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.
***************************************
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.
************************************** 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;
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
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.
*****************************************
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;
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..
********************************************
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.
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.
**************************************
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
***************************************
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.
****************************************
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
***************************************
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.
****************************************
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.
****************************
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
****************************
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:
****************************
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?)
***************************************
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,
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
*************************************
Jonson
HE ROGVE: OR THE LIFE OF GVZMAN DE ALFARACHE.
WRITTEN IN SPANISH by MATHEO ALEMAN,
LONDON, Printed for Edward Blount. 1623.
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)
****************************
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
****************************
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:
****************************
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?)
***************************************
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 |
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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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. ************************************ 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. |
