All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!

XXIV.

TO THE PARLIAMENT.

HERE'S reason good, that you good laws should make :

Men's manners ne'er were viler, for your sake.

XXV.

ON SIR VOLUPTUOUS BEAST.

HILE Beast instructs his fair and innocent wife,

In the past pleasures of his sensual life,
Telling the motions of each petticoat,

And how his Ganymede mov'd, and how his goat,
And now her hourly her own cucquean makes,
In varied shapes, which for his lust she takes :
What doth he else, but say, Leave to be chaste,
Just wife, and to change me, make woman's haste !

XXVI.

ON THE SAME.

HAN his chaste wife though Beast now know

no more,

He adulters still his thoughts lie with a

whore.

XXVII.

ON SIR JOHN ROE."

N place of scutcheons that should deck thy herse,

Take better ornaments, my tears and verse.
If any sword could save from Fates', Roe's could;
If any Muse outlive their spight, his can;
If any friends' tears could restore, his would;
If any pious life ere lifted man

To heaven; his hath : O happy state! wherein
We, sad for him, may glory, and not sin.

XXVIII.

ON DON SURLY.

ON Surly, to aspire the glorious name Of a great man, and to be thought the same, Makes serious use of all great trade he knows. He speaks to men with a rhinocerote's nose, Which he thinks great; and so reads verses too: And that is done, as he saw great men do.

7 On sir John Roe.] Probably the son of sir Thomas Roe, knt., an eminent merchant of London, who after passing with distinguished credit through every municipal honour, died full of years and good works about 1570. This worthy citizen, whose charity was directed by his piety to the most useful purposes, left four sons, who appear to have trod in the footsteps of their father.

8 He speaks to men with a rhinocerote's nose,] i. e. I believe, with a nose elate, or curled up into a kind of sneer, scornfully, contemptuously. This, at least, is the meaning of the expression in Martial's lively address to his book:

Nescis, heu nescis domina fastidia Roma,
Crede mihi, nimium Martia turba sapit;
Majores nusquam ronchi, juvenesque senesque,
Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis habent!

lib. i. 4.

He has tympanies of business in his face,
And can forget men's names, with a great grace.
He will both argue, and discourse in oaths,

Both which are great : and laugh at ill-made clothes;
That's greater, yet: to cry his own up neat.
He doth at meals, alone, his pheasant eat,
Which is main greatness; and at his still board,
He drinks to no man: that's, too, like a lord.
He keeps another's wife, which is a spice
Of solemn greatness; and he dares, at dice,
Blaspheme God greatly; or some poor hind beat,
That breathes in his dog's way:9 and this is great.
Nay more, for greatness sake, he will be one
May hear my epigrams, but like of none.
SURLY, use other arts, these only can
Style thee a most great fool, but no great man.

XXIX.

TO SIR ANNUAL TILTER.

ILTER, the most may admire thee, though
not I ;

And thou, right guiltless, may'st plead to it,
Why?

For thy late sharp device. I say 'tis fit

All brains, at times of triumph, should run wit :
For then our water-conduits do run wine;
But that's put in, thou'lt say.

Why, so is thine. 9 That breathes in his dog's way.] "Breathes (Whalley says) is intended to express what Shakspeare means when he describes such as 'breathe in their watering.' There is no end to this nonsense, since Steevens first set it abroach. I have already relieved Shakspeare from the obloquy of so filthy a meaning (vol. ii. p. 32,) and to take away every possible plea for its being charged upon him again, I will now add the following decisive passage. The words of Shakspeare are: "They call drinking deep dying scarlet, and when you breathe in your watering," (stop to take breath in your

XXX.

TO PERSON GUILTY.

UILTY, be wise; and though thou know'st the crimes

Be thine, I tax, yet do not own my rhymes: 'Twere madness in thee, to betray thy fame, And person to the world, ere I thy name.

XXXI.

ON BANKS THE USURER.

ANKS feels no lameness of his knotty gout, His monies travel for him in and out: And though the soundest legs go every day, He toils to be at hell, as soon as they.

XXXII.

ON SIR JOHN ROE.'

HAT two brave perils of the private sword
Could not effect, nor all the Furies do,
That self-divided Belgia did afford;

What not the envy of the seas reach'd to,

draught,) "they cry hem/ and bid you play it off." The parallel passage follows:

"Fill Will his beaker, he will never flinch
To give a full quart pot the emptie pinch.
He'll looke unto your waters well enough,
And hath an eye that no man leaves a snuffe:
A pox of piece-meale drinking! William sayes,
Play it away; will have no stoppes and stayes;
Blown drink is odious," &c. S. Rowland, Sat. 6.

1 Jonson appears to have sincerely loved and lamented this ex

The cold of Mosco, and fat Irish air,

His often change of clime, though not of mind, All could not work; at home, in his repair,

Was his blest fate, but our hard lot to find. Which shews, wherever death doth please t' appear, Seas, sérenes, swords, shot, sickness, all are there.

XXXIII.

TO THE SAME.

'LL not offend thee with a vain tear more,
Glad-mention'd Roe; thou art but gone
before,

Whither the world must follow: and I, now,
Breathe to expect my When, and make my How.

cellent person, of whose actions I can give the reader no account He seems to have followed the business of a merchant-venturer at first, like his father, and subsequently, in imitation of many gallant spirits in those days, to have embarked in the wars of the Netherlands. He died, however, in peace, at home.

Among Whalley's loose papers, I find another memorial of our author's regard for him. It seems to be taken from the blank leaf of a Persius, with which he had presented him. Why Whalley chose to give us vile English instead of copying the elegant Latin of the original, I cannot tell.

"To sir John Roe, his most approved friend, this his love and delight, the most learned of satirists, PERSIUS, with a most learned commentary, is consecrated by Ben. Jonson, who willingly, deservedly, gives and dedicates it. Nor is a parent more to be preferred by me than a friend."

2 Seas, sérenes, &c.] i. e. a blast of warm air; a blight, or mildew, vol. iii. p. 248. The most miserable pun on record, (which yet was repeated at every table in Paris,) was made by the marquis of Bievre on this word. Mad. d'Angivilliers had a favourite serin, (a canary-bird,) and the marquis, on coming into her drawing-room, gravely put on his hat, with this notable piece of wit: "I beg your ladyship's pardon-but I am afraid of the serein !" The marquis was a great reader of Joe Miller-so were not the French in general : his second wit therefore was in high request.