A servile copyist of the ancients, Jonson translated into bad English the beautiful passages of the Greek and Roman authors, without accommodating them to the manners of his age and country.

His merit has been totally eclipsed by that of Shakspeare, whose rude genius prevailed over the rude art of his contemporary.

The English theatre has ever since taken a strong tincture of Shakspeare's spirit and character; and thence it has proceeded, that the nation has undergone, from all its neighbors, the reproach of barbarism, from which its valuable productions in some other parts of learning would otherwise have exempted it.

Jonson had a pension of a hundred marks from the king, which Charles afterwards augmented to a hundred pounds He died in 1637, aged sixty-three.
Fairfax has translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness, which, for that age, are surprising.

Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation.