apparel to a set standard of price and fashion, according to the several states of men, have long been wished, but are little to be hoped-for. Some think, private men's superfluity is a necessary evil in a State, the floating of fashions affording a standing maintenance to many thousands, who otherwise would be at a loss for a livelihood,-men maintaining more by their pride than by their charity.-Holy State.

9. Ben Jonson.

BENJAMIN JONSON was born in this city (Westminster). Though I cannot, with all my industrious inquiry, find him in his cradle, I can fetch him from his long coats. When a little child, he lived in Harts-horn-lane near Charing-cross, where his mother married a bricklayer for her second husband.

He was first bred in a private school in Saint Martin's church; then in Westminster school; witness his own epigram;

Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe

All that I am in arts, all that I know;

How nothing's that to whom my country owes

The great renown and name wherewith she goes,' &c.

He was statutably admitted into Saint John's College in Cambridge (as many years after incorporated an honorary member of Christ Church in Oxford) where he continued but few weeks for want of further maintenance, being fain to return to the trade of his father-in-law. And let them blush not that have, but those who have not, a lawful calling. He helped in the new structure of Lincoln's-Inn, when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket.

Some gentlemen, pitying that his parts should be buried. under the rubbish of so mean a calling, did by their bounty manumise him freely to follow his own ingenious inclinations. Indeed his parts were not so ready to run of themselves, as able to answer the spur; so that it may be truly said of him, that he had an elaborate wit wrought out by his own industry. He would sit silent in a learned company and suck in (besides wine) their several humours into his observation. What was ore in others, he was able to refine to himself.

He was paramount in the dramatic part of poetry, and taught the stage an exact conformity to the laws of comedians. His comedies were above the volge (which are only tickled with downright obscenity), and took not so well at the first stroke as at the rebound, when beheld the second time; yea, they will endure reading, and that with due commendation, so long as either ingenuity or learning are fashionable in our nation. If his later be not so spriteful and vigorous as his first pieces, all that are old will, and all that desire to be old should, excuse him therein.

He was not very happy in his children, and most happy in those which died first, though none lived to survive him. This he bestowed as part of an epitaph on his eldest son, dying in infancy:

'Rest in soft peace; and, ask'd, say here doth lye,

Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.'

He died anno Domini 1638; and was buried about the belfry, in the abbey church at Westminster.-Worthies of England.

XIII.

EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON.

1608-1674.

EDWARD HYDE was born 1608, at Dinton in Wiltshire. He began his studies at Oxford in his thirteenth year, but resided only one year, his father having determined to bring him up to the law. He pursued this profession with considerable success, till his increasing interest in public business led him to retire from the practice of it. He was returned to the Long Parliament for the borough of Saltash. He took a prominent part in the suppression of the Earl Marshal's Court, and was chairman of the committee on the case of ship-money; he also supported the proceedings against Strafford. Clarendon seceded from the popular party on the passing of a Bill to prevent the dissolution of Parliament except with its own consent, and he ever afterwards adhered to the Royal cause, and for a time was one of the King's principal advisers.

He accompanied Prince Charles to Jersey, where he passed two years in study and in the production of political papers for the King. He afterwards represented the cause of the Stuarts at various foreign Courts until the Restoration, when his ability and integrity were of essential service in re-establishing order, while by his moderation he restrained the excessive zeal of the Royalists.

He was created a peer in 1660, and also elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. His conduct in the sale of Dunkirk and other public questions was opposed to popular feeling, and in some cases also to the wishes of the King, and in 1667 he fell

into disgrace, was required to resign the Great Seal and all other public offices of trust, and after an unsuccessful impeachment for high treason by the Commons he received the Royal command to withdraw from the kingdom. From Calais he wrote a letter, given below, resigning the Chancellorship of the University.

He never returned to England, and died at Rouen in 1674. Clarendon's most important works are his History of the Rebellion, and his own Life. His style is sometimes deficient both in clearness and elegance, and betrays a want of care and accuracy; but his sentiments are always noble and dignified, and he shows peculiar skill and delicacy in the delineation of character. Of this, striking examples are found in the sketches of eminent men which abound in his History.

1. Character of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

THIS great man was a person of a noble nature, and generous disposition, and of such other endowments, as made him very capable of being a great favourite to a great king. He understood the arts of a court, and all the learning that is professed there, exactly well. By long practice in business, under a master that discoursed excellently, and surely knew all things wonderfully, and took much delight in indoctrinating his young unexperienced favourite, who, he knew, would be always looked upon as the workmanship of his own hands, he had obtained a quick conception, and apprehension of business, and had the habit of speaking very gracefully and pertinently. He was of a most flowing courtesy and affability to all men who made any address to him; and so desirous to oblige them, that he did not enough consider the value of the obligation, or the merit of the person he chose to

oblige; from which much of his misfortune resulted. He was of a courage not to be daunted, which was manifested in all his actions. .

His kindness and affection to his friends was so vehement, that they were as so many marriages for better and worse, and so many leagues offensive and defensive; as if he thought himself obliged to love all his friends, and to make war upon all they were angry with, let the cause be what it would. And it cannot be denied that he was an enemy in the same excess, and prosecuted those he looked upon as his enemies with the utmost rigour and animosity, and was not easily induced to reconciliation. And yet there were some examples of his receding in that particular. And when he was in the highest passion, he was so far from stooping to any dissimulation, whereby his displeasure might be concealed and covered till he had attained his revenge, (the low method of courts,) that he never endeavoured to do any man an ill office, before he first told him what he was to expect from him, and reproached him with the injuries. he had done, with so much generosity, that the person found it in his power to receive further satisfaction, in the way he would choose for himself. . . .

His single misfortune was, (which indeed was productive of many greater,) that he never made a noble and worthy friendship with a man so near his equal, that he would frankly advise him for his honour and true interest, against the current, or rather the torrent, of his impetuous passion; which was partly the vice of the time, when the court was not replenished with great choice of excellent men; and partly the vice of the persons who were most worthy to be applied to, and looked upon his youth, and his obscurity before his rise, as obligations upon him to gain their friend