As Cæsar is; who addeth to the sun Influence and lustre, in increasing thus His inspirations, kindling fire in us. Hor. Phoebus himself shall kneel at Cæsar's shrine Tib. All human business Fortune doth command Cæs. Cæsar, for his rule, and for so much stuff And will not cherish Virtue, is no man. Eques. Virgil is now at hand, imperial Cæsar. Cas. Rome's honor is at hand then. Fetch a chair, And set it on our right-hand; where 'tis fit, Rome's honor and our own should ever sit. Now he is come out of Campania, I doubt not he hath finish'd all his Æneids Hor. Cæsar speaks after common men in this, Of riches doth into an ignorant soul. But knowledge is the nectar, that keeps sweet Cas. Thanks, Horace, for thy free and wholesome sharpness: Which pleaseth Cæsar more than servile fawns. A flatter'd prince soon turns the prince of fools. By many revolutions of discourse (In his bright reason's influence) refined From all the tartarous moods of common men; Of a right heavenly body; most severe In fashion and collection of himself: And then as clear and confident as Jove. Gal. And yet so chaste and tender is his ear, That he thinks may become the honor'd name That all the lasting fruits of his full merit As if his mind's piece, which he strove to paint, Tib. But to approve his works of sovereign worth, This observation (methinks) more than serves; And is not vulgar. That which he hath writ, Cæs. You mean he might repeat part of his works, As fit for any conference he can use ? Tib. True, royal Cæsar. Cæs. Worthily observed: And a most worthy virtue in his works, What thinks material Horace of his learning? Hor. His learning savors not the school-like gloss, Of all the worth and first effects of arts. Cæs. This one consent, in all your dooms of him, And mutual loves of all your several merits, Argues a truth of merit in you all. VIRGIL enters. See here comes Virgil; we will rise and greet him : Vir. Worthless they are of Cæsar's gracious eyes, If they were perfect; much more with their wants : Which yet are more than my time could supply. And could great Caesar's expectation Be satisfied with any other service, I would not show them. Cas. Virgil is too modest; Or seeks, in vain, to make our longings more. Vir. Then, in such due fear As fits presenters of great works to Cæsar, Cæs. Let us now behold A human soul made visible in life: A gross untruth; that any poet (void Of birth, or wealth, or temporal dignity), Should, with decorum, transcend Cæsar's chair. Crosseth heav'n's courses, and makes worldlings wonder. And they are best, whom fortune least prefers. Cas. Horace hath (but more strictly) spoke our thoughts. The vast rude swinge of general confluence Is, in particular ends, exempt from sense: And therefore reason (which in right should be The special rector of all harmony) Shall show we are a man, distinct by it From those, whom custom rapteth in her press. Ascend then, Virgil; and where first by chance Vir. Great Cæsar hath his will: I will ascend. 'Twere simple injury to his free hand, That sweeps the cobwebs from un-used virtue, Cæs. Gentlemen of our chamber, guard the doors, VIRGIL reads part of his fourth Æneid. Vir. Meanwhile, the skies 'gan thunder, &c. [This Roman Play seems written to confute those enemies of Ben. Jonson in his own days and ours, who have said that he made a pedantical use of his learning. He has here revived the whole court of Augustus, by a learned spell. We are admitted to the society of the illustrious dead. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, converse in our own tongue more finely and poetically than they expressed themselves in their native Latin.-——Nothing can be imagined more elegant, refined, and court-like than the scenes between this Louis the Fourteenth of Antiquity and his Literati.—The whole essence and secret of that kind of intercourse is contained therein. The economical liberality by which greatness, seeming to wave some part of its prerogative, takes care to lose none of the essentials; the prudential liberties of an inferior which flatter by commanded boldness and soothe with complimental sincerity.] SEJANUS HIS FALL: A TRAGEDY. BY BEN. JONSON. Sejanus, the morning he is condemned by the Senate, receives some tokens which presage his death. SEJANUS. POMPONIUS. MINUTIUS. TERENTIUS, &c. Ter. Are these things true? Min. Thousands are gazing at it in the streets. Sej. What's that? Ter. Minutius tells us here, my Lord, That a new head being set upon your statue, |