46. Time vindicated to himself and to his Honour, presented 12 nights, 1623.
47.[6] Volpone, or the Fox, a Comedy, first acted in the year 1605; this is one of his acted plays.
48. Case is altered, a Comedy, acted and printed 1609.
49. Widow, a Comedy, acted at the private house in Black Fryars.
50. New Inn, or the Light Heart, a Comedy, acted 1629. This play did not succeed to his expectation, and Ben being filled with indignation at the people's want of taste, wrote an Ode addressed to himself on that occasion, advising him to quit the stage, which was answered by Mr. Feltham.
Thus have we given a detail of Ben Johnson's works. He is allowed to have been a scholar, and to have understood and practised the dramatic rules; but Dryden proves him to have likewise been an unbounded plagiary. Humour was his talent; and he had a happy turn for an epitaph; we cannot better conclude his character as a poet, than in the nervous lines of the Prologue quoted in the Life of Shakespear.
After having shewn Shakespear's boundless genius, he continues,
Then Johnson came instructed from the school
To please by method, and invent by rule.
His studious patience, and laborious art
With regular approach assay'd the heart;
Cold approbation gave the ling'ring bays,
For they who durst not censure, scarce could
praise.
[Footnote 1: Drummond of Hawthornden's works, fol. 224. Edinburgh
Edition, 1711.]
[Footnote 2: Birch's Lives of Illustrious Men.]