On my lips thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the other
Add a thousand, and so more :
Till you equal with the store,
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars that gild his streams,
In the silent Summer-nights,
When youths ply their stolen delights ;
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,

And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.

VII.

SONG.

THAT WOMEN ARE BUT MEN'S SHADOWS.

OLLOW a shadow, it still flies you,
Seem to fly it, it will pursue :
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.

Say are not women truly, then,
Styl'd but the shadows of us men?

At morn and even shades are longest;
At noon they are or short, or none:
So men at weakest, they are strongest,

But grant us perfect, they're not known.

the Fox. See vol. iii. p. 247. Whalley says, "this, and the following are translations from Catullus." Translations, they certainly are not; but very elegant and happy imitations of particular passages in that poet.

Say are not women truly, then,
Styl'd but the shadows of us men?

AM

VIII.

SONG.

TO SICKNESS.

HY, Disease, dost thou molest
Ladies, and of them the best?
Do not men enow of rites

To thy altars, by their nights
Spent in surfeits; and their days,
And nights too, in worser ways?
Take heed, Sickness, what you do,
I shall fear you'll surfeit too.
Live not we, as all thy stalls,
Spittles, pest-house, hospitals,
Scarce will take our present store?
And this age will build no more.
'Pray thee, feed contented then,
Sickness, only on us men;

Or if it needs thy lust will taste
Woman-kind; devour the waste
Livers, round about the town.

But, forgive me,—with thy crown
They maintain the truest trade,
And have more diseases made.

What should yet thy palate please?

Daintiness, and softer ease,
Sleeked limbs, and finest blood?
If thy leanness love such food,
There are those, that for thy sake,
Do enough; and who would take
Any pains; yea, think it price,
To become thy sacrifice.

That distill their husband's land
In decoctions; and are mann'd
With ten emp❜rics, in their chamber,
Lying for the spirit of amber.
That for the oil of talc dare spend
More than citizens dare lend5
Them, and all their officers.
That to make all pleasure theirs,
Will by coach, and water go,
Every stew in town to know;
Dare entail their loves on any,
Bald or blind, or ne'er so many:
And for thee at common game,
Play away health, wealth, and fame.
These, Disease, will thee deserve;
And will long, ere thou should'st starve,
On their beds, most prostitute,

Move it, as their humblest suit,

In thy justice to molest

None but them, and leave the rest.

RINK to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst, that from the soul doth rise,

Doth ask a drink divine:

That for the oil of talc dare spend

More than citizens dare lend.] See vol. iv. p. 90. Whalley has strangely confounded this cosmetic with a nauseous unction for the tick in sheep.

6 No part of Jonson has been so frequently quoted as this song,

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

which, pleasing as it is, is not superior to many others scattered through his works.

"I was surprised, (Cumberland says) the other day to find our learned poet Ben Jonson had been poaching in an obscure collection of love letters, written by the sophist Philostratus in a very rhapsodical stile, merely for the purpose of stringing together a parcel of unnatural far-fetched conceits, more calculated to disgust a man of Jonson's classical taste, than to put him upon the humble task of copying them, and then fathering the translation. The little poem he has taken from this despicable sophist is now become a very popular song." Observer, No. lxxiv.

Cumberland, who reasoned very loosely, was hardly aware, I think, of the extraordinary compliment he was paying Jonson in this passage. But why should he be surprised?—Did we not know that he was directed to Philostratus by a more skilful and excursive finger than his own, we might perhaps be surprised at finding the critic there; but they must have a very imperfect acquaintance with Jonson who are unprepared to meet with him in any volume which antiquity has bequeathed to us. It need not follow that our poet admired every writer that he read: he might not, perhaps, have judged more favourably of Philostratus than Mr. Cumberland, or, rather, Dr. Bentley; yet he had the address to turn him to some account: but to the quotations; which, it must be added, are translated without much apparent knowledge of the original.

66

"Εμοι δε μονοις προπινε τοις ομμασιν. Ει δε βουλει, τοις χείλεσι προσφέρουσα, πληρου φιλημάτων το εκπωμα, και ούτως διδου.” “Drink to me with thine eyes only-Or, if thou wilt, putting the cup to thy lips, fill it with kisses, and so bestow it upon me." Lett. xxiv.

66

Εγω, επειδαν ιδω σε, διψω, και το εκπωμα κατεχων, και το μεν ου προσαγω τοις χείλεσι, σου δε οιδα πινων.” “I, as soon as I behold thee, thirst, and taking hold of the cup, do not indeed apply that to my lips for drink, but thee." Lett. xxv. This is by no means the sense. It was not thus that Jonson read Philostratus.

Πεπομφα σοι στεφανον ῥόδων, ου σε τιμων, (και τουτο μεν γαρ) αλλ' αυτοις τι χαριζομενος τοις ρόδοις, ίνα μη μαρανδη.” “ I sent thee a rosy wreath, not so much honouring thee (though this also is in my thoughts) as bestowing favour upon the roses, that so they might not be withered." Lett. xxx.

“ Ει δε βούλει τι φιλῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τα λείψανα αυτων αντιπεμψον, μηκετι πνεοντα ῥοδον μονον αλλα και σου.” "If thou wouldst do a kindness to thy lover, send back the reliques of the roses (I gave

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not wither'd be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent'st it back to me :

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

X.

PRELUDIUM.7

OND must I sing? what subject shall I choose?
Or whose great name in poets' heaven use,
For the more countenance to my active
muse?

Hercules? alas, his bones are yet sore,
With his old earthly labours: t' exact more,
Of his dull godhead, were sin. I'll implore

thee) no longer smelling of themselves only, but of thee." Lett. xxxi.

Mr. Cumberland is quite scandalized at the omission of the poet's acknowledgments to Philostratus: this is very natural in so scrupulous a borrower as himself; but he ought to have known that this was not the practice of Jonson's times.

It is a little singular that the artful arrangement of this song (which is peculiar to our poet) should have escaped the critics. Cumberland divides it into four stanzas; so do the ingenious authors of the Anthology, who, from the incorrect manner in which they have given it, evidently overlooked the construction.

7 This Præludium, (which is merely sportive) together with the admirable Epode, to which it forms an introduction, must have been among the earliest of Jonson's works, since both are prefixed to a volume of rare occurrence (obligingly communicated to me by T. Hill, Esq.) called "Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's complaint. Allegorically shadowing the truth of Love in the constant fate of the Phoenix and Turtle-now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato Cæliano, by Robert Chester, to which are added some new compositions of several writers, 1601." The Epode is