which he made a rapid and successful progress. He is said to have had so strong a predilection for these studies as to have neglected the higher pursuits of logic and philosophy. It is probable that his early propensity to the drama and to poetry, induced him to think that an acquaintance with the high standards of classic composition was the best preparation, if not the only one, essential to the cultivation of his own talent, and the attainment of his own object. But this was manifestly an egregious error, and involved a palpable oversight of that process by which the masters of song have attained their honourable pre-eminence.-Quitting the university after he had attained what he conceived a competent knowledge of the classic tongues, he went to London, where he sought and enjoyed the friendship of the most distinguished poets and wits of the age. Shakspeare, Jonson, Dryden, Spenser, Sidney, Marlow, Daniel, and others, constituted the society in which he moved, and the men with whom he conversed. He early obtained the sanction and patronage of Sir Thomas Walsingham; and after the death of the father, had the good fortune to be warmly patronized by his son, Thomas Walsingham, Esq. In that age it was essential to the success of a poet that he should enjoy the patronage of some rich or powerful Mecænas to bring him into notice, and to give him a graceful entrance into that literary aristocracy which then determined the fates of authors and their productions. Chapman enjoyed still higher patronage than that of Walsingham, being favoured by the young Prince Henry, who was cut off in youth, and also by the earl of Somerset, who, unhappily for our poet, lost his influence at court, and fell into disgrace, for the part he had taken in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. The first publication of Chapman's appeared in 1595, entitled 'Ovid's Banquet of Sauce.' The year after, appeared his translation of the seven first books of Homer's Iliad. He proceeded rapidly with his translation, having published the whole of the remaining books in the next five years. This work is worthy of special notice as the first attempt ever made to present Homer in the garb of an English dress. As a curiosity of literature it will continue to excite attention, although, on its own account, it is not entitled to any special notice. During the progress of this work it may be supposed that he beguiled the weary task by the occasional production of a comedy. In 1598 he brought out The Blind Beggar of Alexandria,' and attracted some notice at court; but he was subsequently concerned with Jonson and Marston in writing the comedy of Eastward Hoe,' which contained some severe ridicule of the Scotch, and gave unpardonable offence to the royal Solomon. The poets who had engaged in this piece were of course rendered offensive at court, and were no longer acceptable there. The favour of royalty in those days had greater influence than at present, and the disfavour into which these poets fell seriously impeded their success. In 1614 appeared his version of the Odyssey, and soon after, the minor pieces of Homer. Succeeding years produced various other works, original and translated, many of them of a light and amorous kind, and mostly adapted for masks or scenic representation. His tragedies and comedies are too numerous to be separately recounted here. Several dramatic pieces, with some translations from Petrarch, appear to have been published long after his death, which took place in 1634, at the age of 77.

In his own day Chapman enjoyed a highly respectable rank among poets and scholars, but his fame never reached the height of some of his contemporaries, and is now known only to the curious bookworm. There is an interest which will always attach to the name of the first translator of Homer into English, notwithstanding the glaring defects that attend it. The measure into which it is rendered is insupportably heavy and unsuitable to an epic, being fourteen syllables. Besides, the author does not appear to have possessed a very accurate acquaintance with the original. He fails to convey to the English reader any conception of the more refined and exquisite beauties of the original. Still it must be admitted, that there is frequently great spirit and vigour in his version, and that he has occasionally caught the fire of Homer, and embodied it in a vital diction. Considerable allowance must be made in criticising this work, for the total absence of helps and the entire novelty of the undertaking. Skilled as Chapman may have been deemed by his friends in the Greek tongue, it is but too evident from many passages of his translation, as well as from his critical additions, that he would rank in the present day considerably below a first-rate Grecian, and that he must have been vastly inferior to many in his own time.

Wood says that he was a man of reverend aspect and graceful manner, religious and temperate; qualities which seldom meet in a poet. He adds, moreover, that he was so highly esteemed by the clergy, that some of them have said, as Musæus, who wrote the loves of Hero and Leander, had two excellent scholars, Thumarus and Hercules, so had he in England, in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, two excellent imitators in the same argument and subject, namely, Christopher Marlow and George Chapman.

The celebrated Inigo Jones of architectural fame, was Chapman's intimate and endeared friend. As Jones was the survivor, he erected at his own expense an elegant Grecian monument to his memory in the church of St Giles in the Fields, which of course was lost when that church was destroyed.

Ben Jonson.

BORN A. D. 1574.-died A. D. 1637.

BENJAMIN, or, as he termed himself, and has been termed by posterity, Ben Jonson, was born in London in 1574. Having acquired the rudiments of knowledge at Westminster school under the learned Camden, he went to study at Cambridge, but was compelled by poverty to quit the university soon after entering it, and to work for his daily bread as a bricklayer. It was not to be expected that the drudgery of such an employment would long be endured by one who had already drank deep draughts of inspiration from the fountains of ancient lore, and accordingly we find that Jonson, soon after leaving Cambridge, entered as a volunteer the army sent into Flanders, where he distinguished himself by conquering one of the enemy in single combat. On his return he obtained some einployment about the theatres, either as an actor or author. In whichever character he figured his career was

soon cut short, for having had the misfortune to kill his antagonist in a duel, he was thrown into prison on a charge of murder, and there detained for some time in imminent danger of his life. When once more free, he was engaged as a regular writer for the stage in conjunction with Marston, Dekker, and some others, after the fashion of those times. The first play of which he was the sole author, was Every Man in his Humour,' which appeared in 1596. The high merits of this performance secured for it great and immediate popularity, though in the prologue, he addressed the audience in a tone of manly and sarcastic independence, which must have sounded harshly in the ears of those who were accustomed to the cringing deference of some of his contemporaries. Jonson's fame was still more widely extended by the production in the ensuing year of Every Man out of his Humour,' which had the honour of being acted before the queen. His next known performance was Cynthia's Revels, which was acted in 1600 by the "children of the Queen's chapel." In the epilogue to this play, Jonson was unwise enough to address the spectators in a tone of lofty dictatorial arrogance, which, it cannot be denied, afforded a fair mark for the ridicule of Marston and Dekker.

Though there can be no doubt that his success contributed to excite the contentions in which he was enveloped at this and at subsequent periods of his life, yet we must also throw into the scale the arrogance and assumption of superiority with which he was unquestionably chargeable -faults arising in part from the hardships and military habits of his youth, and in part from the consciousness he must have felt of his vast superiority in point of learning to his rivals. In justice to Jonson, it ought to be remembered that the man who is proud of his learning is much more excusable than the man who is proud of his genius, since not only is the former the result of indefatigable toil, while the latter is the free gift of nature, but it is also much more easy to compare our learning with that of others, than our genius. Provoked by the incessant attacks of his satirists, Jonson brought out in 1601, his 'Poetaster,' in which Dekker especially, though under a Roman garb, was lashed with a heartiness and good-will which might have taught him not to beard the lion in his den henceforth. Dekker nevertheless replied in his Satiromastic,' a play which contains some powerful writing, and is often very bitter. Jonson now paid his addresses to the tragic muse, and in 1603, brought out at the Globe play-house his Sejanus,' in writing which he received some assistance, though from whom is uncertain. On its first appearance it was so greatly opposed, that it was found necessary to withdraw it; but being remodelled some time afterwards by Jonson, and those parts being omitted which were furnished by his coadjutor, it became a general favourite. Jonson had now assumed a rank among the dramatists of the day, second only to Shakspeare, and his reputation, together with his fine conversational powers and convivial habits, had long ago introduced him to the society of the most eminent men in the kingdom. At a celebrated club, founded by Sir W. Raleigh, which held its meetings at the famous Mermaid tavern, he met with Shakspeare, Selden, Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, and a host of others, who conjointly formed a paradise of learning and genius, such as the world never saw before, and has never seen since. What would pos

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