If any here chance to behold himself,
Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;
For, if he shame to have his follies known,
First he should shame to act'em: my strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe
Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,
Ás lick up every idle vanity.

Cor. Why, this is right furor poeticus!
Kind gentlemen, we hope your patience
Will yet conceive the best, or entertain
This supposition, that a madman speaks.
Asp. What, are you ready there? Mitis, sit down,
And my Cordatus. Sound ho! and begin.
I leave you two, as censors, to sit here:
Observe what I present, and liberally ho
Speak your opinions upon every scene,
As it shall pass the view of these spectators.
Nay, now y'are tedious, sirs; for shame begin.
And, Mitis, note me; if in all this front
You can espy a gallant of this mark,

Who, to be thought one of the judicious,

4

Sits with his arms thus wreath'd, his hat pull'd here, Cries mew, and nods, then shakes his empty head,

4 Sits with his arms, &c.] These "marks of the judicious" were very prevalent, and are noticed as such by all the writers of Jonson's time. Thus Shakspeare: "Your hat, pent-house like, o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin belly doublet, like a rabbit on a spit." Love's Labour Lost. And Shirley: "I do not despair, gentlemen; you see I do not wear my hat in my eyes, crucify my arms," &c. Bird in a Cage. With respect to crying mew, it appears to have been an old and approved method of expressing dislike at the first representation of a play. Decker has many allusions to the practice; and, what appears somewhat strange, in his Satiromastix, charges Jonson with mewing at the fate of his own works. "When your plays are misliked at court, you shall not cry mew, like a puss, and say you are glad you write out of the courtiers' element." A. v. Our gallery critics, perhaps, will be pleased, and proud, to hear that their formidable cat-calls have so remote an origin.

Will shew more several motions in his face
Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh,5
And, now and then, breaks a dry biscuit jest,
Which, that it may more easily be chew'd,
He steeps in his own laughter.

Cor. Why, will that

Make it be sooner swallow'd?

Asp. O, assure you.

Or, if it did not, yet, as Horace sings,

6

Mean cates are welcome still to hungry guests.

Cor. 'Tis true; but why should we observe them,
Asper?

Asp. O, I would know 'em; for in such assemblies
They are more infectious than the pestilence:

And therefore I would give them pills to purge,
And make them fit for fair societies.
How monstrous and detested is't, to see
A fellow, that has neither art nor brain,
Sit like an Aristarchus, or stark ass,
Taking men's lines, with a tobacco face,
In snuff, still spitting, using his wry'd looks,
In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn
The good aspect of those that shall sit near him,
From what they do behold! O, 'tis most vile.
Mit. Nay, Asper.

Asp. Peace, Mitis, I do know your thought;
You'll say, your guests here will except at this:
Pish! you are too timorous, and full of doubt.
Then he, a patient, shall reject all physick,

/sathic purpose

5 Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh.] Puppet-shews, or, as they were then styled, motions, at that time in great vogue. WHAL.

• Jejunus rarò stomachus vulgaria temnit. Jonson.

Sit like an Aristarchus or stark ass, &c.] This string of "clenches" Dryden flings in Jonson's face with somewhat more justice than the false grammar just above. Very little, indeed, can be said in their favour, and yet it might be wished that Dryden had found a more legitimate cause than spite for producing them.

'Cause the physician tells him, you are sick:
Or, if I say, that he is vicious,

You will not hear of virtue. Come, you are fond.
Shall I be so extravagant, to think,

That happy judgments, and composed spirits,
Will challenge me for taxing such as these?
I am ashamed.

Cor. Nay, but good, pardon us;

We must not bear this peremptory sail,
But use our best endeavours how to please.

8

Asp. Why, therein I commend your careful thoughts, And I will mix with you in industry

To please: but whom? attentive auditors,

Such as will join their profit with their pleasure,
And come to feed their understanding parts:
For these I'll prodigally spend myself,
And speak away my spirit into air;
For these I'll melt my brain into invention,
Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words
As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears.
But stay, I lose myself, and wrong their patience;
If I dwell here, they'll not begin, I see.

9

8 Come, you are fond.] You are foolish, simple, injudicious. In this sense fond is used by our earliest writers. Thus Chaucer :

"The riche man ful fond is, iwis,

That weneth that he loved is."

Rom. of the Rose, v. 5367.

And so it is found in Spenser, Shakspeare, and almost every dramatist and poet of this age. WHAL.

As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears.] The comparison alludes to the custom then in vogue, of men wearing rings and jewels in their ears. So Marston: "Give me those jewels of your ears, to receive my inforced duty." Malecontent, A. i. S. 6. And Beaumont and Fletcher:

Friends, sit you still, and entertain this troop
With some familiar and by-conference,
I'll haste them sound. Now, gentlemen, I go
To turn an actor and a humorist,

Where, ere I do resume my present person,
We hope to make the circles of your eyes
Flow with distilled laughter: if we fail,
We must impute it to this only chance,
Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance.1

[Exit.

Cor. How do you like his spirit, Mitis? Mit. I should like it much better, if he were less confident.

Cor. Why, do you suspect his merit?

Mit. No; but I fear this will procure him much

envy.

Cor. O, that sets the stronger seal on his desert: if he had no enemies, I should esteem his fortunes most wretched at this instant.

Mit. You have seen his play, Cordatus: pray you, how is it?

Cor. Faith, sir, I must refrain to judge; only this I can say of it, 'tis strange, and of a particular kind by itself, somewhat like Vetus Comoedia; a work that hath bounteously pleased me; how it will answer the general expectation, I know not.

Mit. Does he observe all the laws of comedy in it?
Cor. What laws mean you ?

Mit. Why, the equal division of it into acts and scenes, according to the Terentian manner; his true number of actors; the furnishing of the scene with Grex or Chorus, and that the whole argument fall within compass of a day's business.

1 Art hath an enemy, &c.] Alluding to the old proverb, Ars non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem. Though this may be true, it would come with more propriety from the spectator than the actor; but Jonson knew little of the golden curb which discretion hangs on self-opinion.

Cor. O no, these are too nice observations. Mit. They are such as must be received, by your favour, or it cannot be authentic.

Cor. Troth, I can discern no such necessity.

Mit. No!

Cor. No, I assure you, signior. If those laws you speak of had been delivered us ab initio, and in their present virtue and perfection, there had been some reason of obeying their powers; but 'tis extant, that that which we call Comoedia, was at first nothing but simple and continued song, sung by one only person, till Susario invented a second; after him, Epicharmus a third; Phormus3 and Chionides devised to have four actors, with a prologue and chorus; to which Cratinus, long after, added a fifth and sixth : Eupolis, more ; Aristophanes, more than they; every man in the dignity of his spirit and judgment supplied something. And, though that in him this kind of poem appeared absolute, and fully perfected, yet how is the face of it changed since, in Menander, Philemon, Cecilius, Plautus, and the rest! who have utterly excluded the chorus, altered the property of the persons, their names, and natures, and augmented it with all liberty, ac

2 Cor. No, I assure you, signior, &c.] I have already observed, that the author has afforded no hints to enable us to guess at the person of his friend Cordatus: he has, however, supplied him with a considerable degree of accuracy and learning; and I suspect that few, either on or off the stage, could have furnished, in those days, a better epitome of dramatic history than is here put into his mouth. It must, however, have been caviare to the general. The scholar knows that the first part of this narrative admits of some dispute; a note, however, is not the place to treat of a question which occupies a considerable portion of the profound and acute Dissertation upon Phalaris, by the great Bentley.

3 Upton supposes that Jonson wrote Phormus from "a lapse of memory," and therefore tells us to correct the text into Phormis; but there is no need; Jonson had a better memory than his critic. He well recollected the spelling of Athenæus and Suidas, in whom, particularly in the former, he found most of what he here delivers.