ABSTRACT
Indulgence in unqualified superlatives has often, and for the most part justly, been rebuked. But if anyone were to say that of all English writers of repute Ben Jonson is the most difficult to write about, some of those who know most about the matter would not be the first to protest against the statement. For Ben notoriously put his personality into almost everything—it would hardly be extravagant to drop the "almost"—that he wrote. Ben has woven his fragments of Sallust and of Tacitus into tragic screeds which are not mere shoddy, but worthy palls for the Muse if not on the stage, at any rate in the study. In each case Ben Jonson, a thorough representative of the age which found the classics most congenial to it, found in these classics phrases and passages which thoroughly expressed what he wanted to say in prose or verse.
