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You laugh when you are touched, and long before

Any man else, you clap your hands and roar, And cry, good! good! this quite perverts

my sense,

And lies so far from wit, 'tis impudence. Believe it, GUILTY, if you lose your shame, I'll lose my modesty, and tell your name. XXXIX.

ON OLD COLT.

For all night-sins, with others wives unknown,

COLT now doth daily penance in his own.

XL.

ON MARGARET RATCLIFFE.

M arble, weep, for thou dost cover
A dead beauty underneath thee,
Rich as nature could bequeath thee:
Grant then, no rude hand remove her.
All the gazers on the skies
Read not in fair heaven's story,
Expresser truth, or truer glory,

T han they might in her bright eyes.

R are as wonder was her wit;
A nd, like nectar, ever flowing:
Till time, strong by her bestowing,
Conquered hath both life and it;
1, ife, whose grief was out of fashion
In these times. Few so have rued
Fate in a brother. To conclude,!
F or wit, feature, and true passion,
E arth, thou hast not such another.

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Fate in a brother.] Of this lady, Margaret Ratcliffe, I can give the reader no information. She was probably a collateral branch of the family of the Earl of Sussex, for the marriage of whose daughter Jonson wrote the beautiful Masque of the Hue and Cry after Cupid. From a subsequent epigram I collect that she had five brothers, of whom she had the misfortune to lose four; two in the field in Ireland, and two by sickness in the Low Countries. Jonson had reason, therefore, to say that few had rued such fate in their relations. To will and nill

2

The self-same things, &c.] Idem velle atque molle, ea demum amicitia est.

Robert, Earl of Salisbury.] Younger son of Lord Burghley. He and his elder brother, William, were both created earls in the same

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TO ROBERT, EARL OF SALISBURY." What need hast thou of me, or of my

muse,

Whose actions so themselves do celebrate?

day. Robert in the morning; to give his descendants precedency of those of William.

"This man," Walpole says, "who had the fortune or misfortune" (why misfortune?—but this poor stuff was meant for wit) "to please both Elizabeth and James I.; who like the son of the Duke of Lerma had the uncommon fate of succeeding his own father as prime minister, and who unlike that son of Lerma did not, though treacherous to everybody else, supplant his own father, is sufficiently known; his public story may be found in all our histories, his particular in the Biographia."-Cat. of Royal and Noble Authors. In none of these, however, did Walpole look for the "story" of this eminent statesman; but in the ignorant, impure, and scandalous reports of the Weldons, Peytons, and other puritanical disseminators of falsehood, as better suited to the base and envious nature

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of his own spirit. When the time shall come for Walpole himself to be added to the number of "noble authors," by a sterner biographer than Mr. Parke, he will, if fairly represented, be found to be one of the most odious and contemptible of the whole Catalogue."

"

[Walpole was one of Gifford's special aversions. He may have derived the feeling from his bosom friend Hoppner, the painter, who however expressed his dislike in more measured terms. See Hoppner's excellent_article in the first number of the Quarterly Review, p. 41. For further abuse of Horace Walpole, see notes on the Pindaric Ode, post.-F. C.]

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says) from the poet's own mouth. While the plague raged in London, he was on a visit with Camden at the house of Sir Robert Cotton, in the country. Here he saw, in a dream, his eldest son, with the mark of a bloody cross (the token of the plague) on his forehead. Alarmed at this, he prayed to God for him, and went in the morning to Camden's room, and told him what he had seen. Camden desired him not to be dejected, for that it was merely the creation of his own fears: but there came a letter from his wife, to inform him that the child was dead of the plague. Jonson added, that his son appeared to him of a manly stature, and of such 1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and growth as he thought he would be at the Resurjoy.] The expression here must be explained:rection.' There is enough in this narrative to thou child of my right hand shews us his son's convince any one but the vile calumniator who name was Benjamin; that word being usually reports it, that the fond father was not, as he taken as a compound of two Hebrew words, asserts, void of all religion :-but to the purpose which imply that meaning. But some modern of the note. The plague broke out in 1603, the commentators more justly interpret the word child was then in his seventh year; he was born Benjamin to signify the son of days, or of old therefore in 1596, when Jonson, instead of being age. Benjamin was the youngest son, and pro- "advanced in years," was just turned of two bably born when his father was advanced in and-twenty! years.-WHAL.

My predecessor seems to write without reading what he is about to explain. The title declares the epitaph to be written on his first son; Benjamin, says the critic, was the youngest son, and probably born when the father was advanced in years! This is sad trifling: but Whalley appears to me to have contented himself upon all occasions with second-hand authorities, which are commonly worse than none at all. In one of the spiteful attempts made to injure Jonson by his "friend" Drummond, he relates the following anecdote, which he had (he

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The last couplet contains a pretty allusion to the cheerless advice of Martial, in one of his melancholy moods:

Si vitare velis acerba quædam,
Et tristes animi cavere morsus,
Nulli te facias nimis sodalem,
Gaudebis minus, at minus dolebis.

[This insanely rabid note is best disposed of by referring the reader to "the vile calumniator's" own words. See Conversations, postF. C.]

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For his first day

Of bearing them in field, he threw'em away.] The arms were usually portrayed upon the shield; so that on his entering into battle, he flung away his shield, that he might not be encumbered in his flight. This marks him for his cowardice.-WHAL.

Jonson might have thrown his epigram after Mungril's arms, with no more loss of credit than the other of honour.

2 I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean.] This expression sufficiently justifies Pope's emendation of the passage in Hamlet, "I remember one said there were no saits in the lines to make the matter savoury. The old copies read sallets, which being akin to nonsense is, according to custom, replaced in the text by the last editors; though, as Mr. Steevens adds, "the alteration of Pope may be, in some measure, supported by the following passage in Decker's Satiromastix-A prepared troop of gallants, who shall distaste every unsalted line in their fly-blown comedies." If the change be in some measure supported by this quotation, it

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is altogether fixed by the line above, of which none of the commentators take the slightest notice.

3 The best comment upon this little piece is to be found in Winwood's State Papers, in a letter from Mr. Chamberlaine to that minister, dated April 5th, 1606; from which it appears that Jonson has not exaggerated the common feeling, which was the more alive as the story came so quickly upon the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. The report was that the king had been stabbed with a poisoned knife at Woking, in Surrey, where he was hunting. Mr. Lodge has also a letter on the subject from the Earl of Kent to the Earl of Shrewsbury, of which a part is subjoined:

"My very hon'ble good Lo. I received yesterday yo'r hon'able and frendley lines by John Sibley, whereby it pleased yo'r L'p to adv'tise me of the untruthe of those bruits spread abroad of so horrible a treason against his Maj'ties precious life. Theis false bruits come very speedily not only to the Privie Councell at the Corte, and so to London, but also into theis parts, and

This but thy judgment fools: the other way Would both thy folly and thy spite betray.

LIII.

TO OLD-END GATHERER. Long-gathering OLD-END, I did fear thee wise,

When having pilled a book which no man buys,

Thou wert content the author's name to lose: But when, in place, thou didst the patron's choose,

It was as if thou printed hadst an oath,
To give the world assurance thou wert both;
.And that, as puritans at baptism do,
Thou art the father, and the witness too.
For, but thyself, where, out of motley,'s hel
Could save that line to dedicate to thee?

LIV.

ON CHEVERIL.

CHEVERIL cries out my verses libels are; And threatens the Star-chamber, and the Bar.

What are thy petulant pleadings, Cheveril, then,

That quit'st the cause so oft, and rail'st at men?

LV.

TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

How I do love thee, BEAUMONT, and thy Muse,

That unto me dost such religion use !

not onlike, into a great p'te of the kingdom. All thother daye being Sondaye, we here knew nothinge certenly to the contrary but that the worst might be feared: but the greater astonishment this sudden fearefull rumour hath ev'y where occasioned, the more sing'lar comfort and joye will now redounde to ev'ie true harted subject by the report of his Ma'tie's safetie, for w'ch they shall have so just cause to sounde forth God's praise, together with incessant prayers for his Highnes longe happie and prosperous raigne ov'r us." Wilson's account of the confusion and dismay which took place on this occasion, is given in yet stronger language.

In

1 Where, out of motley, 's he, &c.] i.e., where out of a motley, or fool's coat is he, &c. other words, who but a fool?-Whalley seems to have strangely mistaken this simple expression.

2 When even there, where most thou praisest me,

For writing better, I must envy thee.] This short poem is an answer to a letter which Beaumont, then in the country with Fletcher, sent to Jonson, together with two unfinished comedies. The letter is an excellent one, and proves the interesting frankness and cordiality in which

How I do fear myself, that am not worth The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!

At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st;

And giving largely to me, more thou tak'st! What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves? What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives? When even there, where most thou praisest me,

For writing better, I must envy thee."

LVI.

ON POET-APE.

Poor POET-APE,3 that would be thought our chief,

Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit, From brokage is become so bold a thief,

As we, the robbed, leave rage, and pity it. At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean,

Buy the reversion of old plays; now grown To a little wealth, and credit in the Scene, He takes up all, makes each man's wit

his own:

And, told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes

The sluggish gaping auditor devours; He marks not whose 'twas first: and aftertimes

May judge it to be his, as well as ours. Fool! as if half eyes will not know a fleece From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece?

"the envious and malignant Ben" lived with his brother poets The passage to which the text more immediately applies is the following: "Fate once again

Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and plain

The way of knowledge for me, and then I, (Who have no good but in thy company), To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee. Protest it will my greatest comfort be, Ben, when these scenes are perfect, we'll taste I'll drink thy muse's health, thou shalt quaff wine,

mine.

[See vol. i. p. cxiv. Jonson, however, told Drummond "that Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses."-F. C.]

3 Poor Poet-ape, &c.] Mr. Chalmers will take it on his death that the person here meant is Shakspeare! Who can doubt it? For my part I am persuaded that GROOM IDIOT in the next epigram is also Shakspeare; and indeed, generally, that he is typified by the words "fool and knave," so exquisitely descriptive of him, wherever they occur in Jonson.

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1 To William, Lord Mounteagle.] This was the nobleman who received the remarkable letter about the gunpowder plot, taken notice of by our historians, and which gave the first apprehensions of what was then contriving.-WHAL.

Many angry attacks have been made on James for assuming to himself the merit of discovering the import of this letter; of which Cecil takes the credit in an excellent official paper to Sir Charles Cornwallis (Winwood Mem. vol. ii. p. 170,) but surely without much cause. The fact seems to be that Cecil allowed the king (who was always tenacious of his own sagacity) to imagine that he had detected the latent meaning of the letter. Cecil was the most shrewd, and James the most simple and

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unsuspicious of mortals:-there is, therefore, not the smallest reason to believe that the king meant to mislead the parliament, or that he thought otherwise than he spoke. We deceive ourselves grossly if we assume that all which is known now was known at the time when the event took place. Cecil's letter was a sealed letter to the parliament and the nation; and, after all, we have only the minister's word for his share in the discovery. The hint to Lord Mounteagle, which was given to him by his sister, Mary Parker, wife of Thomas Habington, and mother of the amiable and virtuous author of Castara, was not the only one conveyed to the Earl of Salisbury on this mysterious business.

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