To former height, and there in circle tarry, Till they be sure to make the fool their quarry.

Now, in whose pleasures I have this discerned,

What would his serious actions me have learned?

LXXXVI.

TO THE SAME.

When I would know thee, GOODYERE, my thought looks

Upon thy well-made choice of friends, and books;

Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends In making thy friends books, and thy books friends:

Now I must give thy life and deed the voice
Attending such a study, such a choice;
Where, though 't be love that to thy praise
doth move,

It was a knowledge that begat that love.
LXXXVII.

ON CAPTAIN HAZARD, THE CHEATER. Touched with the sin of false play in his punque,

HAZARD a month foreswore his, and grew drunk,

Each night, to drown his cares; but when

the gain

Of what she had wrought came in, and

waked his brain,

Upon the accompt, hers grew the quicker

trade:

Since when he's sober again, and all play's

made.

LXXXVIII.

ON ENGLISH MONSIEUR. Would you believe, when you this MON

SIEUR see,

That his whole body should speak French, not he?

1 On Captain Hazard, the cheater.] ie., the gamester. The terms were synonymous in Jonson's age, and perhaps have been so in every age since.-WHAL.

2 Farther than half-way tree.] In the way to Dover, in the poet's time, 'tis probable some remarkable tree might be standing in the road. about half-way thither.-WHAL.

That so much scarf of France, and hat, and feather,

And shoe, and tye, and garter, should come hither,

And land on one whose face durst never be Toward the sea, farther than half-way tree 23

That he, untravelled, should be French so much,

As Frenchmen in his company should seem Dutch?

Or had his father, when he did him get, The French disease, with which he labours yet?

Or hung some Monsieur's picture on the wall,

By which his dam conceived him, clothes and all?

Or is it some French statue? no: 't doth move,

And stoop, and cringe. O then, it needs must prove

The new French tailor's motion, monthly made,

Daily to turn in Paul's, and help the trade.

LXXXIX.

TO EDWARD ALLEN. 3

If Rome so great, and in her wisest age, Feared not to boast the glories of her stage, As skilful Rosius, and grave Æsop, men Yet crowned with honours, as with riches then ;

Who had no less a trumpet of their name,

How can so great example die in me,
Than Cicero, whose every breath was fame:
That, ALLEN, I should pause to publish
:thee?

Who both their graces in thyself hast more Outstript, than they did all that went before:

And present worth in all dost so contract, As others speak, but only thou dost act.

lent epigram-first, that Jonson had other acquaintance on the stage than Shakspeare; and secondly, that when he spoke of " some better natures among the players, who had been drawn in to abuse him," he did not, as Messrs. Steevens and Malone are pleased to suggest, necessarily mean that great poet.

founder.-WHAL

Two things may be collected from this excel

Wear this renown. 'Tis just, that who did give

So many poets life, by one should live.

XC.

ON MILL, MY LADY'S WOMAN.

When MILL first came to court, th' unprofiting fool,

Unworthy such a mistress, such a school, Was dull, and long ere she would go to man: At last, ease, appetite, and example wan The nicer thing to taste her lady's page; And, finding good security in his age, Went on: and proving him still day by day, Discerned no difference of his years or play. Not though that hair grew brown which once was amber,

And he, grown youth, was called to his lady's chamber;

Still Mill continued: nay, his face growing

To Sir Horace Vere.] He was created Lord Tilbury, and was the famous general in the Low Country wars in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Many of the nobility at that time served under him.-WHAL.

Sir Horace was grandson of John Vere, fifteenth Earl of Oxford. He was a celebrated warrior, as well as his elder brother, Sir Francis. Fuller, in his quaint but forcible manner, says, that "he had more meekness, and as much valour as his brother; so pious, that he first made his peace with God before he went out to war with

man,

And unto whom; they are the almanacks, For twelve years yet to come, what each state lacks.

They carry in their pockets Tacitus,
And the Gazetti, or Gallo-Belgicus;
And talk reserved, locked up, and full of fear,
Nay ask you how the day goes, in your ear;
Keep a Star-chamber sentence close twelve
days,

And whisper what a Proclamation says.
They meet in sixes, and at every mart
Are sure to con the catalogue by heart;

Rowland Whyte (in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated Court, 7th Nov. 1607,) says, Sir Horacio Vere shall marry within these eight days, one Mrs. Hoby, a widdow, sister to Sir John Tracey; a fine, comely, well graced gentlewoman." To this lady, who outlived Sir Horace nearly forty years, the Parliament confided the care of the younger children of their unfortunate sovereign. They could not be in better hands, for she was a person of excellent character." Sir Horace was created Lord Vere of Tilbury in 1625, being, as Fuller says, the first baron made by Charles I.

Or every day, some one at Rimee's looks, Or Bill's, and there he buys the names of books.

They all get Porta, for the sundry ways
To write in cipher, and the several keys
To ope the character; they've found the
slight

With juice of limons, onions, piss, to write; To break up seals, and close them: and they know,

If the States make peace, how it will go With England. All forbidden books they get, And of the powder-plot, they will talk yet: At naming the French king their heads they shake,

And at the Pope and Spain slight faces make; Or 'gainst the bishops for the brethren rail, Much like those brethren; thinking to prevail

XCIV.

they do.

XCIII.

TO SIR JOHN Radcliffe.

How like a column, RADCLIFFE, left alone, 2 For the great mark of virtue, those being gone

1 Some one at Rimee's looks, Or Bill's

They all get Porta.] The two first were booksellers in that age: the last was the famous Neapolitan, Johannes Baptista Porta, who has a treatise extant in Latin, De furtivis literarum notis, vulgo de Ziferis, printed at Naples 1563. He died 1615.-WHAL.

How like a column, Radcliffe, &c.] This epigram (a very admirable one) is addressed to the surviving brother of Margaret Radcliffe. (See Epig. xl.) It undoubtedly furnished Edwards with the model for his affecting sonnet, On a Family Picture, which the reader will find subjoined, and which may be counted among the best of this polished and amiable man.

"ON A FAMILY PICTURE.

"When pensive on that portraiture I gaze,
Where my four brothers round about me stand,
And four fair sisters smile with graces bland,
The goodly monument of happier days;
And think how soon insatiate death, who
On all, has cropt the rest with ruthless hand:
While only I survive of all that band,
Which one chaste bed did to my father raise:
It seems that like a column left alone,

preys

The tottering remnant of some splendid fane, Scaped from the fury of the barbarous Gaul, And wasting time which has the rest o'erthrown, Amidst our house's ruins I remain

Single, unpropt, and nodding to my fall."

MASTER DONNE'S SATIRES.3 LUCY, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses' day, their morning star! If works, not th' authors, their own grace should look,

Whose poems would not wish to be your book?

It is melancholy to add to the little history of Sir J. Radcliffe's family, that this "column" also, this "great mark of virtue," fell, not many years afterwards, like the rest. That valiant and generally beloved gentleman (Weever says,) Sir John Radcliffe, lieutenant colonell, was slaine fighting against the French in the isle of Rhee, the 29th of October, in the year of our Lord, 1627.

* Daniel, who has a poem addressed to the countess, terms her "learned;" undoubtedly she was a most accomplished lady, and skilled in a variety of arts not much studied by the females of those days. Sir Thomas Roe has a letter to her, in which he speaks of her proficiency in the knowledge of ancient medals; and Sir William Temple mentions her with applause in his Essay on the gardens of Epicurus, for "projecting the most perfect figure of a garden that he ever saw.' Granger attempts to be severe on her bounty to the poets; but as Drayton, Donne, Daniel, and our author were among the number, her liberality seems to be nearly as secure from censure as her judgment.

It is pleasing to mark the habitual kindness with which Jonson recommends his friend's works, and the ingenious mode in which he compliments his patroness for desiring to have a

copy

of the Satires.

• In Ireland.

But these, desired by you, the maker's ends Crown with their own: Rare poems ask rare friends.

Yet satires, since the most of mankind be
Their unavoided subject, fewest see;
For none e'er took that pleasure in sin's

sense,

But, when they heard it taxed, took more offence.

They then, that living where the matter's bred,

Dare for these poems yet both ask, and read, And like them too; must needfully, though few,

Be of the best, and 'mongst those best are you :

Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are The Muses' evening, as their morning star!

XCV.

TO SIR HENRY Savile.

If, my religion safe, I durst embrace
That stranger doctrine of Pythagoras,
I should believe the soul of Tacitus
In thee, most weighty SAVILE, lived to us:
So hast thou rendered him in all his bounds,
And all his numbers, both of sense and
sounds.

But when I read that special piece restored,
Where Nero falls, and Galba is adored,
To thine own proper I ascribe then more,
And gratulate the breach I grieved before;

1

Were thy glad country blest,

To have her story woven in thy thread.] It was then imagined, that Sir Henry Savile intended to have compiled a general history of England but he gave over the design, and engaged in the excellent edition of Chrysostom, which he afterwards published.-WHAL.

There is no date to this epigram; but it must have been written after 1604, as he did not receive the honour of knighthood till that year, and before 1613, in which year his magnificent edition of Chrysostom's Works, 8 vol. fol. appeared, which Jonson would not have omitted to mention. Sir Henry was one of the most learned men of that learned age, and published many valuable works, which raised his reputation no less abroad than at home. The translation of which Jonson speaks was published long before the death of Elizabeth, to whom it was dedicated to this he appended a large body of notes, in which the breaks in the original are occasionally supplied with great ingenuity. He was admirably skilled in the history of this country, and collected and printed the tracts of many of the best ancient writers on the subject; if therefore he really designed, as Whalley says, to compile a general history of England, we have to lament that one

Which Fate, it seems, caused in the history,
Only to boast thy merit in supply.
O, wouldst thou add like hand to all the rest!
Or, better work! were thy glad country
blest,

To have her story woven in thy thread ;'
Minerva's loom was never richer spread.
For who can master those great parts like
thee,

That liv'st from hope, from fear, from faction free?

That hast thy breast so clear of present crimes,

Thou need'st not shrink at voice of aftertimes;

Whose knowledge claimeth at the helm to stand,

But wisely thrusts not forth a forward hand,

No more than Sallust in the Roman state:
As then his cause, his glory emulate.
Although to write be lesser than to do,
It is the next deed, and a great one too.
We need a man that knows the several

graces

Of history, and how to apt their places; Where brevity, where splendour, and where height,

Where sweetness is required, and where weight;

We need a man can speak of the intents,2 The councils, actions, orders, and events Of state, and censure them; we need his pen

so well qualified for the task found cause to lay it aside.

Sir Henry was warden of Merton College, Oxford, and provost of Eton. Aubrey says that he was a severe governor, and that the scholars hated him for his austerity: but all governors were severe in those days. The he could not abide worst of him was that witts:"-" If a young scholar was recommended would say, I'll have nothing to do with himto him for a good witt, Out upon him! he if I wold look for witts I wold go to Newgate, there be the witts.""-Letters by Eminent Persons, vol. ii. p. 525.

stories are the mere gossip of the day.--Sir Aubrey has other complaints; but his idle Henry Savile was, after all, everything that Jonson describes him to be; and we may securely acquiesce in the opinion of Bishop "" a magazine of learnMontague, that he was ing, whose memory will be honourable amongst not only the wise but the righteous for ever."

2 We need a man can speak of the intents, The counsels, actions, orders, and events, &c.] These are the essentials of history, and are laid down by Cicero (de Oratore, lib. 2,) as treating : this sentiment is taken from thence.~ what a good historian should be capable of

WHAL