LXXII.

EPISTLE

TO MASTER ARTHUR SQUIB.

AM to dine, friend, where I must be weigh'd
For a just wager, and that wager paid
If I do lose it; and, without a tale,

A merchant's wife is regent of the scale.
Who when she heard the match, concluded straight,
An ill commodity! it must make good weight."
So that, upon the point, my corporal fear
Is, she will play dame justice too severe;
And hold me to it close; to stand upright
Within the balance, and not want a mite;
But rather with advantage to be found
Full twenty stone, of which I lack two pound;
That's six in silver: now within the socket
Stinketh my credit, if, into the pocket

It do not come: one piece I have in store,

Lend me, dear Arthur, for a week, five more,

And you shall make me good in weight and fashion, And then to be return'd; or protestation

"An ill commodity, &c.] The lady alludes, I presume, to the decisive depression of the scale, exacted in the weighing of coarse merchandize.

But, rather with advantage to be found

Full twenty stone; of which I lack two pound :

That's six in silver.] The wager, it seems, was that the poet weighed full twenty stone, but he found that he wanted two pounds of that weight. This he artfully turns to a reason for borrowing five pounds in money of his friend Mr. Squib, which added to the pound he had of his own, would make up the deficiency in his weight. Six pounds in silver, he says, will weigh two pounds in weight: it may be so; we will take his word. WHAL.

I doubt whether we understand the nature of this wager, which was probably a mere jest. If the sense be as Whalley states it, there is as little of art as of honesty in it.

To go out after :

-till when take this letter

For your security. I can no better.

LXXIII.

TO MASTER JOHN BURGES.

ZOULD God, my Burges, I could think
Thoughts worthy of thy gift, this ink,
Then would I promise here to give
Verse that should thee and me outlive.
But since the wine hath steep'd my brain,
I only can the paper stain;

Yet with a dye that fears no moth,

But scarlet-like, out-lasts the cloth.

9 To master John Burges.] Burges was probably the deputy paymaster of the household. He had made Jonson a present of some ink, and this little production, which wants neither spirit nor a proper self-confidence, inclosed, perhaps, the return for it. Master Burges might have sent the wine at the same time.

Jonson, who lived much about the court while his health permitted him to come abroad, seems to have made friends of most of those who held official situations there, and to have been supplied with stationery, and, perhaps, many other petty articles. The following is transcribed from the blank leaf of a volume of miscellaneous poetry, formerly in the possession of Dr. John Hoadley, son of the bishop of Winchester. He has written over it, “A Relique of Ben Jonson.”

"To my worthy and deserving Brother
Mr. Alexander Glover,

as the Token of my Love,

And the perpetuating of our Friendship,
I send this small, but hearty Testimony;
And with Charge, that it remayne wth Him,
Till I at much expense of time and taper,
With 'Chequer-Ink, upon his gift, my paper,
Shall pour forth many a line, drop many a letter
To make these good, and what comes after, better.
BEN JONSON."

LXXV.

EPISTLE

TO MY LADY COVELL.

OU won not verses, madam, you won me,
When you would play so nobly, and so free,
A book to a few lines! but it was fit

You won them too, your odds did merit it.
So have you gained a Servant and a Muse :
The first of which I fear you will refuse,
And you may justly; being a tardy, cold,
Unprofitable chattel, fat and old,

Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach
His friends, but to break chairs, or crack a coach.
His weight is twenty stone within two pound;
And that's made up, as doth the purse abound.'
Marry, the Muse is one can tread the air,
And stroke the water, nimble, chaste and fair;
Sleep in a virgin's bosom without fear,
Run all the rounds in a soft lady's ear,
Widow or wife, without the jealousy
Of either suitor, or a servant by.
Such, if her manners like you, I do send :
And can for other graces her commend,
To make you merry on the dressing-stool
A mornings, and at afternoons to fool
Away ill company, and help in rhyme
Your Joan to pass her melancholy time.
By this, although you fancy not the man,
Accept his muse; and tell, I know you can,
How many verses, madam, are your due!
I can lose none in tendering these to you.

1 And that's made up, &c.] Is this too a hint ?—If so, it must have sorely puzzled the lady, unless she had previously seen the Epistle to master Squib.

I gain in having leave to keep my day,
And should grow rich, had I much more to pay,

LXXV.

TO MASTER JOHN BURGES.

ATHER John Burges,
Necessity urges
My woeful cry

To Sir Robert Pie :2

And that he will venture
To send my debenture.
Tell him his Ben

Knew the time, when
He loved the Muses;
Though now he refuses,
To take apprehension
Of a year's pension,
And more is behind:
Put him in mind
Christmas is near;
And neither good cheer,
Mirth, fooling, nor wit,
Nor any least fit

Of gambol or sport
Will come at the court;
If there be no money,
No plover or coney

2 My woeful cry

To sir Robert Pie.] Sir Robert Pie was appointed to the Exchequer about 1618, upon the resignation of sir John Bingley, who was implicated in a charge of peculation with the lord treasurer, the earl of Suffolk. Sir Robert was a retainer of Buckingham's, to whose interest he owed his promotion. He was the ancestor of the late laureat, under whose hands the family estate vanished. Mr. Pye had probably raised his woeful cry to the treasurer of the day as loudly as Jonson, for he was equally clamorous and necessitous. Such are the mutations of time!

Will come to the table,
Or wine to enable
The muse, or the poet,

The parish will know it.

Nor any quick warming-pan help him to bed;
If the 'Chequer be empty, so will be his head.

LXXVI.

EPIGRAM

TO MY BOOкseller.

HOU, friend, wilt hear all censures; unto thee

All mouths are open, and all stomachs free:
Be thou my book's intelligencer, note
What each man says of it, and of what coat
His judgment is; if he be wise, and praise,
Thank him; if other, he can give no bays.
If his wit reach no higher, but to spring
Thy wife a fit of laughter; a cramp-ring
Will be reward enough; to wear like those,
That hang their richest jewels in their nose :
Like a rung bear or swine; grunting out wit
As if that part lay for a
3 most fit!

If they go on, and that thou lov'st a-life
Their perfumed judgments, let them kiss thy wife.

3 A word has been dropt in the folio, and I cannot re-instate it.