It is pleasant to think that he was a friend of Shakespeare.  Jonson’s pithy volume of prose, known as Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, contains his famous criticism on Shakespeare, noteworthy because it shows how a great contemporary regarded him, “I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any.”  Few English writers have received from a great rival author such convincing testimony in regard to lovable personality.

[Illustration:  BEN JONSON’S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

In 1616, the year in which Shakespeare died, Jonson was made poet laureate.  When he died in 1637, he was buried in an upright position in Westminster Abbey.  A plain stone with the unique inscription, “O Rare Ben Jonson,” marks his grave.

Plays.—­Ben Jonson’s comedies are his best dramatic work.  From all his plays we may select three that will best repay reading:  Volpone, The Alchemist, and The Silent Woman. Volpone is the story of an old, childless, Venetian nobleman whose ruling passion is avarice.  Everything else in the play is made tributary to this passion.  The first three lines in the first act strike the keynote of the entire play.  Volpone says:—­

  “Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!—­
  Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. 
  Hail the world’s soul and mine!”

The Alchemist makes a strong presentation of certain forms of credulity in human nature and of the special tricks which the alchemists and impostors of that day adopted.  One character wants to buy the secret of the helpful influence of the stars; another parts with his wealth to learn the alchemist’s secret of turning everything into gold and jewels.  The way in which these characters are deceived is very amusing.  A study of this play adds to our knowledge of a certain phase of the times.  In point of artistic construction of plot, The Alchemist is nowhere excelled in the English drama; but the intrusion of Jonson’s learning often makes the play tedious reading, as when he introduces the technical terms of the so-called science of alchemy to show that he has studied it thoroughly.  One character speaks to the alchemist of—­

  “Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,”

and another asks:—­

  “Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine? 
  Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic,
  Or what is homogene, or heterogene?”

Lines like the following show that Jonson’s acute mind had grasped something of the principle of evolution:—­

“...’twere absurd To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant:  something went before.  There must be remote matter.”

The Silent Woman is in lighter vein than either of the plays just mentioned.  The leading character is called Morose, and his special whim or “humor” is a horror of noise.  His home is on a street