exclamation are Mr Stainer's. Henslowe removes all possiUnfortunately for his argu- bility of doubt. ment, the degree had been conferred upon Jonson long before, at the suggestion of Lord Pembroke. It was merely the induction which took place after Jonson's return from Hawthornden. It is unnecessary to correct all Mr Stainer's foolish arguments. We have but space to deal with one or two. Here is one which is typical of Mr Stainer's method. Jonson tells Drummond that "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary." Mr Stainer's comment is of high value. "The name of Jonson's adversary is not given," says he triumphantly. 'This alone indicates that the passage was written at a late date." Why should the absence of the name indicate so much as that? It might indicate either that Jonson thought it not worth while to repeat the name of Gabriel Spencer, or that Drummond had heard and forgotten it. "The name was unknown," goes on Mr Stainer irrelevantly, 66 even to Gifford when he edited Jonson's works in 1816." It was not unknown to Jonson, who might have given it, if he chose, nor to Henslowe, nor to the Rolls of the Middlesex Sessions. And Mr Stainer cannot get out of it on the plea that the Benjamin Jonson mentioned in the Session's papers was not the poet but another man of the same name, for Then he is troubled because Ben Jonson tells Drummond that he was accused of popery and treason before the Council by Northampton. Another plain proof of forgery. For "Northampton was a Roman Catholic!" So he was at times; at other times he was a violent anti-Catholic, either with sincerity or with the design of covering up the traces of his Catholicism. The man who was active in the trial of Guy Fawkes might easily have persecuted Ben Jonson. Again writes Mr Stainer, with the jubilation of italics (after quoting from the Conversations': "He married a wife who was a shrew yet honest; five years he had not bedded with her, but remained with my Lord Albany "), "Jonson's wife was dead when he visited Scotland." Why should she not be dead? Her death did not belie what Jonson said, and there is no reason why he should not have told Drummond this simple anecdote though his wife lay in her grave. It would have been more difficult for a forger to invent it. Mr Stainer is no less unlucky when he attempts to show that Jonson's quarrel with Inigo Jones was of a later date than the Conversations.' If he will consult Messrs Herford and Simpson, he will see that the feud was already old in 1619. Thus he goes on, page after page, with his irrelevancies and inaccu INDEX TO VOL. CCXVIII. ABD-EL-KRIM'S STRONGHOLD IN THE AFFAIR, A FOGGY, 830. A. M. CHINESE CONTRASTS, 519. -her lack of humility, 876. Baldwin, Mr, defines capitalism, 143. Blackmailing a government, 425-the CANDLER, EDMUND :— LAWRENCE AND THE HEJAZ, 733. CHAINS, THE, 1. DAY ASHORE, A, 385. DOWN "SEEK MIDDAY" STREET, 262. CHEQUER-BOARD, A.: I.-V., 581-VI., 'EIGHTIES, RUGBY SCHOOL IN THE, 79. VII., 776. CLASSICS OF THE TABLE, THE, 210. COATMAN, J.: THE PUNJAB FINGER- COMIC CHARACTERS IN REAL LIFE, 344. 'Conduct of Life,' Signor Croce's, notice Cumberland, the Duke of, Mr Evan England's ruin, 868-enemies abroad FALKLAND ISLANDS, THE: I. The FANTASIA, 414. FOGGY AFFAIR, A, 830. FOLLY OF RENÉ GUIZET, THE, 91. I. THE SULTAN, 273. "HPA-N-KHRIT," 862. THE FALKLAND ISLANDS, 199. FROM THE BUSH-I. THE SULTAN, THE INSUFFERABLE GREEK, 814. |