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LXXXVI.

AN EPIGRAM

TO A FRIEND, AND SON.

ON, and my friend, I had not call'd you so
To me; or been the same to you, if show,
Profit, or chance had made us: but I know,
What, by that name, we each to other owe,
Freedom and truth; with love from those begot:
Wise-crafts, on which the flatterer ventures not.
His is more safe commodity or none:
Nor dares he come in the comparison.
But as the wretched painter, who so ill
Painted a dog, that now his subtler skill
Was, t' have a boy stand with a club, and fright
All live dogs from the lane, and his shop's sight,
Till he had sold his piece, drawn so unlike:
So doth the flatterer with fair cunning strike
At a friend's freedom, proves all circling means
To keep him off; and howsoe'er he gleans
Some of his forms, he lets him not come near
Where he would fix, for the distinction's fear;
For as at distance few have faculty

To judge; so all men coming near, can spy;
Though now of flattery, as of picture, are
More subtle works, and finer pieces far,
Than knew the former ages; yet to life
All is but web and painting; be the strife
Never so great to get them: and the ends,
Rather to boast rich hangings, than rare friends.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

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IME Vindicated, &c.] Chamberlain writes to Carleton, January 25, 1622(3): "More feasting and dancing this Christmas than ever. The masque scenes were devised by Inigo Jones, and the masque written by Ben Jonson, but he runs a risk by impersonating George Withers, the poet, as a Whipper of the Times [Chronomastix], which is a dangerous jest."

P. 6. Pardon me, madam, more than most accurst.] This ancient joke had now done duty for so many years that it must have appeared rather out of date in 1623.

P. 6. T have given the stoop, and to salute the skirts, &c.] This use of the word stoop settles the question of its meaning in The Alchemist, vol. iv. p. 130.

My glorious front, and word at large,

P. 7. Triumphs in print at my admirers' charge.] Jonson refers to the portrait of Wither, engraved by Hole. It is indeed a "glorious front," in the true sense of the word glorious. The clothes are as glorious as Queen Elizabeth's. The inscription is: "Loe this is he whose infant muse begann

To brave the World before yeares stil'd him Man.

Though praise he sleight, and scornes to make his Rymes
Begg favors or opinion of the Tymes,

Yet few, by good men, have bine more approv'd,

None so unseene so generally loved."

And then follows an independent couplet :

Sr. T. I.

"Non pictoris opus fuit hoc, sed pectoris, unde
Divinæ in tabulam mentis imago fluit."

J. M.

So that I think Jonson's second line should be printed admirer's, in the singular, rather than admirers'.

P. 7. The sempster hath sat still as I pass'd by,

And dropt her needle.] Minsheu explains sempster to be a needle-woman, as Jonson uses it; but it also meant a male sewer.

P. 8. The unctuous Bounty is the boss of Billinsgate.] It is true that there was a famous spring at Billingsgate called The Boss, but Jonson is here playing on the other meaning of the word, with which we are made acquainted by Cotgrave, "A Fat Bosse, Femme bien grasse et grosse; une coche." So Marlowe in Tamburlaine makes Zenocrate call Zabina,

"Disdainful Turkess, and unreverend Boss!"

and Lyly in Euphues (Arber, p. 115), "Wrest all parts of her body to the worst, be she never so worthy. If shee be well sett, then call hir a Bosse," &c. Our word bosom is plainly of the same origin, and this may explain how the secondary meaning grew up.

P. 10. The other zealous rag is the compositor.] So in Richard the Third, Act v. Sc. 3:

"Lash hence these overweening rags of France."

P. 10. Time whipt, for terror to the infantry.] This pleasant way of talking of the children as infantry, originated with Jonson. Mr. Thackeray was partial to it.

P. 12. His dog piping Lachrymæ.] In Dyce's Beaumont and Fletcher (vol. x. p. 398) we find—

66

Arion, on a dolphin, playing Lachrymæ.” Nares says, "It is the first word of the title of a musical work, composed by John Dowland, in the reign of James I." The full title was "Lachrimæ, or seven Teares figured in seven passionate Pavans, with divers other Pavans, Galiards and Almands, as set forth to the Lute, Viols or Violins in five parts." The popularity of the work is apparent from the constant allusions to it. In No Wit like a Woman's, Middleton expressly mentions it as Dowland's: "Now thou plaiest Dowland's Lachrymæ to thy master."

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