Lyfimachus, and Ptolemy, the fucceffors of Alexander. The three laft, in arms, and in opposition to Antigonus, are furrounded by his troops, and in imminent danger. Upon fome night-alarm, that the enemy are advancing upon them, Seleucus, fword in hand, and disdaining to yield, breaks forth to his affociates;

Let no man fear to die: we love to fleep all; And death is but the founder fleep. All ages, And all hours call us; 'tis fo common, eafy, That little children tread those paths before us. We are not fick, nor our fouls prefs'd with for

row;

Nor go we out, like tedious tales, forgotten:
High, high we go, and hearty to our funerals;
And, as the fun that fets, in blood we'll fall.

Had Alexander, before he joined his last battle at Gaugamela, spoken these words, the dignity of the perfonage and the occafion, fuiting to the grandeur of the image in the the last line, had perhaps rendered it one of the most fublime paffages poetry can furnifh.

JONS ON.

OF

F Ben Jonson, who died in 1637, though justly allowed a great scholar and perfect mafter of dramatic rule, there are not many pieces, among all the volumes he has left, that can be pointed out to a reader of tafte, for his amusement, or approbation. As a dramatift, it seems to have been his fault, that he ftudied books, where he should have ftudied men. Every Man in his Humour, a comedy, in which Shakspeare used to act; the description of the battle, at the conclufion of Catiline; the imperfect drama of the Sad Shepherd, or, Tale of Robinhood; and the Alchymist, feem to form the chief mass of his poetic beauties. In the first act of the Sad Shepherd, the death of Earine is related with a fancy and affemblage of poetical images, scarcely any where equalled:

nor is this the only beauty of the piece. Yet fo fatally did books affociate with all combinations in Jonson's mind, that he has, two pages afterwards, made his fhepherds read Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, and other Greek romances.

Of the Alchymift the fame is indeed defervedly established. The course of human events affords few juster subjects for the drama, than the cenfure of fuperftitious. practices and opinions, and the ridicule of popular errors. As fuch follies tend to the fubverfion of true philofophy, a pen that, like Jonfon's, holds them up to derifion, is very commendably employed in the cause of truth. Chaucer's Chanones Yemannes Tale had, long before, ftruck a hard blow at the pretenders to the philofopher's stone: which tale, it appears in Jonfon's text, he had confulted in forming his drama. That the opinion of tranfiuting and multiplying metals was fixed in the general belief, at the time when Fonson wrote this play, is commonly known:

but

but it has its merit not from that circum

ftance only, and as a fatire of temporary application alone; it is, and will be, a fatire of distinguished excellence, as long as this deep and rooted perfuafion of a philofopher's ftone fhall any where exift. Whilst reason fhall be infufficient for all the purposes of conviction to the human mind, it will perhaps be quite hopeless that fuperftition and vain opinions should be wholly eradicated: and, as long as the paffions fhall prevail against any of the cardinal constituents of virtue, avarice will follow them, or rather a greedy thirst after a fource to fupply their enormities. This fondness therefore for the opinion of tranfmutation is not likely to be the laft folly, that will die; and, as long as it shall exift, the application, of the Alchymist will remain. Of the characters, Sir Epicure Mammon is excellently chofen: a glutton and debauchee, whofe judgment is weakened by his paffions, and who thereby becomes a fit fubject to be the dupe of

Subtle,

Subtle, and, his helpmate, Face. Jonson's play was first acted in the year 1610; and, four years afterwards, was performed by the scholars of Trinity-College, Cambridge, before the King, a comedy, entitled Albumazar (an astrologer): a play, of which the plot is excellently contrived, conducted with a variety of entertaining incidents, and brought to a juft and perfect conclufion. The reftitution of Antonio's goods by Altumazar impeaching the thieves, renders the conclufion of this piece much more perfect, than that of Jonfon's Alchymift, where Face keeps his gains. It may be further obferved on this play, Albumazar, that Trincalo's being put into the cellar, and, when drunk, revested with his own clothes, feems to have been taken from the Tinker, in Shakspeare's Taming of the Shrew; and to have fupplied to Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife the incident of Cacafogo's being fhut in the cellar. In other parts of this play, the author difcovers the ftudy of ShakSpeare; particularly of Hamlet and Othello.

When