident that he could not have perfect peace of mind unless he should become able to set forth Beauty and Truth for its own sake-without lust of Fame?

Even the translation (No. 22) from the real Æneid read by the Virgil of the play is significant; for though the picture of Fame there given serves Jonson's purpose of characterizing his opponents' reports of him as lying scandal, it is also apt as a reading by Virgil (Shakespeare) of his Æneids (Sonnets); for Shakespeare, in the sonnets of the second group, is vituperating Fame.'

The relations of Horace and Virgil figure the relations of Jonson and Shakespeare. There can be no doubt that even in his own day Jonson was suspected by some of

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