Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Behold Him in His Right Visnomy

Spencer
Prefixed to "Nennio, or A Treatise of Nobility"

A discourse whether a noble man by birth or a gentleman by desert is greater in nobilitie, At London: Printed by Peter Short, and are to be solde [by J. Flasket} in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the blacke Beare, 1600

Whoso wil seeke, by right deserts, t'attaine,
Unto the type of true nobility;
And not by painted shewes, and titles vaine,
Derived farre from famous auncestrie:
Behold them both in their right visnomy
Here truly pourtray'd, as they ought to be,
And striving both for termes of dignitie,
To be advanced highest in degree.
And, when thou doost with equall insight see
The ods twixt both, of both the deem aright,
And chuse the better of them both to thee:
But thanks to him, that it deserves, behight;
To Nenna first, that first this worke created,
And next to Jones, that truely it translated.

Ed. Spenser.

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...But let them rest, that thus will rust: and for your selues, worthy Gentlemen, keepe your Armes bright; and thereby your names, your vertues, your soules: you shall be honoured in good mens hearts, whilst wanton and effeminate Gulls shall weaue and weare their owne disgraces. Thomas Adams 1617

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A Wanton Trade of Living: Rhetoric, Effeminacy and the Early Modern Courtier
Jennifer Richards


...Elizabethan indifference to the effeminizing effects of the kind of courtiership described in Il cortegiano seems all the more inexplicable given contemporary fears of the manipulable, will-less and ungendered self. Such fears of effeminization were levelled at theatrical cross-dressing, at the translation of bawdy Italian romances, and at the foibles of Italian (and French) manners and fashions, but not, apparently, at the steady flow of “englished” Italian courtesy books, including Il cortegiano, which inculcate such tastes. It is not that Il cortegiano presents an unambiguous portrait of virtuous courtiership. In fact, Hoby’s translation captures for English readers the surreptitious practice and optimistic ends of an Italian courtier who aims to “allure” (adescare) his prince to him, and to “distille” (infondere) into his mind “goodness” and “contintencie” and “temperance”. In its fourth and final book its principal speaker, Ottaviano, promises to defend the courtier from the charge that his “precise faciouns” and “meerie talk” described in books I-III will make him “womanish” (effeminare), and susceptible “to a most wanton trade of livinge”. Yet, he appears naively (or disingenuously) to believe that a virtuous end justifies covert “womanish” means. On his view, the courtier aims to “enflame” (edditare) his prince to goodness and to “leade him throughe the roughe way of virtue…deckynge yt about with boowes to shadowe yt and strawinge it over with sightlye flowers, to ease (temperare) the greefe of the peinfull journey in hym that is but of a weake force.” With the help of “musike,” “armes,” “horses,” “rymes and meeter,” and “otherwhyle with communication of love,” the courtier keeps his prince “occupyed in honest pleasure,” using “these flickering provocations” (illecebra) to bring him to “some virtuous condicion,” “beguilinge him with a holsome craft, as the warie phistiens do, …whan they minister to yonge and tender children”(…)

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 Oxford to Sir Robert Cecil - 1601

At this time I am to try my friends,among which, considering our old acquaintance, familiarity heretofore, & alliance of houses (than which can be no straiter) as of my brother I presume especially. Wherefore at this time, whereas some good fortune (if it be backed by friends) doth in a manner present itself, I most earnestly crave your furtherance so far as the place and favour you hold may admit. And that is, as I conceive, that if her Majesty be willing to confer the Presidency of Wales to me,that I may assure myself of your voice in Council rather than a stranger. Not that I desire you should be a mover, but a furtherer, for as the time is, it were not reason. But if it shall please her Majesty in regard of my youth, time & fortune spent in her court, adding thereto her Majesty's favours & promises which drew me on without any mistrust the more to presume in mine own expenses, to confer so good a turn to me, that then with your good word and brotherly friendship you will encourage her forward and further it as you may, for I know her Majesty is of that princely disposition that they shall not be deceived which put their trust in her. Which good office in you I will never forget, and always to my power acknowledge in love & kindness, hoping that, as we be knit near in alliance, so hereafter more nearer by good and friendly offices. Thus most earnestly desiring you to have me in friendly remembrance when time serveth, I take my leave this 2nd of
February.
Your assured and loving brother,Edward Oxeford

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Venus and Adonis - Shakespeare
(snip)


'Were I hard-favour'd, foul, or wrinkled-old,
Ill-nurtured, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,
O'erworn, despised, rheumatic and cold,
Thick-sighted, barren, lean and lacking juice,
Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee
But having no defects, why dost abhor me?
'Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow;
Mine eyes are gray and bright and quick in turning:
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,
My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning;
My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,
Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.
'Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green,
Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell'd hair,
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen:
Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.
'Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie;
These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;
Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,
From morn till night, even where I list to sport me:
Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be
That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?
'Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?
Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?
Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,
Steal thine own freedom and complain on theft.
Narcissus so himself himself forsook,
And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.

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Cynthia's Revels (or The Fountain of Self-Love)
 


Act I.    Scene III.

Amorphus, Eccho, Mercury.

D
Ear spark of Beauty, make not so fast away.
   Ecc. Away.
   Mer. Stay, let me observe this Portent yet.
   Amo. I am neither your Minotaure, nor your Centaure,
nor your Satyre, nor your Hyæna, nor your Babion, but
your meer Traveler, believe me.
   Ecc. Leave me.
   Mer. I guess'd it should be some travelling motion
pursu'd Eccho so.
   Amo. Know you from whom you flye? or whence?
   Ecc. Hence.
   Amo. This is somewhat above strange! a Nymph of her
Feature and Lineament, to be so preposterously rude! well,
I will but cool my self at yon' Spring, and follow her.
   Mer. Nay, then I am familiar with the issue: I'll leave
you too.
   Amo. I am a Rhinoceros, if I had thought a Creature
of her symmetry, could have dar'd so improportionable,
and abrupt a digression. Liberal, and divine Fount,
suffer my prophane hand to take of thy Bounties. By
the Purity of my taste, here is most ambrosiack Water;
I will sup of it again. By thy favour, sweet fount.
See, the Water (a more running, subtile, and humo-
rous Nymph than she) permits me to touch, and handle
her. What should I infer? If my Behaviours had been
of a cheap or customary garb; my Accent or Phrase
vulgar; my Garments trite; my Countenance illite-
rate, or unpractis'd in the incounter of a beautiful and
brave attir'd Piece; then I might (with some change
of colour) have suspected my Faculties: but know-
ing my self an essence so sublimated, and refin'd by
travel; of so studied, and well exercis'd a Gesture; so
alone in Fashion; able to render the face of any States-
man living; and so speak the meer extraction of Lan-
guage; one that hath now made the sixth return upon
ventuer; and was your first that ever inricht his Coun-
trey with the true Laws of the duello; whose optiques
have drunk the spirit of Beauty, in some Eight score
and eighteen Princes Courts, where I have resided, and
been there fortunate in the amours of Three hundred
forty and five Ladies (all Nobly, if not Princely de-
scended) whose names I have in Catalogue; to con-
clude, in all so happy, as even Admiration her self doth
seem to fasten her kisses upon me: Certes, I do neither
see, nor feel, nor taste, nor favour the least steam, or
fume of a reason, that should invite this foolish fastidi-
ous Nymph, so peevishly to abandon me. Well, let the
Memory of her fleet into Air; my thoughts and I am
for this other Element, Water.

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Said of Puntarvolo in Every Man Out - 'Slud, he takes an inventory of his own good parts.'


Every Man Out, Jonson
 Asper: 
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
Anatomised in every nerve and sinew,
With constant courage, and contempt of fear.


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 Cynthia's Revels, Jonson

TO THE

SPECIAL FOUNTAIN of MANNERS,

The Court.
T
THou art a Bountiful and Brave Spring, and waterest all the Noble Plants of this Island. In thee the whole Kingdom dresseth it self, and is ambitious to use thee as her Glass. Beware then thou render Mens Figures truly, and teach them no less to hate their Deformities, than to love their Forms: For, to Grace, there should come Reverence; and no Man can call that Lovely, which is not also Venerable. It is not Powd'ring, Perfuming, and every day smelling of the Taylor, that converteth to a Beautiful Object: but a Mind shining through any Sute, which needs no False Light, either of Riches or Honours, to help it. Such shalt thou find some here, even in the Reign of C Y N T H I A, (a C R I T E S and an A R E T E.) Now, under thy P H œ B U S, it will be thy Province to make more: Except thou desirest to have thy Source mix with the Spring of Self-love, and so wilt draw upon thee as welcom a Discovery of thy Days, as was then made of her Nights.
Thy Servant, but not Slave,       

BEN. JOHNSON.


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The Motives of Eloquence – Richard A. Lanham

Perhaps the serious premises have thrived because they flatter us. The rhetorical view does not. The rhetorical view of life is satirical, radically reductive of human motive and human striving. Rhetoric’s real CRIME, one is often led to suspect, is its candid acknowledgment of the rhetorical aspects of “serious” life. The concept of a central self, true or not, flatters man immensely. It gives him an identity outside time and change that he sees nowhere else in the sublunary universe. So, too, the theory of knowledge upon which seriousness rests. Here there is little to choose between a positivist reality and a Platonic, between realism and idealism. As Eric Havelock points out, “For Plato, reality is rational, scientific and logical, or it is nothing.” How reassuring to arrive at essence, Eleatic Being. How flattering that we, at whatever brave cost to ourselves, penetrate to the way things are, look, at the end of our quest, upon the true face of beauty “itself, of and in itself, always one being” [Symposium 211B]. How humiliating to be all this time only looking in a mirror.
     At the heart of rhetorical reality lies pleasure. (…)

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Serious Man (Plato, Jonson and Henry de Vere) vs. Rhetorical Man (Shakespeare, Edward de Vere)

Henry de Vere presented Jonson with a 1578 edition of Plato - for the 'advancement of his studies'.
His father's Plato?

Plato, Opera. Translated by J.Serranus. Printed in Geneva by Henri Estienne, 1578

https://library.chethams.com/collections/101-treasures-of-chethams/ben-jonsons-plato/

Spolia Opima/triumphator/wearing the laurel



TRIUMPH, my Britain
Thou hast one to SHOW
 

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AN ELEGIE VPON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT NOBLE and Magnanimous Heroë, HENRY Earle of Oxford, Viscount Bulbec, Lord Samford, and Lord great Chamberlaine of England.


WHO SICKENED IN SERVICE OF HIS KING and Countrie, in defence of the States. And died at the Hagh in Holland. Aprill 1625.

By ABRAHAM HOLLAND.

Printed 1626.

(snip)
but that now
When the now-Sainted IAMES had made a VOW
To blesse himselfe, and us by making Peace:
That not all Spirit, and all MARS should cease
But such a flame from those still ashes rise,
Did saue the Land from guilt of Cowardize.
Since OXFORD was a Youth, BELLONA ne're
Breath'd her allarmes in this our Hemisphere,
But he pursu'd them, with a Noble fire
To fame his Countrie, and his owne desire
Grounded on that: Great Venice and the Fates
Though lucklesse of Bohemia, with the States
Now fatall to him, and th'attempted Seas
Shall be his true, though Posthumes witnesses.
He sought no new-made Honours in the Tide
Of favour, but was borne the same he di'de.
Nor came he to the Elysium with shame
That the old VERES did blush to heare his Name
Brighter than theirs: where his deserts to grace
His Grand-fathers rose up and gave him place,
And set him with the Heroës, where the Quire
Of ayrie Worthies rise up, and admire
The stately Shade: those Brittish Ghosts which long
Agoe were number'd in th'Elysian throng
Ioy to behold him; SYDNEY threw his Bayes
On OXFORDS head, and daign'd to sing his praise;
While Fame with silver Trumpet did keepe time
With his high Voice, and answered his rime.

The soft inticements of the Court, the smiles
Of Glorious Princes the bewitching wiles
Of softer Ladies, and the Golden State
That in such places doth on Greatnesse waite
And all the shadie happinesse which seemes
To attend Kings and follow Diadems
Were Boy-games to his minde: to see a Maske
And sit it out, he held a greater taske
Than to endure a Siege: to wake all Night
In his cold armour, still expecting fight
And the drad On-set, the sad face of feare,
And the pale silence of an Army, were
His best Delights; among the common rout
Of his rough Souldiers to sit hardnesse out
Were his most pleasing Delicates: to him
A Batter'd Helmet was a Diadem:
And wounds, his Brauerie: Knowing that Fame
And faire Eternitie could neuer claime
Their Meeds without such Hazards: but alas
That wee must say, such a Man OXFORD was,
A Hatefull Syllable which doth implie
Valour can be extinct and Vertue die.
O wer't not Profanation, I now
Could turne a stiffe Pythagorist and allow
A reall Metempsychosis, if so
The Soule of OXFORD might divided flow
On much Nobilitie: and yet my sect
Should honour finde from hence, they no Defect.

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Author: Holland, Abraham, d. 1626.
Title: Naumachia, or Hollands sea-fight Date: 1622

A Caveat to his Muse
(snip)

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.(note - refer to Droeshout engraving)
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.

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Serious Ben Jonson/ Serious Hamlet - theatre of one - judgement
 What is the Matter?
There is a fundamental problem with the Prince's education
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Henry de Vere childhood companion to Henry Prince of Wales:


  Author: Brooke, Christopher, d. 1628.
Title: Tvvo elegies consecrated to the neuer-dying memorie of the most worthily admyred; most hartily loued; and generally bewayled prince; Henry Prince of Wales.
Date: 1613

... HEE knew that Armes was th'exercise of KINGS;
The spurre to Fame, roote of NOBILITIES
Hee knew his BIRTH and SPIRIT had lent him wings
To mount the pitch of all his AVNCESTRIE:
Hee likewise knew Fames Trumpet neuer rings
*Of delicate Courtship, but with Infamy*;
Hee knew that Souldiers vs'd n'affected words,
Whose Tongues are speares, their Oratory swords.



By Warres fayre shadow, his discoursiue Thought
Discernd the substance, and admyr'd the Face;
Bellona was his GODDESSE, whom he sought
With Knightly valour, more then courtly grace:
Th'Impression of whose Figure so much wrought,
That he would front her manly, and enchace
Vpon her sternest Brow, his temper'd steele;
ARMES had his Hart; when LOVE had scarse his Heele.



Not Canopies, but Tents tooke his DESIRE,
Not Courts, but Camps; nor could the courtliest dames
(Though they shot Eye-bals wrapt in CVPIDS fire)
Pierce his steel'd Brest: but Bullets roll'd in Flames,
From thundring Cannons, had more powre t'inspire;
Where Townes for markes; & Crownes do stand for games;
Where Foes subdu'd, for right of Kingdomes wrongs,
HONOVR might blaze with shield of golden Tongues.


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Author: Adams, Thomas, fl. 1612-1653.
Title: The souldiers honour Wherein by diuers inferences and gradations it is euinced, that the profession is iust, necessarie, and honourable: to be practised of some men, praised of all men. Together with a short admonition concerning munition, to this honour'd citie. Preached to the worthy companie of gentlemen, that exercise in the artillerie garden: and now on thier second request, published to further vse. By Tho. Adams.
Date:  1617
LONDON, Printed by Adam Islip and Edward Blount, and are to be sold in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the blacke Beare. 1617

...Be you but ready for warre, and I durst warrant your peace. Whilst you are dissolute, they grow reso|lute. Ludouicus Viues reports, that the yong nobles and gallants in a citie of Spaine were falne to such le|uitie of carriage; that in stead of marching to the sound of a Drum, they were dancing leuolto's to the Lute in a Ladies chamber: their Beauers were tur|ned to Beuer hats. Euery one had his mistresse, and spent his time in courting Venus; but Mars was shut out at the backe gate. The ancient Magistrates obseruing this, consulted what should become of that country, which these men must gouerne after they were dead. Hereupon they conferred with the wo|men, their daughters, the Ladies: whom they instru|cted to forbeare their wonted fauours, to despise the fantasticall amorists, and to afford no grace to them that had no grace in themselues. This they obeyed di|ligently, and wrought so effectually, that the Gentle|men soone began to spie some difference betwixt Ef|feminatenes and Noblenes. And at last in honourable and seruiceable designes excelled all their Ancestors. If we had in England such Ladies, (though I doe not wish them from Spaine) wee should haue such Lords. Honour should goe by the Banner, not by the Barue: and Reputation be valued by valour, not

measured by the acre: there would be no ambition to be carpet-Knights. How necessarie the readinesse of Armes, and of men practised to those Armes, hath beene to the com|mon good; what Nation hath not found, either in the habite to their safetie, or in the priuation to their ruine? Onely we blesse our selues in our peace; and say to them that aduise vs to militarie preparations, as the Deuils said to Christ, that we come to torment them before their time. But let them rest, that thus will rust: and for your selues, worthy Gentlemen, keepe your Armes bright; and thereby your names, your vertues, your soules: you shall be honoured in good mens hearts, whilst wanton and effeminate Gulls shall weaue and weare their owne disgraces. Spernite vos sperni: there are none that think base|ly of you, whose bosomes are acquainted with other then ignoble thoughts. But I haue held you too long in the gates, vnlesse I could promise you the sight of a better Citie. Yet enter in, and view it with your eyes: it hath alreadie entred your eares; God grant it may enter all our hearts. So your selues shall be renowned, our Peace secured, and the Lords great Name glorified, through Iesus Christ.
Yours to be commanded in all Christian seruices, THO. ADAMS.
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Thomas Adams:
...Be you but ready for warre, and I durst warrant your peace. Whilst you are dissolute, they grow reso|lute. Ludouicus Viues reports, that the yong nobles and gallants in a citie of Spaine were falne to such le|uitie of carriage; that in stead of marching to the sound of a Drum, they were dancing leuolto's to the Lute in a Ladies chamber: their Beauers were tur|ned to Beuer hats. Euery one had his mistresse, and spent his time in courting Venus; but Mars was shut out at the backe gate.

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Cynthia's Revels, Jonson


Crites. What ridiculous Circumstance might I devise
now, to bestow this reciprocal brace of Butter-flies one
upon another?
   Amorphus. Since I trode on this side the Alpes, I was not
so frozen in my Invention. Let me see: to accost him
with some choice remnant of Spanish, or Italian? that
would indifferently express my languages now: mar-
ry then, if he should fall out to be ignorant, it were
both hard and harsh. How else? step into some ra-
gioni del stato,
and so make my induction? that were
above him too; and out of his Element, I fear. Feign
to have seen him in Venice or Padua? or some face neer
his in similitude? 'tis too pointed, and open. No, it
must be a more quaint, and collateral device. As —
stay: to frame some encomiastick Speech upon this our
Metropolis, or the wise Magistrates thereof, in which
politick number, 'tis odds, but his Father fill'd up a
Room? descend into a particular admiration of their
Justice, for the due measuring of Coals, burning of
Cans, and such like? as also Religion, in pulling
down a superstitious Cross, and advancing a Venus, or
Priapus, in place of it? ha? 'twill do well. Or to talk
of some Hospital, whose Walls record his Father a
Benefactor? or of so many Buckets bestow'd on his
Parish-church, in his life time, with his name at length
(for want of Arms) trickt upon them? Any of these?
Or to praise the cleanness of the Street, wherein he
dwelt? or the provident painting of his Posts against he
should have been Prætor? Or (leaving his Parent) come
to some special Ornament about himself, as his Rapier,
or some other of his Accoutrements? I have it: Thanks,
gracious Minerva.
  Aso. Would I had but once spoke to him, and
then — He comes to me.
   Amo. 'Tis a most curious, and neatly-wrought Band,
this same, as I have seen Sir.
   Aso. O God, Sir.
   Amo, You forgive the humour of mine Eye, in ob-
serving it.
   Cri. His Eye waters after it, it seems.
   Aso. O Lord, Sir, there needs no such Apology, I as-
sure you.
   Cri. I am anticipated: they'll make a solemn deed of
gift of themselves, you shall see.
   Amo. Your Ribband too do's most gracefully, in troth.
   Aso. 'Tis the most gentile, and receiv'd wear now,
Sir.
   Amo. Believe me, Sir, (I speak it not to humour you)
I have not seen a young Gentleman (generally) put on
his Cloaths with more judgment.
   Aso. O, 'tis your pleasure to say so, Sir.
   Amo. No, as I am vertuous (being altogether un-
travel'd) it strikes me into wonder.
   Aso, I do purpose to travel, Sir, at spring.
   Amo. I think I shall affect you, Sir. This last speech
of yours hath begun to make you dear to me.
   Aso. O God, Sir, I would there were any thing in
me, Sir, that might appear worthy the least worthiness
of your worth, Sir. I protest, Sir, I should endeavour
to shew it, Sir, with more than common regard, Sir.
   Cri. O, here's a rare motley, Sir.
   Amo. Both your desert, and your endeavours are
plentiful, suspect them not: but your sweet disposition
to travel (I assure you) hath made you another my-self
in mine Eye, and struck me inamour'd on your Beauties.
   Aso. I would I were the fairest Lady of France for
your sake, Sir, and yet I would travel too.
   Amo. O, you should digress from your self else: for
(believe it) your travel is your only thing that rectifies,
or (as the Italian says) vi rendi pronto all' attioni, makes
you fit for action.

   Aso. I think it be great charge though, Sir.
   Amo. Charge? why 'tis nothing for a Gentleman
that goes private, as your self, or so; my intelligence
shall quit my charge at all times. Good faith, this Hat that
hath possest mine Eye exceedingly; 'tis so pretty, and
fantastick: what? is't a Beaver?
   Aso. I, Sir, I'll assure you 'tis a Beaver, it cost me
eight Crowns but this Morning.
   Amo. After your French account?
   Aso. Yes, Sir.
   Cri. And so near his head? beshrow me, dangerous.
   Amo. A very pretty fashion (believe me) and a most
novel kind of trim: your Band is conceited too!
   Aso. Sir, it is all at your service.
   Amo. O, pardon me.
   Aso. I beseech you, Sir, if you please to wear it, you
shall do me a most infinite grace.
   Cri. 'Slight, will he be prais'd out of his Cloaths?
   Aso. By Heaven, Sir, I do not offer it you after the
Italian manner; I would you should conceive so of me.
   Amo. Sir, I shall fear to appear rude in denying your
courtesies, especially, being invited by so proper a di-
stinction: may I pray your Name Sir?
   Aso. My name is Asotus, Sir.
   Amo. I take your love (gentle Asotus) but let me
win you to receive this, in exchange —
   Crit. They'll change Doublets anon.
   Amo. And (from this time) esteem your self, in the
first Rank, of those few, whom I profess to love. What
make you in company of this Schollar, here? I will
bring you known Gallants, as Anaides of the Or-
dinary, Hedon the Courtier, and others, whose Society
shall render you grac'd and respected: this is a trivial
Fellow, too mean, too cheap, too coursecoarse for you to
converse with.
  Aso. 'Slid, this is not worth a Crown, and mine
cost me Eight but this Morning.
   Cri. I lookt when he would repent him, he has be-
gun to be sad a good while.
   Amo. Sir, shall I say to you for that Hat? be not so
sad, be not so sad: it is a Relick I could not so easily
have departed with, but as the Hieroglyphick of my af-
fection; you shall alter it to what form you please, it
will take any block; I have receiv'd it varied (on Re-
cord) to the Three thousandth time, and not so few:
It hath these vertues beside; your Head shall not ake un-
der it; nor your Brain leave you, without licence; It
will preserve your Complexion to Eternity; for no
Beam of the Sun (should you wear it under Zona tor-
rida
) hath power to approach it by two Ells. It is
Proof against Thunder, and Inchantment: and was gi-
ven me by a great Man (in Russia) as an especial-priz'd
Present; and constantly affirm'd to be the Hat that ac-
companied the Politick Ulysses in his tedious and ten
years Travels.
   Aso. By Jove, I will not depart withal, whosoever
would give me a Million.
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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.
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.*
No rotten Phansies in thy Scenes appear;
Nothing but what a Dying man might hear.

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Slime/Scum/Sediment - Addle?

...meer Forme and Posture, built of SLIME;
'Tis Substantive with or without its Rime.-- Holland


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. -- Berkenhead

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History and Etymology for addle

Adjective
Middle English adel- (in adel eye "putrid egg"), attributive use of Old English adela "filth, filthy or foul-smelling place," going back to Germanic *adela-, *adelōn- (whence Middle Dutch ael "liquid manure," Middle Low German ādel, ādele, Middle High German —east Upper German— adel, regional Swedish adel, al "animal urine"), of obscure origin

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To see these in our waters yet appear - Jonson on Shakespeare

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 ..meer Forme and Posture - Berkenhead
Amorphus:


For, let your Soul be as-
sur'd of this (in any rank, or profession whatever) the
more general, or major part of Opinion goes with the
Face, and (simply) respects nothing else. Therefore,
if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely,
thorowly, it is enough:
 
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Billy Budd, Melville
The drum-beat dissolved the multitude, distributing most of them along the batteries of the two covered gun decks. There, as wont, the guns’ crews stood by their respective cannon erect and silent. In due course the First Officer, sword under arm and standing in his place on the quarter-deck, formally received the successive reports of the sworded Lieutenants commanding the sections of batteries below; the last of which reports being made, the summed report he delivered with the customary salute to the Commander. All this occupied time, which in the present case, was the object of beating to quarters at an hour prior to the customary one. That such variance from usage was authorized by an officer like Captain Vere, a martinet as some deemed him, was evidence of the necessity for unusual action implied in what he deemed to be temporarily the mood of his men. "With mankind," he would say, "forms, measured forms are everything; and that is the import couched in the story of Orpheus with his lyre spell-binding the wild denizens of the wood." And this he once applied to the disruption of forms going on across the Channel and the consequences thereof.

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Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare


A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the MIRE. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.


Synonyms & Antonyms for mire

Synonyms: Noun
guck (or gook), muck, mud, ooze, slime, slop, sludge, slush
Synonyms: Verb
befoul, begrime, bemire, besmirch, blacken, daub, dirty, distain [archaic], foul, gaum [dialect], grime, muck, muddy, smirch, smudge, soil, stain, sully

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Shakespeare - Sonnet 72
 
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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 Billy in the Darbies - Melville

Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.

I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
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Melville's friend Hawthorne quoting Delia Bacon in the Preface to The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespere


The great secret of the Elizabethan age did not lie where any superficial research could ever have discovered it. It was not left within the range of any accidental disclosure. It did not lie on the surface of any Elizabethan document. The most diligent exploreres of these documents, in two centuries and a quarter, had not found it. No faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the most recent, and clear-sighted, and able investigator of the Baconian remains. It was buried in the lowest depths of the lowest deeps of the deep Elizabethan Art; that Art which no plummet, till now, has ever sounded. It was locked with its utmost reach of traditionary cunning. It was buried in the inmost recesses of the esoteric Elizabethan learning. It was tied with a knot that thead passed the scrutiny and baffled the sword of an old, suspicious, dying, military government - a knot that none could cut - a knot that must be untied.

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What about someone who believes in beautiful things, but doesn't believe in the beautiful itself…? Don't you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? (Plato, Republic 476c)
 
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The great secret of the Elizabethan age did not lie where any

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..

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To the Deceased Author of these Poems (William Cartwright)
By Jasper Mayne

…And as thy Wit was like a Spring, so all
The soft streams of it we may Chrystall call:
No cloud of Fancie, no mysterious stroke,
No Verse like those which antient Sybils spoke;
No ORACLE of LANGUAGE, to amaze
The Reader with a dark, or Midnight Phrase,
Stands in thy Writings, which are all pure Day,
A cleer, bright Sunchine, and the mist away.
That which Thou wrot’st was sense, and that sense good,
Things not first written, and then understood:
Or if sometimes thy Fancy soar’d so high
As to seem lost to the unlearned Eye,
‘Twas but like generous Falcons, when high flown,
Which mount to make the Quarrey more their own.
 

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 supplied of Oyle,
Fetch’d from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)
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hold
4. To impose restraint upon; to limit in motion or action; to
bind legally or morally; to confine; to restrain.
We can not hold mortality's strong hand. --Shak.
Death! what do'st? O,hold thy blow. --Grashaw.
He hat not sufficient judgment and self-command to
hold his tongue. --Macaulay.

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Ben Jonson - on Shakespeare


De Shakespeare nostrat. 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. And to justifie mine owne candor, (for I lov'd the man, and doe honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any.) Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stop'd: Sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his owne power; would the rule of it had beene so too. 

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Restraining/Bridling Beauty:

Billy [Beauty] in the Darbies - Melville, Billy Budd 


Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.

I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.


 (Billy Budd was the name of two blooded racehorses - of Venusian proportions)
 http://bringingdeformedforth.blogspot.com/2018/05/