8

Only vouchsafe me your attentions,
And I will give you music worth your ears.
O, how I hate the monstrousness of time,
Where every servile imitating spirit,
Plagued with an itching leprosy of wit,
In a mere halting fury, strives to fling
His ulcerous body in the Thespian spring,
And straight leaps forth a poet! but as lame
As Vulcan, or the founder of Cripplegate."

Mit. In faith this humour will come ill to some, You will be thought to be too peremptory.

Asp. This humour? good! and why this humour,

Mitis?

Nay, do not turn, but answer.
Mit. Answer, what?

Asp. I will not stir your patience, pardon me,

I urged it for some reasons, and the rather
To give these ignorant well-spoken days
Some taste of their abuse of this word humour.

Cor. O, do not let your purpose fail, good Asper;
It cannot but arrive most acceptable,
Chiefly to such as have the happiness
Daily to see how the poor innocent word
Is rack'd and tortured.

Mit. Ay, I pray you proceed.

* How I hate, &c.] Jonson began already to take a high tone:-but whatever may be thought of his confidence, it is impossible not to be pleased with the spirit of this nervous speech. It is altogether in the best manner of antiquity; and, if it was spoken by Jonson, as is not very improbable, he might have informed the audience that they were unsuspectingly listening to the manly language of the Grecian stage.

Or the founder of Cripplegate.] That the founder of Cripplegate was lame, must, if taken at all, be taken on the poet's word. Stow, somewhat better authority in a case of this nature, says that it was so called from the number of lame persons, who usually took their station there for the purpose of begging. The name (Porta Contractorum) is very ancient.

Asp. Ha, what? what is't?
Cor. For the abuse of humour.

Asp. O, I crave pardon, I had lost my thoughts.

Why, humour, as 'tis ens, we thus define it,
To be a quality of air, or water,
And in itself holds these two properties,
Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration,
Pour water on this floor, 'twill wet and run :
Likewise the air, forced through a horn or trumpet,
Flows instantly away, and leaves behind
A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude,
That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity,
As wanting power to contain itself,
Is humour. So in every human body,
The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part, and are not continent,
Receive the name of humours. Now thus far
It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition:
As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour.

■ As 'tis ens, we thus define it,] Ens is a term of the schools, and signifies a substance, or existence. WHAL.

But that a rook, by wearing a pyed feather,
The cable hatband, or the three-piled ruff,
A yard of shoe-tye, or the Switzer's knot
On his French garters, should affect a humour !
O, it is more than most ridiculous.

Cor. He speaks pure truth; now if an ideot
Have but an apish or fantastic strain,
It is his humour.

Asp. Well, I will scourge those apes,
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
As large as is the stage whereon we act;
Where they shall see the time's deformity
Anatomized in every nerve, and sinew,
With constant courage, and contempt of fear.

Mit. Asper, (I urge it as your friend,) take heed,

The days are dangerous, full of exception,
And men are grown impatient of reproof.

Asp. Ha, ha!

You might as well have told me, yond' is heaven, This earth, these men, and all had moved alike.Do not I know the time's condition?3

:

Yes, Mitis, and their souls; and who they be
That either will or can except against me.
None but a sort of fools, so sick in taste,
That they contemn all physic of the mind,
And, like gall'd camels, kick at every touch.
Good men, and virtuous spirits, that loath their vices,
Will cherish my free labours, love my lines,
And with the fervor of their shining grace
Make my brain fruitful, to bring forth more objects,
Worthy their serious and intentive eyes.
But why enforce Ithis? as fainting? no.
If any here chance to behold himself,
Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;
For, if he shame to have his follies known,
First he should shame to act 'em : my strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe
Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,
As lick up every idle vanity.

Cor. Why, this is right furor poeticus!
Kind gentlemen, we hope your patience
Will yet conceive the best, or entertain
This supposition, that a madman speaks.

Asp. What, are you ready there? Mitis, sit down,
And my Cordatus. Sound ho! and begin.
I leave you two, as censors, to sit here :
Observe what I present, and liberally
Speak your opinions upon every scene,
As it shall pass the view of these spectators.
Nay, now y'are tedious, sirs; for shame begin.
And, Mitis, note me; if in all this front
You can espy a gallant of this mark,
Who, to be thought one of the judicious,
Sits with his arms thus wreath'd, his hat pull'd here,

• Şits with his arms, &c.] These "marks of the judicious" were very prevalent, and are noticed as such by all the writers of Jonson's time. Thus Shakspeare: "Your hat, pent-house "like, o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin belly doublet, like a rabbit on a spit." Love's Labour Lost. And Shirley: "I do not despair, gentlemen; you see I " do not wear my hat in my eyes, crucify my arms," &c. Bird in a Cage. With respect to crying mew, it appears to have been an old and approved method of expressing dislike at the first representation of a play. Decker has many allusions to the

5

Cries mew, and nods, then shakes his empty head,
Will shew more several motions in his face
Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh,
And, now and then, breaks a dry biscuit jest,
Which, that it may more easily be chew'd,
He steeps in his own laughter.

Cor. Why, will that

Make it be sooner swallow'd?
Asp. O, assure you.

Or if it did not, yet, as Horace sings,
Mean cates are welcome still to hungry guests.

Cor. 'Tis true; but why should we observe them,
Asper?

Asp. O, I would know'em; for in such assemblies

They are more infectious than the pestilence :
And therefore I would give them pills to purge,
And make them fit for fair societies.
How monstrous and detested is't, to see
A fellow, that has neither art nor brain,
Sit like an Aristarchus, or stark ass,"
Taking men's lines, with a tobacco face,
In snuff, still spitting, using his wry'd looks,

practice; and, what appears somewhat strange, in his Satiromastix, charges Jonson with mewing at the fate of his own works. "When your plays are misliked at court, you shall not

66

cry mew, like a puss, and say you are glad you write out of "the courtiers' element." A. V. Our gallery critics, perhaps, will be pleased, and proud, to hear that their formidable cat-calls have so remote an ortgin.

5

Thin the new London, Rome, or Niniveh,] Puppet-shews, or, as they were then styled, motions, at that time in great Togue. WHAL.

6 Jejunus rarò stomachus vulgaria temnit. Jonson.

7 Sit like an Aristarchus or stark ass, &c.] This string of "clenches," Dryden flings in Jonson's face with somewhat more justice than the false grammar just above. Very little, indeed, can be said in their favour, and yet it might be wished that Dryden had found a more legitimate cause than spite for producing them.