Thou woo Minerva! or to wit aspire!

'Cause thou canst halt with us in arts and fire! Son of the Wind! for so thy mother, gone

With lust, conceiv'd thee; father thou hadst none. When thou wert born, and that thou look'dst at

best,

She durst not kiss, but flung thee from her breast;
And so did Jove, who ne'er meant thee his cup.
No marle the clowns of Lemnos took thee up!
For none but smiths would have made thee a god.
Some alchemist there may be yet, or odd
'Squire of the squibs, against the pageant day,
May to thy name a Vulcanale say;

And for it lose his eyes with gun-powder,
As th' other may his brains with quicksilver.-
Well fare the wise men yet, on the Bank-side,
My friends, the watermen! they could provide
Against thy fury, when to serve their needs,
They made a Vulcan of a sheaf of reeds,
Whom they durst handle in their holiday coats,
And safely trust to dress, not burn their boats.
But, O those reeds! thy mere disdain of them,
Made thee beget that cruel stratagem,

Which some are pleased to style but thy mad prank,
Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank:1

1 Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank.] The Globe playhouse, situate on the Bank-side, burnt down about this time.

WHAL.

About what time? The only notice which we have of this poem is found in a letter by Howell "to his father, master Ben Jonson," dated 27th June, 1629. "Desiring you to look better hereafter to your charcole fire and chimney, which I am glad to be one that preserved from burning, this being the second time that Vulcan hath threatened you ;-it may be because you have spoken ill of his wife, and been too busy with his horns; I rest your son," &c. Here the allusion is evidently to the first ten lines of the "Execration:" but this decides nothing with respect to the period of its first appearance.

The date of the fire at the Globe can be distinctly ascertained

Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish, Flank'd with a ditch, and forced out of a marish,

from a letter of Mr. Chamberlaine to sir Ralph Winwood, among the State papers.

"The burning of the Globe, or Playhouse on the Bankside, on St. Peter's day cannot escape you; which fell out by a peale of chambers, that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in the play-the tompin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch that covered the house, burned it down to the ground in less than two hours, with a dwelling house adjoining; and it was a great marvaile and fair grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out." July 8th, 1613.

It is useless to inquire why Jonson, whose memory, though less retentive than formerly, was yet perhaps sufficiently strong, remained inactive; but with the exception of the two fragments just mentioned, he apparently made no effort to repair his loss.

The Journey into Scotland was the ever memorable visit to Drummond, "that false friend," as Chetwood calls him, "who treats the memory of Ben as if he were an idle madman." Drummond could not appear more base than he now does-but, such was the honest warmth and affection of Jonson-had this poem survived, his admirers would not have dared to insult the common sense and feeling of mankind by terming the splenetic hypocrite the friend of Jonson.

The Rape of Proserpine may not perhaps be much regretted : but the destruction of the History of Henry fifth, which was so nearly completed, must ever be considered as a serious misfortune. The vigor and masculine elegance of Jonson's style, the clearness. of his judgment, the precision of his intelligence, aided by the intimate knowledge of domestic and general history possessed by Carew (George, lord Carew,) Cotton, and Selden, three of the most learned men of that or any other age, could not have been exerted without producing a work, of which, if spared to us, we might be justly proud.

Of the value of the philological collections of twenty-four years, some idea may be formed from what remains of the Discoveries or notes on the Poetics of Aristotle and Horace; and the gleanings in Divinity, if they had not answered a nobler and better purpose, would at least serve to bring additional shame on those who, in defiance of so many proofs to the contrary, spitefully persist in accusing the poet of a marked indifference to religion, or, yet worse, of a restless tendency to ridicule and profane it.

I saw with two poor chambers taken in,

And razed; ere thought could urge this might have

been!

See the World's ruins! nothing but the piles

Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles.

The brethren they straight nosed it out for news,
'Twas verily some relict of the stews;
And this a sparkle of that fire let loose,
That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose,
Bred on the Bank in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintain'd the mystery.3
But others fell, with that conceit, by the ears,
And cried it was a threatning to the bears,
And that accursed ground, the Paris-garden:
Nay, sigh'd a sister, Venus' nun, Kate Arden,
Kindled the fire!-but then, did one return,
No fool would his own harvest spoil or burn!—
If that were so, thou rather wouldst advance
The place that was thy wife's inheritance.
O no, cried all, Fortune, for being a whore,
Scap'd not his justice any jot the more :*
He burnt that idol of the Revels too.
Nay, let Whitehall with revels have to do,

2 I saw with two poor chambers taken in,] i. e. destroyed with two small pieces of ordnance.

3 And this a sparkle of that fire let loose,

That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose,

Bred on the Bank in time of Popery,

When Venus there maintain'd the mystery.] Anciently the Bank-side was a continued row of brothels, which were put down by proclamation in the time of Henry VIII. As this place was within the limits of the bishop of Winchester's jurisdiction, a person who had suffered in venereal combats, was opprobriously called a Winchester goose. WHAL.

Fortune, for being a whore,

'Scap'd not his justice any jot the more.] There was in the city a theatre called the Fortune play-house, which likewise suffered by fire about this time. WHAL.

Again! about this time.

This is a very convenient mode of

power;

Though but in dances, it shall know his
There was a judgment shewn too in an hour.
He is right Vulcan still! he did not spare
Troy, though it were so much his Venus' care.
Fool, wilt thou let that in example come?
Did not she save from thence to build a Rome?
And what hast thou done in these petty spites,
More than advanced the houses and their rites?
I will not argue thee, from those, of guilt,
For they were burnt but to be better built:
'Tis true, that in thy wish they were destroy'd,
Which thou hast only vented, not enjoy'd.

So would'st thou've run upon the rolls by stealth, 5
And didst invade part of the common-wealth,

fixing events. But the Fortune was not burnt down till more than eight years after the Globe, that is, not till 1621.

It appears from Heywood's English Travellers, that this theatre took its name from a figure of Fortune.

"Old Lio. Sirrah, come down.

Reig. Not till my pardon's seal'd: I'll rather stand here,

Like a statue, in the full front of your house

For ever; like the picture of dame Fortune,
Before the Fortune play-house."

In the preface to this comedy, Heywood says, "that modesty prevents him from exposing his plays to the public view in numerous sheets, and a large volume, under the title of works, as others." Here, says the Biographia Dramatica, a stroke was probably aimed at Ben Jonson, who gave his plays the pompous title of "Works." This stupid falsehood has been repeated a thousand times. Jonson no more gave his plays the title of " Works," than Shakspeare, Fletcher, Shirley, or any other writer; nor is there a single instance of such a fact in existence. The whole matter is, that, when he collected his various pieces, consisting of Comedies, Tragedies, Masques, Entertainments, Epigrams, and a selection of Poetry, under the name of Forest, with equal taste and judgment, and with a classical contempt of the mountebank titles of his time, he called the multifarious assemblage simply "The Works of Ben Jonson." For this proof of his good sense, he was slandered even in his own time; and the charge of arrogance and vanity is, in our's, still repeated from fool to fool.

So would'st thou've run upon the rolls, &c.] This alludes to a

In those records, which, were all chronicles gone,
Would be remembered by Six Clerks to one.
But say all six, good men, what answer ye?
Lies there no writ out of the Chancery
Against this Vulcan? no injunction,
No order, no decree?—though we be gone
At common-law; methinks, in his despite,
A court of equity should do us right.
But to confine him to the brew-houses,
The glass-house, dye-fats, and their furnaces;
To live in sea-coal, and go forth in smoke;
Or, lest that vapour might the city choak,
Condemn him to the brick-kilns, or some hill-
Foot, (out in Sussex,) to an iron mill;
Or in small faggots have him blaze about
Vile taverns, and the drunkards piss him out;
Or in the Bellman's lanthorn, like a spy,
Burn to a snuff, and then stink out and die :
I could invent a sentence, yet were worse;
But I'll conclude all in a civil curse.
Pox on your flameship, Vulcan! if it be
To all as fatal as't hath been to me,
And to Paul's steeple; which was unto us
'Bove all your fire-works had at Ephesus,
Or Alexandria; and, though a divine
Loss, remains yet as unrepair'd as mine.

Would you had kept your forge at Ætna still! And there made swords, bills, glaves, and arms your fill:

Maintain'd the trade at Bilboa, or elsewhere,
Struck in at Milan with the cutlers there;

fire which took place in the Six Clerks' Office; but I cannot specify the date of it: nor of that at Whitehall, mentioned in the preceding page.

'Bove all your fire-works had at Ephesus

And Alexandria.] The burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and the library at Alexandria. WHAL.