[7.] socks were on. The socks indicated comedy, and the buskins tragedy. Compare Milton's "L'Allegro," 131:
"Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-note wild."
Also, "Il Penseroso," 97. See note on buskin, page [139].
[8.] Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus. Ancient writers of comedy.
[9.] that he. That man.
[10.] Swan of Avon. So Cowper calls Virgil "the Mantuan swan."
[11.] hemisphere. The celestial hemisphere.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
Ben Jonson was born in Westminster, in 1573. His early life was full of hard and varied experiences. He was educated at Westminster School, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge. Being obliged to leave his university course unfinished, he worked for a time with his step-father as a brick-layer. At the age of eighteen he enlisted as a volunteer in the Low Countries; but in 1596 he settled in London, as a playwright. His first comedy, "Every Man in his Humour," did not meet with immediate success. It was remodelled, at Shakespeare's suggestion, and when afterwards presented was received with marked favor. His first tragedy, "Sejanus," was acted in 1603. His masques, of which there are thirty-six, were written during the reign of James I. His miscellaneous works, embracing a variety of odes, elegies, epigrams, and other lyrics and epistles, are included in two collections, the first of which, called The Forest, was published in 1616, and the second posthumously, in 1641. He died in London, August 6, 1637.
One of the last and most beautiful of Jonson's dramas is the unfinished pastoral comedy, "The Sad Shepherd." It was written while in the sick-chamber, with a keen sense and remembrance of the disappointments which had followed him through life; and to these he touchingly refers in the prologue:
