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To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.

VI.

TO THE SAME.

Kiss me, sweet: the wary lover
Can your favours keep, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again no creature comes.
Kiss, and score up wealthy sums
On my lips thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe. First give a hundred.
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the other
Add a thousand, and so more :
Till you equal with the store,
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars that gild his streams,
In the silent Summer-nights,
When youths ply their stolen delights;
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.

VII. SONG.

THAT WOMEN ARE BUT MEN'S
SHADOWS.1

Follow a shadow, it still flies you,

Seem to fly it, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men? At morn and even shades are longest ; At noon they are or short or none: So men at weakest, they are strongest, But grant us perfect, they're not known. Say are not women truly then, Styled but the shadows of us men?

["Pembrok and his Lady discoursing, the Earl said, The woemen were men's shadowes, and she maintained them. Both appealing to Johnson, he affirmed it true; for which my Lady gave a pennance to approve it in verse: hence his epigram."-B. J., Conversations with Drummond.

This seems circumstantial enough; but a writer in Notes and Queries, 3rd S., viii. 187, gives some Latin lines, which if really written by Barthol. Anulus (who died circ. 1565) would tend to impugn the truth of the story:

Umbra suum corpus radianti in lumine solis Cum sequitur refugit: cum jugit insequitur.

VIII.

SONG.

TO SICKNESS.

Why, DISEASE, dost thou molest
Ladies, and of them the best?
Do not men enow of rites
To thy altars, by their nights
Spent in surfeits; and their days,
And nights too, in worser ways?

Take heed, Sickness, what you do,
I shall fear you'll surfeit too.
Live not we, as all thy stalls,
Spittles, pest-house, hospitalls,
Scarce will take our present store?
And this age will build no more.
'Pray thee, feed contented then,
Sickness, only on us men;
Or if it needs thy lust will taste
Woman-kind; devour the waste
Livers, round about the town.
But, forgive me,-with thy crown
They maintain the truest trade,
And have more diseases made.
What should yet thy palate please?
Daintiness, and softer ease,
Sleeked limbs, and finest blood?
If thy leanness love such food,
There are those, that for thy sake,
Do enough; and who would take
Any pains; yea, think it price,
To become thy sacrifice.

That distill their husband's land
In decoctions; and are manned
With ten emp'rics, in their chamber,
Lying for the spirit of amber.
That for the oil of talc dare spend
More than citizens dare lend
Them, and all their officers.
That to make all pleasure theirs,
Will by coach, and water go,
Every stew in town to know;
Dare entail their loves on any,
Bald or blind, or ne'er so many:

Tales naturæ quoque sint muliebres amores: Optet amans, nolunt: non velit, ultro volunt. Phabum virgo fugit Daphne inviolata sequen

tem

Echo, Narcissum, dum fugit, insequitur. Ergo voluntati plerumque adversa repugnans Fæmina, jure sui dicitur umbra viri. F. C.]

2 That for the oil of talc dare spend More than citizens dare lend.] See vol. ii. p. 38 a. Whalley has strangely confounded this cosmetic with a nauseous unction for the tick in sheep.

And for thee at common game, Play away health, wealth, and fame. These, Disease, will thee deserve; And will long, ere thou shouldst starve, On their beds, most prostitute, Move it, as their humblest suit, In thy justice to molest

None but them, and leave the rest.

IX.
SONG.

TO CELIA.!

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosie wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,

'No part of Jonson has been so frequently quoted as this song, which, pleasing as it is, is not superior to many others scattered through his works.

"I was surprised (Cumberland_says), the other day to find our learned poet Ben Jonson had been poaching in an obscure collection of love letters, written by the sophist Philostratus in a very rhapsodical stile, merely for the purpose of stringing together a parcel of unnatural far-fetched conceits, more calculated to disgust a man of Jonson's classical taste, than to put him upon the humble task of copying them, and then fathering the translation. The little poem he has taken from this despicable sophist is now become a very popular song." Observer,

No. lxxiv.

Cumberland, who reasoned very loosely, was hardly aware, I think, of the extraordinary compliment he was paying Jonson in this passage. But why should he be surprised? Did we not know that he was directed to Philostratus by a more skilful and excursive finger than his own, we might perhaps be surprised at finding the critic there; but they must have a very imperfect acquaintance with Jonson who are unprepared to meet with him in any volume which antiquity has bequeathed to us. It need not follow that our poet admired every writer that he read: he might not, perhaps, have judged more favourably of Philostratus than Mr. Cumberland, or rather Dr. Bentley; yet he had the address to turn him to some account. But to the quotations: which, it must be added, are translated without much apparent knowledge of the original:

Εμοι δε μόνοις προπινε τους ομμασιν. Ει δε βουλει, τοις χείλεσι προσφερουσα, πληρου φιλη

|

As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

X.

PRÆLUDIUM.2

And must I sing? what subject shall I chuse?

Or whose great name in Poets' heaven use, For the more countenance to my active Muse?

Hercules? alas, his bones are yet sore With his old earthly labours: t'exact

more

Of his dull godhead, were sin. I'll implore Phoebus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious day

Shall not give out that I have made thee stay,

And foundered thy hot team, to tune my lay.

ματων το εκπωμα, και ούτως διδου. “ Drink to me with thine eyes only-Or, if thou wilt, putting the cup to thy lips, fill it with kisses, and so bestow it upon me."-Lett. xxiv.

Εγω, επειδαν ιδω σε, δίψω, και το εκπωμα κατέχων, και το μεν ου προσαγω τοις χείλεσι, σov de oida Tivov. "I, as soon as I behold thee, thirst, and taking hold of the cup, do not indeed apply that to my lips for drink, but thee." Lett. xxv. This is by no means the sense. It was not thus that Jonson read Philostratus.

Πεπομφα σου στεφανον ροδων, ου σε τιμων (και τούτο μεν γαρ), αλλ' αυτοις τι χαριζομένος Tois podois, iva un apavon. "I sent thee a rosy wreath, not so much honouring thee (though this also is in my thoughts) as bestowing favour upon the roses, that so they might not be withered.' Lett. xxx.

"

Ει δε βουλει τι φιλῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τα λείψανα αυτών αντιπεμψον, μηκετι πνέοντα ῥόδον μονον aλλa Kaι σov. "If thou wouldst do a kindness to thy lover, send back the reliques of the roses (I gave thee) no longer smelling of themselves only, but of thee.' Lett. xxxi.

"

Mr. Cumberland is quite scandalized at the omission of the poet's acknowledgments to Philostratus: this is very natural in so scrupulous a borrower as himself; but he ought to have known that this was not the practice of Jonson's times.

It is a little singular that the artful arrangement of this song (which is peculiar to our poet) should have escaped the critics. Cumberland divides it into four stanzas; so do the ingenious authors of the Anthology, who, from the incorrect manner in which they have given it, evidently overlooked the construction.

2 This Præludium (which is merely sportive)

Nor will I beg of thee, Lord of the Vine,
To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,
In the green circle of thy Ivy twine.
Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
That at thy birth mad'st the poor Smith
afraid,

Who with his axe thy father's midwife played.

Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus when he snorts,

Or with thy Tribade trine, invent new sports; Thou nor thy looseness with my making

sorts.

Let the Old Boy, your son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask;

His absence in my verse, is all I ask.
Hermes, thecheater, shall not mix withus,
Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus,
And rifle him: or pawn his Petasus.
Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,
Though they were crushed into one form,
could make

A beauty of that merit, that should take

together with the admirable Epode to which it forms an introduction, must have been among the earliest of Jonson's works, since both are prefixed to a volume of rare occurrence (obligingly communicated to me by T. Hill, Esq.), called "Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's Complaint. Allegorically shadowing the truth of Love in the constant fate of the Phoenix and Turtle-now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato Cæliano, by Robert Chester, to which are added some new compositions of several writers, 1601." The. Epode is immediately followed by "the Phoenix Analysed," and the "Ode" given below (8) both, as it would seem, by our author, though his name does not appear to them.

Till the discovery of this volume, of which Whalley apparently knew nothing, these poems could scarcely be considered as intelligible. Shakspeare, Marston, and Chapman united with Jonson in this commendation of the Phoenix, and "consecrated their verses (the preface says) to the love and merit of the true noble knight, Sir John Salisburie."

THE PHOENIX ANALYSED. (8.)

Now after all, let no man
Receive it for a fable,
If a bird so amiable

Do turn into a woman.

Or, by our Turtle's augure,

That Nature's fairest creature Prove of his mistress' feature But a bare type and figure.

My Muse up by commission; no, I bring My own true fire: now my thought takes wing,

And now an EPODE to deep ears I sing.

XI. EPODE.

Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue and not Fate:

Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel.
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
Or safe, but she'll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
Of thoughts to watch and ward
At the eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,
That no strange or unkind
Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,

Give knowledge instantly,
To wakeful reason, our affections' king:
Who, in th' examining,

Will quickly taste the treason, and commit Close, the close cause of it. 'Tis the securest policy we have,

To make our sense our slave.

ODF, ενθουσιαστική.
Splendor! O more than mortal
For other forms come short all,
Of her illustrious brightness
As far as sin's from lightness.
Her wit as quick and sprightful
As fire, and more delightful
Than the stolen sports of lovers,
When night their meeting covers.
Judgment, adorned with learning
Doth shine in her discerning,
Clear as a naked vestal
Closed in an orb of crystal.
Her breath for sweet exceeding
The Phoenix' place of breeding,
But mixed with sound, transcending
All nature of commending.
Alas, then! whither wade I
In thought to praise this lady,
When seeking her renowning
Myself am so near drowning?
Retire, and say her graces
Are deeper than their faces,

Yet she's not nice to show them, Nor takes she pride to know them. [The T. Hill, Esq., who brought this volume to light, was better known as Tom Hill, and better still as the Paul Pry of Liston, the Hull of Gilbert Gurney, and the Tom Eaves of "Vanity Fair."-F. C.]

But this true course is not embraced by A fixed thought, an eye untaught to

many:

By many! scarce by any.

For either our affections do rebel,

Or else the sentinel,

That should ring larum to the heart, doth sleep;

Or some great thought doth keep Back the intelligence, and falsely swears They are base and idle fears Whereof the loyal conscience so complains.

Thus, by these subtle trains,

Do several passions invade the mind,

And strike our reason blind,

Of which usurping rank, some have thought love

The first; as prone to move

Most frequent tumults, horrors, and un

rests

In our enflamed breasts:

But this doth from the cloud of error grow, Which thus we over-blow.

The thing they here call Love, is blind Desire,

Armed with bow, shafts, and fire; Inconstant, like the sea, 'of whence 'tis born, Rough, swelling, like a storm: With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear,

And boils, as if he were

In a continual tempest. Now, true Love
No such effects doth prove;
That is an essence far more gentle, fine,
Pure, perfect, nay divine;

It is a golden chain let down from heaven,
Whose links are bright and even,
That falls like sleep on lovers, and com-
bines

The soft, and sweetest minds

In equal knots: this bears no brands nor darts,

To murther different hearts, But in a calm and god-like unity

Preserves community.

O, who is he that in this peace enjoys

The Elixir of all joys?

A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,

And lasting as her flowers:

glance:

Who, blest with such high chance,
Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
Cast himself from the spire

Of all his happiness? But soft, I hear
Some vicious fool draw near,

That cries we dream, and, swears there's no such thing

As this chaste love we sing.
Peace, Luxury,2 thou art like one of those
Who, being at sea, suppose,

Because they move, the continent doth so.
No, Vice, we let thee know,
Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows'
wings do fly.

Turtles can chastly die;

And yet (in this t' express ourselves more clear)

We do not number here Such spirits as are only continent,

Because lust's means are spent:

Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame,

And for their place and name, Cannot so safely sin: their chastity Is mere necessity.

Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience

Have filled with abstinence: Though we acknowledge, who can so abstain,

Makes a most blessed gain. He that for love of goodness hateth ill, Is more crown-worthy still, Than he which for sin's penalty forbears; His heart sins, though he fears. But we propose a person like our Dove, Graced with a Phoenix' love;

A beauty of that clear and sparkling light, Would make a day of night,

And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys;

Whose odorous breath destroys

All taste of bitterness, and makes the air

As sweet as she is fair.

A body so harmoniously composed,

As if Nature disclosed

All her best symmetry in that one feature! O, so divine a creature,

Richer than Time, and as Time's virtue Who could be false to? chiefly when he

rare :1

Sober, as saddest care;

1 And as Time's virtue rare.] Truth, which is said proverbially to be the daughter of Time. --WHAL.

2 Peace, Luxury.] i.e., lust. It is simply the Fr. luxure, then in general use. On this trite word Steevens (under the name of Collins) has

knows

How only she bestows

poured out, for the benefit of the youthful readers of Shakspeare, pages of the grossest indecency:

"Verbis, nudum olido stans Fornice mancipium quibus abstinet !"

The wealthy treasure of her love on him;

Making his fortunes swim

In the full flood of her admired perfection?

What savage, brute affection, Would not be fearful to offend a dame Of this excelling frame?

Solders cracked friendship; makes love last a day;

Or perhaps less: whilst gold bears all this sway,

I, that have none to send you, send you

verse.

A present which, if elder writs rehearse Much more a noble and right generous The truth of times, was once of more mind,

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esteem

Than this our gilt, not golden age can deem,

When gold was made no weapon to cut throats,

Or put to flight Astrea, when her ingòts Were yet unfound, and better placed in earth,3

Than here to give pride fame and peasants birth.

But let this dross carry what price it will With noble ignorants, and let them still Turn upon scorned verse their quarterface:

Whilst that for which all virtue now is With you, I know, my offering will find

sold,

And almost every vice, almighty gold, That which, to boot with hell, is thought worth heaven,

And for it life, conscience, yea souls are given,

Toils, by grave custom, up and down the court,

To every squire or groom that will report Well or ill, only all the following year, Just to the weight their this day's presents bear;

While it makes huishers serviceable men, And some one apteth to be trusted then, Though never after; whiles it gains the voice

Of some grand peer, whose air doth make rejoice

The fool that gave it: who will want and weep,

When his proud patron's favours are asleep;

While thus it buys great grace, and hunts poor fame;

Runs between man and man; 'tween dame and dame;

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1 That knows the weight of guilt, &c.] This the appearance of this volume, as did her is from Seneca, the tragedian:

Quid pœna presens consciæ mentis pavor, Animusque culpa plenus, et semet timens: Scelus aliqua tutüm, nulla securum tulit.

Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.] The lady to whom the 79th epigram is addressed, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney, and wife of Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland. She died before

husband. 3

When her ingots

Were yet unfound, and better placed in earth, &c.]

Aurum irrepertum et sic melius situm
Cum terra celet, spernere fortior
Quàm cogere humanos in usus

Omne sacrum rapiente dextra."

HOR

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