Marvels of ingenuity in plot and construction, they abound in “dainty invention,” animated dialogue, and some of the finest lyric passages to be found in dramatic literature.  They are the Laureate’s true laurels.  Had he left nothing else, the “rare arch-poet” would have held, by virtue of these alone, the elevated rank which his contemporaries, and our own, freely assign him.  Lamb, whose appreciation of the old dramatists was extremely acute, remarks,—­“A thousand beautiful passages from his ‘New Inn,’ and from those numerous court masques and entertainments which he was in the daily habit of furnishing, might be adduced to show the poetical fancy and elegance of mind of the supposed rugged old bard.” [12] And in excess of admiration at one of the Laureate’s most successful pageants, Herrick breaks forth,—­

    “Thou hadst the wreath before, now take the tree,
     That henceforth none be laurel-crowned but thee.” [13]

An aspiration fortunately unrealized.

It was not long before the death of Ben, that John Suckling, one of his boon companions

      “At those lyric feasts,
    Made at ‘The Sun,’
    ‘The Dog,’ ‘The Triple Tun,’
    Where they such clusters had
    As made them nobly wild, not mad,” [14]

handed about among the courtiers his “Session of the Poets,” where an imaginary contest for the laurel presented an opportunity for characterizing the wits of the day in a series of capital strokes, as remarkable for justice as shrewd wit.  Jonson is thus introduced:—­

  “The first that broke silence was good old Ben,
  Prepared with Canary wine,
  And he told them plainly he deserved the bays,
  For his were called works, while others’ were but plays;

  “And bid them remember how he had purged the stage
  Of errors that had lasted many an age;
  And he hoped they did not think ‘The Silent Woman,’
  ‘The Fox,’ and ‘The Alchymist’ outdone by no man.

  “Apollo stopt him there, and bid him not go on;
  ’Twas merit, he said, and not presumption,
  Must carry it; at which Ben turned about,
  And in great choler offered to go out;

  “But those who were there thought it not fit
  To discontent so ancient a wit,
  And therefore Apollo called him back again,
  And made him mine host of his own ‘New Inn.’”

This jeu d’esprit of Suckling, if of no value otherwise, would be respectable as an original which the Duke of Buckinghamshire,[15] Leigh Hunt,[16] and our own Lowell[17] have successfully and happily imitated.

In due course, Laureate Jonson shared the fate of all potentates, and was gathered to the laurelled of Elysium.  The fatality occurred in 1637.  When his remains were deposited in the Poet’s Corner, with the eloquent laconism above them, “O Rare Ben Jonson!” all the wits of the day stood by the graveside, and cast in their tribute of bays.  The rite over, all the wits of the day hurried from