BEN JONSON 105 III In 161 1 "Catiline, his Conspiracy," was brought out; a noble tragedy of its class, being what Jonson termed "a legitimate Poem" full-charged from the ancient authorities, and abounding with a truly Roman energy, from the opening speech of the Ghost of Sylla, terrific in its imprecations and its introduction of the ferocious and atrocious conspirator, to the final narrative of his defeat and death delivered by Petreius. Macaulay, it appears, has written some- where that " Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand with a blunt hatchet," and that they are "jagged, mis-shapen distiches." This judgment, like most others of his absolute lordship, is a great deal too sweeping. Jonson, in common with nearly all his contempo- raries, has, indeed, many very rude heroic couplets; but he has likewise many quite harmonious and stately in rhythm, while informed, moreover, with such vigour as is scarcely found after Dryden. Thus, in this proemium of the Ghost of Sylla : — "Dost thou not feel me, Rome? not yet ! is night So heavy on thee, and my weight so light ? Can Sylla's ghost arise within thy walls, Less threatening than an earthquake the quick falls Of thee and thine ? Shake not the frighted heads Of thy steep towers, or shrink to their first beds ? Or, as their ruin the large Tyber fills. Make that swell up and drown thy seven proud hills ? What sleep is this doth seize thee so like death, And is not it ? Wake, feel her in my breath :
