But who could less expect from you,
In whom alone Love lives agen?
By whom he is restor❜d to men ;
And kept, and bred, and brought up true?

His falling temples you have rear'd,
The wither'd garlands ta'en away;
His altars kept from the decay
That envy wish'd, and nature fear'd:

And on them burn so chaste a flame,
With so much loyalty's expense,
As Love t' acquit such excellence,
Is gone himself into your name.

And you are he; the deity

To whom all lovers are design'd,
That would their better objects find;
Among which faithful troop am I.

Who, as an offering at your shrine,5
Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
One spark of your diviner heat
To light upon a love of mine.

Which, if it kindle not, but scant
Appear, and that to shortest view,
Yet give me leave t'adore in you
What I, in her, am grieved to want.

5 Who, as an offering, &c.] The folio reads offspring. Corrected by Whalley.

XL.

AN ELEGY.

AIR friend, 'tis true, your beauties move
My heart to a respect;
Too little to be paid with love,
Too great for your neglect.

I neither love, nor yet am free,
For though the flame I find
Be not intense in the degree,
'Tis of the purest kind.

It little wants of love but pain;
Your beauty takes my sense,
And lest you should that price disdain,
My thoughts too feel the influence.

'Tis not a passion's first access
Ready to multiply;

But like love's calmest state it is
Possest with victory.

It is like love to truth reduc'd,
All the false values gone,
Which were created, and induc'd
By fond imagination.

'Tis either fancy or 'tis fate,

To love you more than I:

I love you at your beauty's rate,

Less were an injury.

Like unstampt gold, I weigh each grace,

So that you may collect

Th' intrinsic value of your face,

Safely from my respect.

This little piece, which is not without merit, is carelessly thrown in towards the conclusion of the old folio, where it is united to "A New-year's Gift to king Charles !'

And this respect would merit love,
Were not so fair a sight
Payment enough; for who dares move
Reward for his delight?

XLI.

AN ODE.

TO HIMSELF.

HERE dost Thou careless lie

Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge, that sleeps, doth die;
And this security,

It is the common moth,

That eats on wits and arts, and [so] destroys them both :7

Are all the Aonian springs

Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings;
Or droop they as disgrac'd,

To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies defac'd?

If hence thy silence be,

As 'tis too just a cause;
Let this thought quicken thee :
Minds that are great and free

Should not on fortune pause,

'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

7 That eats on wits and arts, and destroys them both.] A syllable is evidently lost, necessary to complete the measure; I have inserted a monosyllable that helps it out,

Versus fultura cadentis.

WHAL.

Whalley's choice fell on quite; I prefer so: the reader, perhaps, may stumble upon a better substitute than either.

What though the greedy fry

Be taken with false baits

Of worded balladry,

And think it poesy?

They die with their conceits,

And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

Then take in hand thy lyre,

Strike in thy proper strain, With Japhet's line, aspire Sol's chariot for new fire,8

To give the world again :

Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove's brain.

And since our dainty age

Cannot indure reproof, Make not thyself a page,

To that strumpet the stage,

But sing high and aloof,

Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof.

8 With Japhet's line aspire

Sol's chariot for new fire.] He means Prometheus, the son of Japetus, who, as the poets say, was assisted by Minerva, in the formation of his man, whom he animated with fire taken from the chariot of the Sun. WHAL.

This spirited Ode was probably among our author's early performances. A part of the concluding stanza we have already had in the "Apologetical Dialogue" at the conclusion of the Poetaster; and the whole might be written about the period of the appearance of that drama. Jonson's dislike to the stage here breaks out :but, in truth, this is not the only passage from which we are authorized to collect that necessity alone led him to write for the theatres.

XLII.

THE MIND OF THE FRONTISPIECE TO A BOOK.9

ROM death and dark oblivion (near the same)
The mistress of man's life, grave History,
Raising the world to good and evil fame
Doth vindicate it to eternity.

Wise Providence would so that nor the good
Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways were understood,
When vice alike in time with virtue dured:
Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand

Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs, And guided by Experience, whose straight wand Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things;

She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,

Assisted by no strengths but are her own,
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
By which, as proper titles, she is known
Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,
The light of Truth, and life of Memory.

9 These lines are prefixed to sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, fol. 1614: they are descriptive of the ornamental figures in the serious frontispiece to that volume, and can scarcely be understood without a reference to the plate itself. Jonson assisted Raleigh in this great work; and, indeed, there were not many literary undertakings of importance, in his days, to which "the envious Ben" did not liberally afford his aid.

The folio has been corrected from Raleigh's copy. It seems that Whalley was not acquainted with the purport of this little piece, or with its appearance in any volume previously to that of 1641.