Monday, February 24, 2014

Jonson's Honest Man and the Parasite


 The 'servile flattery' of the parasite creates a hostile and dangerous environment for the 'truth' of the Jonsonian critic and his classically based conception of an 'honest man/true friend'.



Horace, Epistles I.18.1-4
 If I know you well. Lollius, frankest of men ['liberrime'], you dread
seeming like a sponger, having declared yourself a friend.
Just as a respectable married woman and a prostitute are unlike one another and
don't go together, so is a friend far removed from an untrustworthy parasite.

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 Parasitic Excess in Shakespeare's First Folio:

I know not truly which is worse - he that maligns all, or that praises all.  There is as a vice in praising, and as frequent, as in detracting. -- Jonson, Timber


To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage.

Horace:

As those that hir’d to weep at funerals swoon,
Cry, and do more to the true mourners: so

The scoffer the true praiser doth out-go.

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How easie is it to call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a Man appear a Fool, a Blockhead, or a Knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the Names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full Face, and to make the Nose and Cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of Shadowing. This is the Mystery of that Noble Trade, which yet no Master can teach to his Apprentice: He may give the Rules, but the Scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of Raillery is offensive. A witty Man is tickl'd while he is hurt in this manner, and a Fool feels it not. The occasion of an Offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted that in effect this way does more Mischief; that a Man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious World will find it for him: yet there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from the Body, and leaves it standing in its place

Dryden, A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693).




 

Jonson, Timber


 I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a MALEVOLENT speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to COMMEND their friend by wherein he most faulted;

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William Gamage
 Epig. 15.
BLIND AFFECTIONS picture. To Dunce the Pesaunt.

What mak’s thee, Dunce, Dick Truncus to COMMEND?
Of no Deserts a Boore, a Corridon;
Thou sai’st, because he is thy worships friend,
And, whome, the current of thy love runnes on.
But wherefore do’st, Nick Laudus, so dispraise?
A Gentleman of fashion, and of sort.
Forsooth, thou sai’st, thou can’st not brooke his way,
His comely carriage, or his seemely port.
*See then affection, whether good, or ill:
Laud’s or defames according to his will.* 10

***************************************
 Jonson, Timber

Adulatio.
875 I have seene, that Poverty makes men doe unfit things; but honest men should not doe them: they should gaine otherwise. Though a man bee hungry, hee should not play the Parasite. That houre, wherein I would repent me to be honest: there were wayes enow open for me to be rich. But Flattery is a fine Pick-lock of tender eares: especially of those, fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity, and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For indeed men could  never be taken, in that abundance, with the Sprindges of others Flattery, if they began not there; if they did but remember, how much more profitable the bitternesse of Truth were, then all the honey distilling from a whorish voice; which is not praise, but poyson. But now it is come to that extreme folly, or rather madnesse with some: that he that  flatters them modestly, or sparingly, is thought to maligne them. If  their friend consent not to their vices, though hee doe not contradict them; hee is neverthelesse an enemy. When they doe all things the worst way, even then they looke for praise. Nay, they will hire fellowes to flatter them with suites, and suppers, and to prostitute their judgements. They have Livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the Spit, that waite their turnes, as my Lord has his feasts, and guests.

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Jonson, Timber
De Poetica. - We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many peccant humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy of men' s judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men' s study of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by lessening the professor' s estimation, and making THE AGE afraid of their liberty; and THE AGE is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all writings *ASPERSIONS*.

That is the state word, the PHRASE OF COURT (placentia college), which some call PARASITES PLACE, the INN OF IGNORANCE.

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 Cartwright, to Jonson (in Jonsonus Virbius)
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That SERVILE BASE dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and TH'AGES FASHION DID MAKE HIT;

Excluding those from life in after-time,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made COMMENDATION a BENEVOLENCE:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within.. 

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 Jonson, Discoveries


Censura de poetis. - Nothing in our AGE, I have observed, is more preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we shall hear those things COMMENDED and cried up for the best writings which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for MIRACLES, who yet are so VILE that if a man should go about to examine and correct them, he must make all they have done but one BLOT. Their good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the other’s death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:-

“ - Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia. - ” {44a}

Et paulò post,

“Non possunt . . . multæ . . . lituræ

. . . una litura potest.”

Cestius - Cicero - Heath - Taylor - Spenser. - Yet their vices have not hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best men, if once it take root with the IGNORANT. Cestius, in his time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst.  They learned him without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at least a reader or spectator.  The puppets are seen now in despite of the players; Heath' s epigrams and the Sculler' s poems have their applause.  There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hi corruptius judicant.  Nay, if it were put to the question of the water- rhymer' s works, against Spenser' s, *I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a prerogative the VULGAR have to lose their judgments and like that which is naught.*
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family.  They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves without her favour.  Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time' s grandees, who accumulate all they can upon the PARASITE or FRESH-MAN in their friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place to write and starve.
Indeed, the multitude COMMEND writers as they do fencers or wrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil.  But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding.

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William Gamage
 Epig. 15.
BLIND AFFECTIONS picture. To Dunce the Pesaunt.

What mak’s thee, Dunce, Dick Truncus to comend?
Of no Deserts a Boore, a Corridon;
Thou sai’st, because he is thy worships friend,
And, whome, the current of thy love runnes on.
But wherefore do’st, Nick Laudus, so dispraise?
A Gentleman of fashion, and of sort.
Forsooth, thou sai’st, thou can’st not brooke his way,
His comely carriage, or his seemely port.
*See then affection, whether good, or ill:
Laud’s or defames according to his will.* 10

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Jonson, To Shakspeare

But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right ;
Or BLIND AFFECTION, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.

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Horace of the Art of Poetry – transl. Ben Jonson


…He that not knows the games, nor how to use
His arms in Mars his field, he doth refuse:
Or who’s unskilful at the coit, or ball,
Or trundling wheel, he can sit still from all;
Lest the throng’d heaps should on a laughter take:
Yet who’s most ignorant, dares verses to make,
Why not? I’m gentle, and free born, do hate
Vice, and am known to have a knight’s estate.
Thou, such thy judgment is, thy knowledge took,
Wilt nothing against nature speak or do;
But if hereafter though shalt write, not fear
To send it to be judg’d by Metius’ ear,
And to your father’s, and to mine, though’t be
Nine years kept in, your papers by, yo’ are free
To change and mend, what you not forth do set.
The writ, once out, never returned yet.

‘Tis now inquir’d which makes the nobler verse,
Nature, or art. My judgment will not pierce
Into the profits, what a mere rude brain
Can; nor all toil, without a wealthy vein:
So doth the one the other’s help require,
And friendly should unto one end conspire.
He’s that ambitious I the race to touch
The wished goal, both did, and suffer’d much
While he was young; he sweat, and freez’d again,
And both from wine and women did abstain.
And since to sing the Pythian rites is heard,
Did learn them first, and once a master fear’d.
But now it is enough to say, I make
An admirable verse. The great scurf take
Him that is last, I scorn to come behind,
Or of the things that ne’er came in my mind
To say, I’m ignorant. Just as a crier
That to the sale of wares calls every buyer;
So doth the poet, who is rich in land,
Or great in moneys out at use, command
His flatterers to their gain. But say, he can
Make a great supper, or for some poor man
Will be a surety, or can help him out
Of an entangling suit, and bring’t about:
I wonder how this happy man should know ,
Whether his soothing friend speak truth or no.
But you, my Piso, carefully beware
(Whether you’are given to, or giver are)
You do not bring to judge your verses, one,
With joy of what is given him, over-gone:
For he’ll cry, Good, brave better, excellent!
Look pale, distil a shower (was never meant)
Out at his friendly eyes, leap, beat the groun’,
As those that hir’d to weep at funerals swoon,
Cry, and do more to the true mourners: so

The scoffer the true praiser doth out-go.

Rich men are said with many cups to ply,
And rack with wine the man whom they would try,
If of their friendship he be worthy or no:
When you write verses, with your judge do so:
Look through him, and be sure you take not mock

For praises, where the mind conceals a fox.

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Matron/whore

 ‘A wife in white is as different from a gaudy-coloured prostitute as a real friend is from a parasitic fake’ -- Horace, Epistle I.18

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Jonson


To my TRULY-belov'd *FREIND*, Mr. Browne:
on his Pastorals.

Some men, of Bookes or Freinds NOT SPEAKING RIGHT,
May hurt them more with praise, then Foes with spight


****************************

 TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US
by Ben Jonson


But these WAYS
Were NOT the PATHS I meant unto thy praise ;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, BUT ECHOES RIGHT ;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it SEEMED to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron ; what could hurt her more ?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin
:


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Horace, Epistles I.18.1-4
 If I know you well. Lollius, frankest of men ['liberrime'], you dread
seeming like a sponger, having declared yourself a friend.
Just as a respectable married woman and a prostitute are unlike one another and
don't go together, so is a friend far removed from an untrustworthy parasite.

***************************

Catiline, Jonson

TO THE READER IN ORDINARIE.

THE Muses forbid, that I should restrayne your medling, whom I see
alreadie busie with the Title, and tricking ouer the leaues: It is
your owne. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad. And,
now, so secure an Interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise,
nor dispraise from you can affect mee. Though you COMMEND the two
first Actes, with the people, because they are the worst; and dislike
the Oration of Cicero, in regard you read some pieces of it, at
School, and vnderstand them not yet; I shall finde the way to forgiue
you. Be any thing you will be, at your owne charge. Would I had
deseru'd but halfe so well of it in translation, as that ought to
deserue of you in iudgment, if you haue any. I know you will pretend
(whosoeuer you are) to haue that, and more. But all pretences are not
iust claymes. The COMMENDATION of good things may fall within a many,
their approbation but in a few· for the most COMMEND out of affection,
selfe tickling, an easinesse, or imitation: but MEN iudge only out of
knowledge. That is the trying faculty. And, to those workes that will
beare a Iudge, nothing is more dangerous then A FOOLISH PRAYSE. You
will say I shall not haue yours, therfore; but rather the contrary,
all vexation of Censure. If I were not aboue such molestations now, I
had great cause to thinke vnworthily of my studies, or they had so of
mee. But I leaue you to your exercise. Beginne.

To the Reader extraordinary.
You I would vnderstand to be the better Man, though Places in Court go
otherwise: to you I submit my selfe, and worke. Farewell.
BEN: IONSON.

********************************
Witholding 'Popular' authors' fames:

  Cartwright, to Jonson (in Jonsonus Virbius)

 ...Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and TH'AGES FASHION DID MAKE HIT;
Excluding those from life in after-time,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made COMMENDATION a BENEVOLENCE:

Shakespeare/De Vere/Amorphus - Commendation part of courtesy - inclusive - (benevolence)
Jonson - commendation should be discerning - exclusive (malevolence/malvolio?)

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Jonson's Epigrams

 To  the  great  Example  of  Honour,  and  Vertue , the  most
Noble William, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, &c.



      M Y   L O R D,
W
Hile you cannot change your Merit, I dare not change your Title: It was that

made it, and not I. Under which Name, I here offer to your Lordship the ripest of my Studies, my Epigrams; which, though they carry danger in the sound, do not therefore seek your shelter: For, when I made them, I had nothing in my Conscience, to expressing of which I did need a Cypher. But, if I be fallen into those Times, wherein, for the likeness of Vice, and Facts, every one thinks anothers ill Deeds objected to him; and that in their ignorant and guilty Mouths, the common Voice is (for their security) Beware the Poet, confessing, therein, so much love to their Diseases, as they would rather make a Party for them, than be either rid, or told of them: I must expect, at your Lordship's hand, the protection of Truth, and Liberty, while you are constant to your own Goodness. In thanks whereof, I return you the Honour of leading forth so many good, and great Names (as my Verses mention on the better part) to their remembrance with Posterity. Amongst whom, if I have praised, unfortunately, any one, that doth not deserve; or, if all answer not, in all Numbers, the Pictures I have made of them: I hope it will be forgiven me, that they are no ill Pieces, though they be not like the Persons. But I foresee a nearer Fate to my Book than this, That the Vices therein will be own'd before the Vertues, (though, there, I have avoided all Particulars, as I have done Names) and some will be so ready to discredit me, as they will have the impudence to bely themselves. For, if I meant them not, it is so. Nor, can I hope otherwise. For, why should they remit any thing of their Riot, their Pride, their Self-love, and other inherent Graces, to consider Truth or Vertue; but, with the Trade of the World, lend their long Ears against Men they love not: And hold their dear Mountebank, or Jester, in far better Condition than all the Study, or Studiers of Humanity? For such, I would rather know them by their Visards, still, than they should publish their Faces, at their peril, in my Theatre, where C A T O, if he liv'd, might enter without scandal. By your Lordship's most faithfull Honourer,            

B E N.  J O H N S O N.  
  Ben Jonson's Epigrams

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 Jonson
HE ROGVE: OR THE LIFE OF GVZMAN DE ALFARACHE.
WRITTEN IN SPANISH by MATHEO ALEMAN,

LONDON, Printed for Edward Blount. 1623.

On the Author, Worke, and Translator.


VVHo tracks this Authors, or Translators Pen,
Shall finde, that either hath read Bookes, and Men:
To say but one, were single. Then it chimes,
When the old words doe strike on the new times,
As in this Spanish Proteus; who, though writ
But in one tongue, was form'd with the worlds wit:
And hath the noblest marke of a good Booke,
That an ill man dares not securely looke
Vpon it, but will loath, or let it passe,
As a deformed face doth a true glasse. (snip)
(Look not on his picture)

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LXV. — TO MY MUSE.

Away, and leave me, thou thing most abhorr'd
That hast betray'd me to a worthless lord ;
Made me commit most fierce idolatry
To a great image through thy luxury :
Be thy next master's more unlucky muse,
And, as thou'st mine, his hours and youth abuse,
Get him the time's long grudge, the court's ill will ;
And reconcil'd, keep him suspected still.
Make him lose all his friends ; and, which is worse,
Almost all ways to any better course.
With me thou leav'st an happier muse than thee,
And which thou brought'st me, welcome poverty :
She shall instruct my after-thoughts to write
Things manly, and not smelling parasite.
But I repent me : stay — Whoe'er is raised,
For worth he has not, he is tax'd not praised.



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Jonson, Timber



Parasiti ad mensam. - These are flatterers for their bread, that praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship’s ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions.  What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and dilate business of the house they have nothing to do with.  They praise my lord’s wine and the sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my lord’s favour, speak for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon my lord’s least distaste, or change of his palate.

How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly! for it is not enough to speak good, but timely things.  If a man be asked a question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well, that he be sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity; for it is less dishonour to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly.  The ears are excused, the understanding is not.  And in things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by the affectation of knowing too much he lose the credit he hath, by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters.  Nor seek to get his patron’s favour by embarking himself in the factions of the family, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports or affections.  They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord’s ears), and oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they have seen and heard,

Imò serviles. - These are called instruments of grace and power with great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and marks of weakness.  For sufficient lords are able to make these discoveries themselves.  Neither will an honourable person inquire who eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, who sleeps with whom.  They are base and servile natures that busy themselves about these disquisitions.  How often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled thriftily!  These are commonly the off-scouring and dregs of men that do these things, or calumniate others; yet I know not truly which is worse - he that maligns all, or that praises all.  There is as a vice in praising, and as frequent, as in detracting.
 

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

My Shakespeare RISE! Jonson Plays the Parasitic Fake


Jonson's Parasitic Fake and Shakespeare's First Folio --

 "Decipimur specie rectie"--Horace,
"We are deceived by the SEMBLANCE of what is RIGHT."

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 Ben Jonson's Epigrams  65

To my {MUSE}.
.
AWay, and leave me, thou thing most abhor'd
   That hast betray'd me to a worthless Lord;
Made me commit most fircefierce Idolatry
   To a great Image through thy Luxury.
.
Be thy next Masters more unlucky {MUSE},
   And, as thou'hast mine, his Hours, an[D] Youth abuse.
Get him the Times long gr[U]dg, the Courts ill will;
   And Reconcil'd, [K]eep him Suspected still.
Make him los[E] all his Friends; and, which is worse,
   Almost all ways, to any better course.
With me thou leav'{S}t an happier Muse than thee,
   And which {T}hou brought'st me, welcome Poverty.
Sh{E} shall in(S)truct my Aft[E]r-thoughts t(O) {W}rite
   Things [M]anly, and no(T) smelling PARASITE.
But I r(E)pent me: Stay. Who [E]'re is {R}ai(S)'d,
   For worth he has not, He is (T)ax'd, no{T} prais'd.


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Things Manly:

 Liking Men:
Ben Jonson's Closet Opened
Lorna Hutson
University of St. Andrews

In the prologue to the revised text of Every Man In, Jonson distinguishes the play that he presents as the "first fruits" of his dramatic career from the offerings of the more popular Shakespearean tradition, in which playwrights disregarded neoclassical poetics, happily ignoring the principle of unity of time. He declares that he has not "so loved the stage" as to follow the example of his contemporaries, who

. . . make a child, now swaddled to proceed
Man, and then shoot up in one beard and weed,
Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tiring-house bring wounds to scars.4

The often-heard complaint of earlier humanist authors against the chronicle drama's violations of temporal probability is here given a peculiarly Jonsonian inflection in the reference to "three rusty swords" and the quick-changes of "wounds to scars" backstage. Jonson, unlike Shakespeare, persistently draws attention to the "inert materiality" and "creaking contrivances" of theater. Here, of course, the demystification of these contrivances works to invalidate any techniques of illusion except for those of linguistic currency and contemporaneity. Jonson's play, unlike those chronicle histories of Shakespeare, will seem real because it offers images of "deeds, and language, such as men do use" in contemporary life, enlivened by examples of the unmanly commission of "POPULAR ERRORS":

I mean such ERRORS as you'll all confess
By laughing at them, they deserve no less:
Which, when you heartily do, there's hope left then
You that have so grac'd monsters may like men.
("Prologue," 26-30)

The ERRORS to be staged in Jonson's play for the delectation of the audience, then, are aspects of those plays they have elsewhere applauded or "grac'd." These will be on display as "monsters," foils against which what is likeable about "men" will appear. The category not just of men, but of "likeable men," is thus elided with the persuasive power of a verisimilar, unified dramatic action: "You that have so grac'd monsters"-that have clapped at ILL-FORMED PLAYS- may now direct a more discriminating and appreciative gaze at the "natural," "manly" form of this play.


********************************

Smelling Parasite:

 Jonson, Discoveries

De Poetica. - We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many PECCANT HUMOURS, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy of men' s judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men' s study of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by lessening the professor' s estimation, and making THE AGE afraid of their liberty; and THE AGE is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all writings aspersions.

That is the state word, the PHRASE OF COURT (placentia college), which some call PARASITES PLACE, the INN OF IGNORANCE.


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Parasite - scurra

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 ‘A wife in white is as different from a gaudy-coloured prostitute as a real friend is from a parasitic fake’ -- Horace, Epistle I.18

********************************
To Mr. Browne on his Pastorals - Jonson's 'truly-belov'd' friend - real friend
To Shakespeare - Jonson's beloved 'master' - parasitic fake


 To my TRULY-belov'd *FREIND*,

Mr. Browne:
on his Pastorals.
Some men, of Bookes or Freinds NOT SPEAKING RIGHT,
May hurt them more with praise, then Foes with spight.
But I have seene thy worke, and I know thee:
And, if thou list thy selfe, what thou canst bee.
For, though but early in these PATHES THOU TREAD,
I find thee write most worthy to be read.
It must be thine owne judgment, yet that sends
This thy worke forth: that judgment mine commends.
And, where the most reade bookes, on Authors fames,
Or, like our Money-Brokers, take up names
On credit, and are cossen'd: see, that thou
By offring not more sureties, then inow,
Hold thyne owne worth unbroke: which is so good
Upon th'Exchange of Letters, as I wou'd
More of our writers would like thee, not SWELL
With the how much they set forth, but th'how well.

Ben Jonson

****************************************
P R O L O G U E. Cynthia's Revels, Jonson

IF gracious silence, sweet attention,
Quick sight, and quicker apprehension,
(The lights of Judgments throne) shine any where;
Our doubtful Author hopes this is their Sphere.
And therefore opens he himself to those;
To other weaker Beams his labours close:
As loth to prostitute their Virgin strain,
To ev'ry vulgar and adult'rate Brain,
In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath,
She shuns the print of any BEATEN PATH;
And proves new *WAYS* to come to learned Ears:
Pied IGNORANCE she neither loves nor, fears.
Nor hunts she after popular Applause,
Or fomy praise, that drops from common Jaws:
The Garland that she wears, their bands must twine,
Who can both censure, understand, define
What merit is: Then cast those piercing Rays,
Round as a Crown, instead of honour'd Bays,
About his Poesie; which (he knows) affords
Words, above action: matter, above words. 


********************************
 ‘A wife in white is as different from a gaudy-coloured prostitute as a real friend is from a parasitic fake’ -- Horace, Epistle I.18

********************************
P(R)aising Shakespeare the 'wrong' way/not speaking right - Jonson describes *and then takes* the 'ways' of parasitical/slavish gaudy 'fake' praise:

 TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
AND WHAT HE HATH *LEFT* US
by Ben Jonson

To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither MAN NOR *MUSE*  can PRAISE too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these WAYS
Were NOTNOTNOTNOTNOT the PATHS I meant unto thy praise ;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, BUT ECHOES RIGHT ;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it SEEMED to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron ; what could hurt her more ?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin
: Soul of the age!
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage!
MY SHAKSPEARE RISE !

***************************************
Horace, Epistles I.18.1-4
 If I know you well. Lollius, frankest of men ['liberrime'], you dread
seeming like a sponger, having declared yourself a friend.
Just as a respectable married woman and a prostitute are unlike one another and
don't go together, so is a friend far removed from an untrustworthy parasite.

***************************************

 Jonson, Timber
Adulatio.
875 I have seene, that Poverty makes men doe unfit things; but honest men should not doe them: they should gaine otherwise. Though a man bee hungry, hee should not play the Parasite. That houre, wherein I would repent me to be honest: there were wayes enow open for me to be rich. But Flattery is a fine Pick-lock of tender eares: especially of those, fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity, and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For indeed men could  never be taken, in that abundance, with the Sprindges of others Flattery, if they began not there; if they did but remember, how much more profitable the bitternesse of Truth were, then all the honey distilling from a whorish voice; which is not praise, but poyson. But now it is come to that extreme folly, or rather madnesse with some: that he that  flatters them modestly, or sparingly, is thought to maligne them. If  their friend consent not to their vices, though hee doe not contradict them; hee is neverthelesse an enemy. When they doe all things the worst way, even then they looke for praise. Nay, they will hire fellowes to flatter them with suites, and suppers, and to prostitute their judgements. They have Livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the Spit, that waite their turnes, as my Lord has his feasts, and guests.

***************************************
But Flattery is a fine Pick-lock of tender eares: -- Jonson



Dogberry - And also the watch heard them talk of one Deformed. They
say he wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it and
borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath used so
long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and

will lend nothing for God’s sake. 

****************************************************************
Jonson -Timber
 But now it is
886 come to that extreme folly, or rather madnesse with some: that he that
887 flatters them modestly, or sparingly, is thought to maligne them.


Jonson, Timber
I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a MALEVOLENT speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their IGNORANCE, who choose that circumstance to COMMEND their friend by, wherein he most FAULTED...

Jonson complains that his just criticism of Shakespeare was incorrectly interpreted as 'malevolent'. William Cartwright also comments on the folly of making commendation a matter of 'good will' or 'benevolence' - thus hindering the corrective action of good criticism.

Cartwright, to Jonson (in Jonsonus Virbius)
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and TH'AGES FASHION DID MAKE HIT;(note -For though the poet's matter nature be,/His art doth give the fashion.)

Excluding those from life in after-time,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made COMMENDATION a BENEVOLENCE:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..


Jonson, Timber
De Poetica. - We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many peccant humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy of men' s judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men' s study of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by lessening the professor' s estimation, and making THE AGE afraid of their liberty; and THE AGE is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all writings *ASPERSIONS*.

That is the state word, the PHRASE OF COURT (placentia college), which some call PARASITES PLACE, the INN OF IGNORANCE.

************************************

(The overblown praise and 'servile flattery' of Shakespeare in the First Folio is the only kind of commentary the courtly admirers of Shakespeare would accept. The courtiers reject correction and instruction and thus the court becomes the home/feeding-ground of parasites and sycophants. Jonson creates the parasitic fake of the First Folio to 'please' and to ironically distance himself from charges of 'malevolence'. Parasitic praise is worthless stuff - feeding fools with airy 'nothing'.)

*************************************
Aspersion - the act of defaming

Aspersion \As*per"sion\, n. [L. aspersio, fr. aspergere: cf. F.
   aspersion.]
   1. A sprinkling, as with water or dust, in a literal sense.

            Behold an immersion, not and aspersion. --Jer.
                                                  Taylor.

   2. The spreading of calumniations reports or charges which
      tarnish reputation, like the bespattering of a body with
      foul water; calumny.
 *************************************
Nashe:
[Harvey] cast up certain rude humours of English hexameter verses that lay upon his stomach; a certain Nobleman stood in his way as he was vomiting, and from top to toe he was all to bewrayed him [sic] with Tuscanism.

**************************************

 HORACE, THE LIAR PERSONA AND THE POETRY OF DISSIMULATIO: THE CASE OF EPISTLES 1
L. Maric

Abstract
In this paper I examine Horace’s Epistles 1 and argue that Horace
constructed the main speaker of this collection as a duplicitous ‘liar
persona’. Horace’s persona of Epistles 1 admits that his past
relationship with his patron Maecenas was paramount to slavery and
appears determined to restore himself to freedom. Nevertheless,
Horace employs various strategies to make us question the sincerity
of his persona’s resolve and to suspect we may be being addressed
by a slave dissimulating as a free man.
Furthermore, Horace seems
to have implicated the Epistles as a whole in this pretence; they are
poems written to a patron’s demand but ‘pose’ as his personal letters.
I argue that Horace created this poetic dynamic, the liar persona in
his false letters, in order to ‘unmask’ himself and disclose his real
view of the nature of his relationship with Maecenas.
...Provided that the Epistles are read in order, Epistle 20 would reveal to the reader that the book he/she has just finished reading is in some sense a slave and would thus invite a second reading in light of this knowledge. When Horace says the book is a slave, he also designates its primary voice as such; although he maintains the transparent fiction that his persona is a separate entity from his book, it is clear that by depriving his poetry of a human persona, he also deprives his poetic self of the same. Epistle 20 asks the readers to go back and read with an awareness that the primary voice of Epistles is a slave and thus to be wary of anything that might suggest otherwise, as that is more than likely a slave's dissimulatio...By the time we arrive at Epistle 20, we hardly even need its revelation to inform us that in the previous nineteen poems we have been addressed by a dissimulating slave.

****************************************
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US

****************************************

Praising the 'Wrong Way' - treading the wrong/sinistre path:


Horace, of the Art of Poetrie
transl. Ben Jonson

If to Quintilius, you recited ought:
Hee'd say, Mend this, good friend, and this; "Tis naught.
If you denied, you had no better straine,
And twice, or thrice had 'ssayd it, still in vaine:
Hee'd bid, BLOT ALL: and to the anvile bring
Those ill-torn'd Verses, to new hammering.
Then: If your fault you rather had defend
Then change. *No word, or worke, more would he spend
In vaine, BUT YOU, AND YOURS, YOU SHOULD LOVE STILL
Alone, without a rivall, by his will*.

A wise, and honest man will cry out shame
On ARTELESS Verse; the hard ones he will blame;
Blot out the careless, with his turned pen;
Cut off superfluous ornaments; and when
They're darke, bid cleare this: all that's doubtfull wrote
Reprove; and, what is to be changed, not:
Become an Aristarchus. And, not say,
Why should I grieve my friend, this trifling WAY?
These trifles into serious mischiefs lead
The man once mock'd, and SUFFERED WRONG TO TREAD.


**************************************
Sight, show and seeming in Jonson's encomium:

 Yet must I not give Nature all ; thy art,
My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion : and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame ;
*Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn* ;
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou ! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well torned and true filed lines;
In each of which he SEEMS to shake a lance,
As brandisht at the eyes of ignorance.

**************************************

sinistrē adv.
sinister, badly, wrongly, perversely

************************************** 
 Quintilius/Jonson

I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never BLOTTED out line. My answer hath beene, would he had BLOTTED a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their IGNORANCE, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most FAULTED...

***************************************
fault

4: a WRONG ACTION attributable to bad judgment or IGNORANCE or
inattention; "he made a bad mistake"; "she was quick to
point out my errors"; "I could understand his English in
spite of his grammatical faults" [syn: mistake, error]

**************************************

 Jonson's 'Master' Shakespeare:

Horace
Hor. lib. 2. Epist. 1.

But lest you think 'tis niggard praise I fling
To bards who soar where I ne'er stretched a wing,
That man I hold TRUE MASTER of his art
Who with fictitious woes can wring my heart,
Can rouse me, soothe me, pierce me with the thrill
Of vain alarm, and, as by magic skill,
Bear me to Thebes, to Athens, where he will.

Now turn to us shy mortals, who, instead
Of being hissed and acted, WOULD BE READ:

We claim your favour, if with worthy gear
You'd fill the temple Phoebus holds so dear,
And give poor bards the stimulus of hope
To aid their progress up Parnassus' slope.
Poor bards! much harm to our own cause we do
(It tells against myself, but yet 'tis true),
When, wanting you to read us, we intrude
On times of business or of lassitude,
When we lose temper if a friend thinks fit
To find a fault or two with what we've writ,
When, unrequested, we again go o'er
A passage we recited once, before,
When we complain, forsooth, our laboured strokes,
Our DEXTEROUS TURNS, are lost on careless folks,
When we expect, so soon as you're informed
That ours are hearts by would-be genius warmed,
You'll send for us instanter, end our woes
With a high hand, and make us all compose.

****************************************
Awk \Awk\, adv.
Perversely; in the wrong way. --L'Estrange.
Awk \Awk\ ([add]k), a. [OE. auk, awk (properly) turned away;
(hence) contrary, wrong, from Icel. ["o]figr, ["o]fugr,
afigr, turning the wrong way, fr. af off, away; cf. OHG.
abuh, Skr. ap[=a]c turned away, fr. apa off, away + a root
ak, a[u^]k, to bend, from which come also E. angle, anchor.]
1. Odd; out of order; perverse. [Obs.]
2. Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister; as, the awk
end of a rod (the but end). [Obs.] --Golding.
3. Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous;
awkward. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]

*****************************************
"Seems' to shake a lance, -- 'eyes of ignorance'-- Great Awk

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
   Unless this general evil they maintain,
   All men are bad and in their badness reign.

**************************************** 


An Epigram.
To the Honour'd------Countess of ------ Jonson

THe Wisdom Madam of your private Life,
Where with this while you live a widowed Wife,
And the *RIGHT WAYS* you take unto the RIGHT*,
To conquer Rumour, and triumph on Spight;
Not only shunning by your act, to do
Ought that is ill, but the suspicion too,
Is of so brave Example, as he were
No Friend to Vertue, could be silent here.
The rather when the Vices of the Time
Are grown so Fruitful, and false Pleasures climb
By all oblique Degrees, that killing height
From whence they fall, cast down with their own
weight... 


******************************************

 In the dedication of his play _Catiline_ (1611) to William Herbert, one of the 'Incomparable Brethren' of the First Folio, Jonson writes of his despair over the 'ignorance' of the age:

To the Great Example of H O N O U R and V E R T U E, the most Noble
W I L L I A M
E A R L of P E M B R O K E , L O R D C H A M B E R L A I N, &c.
M Y L O R D,

IN so thick and dark an IGNORANCE, as now almost covers the AGE, I crave leave to stand near your Light, and by that to be read. Posterity may pay your Benefit the Honour and Thanks, when it shall know, that you dare, in these *Jig-given times*, to countenance a Legitimate Poem. I must call it so, against all noise of Opinion: from whose crude and airy Reports, I appeal to that great and singular Faculty of Judgment in your Lordship, able to vindicate Truth from ERROR.

********************************** 
 Jonson, _The Alchemist_

TO THE READER.

If thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender, beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to be COZENED, than in THIS AGE, in poetry, especially in plays: wherein, now the CONCUPISCENCE of DANCES and of ANTICS so reigneth, as to run away from nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their IGNORANCE.

***********************************
Cozen/Mount bank - flights upon the banks
***********************************
To his worthy beloued friend Mr. BEN. IONSON.


HAD the great thoughts of Catiline bene GOOD,
The memory of his name, streame of his bloud,
His plots past into acts, (which would haue turn'd
His Infamy to Fame, though Rome had burn'd)
Had not begot him equall grace with men,
As this, that he is writ by such a Pen:
VVhose inspirations, if great Rome had had,
Her good things had bene better'd, and her bad
Vndone; the first for ioy, the last for feare,
That such a Muse should spread them, to our Yeare.
But woe to vs then: for thy laureat brow
If Rome enioy'd had, we had wanted now.
But, in this AGE, where JIGS and DANCES moue,
How few there are, that this pure worke approue!
Yet, better then I rayle at, thou canst scorne
Censures, that die, ere they be throughly borne.
Each Subiect thou, still thee EACH SUBJECT RAYSES.
And whosoeuer thy Booke, himselfe disprayses:

Nat. Field.

**************************************

 Jonson, Discoveries


Censura de poetis. - Nothing in our AGE, I have observed, is more PREPOSTEROUS than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for MIRACLES, who yet are so VILE that if a man should go about to examine and correct them, he must make all they have done but one BLOT. Their good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the other’s death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:-

“ - Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia. - ” {44a}

Et paulò post,

“Non possunt . . . multæ . . . lituræ

. . . una litura potest.”

Cestius - Cicero - Heath - Taylor - Spenser. - Yet their vices have not hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best men, if once it take root with the IGNORANT. Cestius, in his time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst.  They learned him without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at least a reader or spectator.  The puppets are seen now in despite of the players; Heath' s epigrams and the Sculler' s poems have their applause.  There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hi corruptius judicant.  Nay, if it were put to the question of the water- rhymer' s works, against Spenser' s, *I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a prerogative the VULGAR have to lose their judgments and like that which is naught.*
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family.  They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves without her favour.  Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time' s grandees, who accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place to write and starve.
Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil.  But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding.

*******************************************
Preposterous Fame/Worthy to be Taxed:

Jonson, Volpone, Dedication to the 'two famous Universities':

Never (most Equal Sisters) had any Man a Wit so presently Excellent, as that it could RAISE IT SELF; but there must come both Matter, Occasion, Commenders, and Favourers to it. If this be true, and that the Fortune of all Writers doth daily prove it, it behoves the Careful to provide well toward these Accidents; and, having acquir'd them, to preserve that part of Reputation most tenderly, wherein the Benefit of a Friend is also defended. Hence is it, that I now render my self grateful, and am studious to justifie the Bounty of your Act; to which, though your meer Authority were satisfying, yet it being AN AGE wherein Poetry and the Professors of it hear so ill on all Sides, there will a Reason be look't for in the Subject. It is certain, nor can it with any Forehead be oppos'd, that the too much Licence of Poetasters in this Time, hath much deform'd their Mistris; that, every day, their manifold and manifest Ignorance doth stick unnatural Reproaches upon her: But for their Petulancy, it were an Act of the greatest Injustice, either to let the Learned suffer, or so Divine a Skill (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean Hands) to fall under the least Contempt. For, if Men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the Offices and Function of a Poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the Impossibility of any Man's being the good Poet, without first being a good Man.
(SNIP)
  
And, howsoever I cannot
escape from some the Imputation of Sharpness, but that they will say, I have taken a pride, or lust, to be bitter, and not my youngest Instant but hath come into the World with all his Teeth; I would ask of these supercilious Politicks, What Nation, Society, or general Order or State I have provoked? What Publick Person? Whether I have not (in all these) preserv'd their Dignity, as mine own Person, safe? My Works are read, allow'd, (I speak of those are intirely mine) look into them: What broad Repoofs have I us'd? Where have I been particular? Where Personal? Except to a Mimick, Cheater, Bawd, or Buffon, Creatures (for their Insolencies) WORTHY TO BE TAX'D? Yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his Disease? But it is not Rumour can make Men guilty, much less entitle me to other Mens Crimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ or carried, but may be made obnoxious to Construction; marry, whilst I bear mine Innocence about me, I fear it not. Application is now grown a Trade with many; and there are that profess to have a Key for the decyphering of every thing: But let Wise and Noble Persons take heed how they be too credulous, or give leave to these invading Interpreters to be over-familiar with their Fames, who cunningly, and often, utter their own virulent Malice, under other Mens simplest Meanings. As for those that will (by Faults which Charity hath rak'd up, or common Honesty conceal'd) make themselves a Name with the Multitude, or (to draw their rude and beastly Claps) care not whose living Faces they intrench with their petulant Styles, may they do it without a Rival, for me: I chuse rather to live grav'd in Obscurity, than share with them in so PREPOSTEROUS A FAME.

***************************************
Things Smelling Parasite:

...Yet their vices have not hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best men, if once it take root with the IGNORANT.--Jonson

 Cartwright, William, Jonsonus Virbius

...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so GOOD, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and th'ages fashion did make hit;
*Excluding those from life in after-time*,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made commendation a benevolence:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..  


**********************************
Smelling Parasite:

 Munday's Acrostic Poem: Edward de Vere, Earle of Oxford

(snip)

Eche one dooth knowe no fables I expresse,
As though I should encroche for priuate gayne:
Regard you may (at pleasure) I confesse,
Letting that passe, I vouch to dread no paine.
Eche where, gainst such as can my faith distaine.

Or once can say, he deales with FLATTYRE:
FORGING his TALES to please the FANTASYE.

*********************************
Oxford - Master of Courtship/Master of Manners/Grand Cavalier

Cynthia's Revels, Jonson

MERCURY. Go, Dors, and you, my madam COURTING-STOCKS,

Follow your scorned and derided mates;
Tell to your guilty breasts, what mere GILT BLOCKS
You are, and how unworthy human states.

CRI. Now, sacred God of Wit, if you can make
Those, whom our sports tax in these APISH GRACES,
Kiss, like the fighting snakes, your peaceful rod,
These times shall canonise you for a god.


MER. Why, Crites, think you any noble spirit,
Or any, worth the title of a man,
Will be incensed to see the enchanted veils
Of self-conceit, and SERVILE FLATTERY,
Wrapt in so many folds by time and custom,
Drawn from his wronged and bewitched eyes?
Who sees not now their shape and nakedness,
Is blinder than the son of earth, the mole;
Crown'd with no more humanity, nor soul.

CRITES. Though they may see it, yet the huge estate
FANCY, and FORM, and SENSUAL PRIDE have gotten,
Will make them blush for anger, not for shame,
And turn shewn nakedness to impudence.
Humour is now the test we try things in:
All power is just: nought that delights is sin.
And yet the zeal of every knowing man
Opprest with hills of tyranny, cast on virtue
By the light fancies of fools, thus transported.
Cannot but vent the Aetna of his fires,
T'inflame best bosoms with much worthier love
Than of these outward and effeminate shades;
That these vain joys, in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men:
And, for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power;
Which to neglect for a self-loving neatness,
Is sacrilege of an unpardon'd greatness.

MER. Then let the truth of these things strengthen thee,
In thy exempt and only man-like course;
Like it the more, the less it is respected:
Though men fail, virtue is by gods protected. --
See, here comes Arete; I'll withdraw myself. [EXIT.]

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  Ben Jonson's Epigrams  65

To my {MUSE}.
.
AWay, and leave me, thou thing most abhor'd
   That hast betray'd me to a WORTHLESS LORD;
Made me commit most fierce Idolatry
   To a great Image through thy LUXURY.

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  Shakespeare

O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can NOTHING WORTHY PROVE.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
   For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
   And so should you, to love things NOTHING WORTH.

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 Droeshout - Mark of Oxford's Mind/Race of Shakespeare's Mind and Manners:

De corruptela morum -- There cannot be one colour of the MIND; another of the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the wit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown, and deflowered. Do we not see, if the mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon an effeminate person: his very gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his motion is so; if angry, 'tis troubled, and violent. So that we may conclude wheresoever manners, and fashions are corrupted, language is. It imitates the public riot. The EXCESS of feasts, and apparel, are the notes of a sick state; and the wantonness of language, of a sick MIND.
(Discoveries 1171) Jonson

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Oxford/Shakespeare/Comus

 _Comus_, John Milton


745: COMUS. Why are you vexed, Lady? why do you frown?
746: Here dwell no frowns, nor anger; from these gates
747: Sorrow flies far. See, here be all the pleasures
748: That FANCY can beget on youthful thoughts,
749: When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns
750: Brisk as the April buds in primrose season.
751: And first behold this cordial julep here,
752: That flames and dances in his crystal bounds,
753: With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed.

(SNIP)

837: LADY. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips
838: In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler
839: Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes,
840: Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb.
841: I hate when vice can bolt her arguments
842: And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.
843: Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature,
844: As if she would her children should be riotous
845: With her abundance. She, good cateress,
846: Means her provision only to the good,
847: That live according to her sober laws,
848: And holy dictate of spare Temperance.
849: If every just man that now pines with want
850: Had but a moderate and beseeming share
851: Of that which lewdly-pampered LUXURY
852: Now heaps upon some few with VAST EXCESS,
853: Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed
854: In unsuperfluous even proportion,
855: And she no whit encumbered with her store;
856: And then the Giver would be better thanked,
857: His praise due paid: for swinish gluttony
858: Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his GORGEOUS feast,
859: But with besotted base ingratitude
860: Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. 

(SNIP)
 871: Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
872: That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence;
873: Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced.
874: Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth
875: Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits
876: To such a flame of sacred vehemence
877: That dumb things would be moved to sympathise,
878: And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and SHAKE,
879: Till all thy MAGIC STRUCTURES, REARED SO HIGH,
880: Were SHATTERED into heaps o'er thy FALSE HEAD.

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  Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, / What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? --Milton, On Shakespeare

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 Rewards of Earth - Greville


REWARDS of earth, Nobility and Fame,
To senses glory and to conscience woe,
How little be you for so great a name?
Yet less is he with men what thinks you so.
For EARTHLY power, that stands by FLESHLY WIT,
Hath banished that truth which should govern it.

Nobility, power's golden fetter is,
Wherewith wise kings subjection do adorn,
To make man think her heavy yoke a bliss
Because it makes him more than he was born.
Yet still a slave, dimm'd by mists of a crown,
Let he should see what riseth, what pulls down.

Fame, that is but good words of evil deeds,
Begotten by the harm we have, or do,
Greatest far off, least ever where it breeds,
We both with dangers and disquiet woo;
And in our flesh, the vanities' false glass,
We thus deceiv'd adore these *calves of brass*.


*************************************



Cecil Papers 251/28: Oxford to Cecil, [July 1600].

Although my bad success in former suits to her Majesty have given me cause to bury my hopes in the deep abyss and bottom of despair, rather than now to attempt, after so many trials made in vain & so many opportunities escaped, the effects of fair words or fruits of golden promises, yet for that I cannot believe but that there hath been always a true correspondency of word and intention in her Majesty, I do conjecture that, with a little help, that which of itself hath brought forth so fair blossoms will also yield fruit... And I know not by what better means, or when, her Majesty may have an easier opportunity to discharge the debt of so many hopes as her promises have given me cause to embrace than by this, which give she must, & so give as nothing extraordinarily doth part from her. If she shall not deign me this in an opportunity of time so fitting, what time shall I attend (which is uncertain to all men) unless in the graves of men there were a time to receive benefits and good turns from princes? Well, I will not use more words, for they may rather argue mistrust than confidence. I will assure myself and not doubt of your good office, both in this but in any honourable friendship I shall have cause to use you. Hackney.

Oxford to Cecil, [May 1601?].

My very good brother, I have received by Henry Lok your most kind message, which I so effectually embrace that, what for the old love I have borne you which, I assure you, was very great; what for the alliance which is between us, which is tied so fast by my children of your own sister; what for mine own disposition to yourself, which hath been rooted by long and many familiarities of a more youthful time, there could have been nothing so dearly welcome unto me. Wherefore not as a stranger, but in the old style, I do assure you that you shall have no faster friend & well-wisher unto you than myself, either in kindness, which I find beyond mine expectation in you, or in kindred, whereby none is nearer allied than myself sith, of your sisters, of my wife only you have received nieces, a sister, I say, not by any venter, but born of the same father and the same mother of yourself. I will say no more, for words in faithful minds are tedious, only this I protest: you shall do me wrong, and yourself greater if, either through fables, which are mischievous, or conceit, which is dangerous, you think otherwise of me than humanity and consanguinity requireth.

Iago:
(I will in Cassio’s lodging lose this napkin
And let him find it. Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ. This may do something.
The Moor already changes with my poison.
DANGEROUS CONCEITS are in their natures poisons
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood
Burn like the mines of sulfur.)


Cecil Papers 181/99: Oxford to Cecil, [January 1602].

Now, brother, I do not by these letters make challenge of your words for, if you list to forget them, my putting in remembrance will be bitter, and to small purpose. Only this now is mine intention, not to tell any new thing, but that which is already known unto you. The matter, after it had received many crosses, many inventions of delay, yet at length hath been heard before all the judges…, but now time and truth have unmasked all difficulties and I do understand the judges are, if they will be indifferent, to make a good report to her Majesty. Yet (I know not by what unfortunate star), there are so many disposed to withstand it as the truth, much oppressed by the friends of the contrary part, is likely, if not wholly to be defaced, yet so extenuated as the virtue thereof will be of little effect.

(snip)

Now the matter depending in this sort, I find my state weak and destitute of friends for, having only relied always on her Majesty, I have neglected to seek others, and this trust of mine, many things considered, I fear may deceive me. Another confidence I had in yourself, in whom (without offence let me speak it) I am to cast some doubt by reason as, in your last letters I found a wavering style much differing from your former assurances, I fear now to be left in medio rerum omnium certamine et discrimine which, if it so fall out, I shall bear it, by the grace of God, with an equal mind sith time and experience have given me sufficient understanding of worldly frailty. But I hope better (though I cast the worst), howsoever, for finis coronat opus, and then everything will be laid open, every doubt resolved into a plain sense. In the mean season, I now, at the last (for now is the time), crave this brotherly friendship that, as you began it for me with all kindness, so that you will continue in the same affection to end it.
(snip)
I hope her Majesty, after so many gracious words which she gave me at Greenwich upon her departure, exceeding this which I expect, will not now draw in the beams of her princely grace to my discouragement and her own detriment. Neither will I conceive otherwise of your virtue and affection towards me now, at the end, than I apprehended all good hope and kindness from you in the beginning. Thus with a lame hand to write I take my leave, but with a mind well disposed to hope the best of my friends till otherwise I find them, which I fear nothing at all, assuring myself your words and deeds dwell not asunder.

Cecil Papers 99/150: Oxford to Cecil, 25, 27 April 1603.
…I cannot but find a great grief in myself to remember the mistress which we have lost, under whom both you and myself from our greenest years have been in a manner brought up and, although it hath pleased God after an earthly kingdom to take her up into a more permanent and heavenly state wherein I do not doubt but she is crowned with glory, and to give us a prince wise, learned and enriched with all virtues, yet the long time which we spent in her service we cannot look for so much left of our days as to bestow upon another, neither the long acquaintance and kind familiarities wherewith she did use us we are not ever to expect from another prince, as denied by the infirmity of age and common course of reason. In this common shipwreck, mine is above all the rest who, least regarded though often comforted of all her followers, she hath left to try my fortune among the alterations of time and chance, either without sail whereby to take the advantage of any PROSPEROus gale or with anchor to ride till the storm be overpast. There is nothing therefore left to my comfort but the excellent virtues and deep wisdom wherewith God hath endued our new master and sovereign Lord, who doth not come amongst us as a stranger but as a natural prince, succeeding by right of blood and inheritance, not as a conqueror but as the true shepherd of Christ's flock to cherish and comfort them.
(SNIP)

Nothing adorns a King more than justice, nor in anything doth a King more resemble God than in justice, which is the head of all virtue, and he that is endued therewith hath all the rest.

Oxford to Cecil, 12 June 1603.

My very good Lord, I know that you are so charged with public affairs that you can have little leisure, or none at all, to undertake a private cause, especially concerning another. This therefore which you do for me, I do conceive it in your particular favour, and so I take it, and you shall find me therefor ever thankful. These shall be therefore to desire your Lordship that with my very good Lord and friend my Lord Admiral, that you will procure me a full end of this suit wherein I have spent so long a time, and passed the greatest part of mine age. The cause is right, the king just, and I do not doubt but your Lordships both mine honourable friends, according to your words I shall find you in deeds...

Your Lordship's most assured friend and brother-in-law.

Edward Oxenford

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Hold/Restrain:
 From To the Deceased Author of these Poems (William Cartwright)

Jasper Mayne
For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.

In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:
A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.
Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)

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 Davies, Scourge of Folly
Of the staid FURIOUS POET FUCUS.
Epig. 114

Fucus the FURIOUS POET writes but Plaies;
So, playing, writes: that’s, idly writeth all:

Yet, idle Plaies, and Players are his Staies;
Which stay him that he can no lower fall:

For, he is fall’n into the deep’st decay,
Where Playes and Players keepe him at a stay.

*************************************

 Title: Q. Horatius Flaccus: his Art of poetry. Englished by Ben:
Jonson. With other workes of the author, never printed before Date:
1640

...Those that are wise, a FURIOUS POET feare,
And flye to touch him, as a man that were
Infected with the Leprosie, or had
The yellow jaundis, or were truely mad,
Under the angry Moon: but then the boyes
They vexe, and careless follow him with noise.
This, while he belcheth lofty Verses out,
And stalketh, like a Fowler, round about,
Busie to catch a Black-bird; if he fall
Into a pit, or hole, although he call
And crye aloud, help gentle Country-men;
There's none will take the care to help him, then, For if one should,
and with a rope make hast
To let it downe, who knowes, if he did cast
Himselfe there purposely or no; and would Not thence be sav'd,
although indeed he could;
Ile tell you but the death, and the disease
Of the Sysilian Poet, Empedocles'
He, while he labour'd to be thought a god,
Immortall, took a melancholick, odd
Conceipt, and into burning Aetna leap't.Let Poets perish that will not
be kept.



He that preserves a man against his will,
Doth the same thing with him that would him kill.
Nor did he doe this, once; if yet you can
Now, bring him back, he'le be no more a man,
Or love of this his famous death lay by.
Here's one makes verses, but there's none knows why;
Whether he hath pissed upon his Fathers grave:
Or the sad thunder-strucken thing he have,
Polluted, touch't: but certainly he's mad;
And as a Beare, if he the strength but had
To force the Grates that hold him in, would fright
All; so this grievous writer puts to flight
Learn'd, and unlearn'd; holdeth whom once he takes;
And there an end of him with reading makes:
Not letting goe the skin, where he drawes food,
Till, horse-leech like, he drop off, full of blood.

Finis

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Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
   You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
   That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.