time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. Cler. Who is the president? True. The grave and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. Cler. A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song (I pray thee hear it) on the subject, [Page sings. Still to be neat, still to be drest,' "This song," says Upton, " is very happily imitated from the following poem, which I found at the end of an edition of Petronius; the verses there printed are known to the learned by the title of Priapeia Carmina :"-rather, of Errones Venerei. Semper munditias, semper, Basilissa, decores, Et comptos semper cultus, unguentaque semper, Nec ceram in faciem : mel habet illa suum. Quid quod sæpe decor, cum prohibetur, adest ? It seems, from this, that Upton was ignorant of the author of these verses. They were written by Jean Bonnefons, (Bonnefonius) and make part of what he calls his Pancharis. Bonnefons was born about the middle of the 16th century, at Clermont in Auvergne, where he cultivated latin poetry with considerable success. He affected to imitate Catullus: there was one, how Still to be powder'd, still perfumed: Though art's hid causes are not found, Give me a look, give me a face, ever, whom he followed more closely, though he made " no boast of it;" this was Johannes Secundus. Bonnefons died in 1614. Jonson's version, which, with equal elegance possesses rather more smoothness than the original, has produced a number of imitators. Herrick has founded two or three little poems upon it, of more than usual sweetness; and, what the reader will be less prepared to hear, Flecknoe, the mythological father of Shadwell, has caught a gleam of common sense and poetry from it. The following is the conclusion of his "Address to the Dutchess of Richmond :” "Poor beauties! whom a look, a glance, 66 May sometimes make seem fair by chance; To return to Jonson. His little madrigal appears to have altogether astonished the modern critics. "This," says Dr. Aikin, "(Essay on Song Writing, p. 168), is one of the very few productions of this once celebrated author, which by their singular elegance and neatness, form a striking contrast to the prevalent coarseness of his tedious effusions." I believe that no great injustice will be done to Dr. Aikin's patience, by supposing it to be utterly exhausted before he had actually read a page of Jonson. The song, he might have found in a hundred other places; but he could not look into the poet, and have thus written. There are very many 66 productions of this once celebrated author," equal, if not superior to the present, which persons of more perseverance and less delicacy than the Dr. may easily discover among his "tedious effusions." Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. True. And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, show them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often: practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. Cler. How! publicly? True. The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul 9 Nor is there one kind of it; &c.] Nec genus ornatus unum est; quod quamque decebit, Exiguum summá nodum sibi fronte relinqui Art. Amand. lib. iii. v. 140. Upton, who gives these lines, observes that we should read Ne pateant, in the last of them. The text, however, is right as it stands. In those matters Ovid's opinion will always outweigh the critics'. 1 That must be private, &c.] All from Ovid. Art. Amand. lib. iii. v. 216, et seq. Ista dabunt faciem; sed erunt deformia visu. Tu Cur mihi nota tuo causa est candoris in ore? VOL. III. in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see gilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No; no more should servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete, and finish'd, Cler. Well said, my Truewit. True. And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. Cler. O prodigy! 3 True. And the unconscionable knave held her in compliment an hour with that reverst face, peo → How long did the canvas hang before Aldgate? Were the ple, &c.] Aldgate, as Stow informs us, began to be taken down in 1606, and was very worthily and famously finished in 1609;" so that the canvas hung before it about two years. The good old annalist's description of the "city's Love and Charity," is amusing: To grace each side of the gate, are set two feminine personages, the one southward appearing to be Peace, with a silver dove upon one hand, and a guilded wreath or garland in the other. On the north side standeth Charity, with a child at her breast, and another led in her hand: implying (as I conceive) that where Peace and love, or Charity, do prosper, and are truly embraced, that city shall be for ever blessed." I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. Cler. Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. True. No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? Cler. Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. True. Sick of the uncle, is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. madam, for haste, snatched at her peruke, and put it on the wrong way.] Improved, as Upton observes, with comic humour, from the following: Quæ male crinita est, custodem in limine ponat, Dictus eram cuidam subito venisse puellæ, Turbida perversas induit illa comas. Ibid. v. 243. I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, &c.] Theobald, who, at one period of his life, seems to have had an idea of republishing Jonson's works, wrote few short memorandums, or rather references, on the margin of his folio copy. These fell into the hands of Mr. Whalley, and, subsequently, of Mr. Waldron, who, with his usual frankness communicated them to me. They are utterly insignificant, with the exception of the following N. B. " Libanii Declamatio lepidissima de Moroso, qui cum uxorem loquacem duxisset, se ipsum accusat. Probably Jonson borrowed the character, and marriage, of Morose from this declamation." Theobald must have been furnished with this information by a friend, for, as Whalley observes, it does not appear that he was at all acquainted with the work. His correspondent, however, was right in his conjecture; for not only the name and character of Morose, but several of his shorter speeches are copied, or imitated from Libanius. The declamation in question forms the sixth, of what the Sophist calls his Meλɛтαι Пρяyμatina, and is labelled Δυσκολος γήμας λαλον yurainag ἑαυτον προσαγγελλει.” 66 |