Sir P. That I know of. Well! that same fellow was an unknown fool. I knew him one of the most dangerous heads Sir P. While he lived, in action. He has received weekly intelligence, Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries, Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like; sometimes Sir P. Sir, upon my knowledge. Nay, I've observed him, at your public ordinary, A conceal'd statesman, in a trencher of meat; Per. Strange! How could this be, sir? Sir P. Why, the meat was cut So like his character, and so laid, as he He has received weekly inteligence, Out of the Low Countries, in cabbages;] This is not an expression thrown out at random. Cabbages were not originally the growth of England; but about this time were sent to us from Holland, and so became the product of our kitchen-gardens. I mention this circumstance, trifling as it seems, because it serves to point out that propriety and decorum, which so strongly mark the character of Jonson. WHAL. "Tis scarce an hundred years," says Evelyn, in his Discourse of Sallets, 1706, "since we first had cabbages out of Holland, Sir Arth. Ashley, of Wiburg St. Giles, in Dorsetshire, being, as I am told, the first who planted them in England." VOL. III. P Per. I have heard, He could not read, sir. Sir P. So 'twas given out, In policy, by those that did employ him: Per. I have heard, sir, That your baboons were spies, and that they were A kind of subtle nation near to China. Sir P. Ay, ay, your Mamaluchi. Faith, they had Their hand in a French plot or two; but they Had my advices here, on Wednesday last, And now stand fair for fresh employment. Per. 'Heart! This sir Pol will be ignorant of nothing. [Aside. It seems, sir, you know all. Sir P. Not all, sir; but I have some general notions. I do love For mine own private use; and know the ebbs Per. Believe it, sir, I hold Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes, Sir P. Why? came you forth Per. Faith, I had Some common ones, from out that vulgar gram mar, Which he that cried Italian to me, taught me.' Sir P. Why this it is that spoils all our brave bloods, Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants, Fellows of outside, and mere bark. You seem To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race: I not profess it, but my fate hath been To be, where I have been consulted with, sons, Persons of blood and honour. Some 9 Which he that cried Italian to me, taught me.] learned gentlemen," proposed, (as Mr. Whalley informs us,) to "correct" the text here, and alter cried to read. "If chiamare (says one of these "learned gentlemen," who appears to be poor Sympson) "had been used in the sense of indottrinare, I should have liked it much!" This is not a bad specimen of the manner in which notes on our old poets are sometimes composed. Utterly unacquainted with the style and idiom of foreign languages, the commentators run to their dictionaries, and with great labour pick out just enough to expose their own ignorance, and mislead the unlearned reader. Sympson knew that clamare was to cry:-but he wanted the Italian synonym, he therefore turns to chiamare, and boldly produces it at once, as an equivalent to the English word cry, though it merely means to call! We have too many Sympsons now-a-days. To return to Jonson. He had certainly heard enough of Italian to be sensible that it was read with a kind of musical intonation; and this is just what he means. Peregrine's language is purposely affected, to set off the simplicity of Sir Politick. Fellows of outside, and mere bark.] This, as Upton observes, is a Greek phrase; howôns & arnę, Long. sect. 3. Daniel has the same expression, in his Hymen's Triumph: "And never let her think on me, who am Enter Mosca ana NANO disguised, followed by persons with materials for erecting a Stage. Per. Who be these, sir? Mos. Under that window, there 't must be. The same. Sir. P. Fellows, to mount a bank. Did your instructor In the dear tongues, never discourse to you Per. Yes, sir. Sir P. Why, Here you shall see one. Per. They are quacksalvers, Fellows that live by venting oils and drugs. Sir P. Was that the character he gave you of them? Per. As I remember. Sir P. Pity his ignorance. They are the only knowing men of Europe! Per. And, I have heard, they are most lewd impostors ;2 Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers Of great men's favours, than their own vile med'cines; Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths: 2 They are most lewd impostors ;] i. e. ignorant, unlearned. The old and approved sense of the word. Thus Chaucer: "And as leude pepill demith commonlie Squier's Tale, 241. Selling that drug for two-pence, ere they part, Which they have valued at twelve crowns before. Sir P. Sir, calumnies are answer'd best with silence. Yourself shall judge.-Who is it mounts, my friends? Mos. Scoto of Mantua, sir.' I'll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold Enter VOLPONE disguised as a mountebank Doctor, and followed by a crowd of people. Volp. Mount, zany. [to Nano.] Mob. Follow, follow, follow, follow! 3 Scoto of Mantua, sir.] I know not whether Jonson had any contemporary quack in view here. The name he has taken from an Italian juggler who was in England about this time, and exhibited petty feats of legerdemain. See the Epigrams. Our poet was a great reader and admirer of the facetious fopperies of a former age; and I am strongly inclined to think that he intended to imitate Andrew Borde, a physician of reputation in Henry VIII's time, who used to frequent fairs and markets, and there address himself to the people. Here is an evident imitation of his language. "He would make," Hearne says, "humorous speeches, couched in such language as caused mirth, and wonderfully propagated his fame." But Borde was a man of learning, and knew how to deal with the vulgar. He travelled much, to perfect himself in physic. a noted poet, Antony Wood says that Borde was esteemed " a witty and ingeniose person, and an excellent physician of his time." Ath. Ox. V. I. 74. Having a rambling head and an inconstant mind, he travelled over a great part of Christendom, and finally concluded his vagaries and his life, as many other " ingeniose persons" have done, in the Fleet, in 1549. |