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for searching only. Here the wits assemble as in Gildon, but not at Eton, though the quiet Hales and Falkland are together, while Suckling is telling the story. Gildon has apologized for his memory of what Dryden said, which is sufficient warning that he is introducing a certain amount of embroidery. I take it that he is responsible for the session at Eton, and that his suggestion came from Suckling's Sessions. Both Langbaine and Anthony I. Wood in their biographies of Jonson in 1691-92 call attention to Suckling's Sessions.' Gildon, who a few years later revised Langbaine, is not likely to have been ignorant of this Sessions. Since Hales was of and at Eton, holding the sessions there would save him from bestriding the college steed to come to London and the wits, as Suckling once invited him to do; but it would doubtless have been something of a strain on the accommodations available to have all the wits and their books assemble in "Mr Hales's Chamber at Eaton." Yet in such a sessions, of course, one does not need to reason too narrowly as to how many angels can stand on the point of a needle.
By 1709 Rowe has quite a different version of the sessions story to tell on no authority but his own. We remember, however, that Gildon pursues the story in a volume supplementary to Rowe; one voluble source was at hand. Rowe also mentions frequently Dryden's printed opinions, and knew them quite well. Rowe omits from Gildon's version the formal trial at Eton as well as Falkland, retaining only Suckling and Hales; but adds D'Avenant, Porter, and Jon-son as participants in a conversation. Jonson and D'Avenant had taken prominent part in Suckling's Sessions, and Porter had been present. In Rowe, Suckling is defending Shakspere against Jonson, who is "reproaching him with the want of Learning, and Ignorance of the Antients." As we have seen, Suckling had long been the official champion of Shakspere against Jonson, while Suckling himself has presented Jonson as championing the ancients. Finally, Hales intervenes between the contestants Suckling and Jonson with the sweet remark to Jonson,
That if Mr. Shakespear had not read the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any thing from 'em; fa fault the other made no Conscience of] and that if he would produce any one Topick finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to shew something upon the same Subject at least as well written by Shakespear.
' Adams and Bradley, 7onson 411. Bk., pp. 425, 433, 438.
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