Knowles, James.: 'Songs of BASER ALLOY': Jonson's Gypsies Metamorphosed and the circulation of manuscript libels.
Huntington Library Quarterly (69:1) [2006] p.153-VII.
The connections between masques and libels that I trace here, through the example of Jonson's Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621), also link masquing with the growing news culture on which libeling, in part, depended. Masques were deeply embedded in the news culture of the 1620s, appearing frequently in newsletters, making the news, and even, in the case of Jonson's News from the New World (1621), being about the news. Robert Burton, himself an important collector of masques, included news of "weddings, Maskings, Mummeries, Entertainments, Jubilees, Embassies, Tilts and Tournaments, Trophies, Triumphes, Revels, Sports, Plaies" among the "vast confusion" of "new books every day, Pamphlets, Currantoes, Stories, whole Catalogues of Volumes" that threatened to overwhelm humanity and promote melancholia and madness. Indeed, the newsletter writer John Chamberlain, who himself regularly reported masques and masquing, illustrates how they became news, explaining to Dudley Carleton:
For lacke of better newes here is likewise a ballet or song of Ben lohnsons in the play or shew at the lord marquis at Burley, and repeated again at Windsor.... There were other songs and deuises of BASER ALAY, but because this had the vogue and general applause at court, I was willing to send it.
*********************************
XI. — ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE. JONSON
TO THE READER.
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle SHAKSPEARE cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life :
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in BRASS, as he has hit
His face ; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in BRASS :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
*********************************
Metaphors of Mind: An Eighteenth-Century Dictionary
By Brad Pasanek
BRASS and BRONZE
Bronze and brass are two “BASE” ALLOYS put to figurative use in the eighteenth century. Johnson notes that “brass” does not strictly differentiate brass from bronze but is used “in popular language for any kind of metal in which copper has a part” (“BRASS” and “BRONZE”). Brass is a metal of impudence so that “BRAZEN” is defined by Johnson, in this case without comment on the term’s figurative or literal status, as “impudent.” Brass has a bright luster but not the heft of a precious metal: it is SHOW without value, glister without the gold.
*********************************
Brass is a metal of IMPUDENCE:
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 seem'd 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 th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
(Jonson, To the Memory of My Beloved
(Jonson, To the Memory of My Beloved
(SHAME PROOF, BRAZEN-FACED)
*********************************
Jonson, To the Memory of My Beloved (Shakespeare)
Jonson, To the Memory of My Beloved (Shakespeare)
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides and Sophocles to us;
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that INSOLENT Greece or HAUGHTY Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Tri'umph, my Britain, thou hast one to SHOW
*********************************
Brass has a bright luster but not the HEFT of a
precious metal: it is SHOW without value, glister without the gold.
*********************************
Jonson, Speach According to Horace:
And could (if our great Men would let their Sons
Come to their Schools,) show 'em the use of Guns.
And there instruct the noble English Heirs
In Politick, and Militar Affairs;
But he that should perswade, to have this done
For Education of our Lordings; Soon
Should he hear of Billow, Wind, and Storm,
From the Tempestuous Grandlings, who'll inform
Us, in our bearing, that are thus, and thus,
Born, bred, allied? what's he dare tutor us?
Are we by Book-worms to be aw'd? must we
Live by their Scale, that dare do nothing FREE?
But he that should perswade, to have this done
For Education of our Lordings; Soon
Should he hear of Billow, Wind, and Storm,
From the Tempestuous Grandlings, who'll inform
Us, in our bearing, that are thus, and thus,
Born, bred, allied? what's he dare tutor us?
Are we by Book-worms to be aw'd? must we
Live by their Scale, that dare do nothing FREE?
(He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had
an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed
with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped.)
Why are we Rich, or Great, except to show
All LICENSE in our Lives? What need we know?
More then to praise a Dog? or Horse? or speak
The Hawking Language? or our Day to break
With Citizens? let Clowns, and Tradesmen breed
Their Sons to study Arts, the Laws, the Creed:
We will believe like Men of our own Rank,
In so much Land a year, or such a Bank,
That turns us so much Monies, at which rate
Our Ancestors impos'd on Prince and State.
Let poor Nobility be vertuous: We,
Descended in a Rope of Titles, be
From Guy, or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom
The Herald will. Our Blood is now become,
PAST ANY NEED of Vertue.
All LICENSE in our Lives? What need we know?
More then to praise a Dog? or Horse? or speak
The Hawking Language? or our Day to break
With Citizens? let Clowns, and Tradesmen breed
Their Sons to study Arts, the Laws, the Creed:
We will believe like Men of our own Rank,
In so much Land a year, or such a Bank,
That turns us so much Monies, at which rate
Our Ancestors impos'd on Prince and State.
Let poor Nobility be vertuous: We,
Descended in a Rope of Titles, be
From Guy, or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom
The Herald will. Our Blood is now become,
PAST ANY NEED of Vertue.
*************************************
Jonson, Ode to Shakespeare
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 th' ill fortune of them, or THE NEED.
*********************************
Jonson
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in BRASS, as he has hit
His face ; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in BRASS :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his PICTURE, but his book.
*********************************
Jonson, Speach According to Horace
Jonson
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in BRASS, as he has hit
His face ; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in BRASS :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his PICTURE, but his book.
*********************************
Jonson, Speach According to Horace
Hence, away,
I may no longer on these PICTURES stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their EMPTY MOULDS.
I may no longer on these PICTURES stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their EMPTY MOULDS.
'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp; / Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake' --Cymbeline
Volume's LIGHT - Gravitas and Levitas
Upon
the Dramatick Poems of Mr John Fletcher (end)
by William Cartwright
.
. [N]ought later then it should, nought comes before,
. [C]hymists, and Calculators doe erre more:
. [S]ex, age, degree, affec(T)ions, country, place,
. [T]he inward substance, (A)nd the outward face;
. [A]ll kept precisely, al(L) exactly fit,
. [W]hat he would write, he was bef(O)re he writ.
.'[T]wixt Johnsons grave, and SHAKESPEARE'S LIGHTER SOUND
. His muse so steer'd that something still was found,
by William Cartwright
.
. [N]ought later then it should, nought comes before,
. [C]hymists, and Calculators doe erre more:
. [S]ex, age, degree, affec(T)ions, country, place,
. [T]he inward substance, (A)nd the outward face;
. [A]ll kept precisely, al(L) exactly fit,
. [W]hat he would write, he was bef(O)re he writ.
.'[T]wixt Johnsons grave, and SHAKESPEARE'S LIGHTER SOUND
. His muse so steer'd that something still was found,
*********************************
The
War of the Private Theaters - James P. Bednarz
...When Horace first appears in Satiromastix (still composing the verses he began in Poetaster), Asinius Bubo informs him that Crispinus and Demetrius intend to bring his "life and death upon th'stage like a Bricklayer". Dismissing this news, Horace reviles them as a "[light] voluptuous Reveler" and an "arrogating puff," using the same epithets Criticus hurled at Hedon and Anaides [ in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels]:
Horace: That same Crispinus is the silliest Dor, and Fannius the
slightest cobweb-lawn piece of a Poet, oh God!
Why should I care what every Dor doth buzz
In credulous ears, it is a crown to me,
That the best judgements can report me wrong'd...
I think but what they are, and am not mov'd.
The one a LIGHT voluptuous Reveler,
The other, a strange arrogating puff,
Both impudent, and arrogant enough.
Asinius: S'lid, do not Criticus Revel in these lines, ha Ningle ha?
Horace: Yes, they're mine own.
Horace's admission, "Yes, they're mine own," makes sense only because he and Criticus, who reveled in the same lines, are Jonsonian personae denouncing Marston and Dekker. Through it, Dekker prompts his audience to recall Criticus's prior condemnation of the poetasters:
What should I care what every dor doth buzz
In credulous ears? It is a crown to me,
That the best judgements can report me wrong'd:
Them liars: and their slanders impudent.
...when if remember,
'Tis Hedon and Anaides: alas, then,
I think but what they are, and am not stirr'd.
The one, a LIGHT voluptuous reveller,
The other a strange arrogating puff,
Both IMPUDENT, and ignorant enough;
That take (as they are wont) not as I merit:
Traduce by custom, as most dogs do bark,
Do nothing out of judgement, but disease,
Speak ill, because they never could speak well.
Dekker's Horace greets news of the conspiracy against him by remembering its inception in Cynthia's Revels...
...When Horace first appears in Satiromastix (still composing the verses he began in Poetaster), Asinius Bubo informs him that Crispinus and Demetrius intend to bring his "life and death upon th'stage like a Bricklayer". Dismissing this news, Horace reviles them as a "[light] voluptuous Reveler" and an "arrogating puff," using the same epithets Criticus hurled at Hedon and Anaides [ in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels]:
Horace: That same Crispinus is the silliest Dor, and Fannius the
slightest cobweb-lawn piece of a Poet, oh God!
Why should I care what every Dor doth buzz
In credulous ears, it is a crown to me,
That the best judgements can report me wrong'd...
I think but what they are, and am not mov'd.
The one a LIGHT voluptuous Reveler,
The other, a strange arrogating puff,
Both impudent, and arrogant enough.
Asinius: S'lid, do not Criticus Revel in these lines, ha Ningle ha?
Horace: Yes, they're mine own.
Horace's admission, "Yes, they're mine own," makes sense only because he and Criticus, who reveled in the same lines, are Jonsonian personae denouncing Marston and Dekker. Through it, Dekker prompts his audience to recall Criticus's prior condemnation of the poetasters:
What should I care what every dor doth buzz
In credulous ears? It is a crown to me,
That the best judgements can report me wrong'd:
Them liars: and their slanders impudent.
...when if remember,
'Tis Hedon and Anaides: alas, then,
I think but what they are, and am not stirr'd.
The one, a LIGHT voluptuous reveller,
The other a strange arrogating puff,
Both IMPUDENT, and ignorant enough;
That take (as they are wont) not as I merit:
Traduce by custom, as most dogs do bark,
Do nothing out of judgement, but disease,
Speak ill, because they never could speak well.
Dekker's Horace greets news of the conspiracy against him by remembering its inception in Cynthia's Revels...
*******************************************************
Reverberating
Song in Shakespeare and Milton: Language, Memory, and Musical ...
By Asst Prof Erin Minear
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the LIGHT fantastic toe;
The vocabulary of the fantastic repeatedly surfaces in Protestant polemics against elaborate music in the church. These polemics emphasize at some length the dangers of music that overwhelms or distracts from words. In The Reliques of Rome (1563) - much mined by William Prynne in his Histrio-mastix of 1633 - Thomas Becon describes the music of his own time as "LIGHT, vayne, madde, fond, foolishe and fantastical." Such music - polyphonic, combining voices and instruments to the detriment of holy words - by its very nature lacks gravity.
By Asst Prof Erin Minear
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the LIGHT fantastic toe;
The vocabulary of the fantastic repeatedly surfaces in Protestant polemics against elaborate music in the church. These polemics emphasize at some length the dangers of music that overwhelms or distracts from words. In The Reliques of Rome (1563) - much mined by William Prynne in his Histrio-mastix of 1633 - Thomas Becon describes the music of his own time as "LIGHT, vayne, madde, fond, foolishe and fantastical." Such music - polyphonic, combining voices and instruments to the detriment of holy words - by its very nature lacks gravity.
******************************************************
The language of coinage, attuned to the potential contradiction between the sovereign's stamp and the coin's alloy, conveys the complex intertwining of value and legitimacy. -- Lander, Jesse, Crack'd Crowns
*********************************
Ascham, Schoolmaster
"It is a bold comparison indeed to think to say better than that is best. Such turning of the best into the worse is much like the turning of good wine out of a fair sweet flagon of silver into a foul musty bottle of leather, or to turn pure gold and silver into foul brass and copper."
*********************************
Anthony Munday to Edward de Vere
Except I should IN freendship seeme
ingrate,
Denying duty, where to I am bound;
With letting slip your Honour's worthy state,
At all ASSAYES, which I have Noble found
Right well I might refrayne to handle PEN:
Denouncing aye the COMPANY OF MEN.
Denying duty, where to I am bound;
With letting slip your Honour's worthy state,
At all ASSAYES, which I have Noble found
Right well I might refrayne to handle PEN:
Denouncing aye the COMPANY OF MEN.
**********************************
Author: Holland, Abraham, d. 1626.
Title: Naumachia, or Hollands sea-fight Date: 1622
A Caveat to his Muse
Well Minion you'le be gadding forth then? Goe,
Goe, hast unto thy speedy overthrow:
And since thou wilt not take my warning: Hence,
Learne thy owne ruine by experience.
Alas poore Maid (if so I her may call
Who itches to be prostitute to all
Adulterate censures) were it not for thee
Better, to live in sweet securitie
In my small cell, than flying rashly out,
Be whoop't, and hiss't, and gaz'd at all about
Like a day-owle: Faith Misris you'le be put
One of these daies to serve some driveling slut,
To wrap her sope in, or a least be droven
To keepe a Pie from scorching in the Oven:
Or else expos'd a laughing stock to sots,
To cloke Tobacco, or stop Mustard pots,
Thou wilt be grac't if so thou canst but win
To infold Frankincense or Mackrills in,
You deem it a matter of high worth
To have a fame among 'em: New come forth:
And thinke your chiefe felicity is marr'd
If you be not perch't up in Paules Church-yard
Where men a farre may know you in a trice,
By some new-fangled, brasse-cut Frontispice.
Such book's indeed as now-dayes can passé
Had need to have their faces made of brasse.
Title: Naumachia, or Hollands sea-fight Date: 1622
A Caveat to his Muse
Well Minion you'le be gadding forth then? Goe,
Goe, hast unto thy speedy overthrow:
And since thou wilt not take my warning: Hence,
Learne thy owne ruine by experience.
Alas poore Maid (if so I her may call
Who itches to be prostitute to all
Adulterate censures) were it not for thee
Better, to live in sweet securitie
In my small cell, than flying rashly out,
Be whoop't, and hiss't, and gaz'd at all about
Like a day-owle: Faith Misris you'le be put
One of these daies to serve some driveling slut,
To wrap her sope in, or a least be droven
To keepe a Pie from scorching in the Oven:
Or else expos'd a laughing stock to sots,
To cloke Tobacco, or stop Mustard pots,
Thou wilt be grac't if so thou canst but win
To infold Frankincense or Mackrills in,
You deem it a matter of high worth
To have a fame among 'em: New come forth:
And thinke your chiefe felicity is marr'd
If you be not perch't up in Paules Church-yard
Where men a farre may know you in a trice,
By some new-fangled, brasse-cut Frontispice.
Such book's indeed as now-dayes can passé
Had need to have their faces made of brasse.
Is it not then sufficient for you
To stay at home among the residue
Of better sisters: where my dearest Will, (my note - Will Browne?)
And other friends would praise and love thee still:
Him and my other harts-halfes I account
Intire assemblies, and thinke they surmount
A Globe of addle Gallants: I averre
One judging Plato worth a Theater.
To stay at home among the residue
Of better sisters: where my dearest Will, (my note - Will Browne?)
And other friends would praise and love thee still:
Him and my other harts-halfes I account
Intire assemblies, and thinke they surmount
A Globe of addle Gallants: I averre
One judging Plato worth a Theater.
************************************
Abraham Holland - 1625
O could'st Thou whip these BEDLAMS till they bleed
Thou whipp'st in vaine: weele whip anon indeed.
A Scourge for Paper-Persecutors, OR
Papers Complaint compil'd in ruthfull Rimes
Against the Paper-spoylers of these Times.
WHat heart so hard, that splits not when it heares,
What ruthlesse Martyrdome my Body beares
By rude Barbarians of these latter Times,
Blotting my spotlesse Brest with Prose and Rimes,
That Impudence, it selfe, would blush to beare;
It is such shamelesse Stuffe and irkesome Geare?
Though I (immaculate) be white as Snow,
(Which Virgin Hue mine innocence doth shew)
Yet these remorcelesse Monsters on me piles
A massie heape of blockish senselesse Stiles;
That I ne wot (God wot) which of the twaine
Doe most torment me, heauy Shame, or Paine.
No lesse than my whole Reames will some suffize,
With mad-braine stuffe o're them to tyrannize.
(snip)
Another (ah Lord helpe) mee vilifies
With Art of Loue, and how to subtilize,
Making lewd Venus, with eternall Lines,
To tye Adonis to her loues designes:
Fine wit is shew'n therein: but finer 'twere
If not attired in such bawdy Geare.
But be it as it will: the coyest Dames,
In priuate reade it for their Closset-games:
For, sooth to say, the Lines so draw them on,
To the venerian speculation,
That will they, nill they (if of flesh they bee)
They will think of it, sith loose Thought is free.
And thou (O Poet) that dost pen my Plaint,
Thou art not scot-free from my iust complaint,
For, thou hast plaid thy part, with thy rude Pen,
To make vs both ridiculous to men.
**************************************
By Brad Pasanek
The Mind is a Metal. The soul may be tempered or forged, thoughts and passions refined, and the heart steeled melted or coined. One’s character and temperament, the very stuff one is made of is “mettle” or “ metal,” two variants that the OED records as more or less semantically differentiated by the middleof the eighteenth century. A hero may show his mettle (or metal) and one’s metal (or mettle) may be tested; the spirited creature is mettlesome. A coin bounced off a hard surface may ring out in testament to its quality, and a precious metal may be rubbed against a touchstone to test its softness. ~But character, or mettle, demands a different sort of test or touchstone to be tried.
…Courage and spirit are traditionally associated with the arms and armor with which those practiced in war are outfitted. Metal metaphors are militant. Victors inherit the spoils and are victorious because they bring better weaponry to the fight: might and metal are self-perpetuating. Luster, firmness, sharpness signify virtue, while inactivity brings a rust on the faculties and a corrosion of the self…Mettle must be formed of the proper degree of hardness: a people too soft, too effeminate, too polite, too luxurious, or too corrupt are prone to conquest and enslavement and are unable to defend their liberties from the encroachments of corruption and foreign power; but a people too cold and hard-hearted will be plagued by internal strife, unfit for le doux commerce, and unable to enjoy the pleasures of sociability.
Such is the figuration that concerns us under this heading. Specific metals possess specific characteristics and must be taken up individually. In what follows I consider more closely the metaphorics of alloys and “base metals,” the processes of the furnace, the value placed in precious metals, the production of iron and steel and the minting of coinage.
(snip)
The ore that includes both metal and dross, is according to Samuel Johnson, “Metal unrefined; metal yet in its mineral state” (“ORE”). An alloy is a mixture of metals, and in the poetic diction of the period, alloys especially are base, gross, and sordid; metals are usually preferred pure rather than mixed.
Brass and Bronze
Bronze and brass are two “base” alloys put to figurative use in the eighteenth century. Johnson notes that “brass” does not strictly differentiate brass from bronze but is used “in popular language for any kind of metal in which copper has a part” (“BRASS” and “BRONZE”). Brass is a metal of impudence so that “BRAZEN” is defined by Johnson, in this case without comment on the term’s figurative or literal status, as “impudent.” Brass has a bright luster but not the heft of a precious metal: it is show without value, glister without the gold.
Brass…is also used to figure other, non-British peoples. It should be emphasized that Hesiod describes the races of men and not ages, and in the eighteenth century we find bronze, brass, brazen and copper faces in travel literature. ~The peoples of India, Turkish and Arab Muslims and Native Americans especially are figured as darker, base metals.
**********************
Look
how the father's FACE
Lives
in his issue, even so the RACE
Of
Shakespeare's mind and manners BRIGHTLY SHINES
In
his well-turned, and true-filed lines;
In
each of which he SEEMS to shake a lance,
As
brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.
******************************
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to
SHOW
******************************
Eyes of Ignorance:
Jonson, Staple of News
For your own sakes, not his, he bade me say
Would you were come to hear, not see a play.
Though we his actors must provide for those
Who are our guests here in the way of SHOWS,
The maker hath not so. He'd have you WISE
Much rather by your EARS than by your EYES.
*****************************
Staple of News, Prologue for the Court
The P R O L O G U E for the C O U R T.
A
Work not smelling of the Lamp, to night,
But fitted for your Majesty's Disport,
And writ to the MERIDIAN of Your Court,
We bring; and hope it may produce Delight:
The rather, being offered as a Rite,
To Scholars, that can judge, and fair report
The Sense they hear, above the VULGAR SORT
Of Nut-crackers, that only come for SIGHT...
******************************
Eyes of Ignorance:
Jonson, Staple of News
For your own sakes, not his, he bade me say
Would you were come to hear, not see a play.
Though we his actors must provide for those
Who are our guests here in the way of SHOWS,
The maker hath not so. He'd have you WISE
Much rather by your EARS than by your EYES.
*****************************
Staple of News, Prologue for the Court
The P R O L O G U E for the C O U R T.
A
Work not smelling of the Lamp, to night,
But fitted for your Majesty's Disport,
And writ to the MERIDIAN of Your Court,
We bring; and hope it may produce Delight:
The rather, being offered as a Rite,
To Scholars, that can judge, and fair report
The Sense they hear, above the VULGAR SORT
Of Nut-crackers, that only come for SIGHT...
*****************************
Jonson, Cynthia's Revels (V,i)
Mercury.
You are deceived. The better RACE in court,
That have the true nobility call'd virtue,
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit; and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous heads,
Who, with their apish customs and forced garbs,
Would bring the name of courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemish'd in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath loved, and Phoebus form'd
OF BETTER METAL, and IN BETTER MOULD.
You are deceived. The better RACE in court,
That have the true nobility call'd virtue,
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit; and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous heads,
Who, with their apish customs and forced garbs,
Would bring the name of courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemish'd in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath loved, and Phoebus form'd
OF BETTER METAL, and IN BETTER MOULD.
******************************
Jonson, Execration Upon Vulcan
*******************************
Jonson, Execration Upon Vulcan
Had I compil’d from Amadis de Gaule,
Th’ Esplandians, Arthur’s, Palmerins, and all
The learned Library of Don Quixote;
And so some goodlier Monster had begot,
Or spun out Riddles, and weav’d fitty Tomes
Of Logogriphes, and curious Palindromes,
Or pomp’d for those hard Trifles Anagrams,
Or Eteostichs, or those finer Flams
Of Eggs, and Halberds, Cradles, and a Hearse,
A pair of Scisars, and a Comb in Verse;
Acrostichs, and Telestichs, on jump Names,
Thou then hadst had some colour for thy Flames,
On such my serious Follies; But, thou’lt say,
There were some Pieces of as BASE ALLAY,
And as FALSE STAMP there; parcels of a Play,
Fitter to see the Fire-light, than the day;
Adulterate Moneys, such as might not go:
Thou should’st have stay’d, till publick Fame said so.
Th’ Esplandians, Arthur’s, Palmerins, and all
The learned Library of Don Quixote;
And so some goodlier Monster had begot,
Or spun out Riddles, and weav’d fitty Tomes
Of Logogriphes, and curious Palindromes,
Or pomp’d for those hard Trifles Anagrams,
Or Eteostichs, or those finer Flams
Of Eggs, and Halberds, Cradles, and a Hearse,
A pair of Scisars, and a Comb in Verse;
Acrostichs, and Telestichs, on jump Names,
Thou then hadst had some colour for thy Flames,
On such my serious Follies; But, thou’lt say,
There were some Pieces of as BASE ALLAY,
And as FALSE STAMP there; parcels of a Play,
Fitter to see the Fire-light, than the day;
Adulterate Moneys, such as might not go:
Thou should’st have stay’d, till publick Fame said so.
*******************************
Rev. William Cartwright, "To the Memory of the most worthy Benjamin Johnson" Jonsonus Virbius (1637) 34-39.
'Tis easie to guild gold: there's small skill spent
Where ev'n the first rude masse is ornament:
Thy Muse tooke harder metalls, purg'd and boild,
Labour'd and try'd, heated, and beate and toyld,
Sifted the drosse, fil'd roughnss, then gave dresse,
Vexing rude subjects into comelinesse.
Be it thy glory then, that we may say,
Thou run'st where th' foote was hindred by the way.
(snip)
What though thy searching wit did rake the dust
Of time, and purge old metalls of their rust?
Is it no labour, no art, thinke they, to
Snatch Shipwracks from the deepe, as Dyvers do?
And rescue Jewells from the covetous sand,
Making the Seas hid wealth adorn the Land?
What though thy culling Muse did rob the store
Of Greeke, and Latine gardens to bring ore
Plants to thy native soyle? Their vertues were
Improv'd farre more, by being planted here.
If thy Still to their essence doth refine
So many drugges, is not the water thine?
Thefts thus become just works: they and their grace
Are wholly thine: thus doth the stampe and face
Make that the Kings, that's ravish'd from the mine:
In others then 'tis oare, in thee 'tis coine
(snip)
Great
soule of numbers, whom we want and boast;
Like CURING GOLD, most valu'd now th' art lost;
When we shall feed on refuse offals, when
We shall from corne to akornes turne agen;
Then shall we see that these two names are one,
JOHNSON and Poetry, which now are gone.
Like CURING GOLD, most valu'd now th' art lost;
When we shall feed on refuse offals, when
We shall from corne to akornes turne agen;
Then shall we see that these two names are one,
JOHNSON and Poetry, which now are gone.
********************************************************
In Memory of Mr. William Cartwright. -- John Berkenhead
(snip)
But Thou art gone: and groveling Trifles crawl
About the World, which but confirm thy Fall.
The Belgick Floud, which drank down fifty Townes,
At dead-low water shews their humble Crowns:
So, since thy flowing Brain ebb'd down to death,
Small Under-witts do shoot up from beneath.
They spread and swarm, as fast as Preachers now,
New, Monthly Poets (and their Pictures too)
Who, like that Fellow in the Moon, look bright,
Yet are but Spots because they dwell in Light.
For thy Imperiall Muse at once defines
Lawes to arraign and brand their weak strong lines,
Unmask's the Goblin-Verse that fright's a page
As when old time brought Devills on the Stage.
Knew the right mark of things, saw how to choose,
(For the great Wit's great work, is to Refuse,)
And smil'd to see what shouldering there is
To follow Lucan where he TROD AMISS.
Thine's the right Mettall, Thine's still big with Sense,
And stands as square as a good Conscience.
No Traverse lines, all written like a man:
Their Heights are but the Chaff, their Depths the Bran:
Gross, and not Great; which when it best does hit
Is not the strength but Corpulence of Wit:
Stuft, swoln, ungirt: but Thine's compact and bound
Close as the Atomes of a Diamond.
Substance and Frame; Raptures not Phrensies grown;
No Rebel-Wit, which bears its Master down;
But checks the Phansy, tames that Giant's Rage
As he that made huge Afcapart his Page.
(snip)
******************************
Francis Bacon Sylva Sylvarum (1626)
To say that Nature hath an intention to make all metals Gold; and that, if she were delivered from Impediments, she would performe her owne Worke; And that, if the Crudities, Impurities, and Leprosities of Metals were CURED, they would become Gold; And that a little Quantitie of the Medicine, in the Worke of a Projection, will turne a Sea of the Baser Metall into Gold, by Multiplying: all these are but Dreames: and so are many other Grounds of Alchemy.
***********************************
In Memory of Mr. William Cartwright. -- John Berkenhead
(snip)
But Thou art gone: and groveling Trifles crawl
About the World, which but confirm thy Fall.
The Belgick Floud, which drank down fifty Townes,
At dead-low water shews their humble Crowns:
So, since thy flowing Brain ebb'd down to death,
Small Under-witts do shoot up from beneath.
They spread and swarm, as fast as Preachers now,
New, Monthly Poets (and their Pictures too)
Who, like that Fellow in the Moon, look bright,
Yet are but Spots because they dwell in Light.
For thy Imperiall Muse at once defines
Lawes to arraign and brand their weak strong lines,
Unmask's the Goblin-Verse that fright's a page
As when old time brought Devills on the Stage.
Knew the right mark of things, saw how to choose,
(For the great Wit's great work, is to Refuse,)
And smil'd to see what shouldering there is
To follow Lucan where he TROD AMISS.
Thine's the right Mettall, Thine's still big with Sense,
And stands as square as a good Conscience.
No Traverse lines, all written like a man:
Their Heights are but the Chaff, their Depths the Bran:
Gross, and not Great; which when it best does hit
Is not the strength but Corpulence of Wit:
Stuft, swoln, ungirt: but Thine's compact and bound
Close as the Atomes of a Diamond.
Substance and Frame; Raptures not Phrensies grown;
No Rebel-Wit, which bears its Master down;
But checks the Phansy, tames that Giant's Rage
As he that made huge Afcapart his Page.
(snip)
******************************
Francis Bacon Sylva Sylvarum (1626)
To say that Nature hath an intention to make all metals Gold; and that, if she were delivered from Impediments, she would performe her owne Worke; And that, if the Crudities, Impurities, and Leprosities of Metals were CURED, they would become Gold; And that a little Quantitie of the Medicine, in the Worke of a Projection, will turne a Sea of the Baser Metall into Gold, by Multiplying: all these are but Dreames: and so are many other Grounds of Alchemy.
***********************************
Nature's Child:
Philip Sidney, Apologie for Poetry:
The lawyer saith what men have determined; the historian what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will soonest persuade, thereon give artificial rules. . . Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chimeras, Furies, and such like: so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only within the zodiac of his own wit. Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done. . . Her world is BRAZEN, the poets only deliver a GOLDEN" (936-37)
*****************************************************
Alloy/Mixture/Mongrel/Mingle-Mangle:
Sidney, Defense of Poetry
...But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, MINGLING kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their MONGREL tragi-comedy obtained.
******************************************************
Jonson, First Folio encomium:
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses,
***********************************
Abraham Holland, To his Friends in the Time of his
Sicknesse.
…What Man is hee, that hauing in the Time
Of life, committed some foule haynous crime.
And knowing that the Fame of it's inroll'd
In characters of Brasse, yea were't of Gold,
That would not praise the hand, and friendly call
Which scratches out the sad Memoriall
Wherein doth liue his Infamie: what soule
That knowes this fleshly Table doth inroll
The Memory of our Faults, that would not call
Wormes and the Graue Redressers of our Fall.
The one of which doth hide, the other devoures
All that was guiltie, shamefull, bad of ours.
Our Graue's the veyle, which shadowes from the eyes
Of Posthume Malice our Iniquities.
Of life, committed some foule haynous crime.
And knowing that the Fame of it's inroll'd
In characters of Brasse, yea were't of Gold,
That would not praise the hand, and friendly call
Which scratches out the sad Memoriall
Wherein doth liue his Infamie: what soule
That knowes this fleshly Table doth inroll
The Memory of our Faults, that would not call
Wormes and the Graue Redressers of our Fall.
The one of which doth hide, the other devoures
All that was guiltie, shamefull, bad of ours.
Our Graue's the veyle, which shadowes from the eyes
Of Posthume Malice our Iniquities.
Edward de Vere/Amorphus/Shakespeare:
Cynthia’s
Revels, Jonson
Act
V Sc. 1
Mercury.
We believe it.
But for our sake, and to inflict just pains
On their prodigious follies, aid us now:
No man is presently made bad with ill.
And good men, like the sea, should still maintain
Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours
That flow about them, to corrupt their streams,
Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness.
It is our purpose, Crites, to correct,
And punish, with our laughter, this night's sport,
Which our court-dors so heartily intend:
And by that WORTHY SCORN, to make them know
How far beneath the dignity of man
Their serious and most practised actions are.
Cri.
Ay, but though Mercury can warrant out
His undertakings, and make all things good,
Out of the powers of his divinity,
Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me,
That am a creature so despised and poor;
When the whole court shall take itself abused
By our ironical confederacy.
Mer.
You are deceived. The better race in court,
That have the true nobility call'd virtue,
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit; and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous heads,
Who, with their apish customs and forced garbs,
Would bring the name of courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemish'd in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath loved, and Phoebus form'd
OF BETTER METAL, and IN BETTER MOULD.
Cri.
Well, since my leader-on is Mercury,
I shall not fear to follow. If I fall,
My proper virtue shall be my relief,
That follow'd such a cause, and such a chief.
We believe it.
But for our sake, and to inflict just pains
On their prodigious follies, aid us now:
No man is presently made bad with ill.
And good men, like the sea, should still maintain
Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours
That flow about them, to corrupt their streams,
Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness.
It is our purpose, Crites, to correct,
And punish, with our laughter, this night's sport,
Which our court-dors so heartily intend:
And by that WORTHY SCORN, to make them know
How far beneath the dignity of man
Their serious and most practised actions are.
Cri.
Ay, but though Mercury can warrant out
His undertakings, and make all things good,
Out of the powers of his divinity,
Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me,
That am a creature so despised and poor;
When the whole court shall take itself abused
By our ironical confederacy.
Mer.
You are deceived. The better race in court,
That have the true nobility call'd virtue,
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit; and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous heads,
Who, with their apish customs and forced garbs,
Would bring the name of courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemish'd in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath loved, and Phoebus form'd
OF BETTER METAL, and IN BETTER MOULD.
Cri.
Well, since my leader-on is Mercury,
I shall not fear to follow. If I fall,
My proper virtue shall be my relief,
That follow'd such a cause, and such a chief.
***********************************************
Jonson, on Shakespeare
Jonson, on Shakespeare
Yet
must I not give Nature all: thy art,
My
gentle Shakespeare, 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.
********************************************************
Anthony Miller, Ben Johnson and the 'proper passion of Mettalls'
Hammering away sweatily in his poetic smithy, the poet must be thorough and meticulous. "A heat' was a term both for a single operation of heating in a furnace and also for the metal thus treated: if metal oculd not be worked satisfactorily after a first heat, it would be returned to the furnace, emerging as the 'second heat'. Jonson therefore envisages the poet beating his lines into shape on a second attempt. In this prescription, his verses implicitly contradict Heminge's and Condell's praise, on the preceding page of the First Folio, of Shakespeare's easiness of composition, witnessed by the fact that 'wee have scarse received from his a blot in his papers'. Jonson elsewhere shows himself irritated by this praise: "My answer hath beene, Would he had blotted a thousand'. Himself notorious for his slow working methods, Jonson defended poetic revision:
For all that wee invent doth please us in the conception, or bith; else we would never set it downe. But the dafest is to returned to our Judgement, and handle over againe those things, the easinesse of which might make them justly suspected.
In the poem, he therefore partly praises Shakespeare, but also partly instructs him retrospectively, or reshapes him in the mould of the true poet.
Anthony Miller, Ben Johnson and the 'proper passion of Mettalls'
Hammering away sweatily in his poetic smithy, the poet must be thorough and meticulous. "A heat' was a term both for a single operation of heating in a furnace and also for the metal thus treated: if metal oculd not be worked satisfactorily after a first heat, it would be returned to the furnace, emerging as the 'second heat'. Jonson therefore envisages the poet beating his lines into shape on a second attempt. In this prescription, his verses implicitly contradict Heminge's and Condell's praise, on the preceding page of the First Folio, of Shakespeare's easiness of composition, witnessed by the fact that 'wee have scarse received from his a blot in his papers'. Jonson elsewhere shows himself irritated by this praise: "My answer hath beene, Would he had blotted a thousand'. Himself notorious for his slow working methods, Jonson defended poetic revision:
For all that wee invent doth please us in the conception, or bith; else we would never set it downe. But the dafest is to returned to our Judgement, and handle over againe those things, the easinesse of which might make them justly suspected.
In the poem, he therefore partly praises Shakespeare, but also partly instructs him retrospectively, or reshapes him in the mould of the true poet.
Jonson
Prologue
to Every Man out of His Humour :
I will scourge
those apes
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror
As large as is the stage whereon we act,
Where they shall see the time's DEFORMITY
Anatomized in every nerve and sinew
With constant courage and contempt of fear.
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror
As large as is the stage whereon we act,
Where they shall see the time's DEFORMITY
Anatomized in every nerve and sinew
With constant courage and contempt of fear.
************************************************
Mirror of Poets! Mirror of our Age!
Which her whole Face beholding on thy stage,
Pleas'd and displeas'd with her owne faults endures,
A remedy, like Those whom Musicke cures,
Thou not alone those various inclinations,
Which Nature gives to Ages, Sexes, Nations,
Hast traced with thy All-resembling Pen,
But all that custome hath impos'd on Men,
Or ill-got Habits, which distort them so,
That scarce the Brother can the Brother know,
Is represented to the wondring Eyes,
Of all that see or read thy Comedies.
Whoever in those Glasses lookes may finde,
The spots return'd, or graces of his minde;
And by the helpe of so divine an Art,
At leisure view, and dresse his nobler part.
NARCISSUS conzen'd by that flattering Well,
Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,
Had here discovering the DEFORM'D estate
Of his fond minde, preserv'd himselfe with hate,
But Vertue too, as well as Vice is clad,
In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had
Beheld what his high Fancie once embrac'd,
Vertue with colour, speech and motion grac'd.
The sundry Postures of Thy copious Muse,
Who would expresse a thousand tongues must use,
Whose Fates no lesse peculiar then thy Art,
For as thou couldst all characters impart,
So none can render thine, who still escapes,
Like Proteus in variety of shapes,
Who was nor this nor that, but all we finde,
And all we can imagine in mankind.
E. Waller
****************************************
Copperplate Face:
Copperplate Face:
****************************************
IGNORANT
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. It is the First (of this Race) that ever I dedicated to any
Person; and had I not thought it the best, it should have been taught
a less Ambition. Now it approacheth your Censure chearfully, and with
the same assurance that Innocency would appear before a Magistrate.
Your Lordships most faithful Honourer,
BEN. JOHNSON. (1611, Catiline)
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. It is the First (of this Race) that ever I dedicated to any
Person; and had I not thought it the best, it should have been taught
a less Ambition. Now it approacheth your Censure chearfully, and with
the same assurance that Innocency would appear before a Magistrate.
Your Lordships most faithful Honourer,
BEN. JOHNSON. (1611, Catiline)
*******************************
Soul of an Ignorant
Age:
I remember, the players have often
mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that
in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
blotted out 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 choose that
circumstance to commend their friend by,
wherein he most faulted.
*****************************
John Beaumont , Jonsonus Virbius
...Twas he that found (plac'd) in the seat of wit,
DULL grinning IGNORANCE, and banish'd it;
He on the prostituted stage appears
To make men hear, not by their eyes, but ears;
Who painted virtues, that each one might know,
And point the man, that did such treasure owe :
So that who could in JONSON'S lines be high
Needed not honours, or a riband buy ;
But vice he only shewed us in a glass,
Which by reflection of those rays that pass,
Retains the figure lively, set before,
And that withdrawn, reflects at us no more;
So, he observ'd the like decorum, when
*He whipt the vices, and yet spar'd the men* :
When heretofore, the Vice's only note,
And sign from virtue was his party-coat;
When devils were the last men on the stage,
And pray'd for plenty, and the present age.
***************************************
Anthony Miller, Ben Johnson and the 'proper passion of Mettalls'
...A metallurgical term that has more general circulation in Jonson is that of 'temper'. The concept of temper evolved simultaneously in ethical teaching and in metallurgical practice, there are continual crossovers between the two areas of usage, seen as early as Plutarch, whose treatise De cohibenda ira instructs the reader how to improve the conduct of a friend by skilfully tempering praise with reproof:
at the first be willing and most readie to praise; but afterwards we must doe as the Smithes who temper yron: For when they have given it a fire, and made it by that meanses soft, loose and pliable, they drench and dip it in cold water, whereby it becommeth compact and hard, taking thereby the due temperature of stiffe steele; even so, when we perceive that our friends be well heat and relaxed (as it were) by hearing themselves praised by us, then we may come upon them by little and little with a tincture (as I may so say) of reproofe, and telling them of their faults.
As Plutarch shows, tempering is both what is taught by the moralist (and therefore by the Jonsonian poet) and also a principle of the art by which he teaches. Jonson evokes the eithical ideal in the figure of Crites in Cynthia's Revels, "A creature of the most perfect and divine temper. One in whom the humours and elements are peaceaby met, without emulation of precedencie..."
(snip)
Virtue and vice in Jonson are, however, always near to one another, and apt to transform into one another. The virtues of true tempering, and the useful arts of the forge and furnace, are answered by the visious danger of false tempering, and by the use of hte furnace and the forge for counterfeit purposes. In the political realm, the metaphor of the forge is applied to the two antagonists of Sejanus, as the place of DECEITFUL FASHIONING...
*************************************
I remember, the players have often
mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that
in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
blotted out 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 choose that
circumstance to commend their friend by,
wherein he most faulted.
*****************************
John Beaumont , Jonsonus Virbius
...Twas he that found (plac'd) in the seat of wit,
DULL grinning IGNORANCE, and banish'd it;
He on the prostituted stage appears
To make men hear, not by their eyes, but ears;
Who painted virtues, that each one might know,
And point the man, that did such treasure owe :
So that who could in JONSON'S lines be high
Needed not honours, or a riband buy ;
But vice he only shewed us in a glass,
Which by reflection of those rays that pass,
Retains the figure lively, set before,
And that withdrawn, reflects at us no more;
So, he observ'd the like decorum, when
*He whipt the vices, and yet spar'd the men* :
When heretofore, the Vice's only note,
And sign from virtue was his party-coat;
When devils were the last men on the stage,
And pray'd for plenty, and the present age.
***************************************
Anthony Miller, Ben Johnson and the 'proper passion of Mettalls'
...A metallurgical term that has more general circulation in Jonson is that of 'temper'. The concept of temper evolved simultaneously in ethical teaching and in metallurgical practice, there are continual crossovers between the two areas of usage, seen as early as Plutarch, whose treatise De cohibenda ira instructs the reader how to improve the conduct of a friend by skilfully tempering praise with reproof:
at the first be willing and most readie to praise; but afterwards we must doe as the Smithes who temper yron: For when they have given it a fire, and made it by that meanses soft, loose and pliable, they drench and dip it in cold water, whereby it becommeth compact and hard, taking thereby the due temperature of stiffe steele; even so, when we perceive that our friends be well heat and relaxed (as it were) by hearing themselves praised by us, then we may come upon them by little and little with a tincture (as I may so say) of reproofe, and telling them of their faults.
As Plutarch shows, tempering is both what is taught by the moralist (and therefore by the Jonsonian poet) and also a principle of the art by which he teaches. Jonson evokes the eithical ideal in the figure of Crites in Cynthia's Revels, "A creature of the most perfect and divine temper. One in whom the humours and elements are peaceaby met, without emulation of precedencie..."
(snip)
Virtue and vice in Jonson are, however, always near to one another, and apt to transform into one another. The virtues of true tempering, and the useful arts of the forge and furnace, are answered by the visious danger of false tempering, and by the use of hte furnace and the forge for counterfeit purposes. In the political realm, the metaphor of the forge is applied to the two antagonists of Sejanus, as the place of DECEITFUL FASHIONING...
*************************************
In Memory of Mr. William Cartwright.
(snip)
But Thou art gone: and groveling Trifles crawl
About the World, which but confirm thy Fall.
The Belgick Floud, which drank down fifty Townes,
At dead-low water shews their humble Crowns:
So, since thy flowing Brain ebb'd down to death,
Small Under-witts do shoot up from beneath.
They spread and swarm, as fast as Preachers now,
New, Monthly Poets (and their PICTURES too)
Who, like that Fellow in the Moon, look bright,
Yet are but Spots because they dwell in Light.
For thy Imperiall Muse at once defines
Lawes to arraign and brand their weak strong lines,
Unmask's the Goblin-Verse that fright's a page
As when old time brought Devills on the Stage.
Knew the right mark of things, saw how to choose,
(For the great Wit's great work, is to Refuse,)
And smil'd to see what shouldering there is
To follow Lucan where he trod amiss.
Thine's the RIGHT METTALL, Thine's still big with Sense,
And stands as square as a good Conscience.
No Traverse lines, all written like a man:
Their Heights are but the Chaff, their Depths the Bran:
Gross, and not Great; which when it best does hit
Is not the strength but *Corpulence of Wit*:
Stuft, swoln, ungirt: but Thine's compact and bound
Close as the Atomes of a Diamond.
Substance and Frame; Raptures not Phrensies grown;
No Rebel-Wit, which bears its Master down;
But checks the Phansy, tames that Giant's Rage
As he that made huge Afcapart his Page.
Such Law, such Conduct, such Oeconomy,
No Demonstrator walks more steadily.
Nothing of Chance, Thou handled'st Fortune then
As roughly as she now does Vertuous men.
(snip)
Yet not meer Forme and Posture, built of Slime;
'Tis Substantive with or without its Rime.
(snip)
Nor were these drunken Fumes, Thou didst not write
Warm'd by male Claret or by female White:
Their Giant Sack could nothing heighten Thee,
As far 'bove Tavern Flash as Ribauldry.
Thou thought'st no rank foul line was strongly writ,
That's but the scum or sediment of Wit;
Which sharking Braines do into Publike thrust,
(And though They cannot blush, the Reader must;)
Who when they see't abhor'd, for fear, not shame,
*TRANSLATE their BASTARD to some Other's NAME.*
(snip)
John Berkenhead
(snip)
But Thou art gone: and groveling Trifles crawl
About the World, which but confirm thy Fall.
The Belgick Floud, which drank down fifty Townes,
At dead-low water shews their humble Crowns:
So, since thy flowing Brain ebb'd down to death,
Small Under-witts do shoot up from beneath.
They spread and swarm, as fast as Preachers now,
New, Monthly Poets (and their PICTURES too)
Who, like that Fellow in the Moon, look bright,
Yet are but Spots because they dwell in Light.
For thy Imperiall Muse at once defines
Lawes to arraign and brand their weak strong lines,
Unmask's the Goblin-Verse that fright's a page
As when old time brought Devills on the Stage.
Knew the right mark of things, saw how to choose,
(For the great Wit's great work, is to Refuse,)
And smil'd to see what shouldering there is
To follow Lucan where he trod amiss.
Thine's the RIGHT METTALL, Thine's still big with Sense,
And stands as square as a good Conscience.
No Traverse lines, all written like a man:
Their Heights are but the Chaff, their Depths the Bran:
Gross, and not Great; which when it best does hit
Is not the strength but *Corpulence of Wit*:
Stuft, swoln, ungirt: but Thine's compact and bound
Close as the Atomes of a Diamond.
Substance and Frame; Raptures not Phrensies grown;
No Rebel-Wit, which bears its Master down;
But checks the Phansy, tames that Giant's Rage
As he that made huge Afcapart his Page.
Such Law, such Conduct, such Oeconomy,
No Demonstrator walks more steadily.
Nothing of Chance, Thou handled'st Fortune then
As roughly as she now does Vertuous men.
(snip)
Yet not meer Forme and Posture, built of Slime;
'Tis Substantive with or without its Rime.
(snip)
Nor were these drunken Fumes, Thou didst not write
Warm'd by male Claret or by female White:
Their Giant Sack could nothing heighten Thee,
As far 'bove Tavern Flash as Ribauldry.
Thou thought'st no rank foul line was strongly writ,
That's but the scum or sediment of Wit;
Which sharking Braines do into Publike thrust,
(And though They cannot blush, the Reader must;)
Who when they see't abhor'd, for fear, not shame,
*TRANSLATE their BASTARD to some Other's NAME.*
(snip)
John Berkenhead
**************************
Alchemist/Alazon/Mountebanke - TAKING IN Elizabeth and James
Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a SIGHT it were
To SEE thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those FLIGHTS upon the BANKS of Thames,
That so did TAKE Eliza, and our James !
To SEE thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those FLIGHTS upon the BANKS of Thames,
That so did TAKE Eliza, and our James !
************************
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.
************************
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*.
