battle by Venus; but that one thing, how he came into Italy, he prosecutes in twelve books. The rest of his journey, his error by sea, the sack of Troy, are put not as the argument of the work, but episodes of the argument. So Homer laid by many things of Ulysses, and handled no more than he saw tended to one and the same end.

Theseus.- Hercules.- Juvenal.- Codrus.- Sophocles. Ajax. Ulysses- Contrary to which, and foolishly, those poets did, whom the philosopher taxeth, of whom one gathered all the actions of Theseus, another put all the labours of Hercules in one work. So did he whom Juvenal mentions in the beginning, "hoarse Codrus," that recited a volume compiled, which he called his Theseide, not yet finished, to the great trouble both of his hearers and himself; amongst which there were many parts had no coherence nor kindred one with another, so far they were from being one action, one fable. For as a house, consisting of divers materials, becomes one structure, and one dwelling; so an action, composed of divers parts, may become one fable, epic or dramatic. For example, in a tragedy, look upon Sophocles his Ajax: Ajax, deprived of Achilles' armour, which he hoped from the suffrage of the Greeks, disdains; and growing impatient of the injury, rageth, and runs mad. In that humour he doth many senseless things, and at last falls upon the Grecian flock, and kills a great ram for Ulysses: returning to his senses, he grows ashamed of the scorn, and kills himself ; and is by the chiefs of the Greeks forbidden burial. These things agree and hang together not as they were done, but as seeming to be

done, which made the action whole, entire, and absolute.

The conclusion concerning the whole, and the parts. -Which are episodes Ajax and Hector.- Homer. -For the whole, as it consisteth of parts; so without all the parts it is not the whole; and to make it absolute, is required not only the parts, but such parts as are true. For a part of the whole was true; which if you take away, you either change the whole, or it is not the whole. For if it be such a part, as being present or absent, nothing concerns the whole, it cannot be called a part of the whole: and such are the episodes, of which hereafter. For the present here is one example; the single combat of Ajax with Hector, as it is at large described in Homer, nothing belongs to this Ajax of Sophocles.

You admire no poems, but such as run like a brewer's cart upon the stones, hobbling:

Et, quæ per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt.
Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt.
Attonitusque legis terrai, frugiferai.

THE

ENGLISH GRAMMAR,

MADE BY

BEN JONSON,

FOR THE

BENEFIT OF ALL STRANGERS,

OUT OF HIS OBSERVATION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, NOW SPOKEN AND IN USE.

Consuetudo, certissima loquendi magistra, utendumque planè sermone, ut nummo, cui publica forma est. Quinctil.

Non obstant hæ disciplinæ per illas euntibus sed circa illas hærentibus. Quinctil.

Major adhuc restat labor, sed sanè sit cum veniá, si gratiâ carebit: boni enim artificis partes sunt, quam paucissima possit omittere. Scalig. lib. 1. c. 25. Neque enim optimi artificis est, omnia persequi.

Gallenus. Expedire grammatico, etiam, si quædam nesciat. Quinctil.

THE ENGLISH GRAMMAR.] The Grammar which Jonson had prepared for the press was destroyed in the conflagration of his study. What we have here therefore, are rather the materials for a grammar than a perfect work.

Jonson had formed an extensive collection of Grammars, which appears to have been both curious and valuable. Howell writes to him in 1629 that," according to his desire, he had, with some difficulty, procured Dr. Davies's Welsh Grammar, to add to those many which he already had." Letters, Sec. v. 26; and sir Francis Kynaston, in speaking of the old infinitives tellen, &c., says " Such words ought rather to be esteemed as elegancies, since it appears by a most ancient Grammar written in the Saxon tongue and character, which I once saw in the hands of my most learned and celebrated friend, master Ben Jonson, that the English tongue in Chaucer's time," &c. Much more might be produced to the same effect; but enough is given to shew (what indeed, was already sufficiently apparent) that our author never trifled with the public, nor attempted to handle any subject, of which he had not made himself a complete and absolute master.

The Grammar was first printed in the fol. 1640, three years after the author's death. The title was drawn up by the editors of that volume.