IN BENJAMINUM JONSONUM, POETAM LAUREATUM, ET DRAMATICORUM SUI SECULI FACILE PRINCIPEM.
Jonsone, Angliacæ decus immortale Camanæ,
Magne pater vatum, Aoniæ Coryphæc catervæ,
Benjamine, (tibi nec vanum nominis omen,,
Cui tam dextera Pallas adest, tam dexter Apollɔ;
Laurigeros egit quoties tua Musa triumphos !
Laudibus en quantis, quanto evehit Anglia plausu
Jonsonum, pleni moderantem fræna theatri!
Per te scena loqui didicit: tibi candida vena,
Et jocus innocuus; nec quem tua fabula mordet
Dente Theonino, sed pravis aspera tantum
Moribus, insanum multo sale defricat ævum.
Nec fescennino ludit tua carmine Musa;
Nec petulans aures amat incestare theatri,
Aut fodare oculos obscœnis improba nugis :
Sunt tibi tam castæ veneres, plenæque pudoris.
Scenam nulla tuam perfrictâ fronte puella
Intrat, nec quenquam tenera capit illice vocis,
Nec spectatorem patranti frangit ocello,
Dramate tu recto, tu linguæ idiomate puro,
Exornas soccósque loves, grandésque cothurnos.
Si Lyricus, tu jam Flaccus; si comicus, alter
Plautus es ingenio, tersivè Terentius oris
Anglicus, aut, Græcos si forte imitere, Menander,
Cujus versu usus, ceu sacro emblemate, Paulus:
Sin Tragicus, magni jam præceptore Neronis
Altiùs eloqueris, Seneca et prædivite major,
(Ingenii at tantùm dives tu divite venâ,)
Grandiùs ore tonas, verborum et fulmina vibras.
Tu captatores, locupleti hamata, senique,
Munera mittentes, Vulpino decipis astu
Callidus incautos, et fraudem fraude retexis.
Atque hæredipetas corvos deludis hiantis,
Vand spe lactans, cera nec scribis in ima.
Per te nec leno aut meretrix impunè per urbem
Grassatur, stolidæ et tendit sua retia pubi.
Nec machus, nec fur, incastigatus oberrat,
Illæsisve, tuæ prudenti verbere scena.
Sic vitium omne vafer tuus ipse ut Horatius olim,
Tangis, et admissus circum præcordia ludis.
Per te audax Catilina, nefas horrendus Alastor
Dum struit infandum, cædésque et funera passim
Molitur Roma, facundi consulis ore
Ingenióque perit; patriæ et dum perfidus enses
Intentat jugulo, franguntur colla Cethegi;
Quicquid Sylla minax, ipsis è faucibus Orci,
Et fortunati demurmuret umbra tyranni :
Nempe faces flammásque extinguit flumine lactis
Tullius, Angliaco meliùs sic ore locutus.
Culmine tu rapiens magnum devolvis ab alto
Sejanum; ille potens populum, pavidúmque senatum
Rexerat imperio nuper, dum solus habenas
Tractaret Romæ, nutu et tremefecerat orbem,
Cæsare confisus; nunc verso cardine rerum
Mole sud miser ipse cadens, et pondere pressus,
Concutit attonitum lapsu graviore theatrum.
Ingentémque trahit turbâ plaudente ruinam.
Sic nullum exemplo crimen tu linquis inultum,
Sive et avarities, et amor vesanus habendi,
Sive sit ambitio, et dominandi cæca libido.
Crimina sic hominum versu tortore flagellas,
Et vitia exponis toti ludibria plebi ;
Protinus illa tuo sordent explosa theatro,
Dramátque virtutis schola fit, prælectio scena.
Histrio philosophus, morum vel denique censor,
Et ludi, Jonsone, tui sic seria ducunt.
Ergo tua effigies, nostris spectanda plateis,
(Quam meliùs toti ostendit tua Pagina mundo)
Non hominis, sed viva Poesios extat imago ;
Benjamini icon, capitisque insigne poetæ ;
Nomen et ingenii, Jonsoni nomen habetur.'
SIR EDWARD HERBERT, UPON HIS FRIEND MR. BEN JONSON, AND HIS TRANSLATION.
"Twas not enough, Ben Jonson, to be thought
Of English poets best, but to have brought
In greater state, to their acquaintance, onc
Made equal to himself and thee; that none
Might be thy second; while thy glory is
To be the Horace of our times, and his.
'Tis dangerous to praise; besides the task
Which to do 't well, will ask
An age of time and judgment; who can then
Be praised, and by what pen?
Yet, I know both, whilst thee I safely chuse
My subject, and my Muse.
For sure, henceforth our poets shall implcre
Thy aid, which lends them more,
Than can their tired Apollo, or the Nine
She wits, or mighty wine.
The deities are bankrupts, and must be
Glad to beg art of thee.
Some they might once perchance on thee bestow:
But, now, to thee they owe:
Who dost in daily bounty more wit spend,
Than they could ever lend.
Thus thou didst build the Globe, which, but for thee,
Should want its axle-tree;
And, like a careful founder, thou dost now
Leave rules forever, how
To keep 't in reparations, which will do
More good, than to build two.
It was an able stock, thou gav'st before;
Yet, lo, a richer store!
Which doth, by a prevention, make us quit
With a dear year of wit:
Come when it will, by this thy name shall last
Until Fame's utmost blast," &c.
› Musa Subsocive J. Duporti, Cantabrigiæ, 8vo. 1676, p. 8
The world is much in debt, and though it may
Some petty reck'nings to small poets pay:
Pardon if at thy glorious sum they stick,
Being too large for their arithmetic.
If they could prize the genius of a scene,
The learned sweat that makes a language clean,
Or understand the faith of ancient skill,
Drawn from the tragic, comic, lyric quill;
The Greek and Roman denizened by thee,
And both made richer in thy poetry;
This they may know, and knowing this still grudge, That yet they are not fit of thee to judge.
I prophesy more strength to after time,
Whose joy shall call this isle the poets' clime,
Because 'twas thine, and unto thee return.
The borrowed flames, with which thy Muse shall bura
Then when the stock of others fame is spent,
Thy poetry shall keep its own old rent.
In jus te voco, Jonsoni venito:
Adsum, qui plagii et malæ rapine
Te ad Phobi peragam reum tribunal,
4ssidente choro novem dearum.
Quædam dramata scilicet diserta,
Nuper quæ Elysii roseti in umbrâ,
Fæstivissimus omnium poeta,
Plautus composuit, diisque tandem
Stellato exhibuit poli in theatro,
Movendo superis leves cachinnos,
Et risos tetrico Jovi ciendo,
Axe plausibus intonante utroque ;
Hec tu dramata scilicet diserta,
Clepsisti superis negotiosis,
Que tu nunc tua venditare pergis:
In jus te voco, Jonsoni venito.
En pro te pater ipse, Rexque Phatus
Assurgit modò, Jonsoni, palamque
Testatur, tua serio fuisse
Illa dramata, teque condidisse
Sese non modo conscio, at juvante :
Unde ergò sibi Plautus illa tandem
Nactus exhibuit, Jovi Deisque?
Maia Filius, et Nepos Atlantis,
Pennatus celeres pedes, at ungues
Viscatus, volucer puer, vaferque,
Furto condere quidlibet jocoso,
Ut quondam facibus suis Amorem
Per ludos viduavit, et pharetra,
Sic nuper (siquidem solet frequenter
Tecum ludere, plaudere, et jocari)
Neglectas tibi clepsit has papyrus
Secumque ad superos abire jussit:
Jam victus taceo pudore, vincis
Phobo Judice, Jonsoni, et Patrono.
1 Caroli Fitzgeofr di Affen. Ozonie 1601
MIRROR of poets, mirror of our age!
Which her whole face beholding on thy stage,
Pleased and displeased with her own faults, endures
A remedy like those whom music cures.
Thou hast alone those various inclinations,
Which Nature gives to ages, sexes, nations,
So traced with thy all-resembling pen,
That whate'er custom has imposed on men,
Or ill-got habit, which deforms them so,
That scarce a brother can his brother know.
Is represented to the wond'ring eyes
Of all that see or read thy comedies;
Whoever in those glasses looks, may find
The spots returned, or graces of his mind:
And by the help of so divine an art,
At leisure view, and dress his nobler part.
Narcissus cozened by that flatt'ring well,
Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,
Had here, discovering the deformed estate
Of his fond mind, preserved himself with hate;
But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad
In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had
Beheld what his high fancy once embraced;
Virtue with colors, speech, and motion graced
The sundry postures of thy copious Muse,
Who would express a thousand tongues must use:
Whose fate's no less peculiar than thy art,
For as thou couldst all characters impart :
So none could render thine, who still escapes
Like Proteus in variety of shapes:
Who was, nor this, nor that, but all we find, .
And all we can imagine in mankind.
ON MASTER BENJAMIN JONSON.
AFTER the rare arch-poet JoNsoN died,
The sock grew loathsome, and the buskin's pride,
Together with the stage's glory, stood
Each like a poor and pitied widowhood.
The cirque prophaned was; and all postures rackt:
For men did strut, and stride, and stare, not act.
Then temper flew from words; and men did squeak,
Look red, and blow, and bluster, but not speak :
No holy rage, or frantic fires did stir,
Or flash about the spacious theatre.
No clap of hands, or shout, or praises-proof
Did crack the playhouse sides, or cleave her roof.
Artless the scene was; and that monstrous sin
Of deep and arrant ignorance came in ;
Such ignorance as theirs was, who once hist
At thy unequalled play, the Alchemist:
O fie upon 'em! Lastly too, all wit
In utter darkness did, and still will sit ;
Sleeping the luckless age out, till that she
Her resurrection has again with thee.
HERRICK'S Hesperides, 1648.
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