To shew that Virgil, Horace, and the rest
Of those great master-spirits, did not want
Detractors then, or practicers against them:
And by this line, although no parallel,
I hoped at last they would sit down and blush ;
But nothing I could find more contrary.
And though the impudence of flies be great,
Yet this hath so provok'd the angry wasps,
Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets,
That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils,
And, like so many screaming grasshoppers
Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise.
And what? those former calumnies you mention'd.
First, of the law: indeed I brought in Ovid
Chid by his angry father for neglecting
The study of their laws for poetry :
And I am warranted by his own words:

Sæpe pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas?
Mæonides nullas ipse reliquit opes."

And in far harsher terms elsewhere, as these :

Non me verbosas leges ediscere, non me
Ingrato voces prostituisse foro."

But how this should relate unto our laws,
Or the just ministers, with least abuse,
I reverence both too much to understand!
Then, for the captain, I will only speak
An epigram I here have made: it is

5 And like so many screaming grasshoppers, &c.] See the For. 6 Renounce this thriftless trade, my father cried :

Mæonides himself-a beggar died. Trist. Lib. 4. Eleg. 10.

7 To learn the wrangling law was ne'er my choice, Nor, at the hateful bar, to sell my voice.

Amor. Lib. 1. Eleg. xv. UNTO TRUE SOLDIERS. That's the lemma :* mark

it.

Strength of my country, whilst I bring to view
Such as are mis-call'd captains, and wrong you,
And your high names; I do desire, that thence,
Be nor put on you, nor you take, offence :
I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love
Your great profession which I once did prove;'
And did not shame it with my actions then,
No more than I dare now do with my pen.
He that not trusts me, having vow'd thus much,
But's angry for the captain, still: is such.1

Now for the players, it is true, I tax'd them,
And yet but some; and those so sparingly,
As all the rest might have sat still unquestion'd,
Had they but had the wit or conscience
To think well of themselves. But, impotent, they
Thought each man's vice belong'd to their whole tribe;"
And much good do't them! What they have done

'gainst me,

I am not moved with: if it gave them meat,
Or got them clothes, 'tis well; that was their end.
Only amongst them, I am sorry for

Some better natures, by the rest so drawn,

* That's the lemma.] The subject proposed, or title of the epigram. WHAL.

9

I love

Jonson bore

Your great profession; which I once did prove; arms in Flanders, where he acquitted himself with reputation. WHAL.

Is such.] i.e. such as are miscalled captains WHAL. This little piece Jonson afterwards reprinted among his Epigrams.

But impotent they, &c.] One might almost suspect that Gay had this passage in his thoughts when he wrote the Beggar's Opera:

"If you mention gift or bribe,
"Tis so pat to all the tribe,

"Each cries-that was levelled at me!"

To run in that vile line.3

Pol. And is this all!

Will you not answer then the libels ?
Aut. No.

Pol. Nor the Untrussers?

Aut. Neither.

Pol. Y'are undone then.

Aut. With whom?

Pol. The world.

Aut. The bawd!

Pol. It will be taken

To be stupidity or tameness in you.

3

-I am sorry for

Some better natures, by the rest so drawn,

To run in that wile line.] It has been thought that Shakspeare was here alluded to, under the expression of better natures. But I see no reason to confine the phrase to so particular a restriction. It makes good sense to take it in the most obvious meaning: nor does it appear there was any difference now subsisting between Shakspeare and our author. WHAL.

Thus far Whalley is right. He might have added, to the confusion of the thinkers, that if their ingenious supposition were true, it would go near to prove-not that Jonson was hostile to Shakspeare, but that Shakspeare was captiously disinclined to Jonson. But, in fact, there is no allusion whatever to Shakspeare, or to the cor company with which he was connected. The commentators are absolutely mad: they will allow Jonson neither to compliment, nor criticise any one but our great poet; and this merely for the pleasure of taxing him with hypocrisy in the one case, and envy in the other. I have already observed that the actors ridiculed belonged to the Fortune play-house; and the critics must have discovered, if their judgment had been half as active as their enmity, a very frequent recurrence throughout the Poetaster, and the Apology, to the poverty and low-estimation of this unfortunate company.

" if it gave them meat,

"Or got them clothes, 'tis well; that was their end." Could this be said of Allen and Shakspeare, of Burbage, Lowin, and Taylor? Without question, the Fortune possessed more actors than the "lean Poluphagus" and the "politic Æsop," and to some of those the poet might allude:"the better na

Aut. But they that have incensed me, can in soul Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare To spurn or baffle them, or squirt their eyes With ink or urine; or I could do worse, Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write Iambics, Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves; Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats In drumming tunes. Or, living, I could stamp Their foreheads with those deep and public brands, That the whole company of barber-surgeons Should not take off, with all their art and plasters. And these my prints should last, still to be read In their pale fronts; when, what they write 'gainst

me

Shall, like a figure drawn in water, fleet,
And the poor wretched papers be employ'd

tures" were not confined, I trust, in Jonson's days, any more than in our own, to a single person, or even a single theatre.

4 Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats, &c.] The fatal effects of poetry on these Opici, these Hibernian vermin, are noticed by many of our old dramatists. Thus Shakespeare, " I was never so be-rhimed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat."

66

As you like it. And Randolph :
my poets
"Shall with a satire, steep'd in vinegar,

To clothe tobacco, or some cheaper drug :
This I could do, and make them infamous.

But, to what end? when their own deeds have mark'd

'em ;

And that I know, within his guilty breast
Each slanderer bears a whip that shall torment him
Worse than a million of these temporal plagues :
Which to pursue, were but a feminine humour,
And far beneath the dignity of man.

Nas. 'Tis true; for to revenge their injuries,
Were to confess you felt them. Let them go,
And use the treasure of the fool, their tongues,
Who makes his gain, by speaking worst of best.
Pol. O, but they lay particular imputations
Aut. As what?

Pol. That all your writing is mere railing.
Aut. Ha?

If all the salt in the old comedy

Should be so censured, or the sharper wit
Of the bold satire termed scolding rage,
What age could then compare with those for buffoons?
What should be said of Aristophanes,
Persius, or Juvenal, whose names we now
So glorify in schools, at least pretend it ?-
Have they no other?

Pol. Yes; they say you are slow,
And scarce bring forth a play a year.
Aut. 'Tis true.

I would they could not say that I did that !
There's all the joy that I take in their trade,
Unless such scribes as these might be proscribed
Th' abused theatres. They would think it strange,

now,

A man should take but colts-foot for one day,
And, between whiles, spit out a better poem
Than e'er the master of art, or giver of wit,

6

• Than e'er the master of art, &c.] Our industrious bee is ever