paints the thing seen. He, himself, is not the thing which he depicts but he gives the character as it is. In the opinion of the present writer it is a waste of time to attempt to identify Shakspere, the playactor, with any one of the dramatic personages contained in the plays called Shakespeare's.

Forty-six years after the death of William Shakspere of Stratford, Thomas Fuller in his "Worthies," published posthumously in 1662, wrote:

"Many were the wit-combats between "him and Ben Jonson, which two I be"hold like a Spanish great galleon and an "English man-of-war."

Fuller being born in 1608, was only eight years old when player-Shakspere died, and but two when he quitted London. If this precocious youngster beheld the "wit-combats" of the two, he could only have beheld them as he lay "mewl"ing and puking in his nurse's arms."

VI.

We have in conclusion decided to focus the interest of the reader chiefly in the attestation of Ben Jonson for the works which were associated with the name of William Shakspere of Stratford. Ben Jonson presents a contrast to William Shakspere, in almost every respect, so striking as to awaken an irrepressible desire to compare the mass of proven facts adduced from authentic records. Being born in the city of London in the early part of 1574, he was ten years younger than Shakspere. He was the son of a clergyman. In spite of poverty he was educated at Westminster School, William Camden being his tutor, to whom Jonson refers as "Camden, most reverend "head, to whom I owe all that I am-in arts all that I owe." A recent writer on the subject of Jonson says, "No other of "Shakspere's contemporaries has left so "splendid and so enthusiastic an eulogy

"of the master. In this statement all must concur, for Jonson is the only writer of eminence among Shakspere's cotemporaries, who has left words of praise or censure, or have taken any notice, either of Shakspere, or of the works which bear his name; notwithstanding, it was the custom among literary men of the day to belaud their friends in verse or prose, Shakspere in his lifetime was honored with no mark of Ben Jonson's admiration. Not a single line of commendatory verse was addressed to Shakspere by Jonson, although this promiscuous panegyrist was, with characteristic extravagance, so indiscriminate in sympathy or patronage. What shrimp was there among hack writers who could not gain a panegyric from his generous tongue?

For five and twenty years Shakspere and Jonson jostled in London streets, yet there was no sign or word of recognition as they passed each other by. Writers on the subject of Jonson and Shakspere say

that we have abundant tradition of their close friendship. There are no credible traditions. The manufactured traditions, so conspicuous in books called, "A Life of William Shakspere," are the dreams of fancy, fraud and fiction, used to fill the lacuna, or gap, in the life of the Stratford man.

The proven facts of William Shakspere's life are facts unassociated with authorcraft-facts that prove the isolation and divorcement of player and poet. The proven facts of Ben Jonson's life are facts interlacing man and poet. Almost every incident in his life reveals his personal affection, or bitter dislike, for his fellow craftsmen, always ready for a quarrel, arrogant, vain, boastful and vulgar. There is much truth in Dekker's charge, ""Tis thy fashion to flirt ink in "every man's face and then crawl into "his bosom." He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and wrote his "Poetaster on him." He was federated in a comedy "(Eastward Ho)" with

Chapman, and was sent to prison for libeling the Scottish nobility. Ben Jonson's personality and literary work are inseparable. Drunk or sober, few have served learning with so much pertinacity, and fewer still, have so successfully challenged admiration even from literary rivals, with whom at times he was most bitterly hostile, and at other times, indisputably open-handed and jovial.

Ben Jonson had a literary environment always for there is perfect interlacement of man and craft. He became one of the most prolific writers of his age occupying among the men of his day a position of literary supremacy. "In the forty years of his literary career he col"lected a library so extensive that Gif"ford doubted whether any library in "England was so rich in scarce and valu"able books." From the pages of Isaac De Israeli we read, "No poet has left be"hind him so many testimonials of per"sonal fondness by inscriptions and "addresses in the copies of his works