O bless his goings-out, and comings-in, An aid, before he be a successor. Late come that day that heaven will ask him from us! Let our grand-children, and their issue, long And his Great Britain's slave; ever to wait THUS IT ENDED LOVE'S WELCOME; THE KING AND QUEEN'S ENTERTAINMENT AT BOLSOVER, AT THE EARL OF NEWCASTLE'S, The 30th of July, 1634. The King and Queen being retired, were entertained with a DANCE of MECHANICS. Enter Coronel VITRUVIUS speaking to some without. Vit. Come forth, boldly put forth, in your holiday clothes, every mother's son of you. This is the king and queen's majestical holiday. My lord has it granted from them; I had it granted from my lord; and do give it unto you gratis, that is, bona fide, with the faith of a surveyor, your coronel Vitruvius. Do you know what a surveyor is now? I tell you, a supervisor. A hard word that; but it may be softened, and brought in, to signify something. An overseer! one that overseeth you. A busy man! and yet I must seem busier than I am, as the poet sings, but which of them I will not now trouble inyself to tell you. Enter, Captain SMITH, (or VULCAN,) with three Cyclops. O Captain Smith! or hammer armed Vulcan! | with your three sledges, you are our music, you come a little too tardy, but we remit that to your polt-foot, we know you are lame. Plant yourselves there, and beat your time out at the anvil. Time and Measure are the father and Vitruvius knows a little. mother of music, you know, and your coronel Enter CHESIL the carver; MAUL the free-mason; Squire SUMMER the carpenter; TWYBIL his man. O Chesil, our curious carver! and master Maul our free-mason; squire Summer our carpenter and Twybil his man; stand you four there, in the second rank, work upon that ground. Enter DRESSER the plumber; QUARREL the glazier ; FRET the plaisterer; BEATER mortar-man. And you, Dresser the plumber; Quarrel the glazier; Fret the plaisterer; and Beater the mortar-man: put all you on in the rear; as finishers in true footing, with tune and measure. Measure is the soul of a dance, and tune the tickle-foot thereof. Use holiday legs, and have 'em; spring, leap, caper, and gingle: pumps and ribands shall be your reward, till the soles of your feet swell with the surfeit of your light and nimble motion. [Here they began to dance. Well done, my musical, arithmetical, geometrical gamesters; or rather my true mathematical boys! it is carried in number, weight, and measure, as if the airs were all harmony, and the figures a well-timed proportion! I cry still, deserve holidays and have 'em. I'll have a whole quarter of the year cut out for you in holidays, and laced with statute-tunes and dances, fitted to the activity of your tressels, to which you shall trust, lads, in the name of your Iniquo Vitruvius, Hey for the lily, for, and the blended rose! Here the Dance ended, and the Mechanics retired. The King and Queen had a second banquet set down before them from the clouds by two Loves, EROS and ANTEROS: one as the king's, the other as the queen's, differenced by their garlands only; his of white and red roses, the other of lilies interweaved, gold, silver, purple, &c. with a bough of palm in his hand cleft a little at the top; they were both armed and winged; with bows and quivers, cassocks, breeches, buskins, gloves and perukes alike. They stood silent a while, wondering at one [He divides it, and gives ANTEROS a part. An. So, [know This was right brother-like! the world will By this one act, both natures. You are Love, I Love, again. In these two spheres we move, Er. We have cleft the bough, An. I call to mind the wisdom of our mother An. Who would be always planted in your For love by love increaseth mutually. [eye; Er. We either, looking on each other, thrive. An. Shoot up, grow galliard Er. Yes, and more alive! [less. An. But a bird of wing. Er. I have not one sick feather since you came, But turn'd a jollier Cupid, An. Than I am. [vide Er. It is the place, sure, breeds it, where we are. An. The king and queen's court, which is And perfect. ¡circular, Er. The pure school that we live in, And is of purer love, a discipline. Enter PHILALETHES. No more of your poetry, pretty Cupids, lest presuming on your little wits, you profane the intention of your service. The place, I confess, wherein (by the providence of your mother Venus) you are now planted, is the divine school of Love: an academy or court, where all the true lessons of Love are thoroughly read and taught. The reasons, the proportions and harmony, drawn forth in analytic tables, and made demonstrable to the senses. Which if you, brethren, should report, and swear to, would hardly get credit above a fable, here, in the edge of Derbyshire, the region of ale, because you relate in rhyme. O that rhyme is a shrewd disease, and makes all suspected it would persuade. Leave it, pretty Cupids, leave it. Rhyme will undo you, and hinder your growth and reputation in court, more than any thing beside, you have either mentioned or feared. If you dabble in poetry once, it is done of your being believed or understood here. No man will trust you in this verge, but conclude you for a mere case of canters, or a pair of wandering gipsies. One Return to yourselves, little deities, and admire the miracles you serve, this excellent king and his unparalleled queen, who are the canons, the decretals, and whole school-divinity of Love. Contemplate and study them. Here shall you read Hymen, having lighted two torches, either of which inflame mutually, but waste not. love by the other's aspect increasing, and both in the right lines of aspiring. The Fates spinning them round and even threads, and of their whitest wool, without brack or purl. Fortune and Time fettered at their feet with adamantine chains, their wings deplumed, for starting from them. All amiableness in the richest dress of delight and colors courting the season to tarry by them, and make the idea of their felicity perfect; together with the love, knowledge, and duty of their subjects perpetual. So wisheth the glad and grateful client, seated here, the overjoyed master of the house; and prayeth that the whole region about him could speak but his language. Which is, that first the people's love would let that people know their own happiness, and that knowledge could confirm their duties to an admiration of your sacred persons; descended, one from the most peaceful, the other the most warlike, both your pious and just progenitors: from whom, as out of peace, came strength, and "out of the strong came sweetness; so in you joined by holy marriage, in the flower and ripeness of years, live the promise of a numerous succession to your sceptres, and a strength to secure your own islands, with their own ocean, but more your own palm-branches the types of perpetual victory. To which, two words be added, a zealous Amen, and ever rounded with a crown of Welcome. Welcome, welcome ! EPIGRAM S. BOOK I. TO THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF HONOR AND VIRTUE, THE MOST NOBLE WIILLAM EARL OF PEMBROKE, LORD CHAMBERLAIN, ETC. MY LORD, -While you cannot change your merit, I dare not change your title: it was that made it, and not I. Under which name, I here offer to your lordship the ripest of my studies, my EPIGRAMS; which, though they carry danger in the Bound, do not therefore seek your shelter; for, when I made them, I had nothing in my conscience, to expressing of which I did need a cypher. But, if I be fallen into those times, wherein, for the likeness of vice, and facts, every one thinks another's ill deeds objected to him; and that in their ignorant and guilty mouths, the common voice is, for their security, Beware the Poet! confessing therein so much love to their diseases, as they would rather make a party for them, than be either rid, or told of them; I must expect, at your Lordship's hand, the protection of truth and liberty, while you are constant to your own goodness. In thanks whereof, I return you the honor of leading forth so many good and great names (as my verses mention on the better part) to their remembrance with posterity. Amongst whom, if I have praised unfortunately any one that doth not deserve; or, if all answer not, in all numbers, the pictures I have made of them: I hope it will be forgiven me, that they are no ill pieces, though they be not like the persons. But I foresee a nearer fate to my book than this, that the vices therein will be owned before the virtues, (though there I so have avoided all particulars, as I have done names,) and some will be so ready to discredit me, as they will have the impudence to belie themselves: for if I meant them not, it is so. Nor can I hope otherwise. For why should they remit any thing of their riot, their pride, their self-love, and other inherent graces, to consider truth or virtue, but, with the trade of the world, lend their long ears against men they love not; and hold their dear mountebank or jester in far better condition than all the study, or studiers of humanity? For such, I would rather know them by their visards still, than they should publish their faces, at their peril, in my theatre, where Cato, if he lived, might enter without scandal. Your Lordship's most faithful honorer, BEN JONSON. I. TO THE READER. If, without these vile arts, it will not sell, PRAY thee, take care, that tak'st my book in Send it to Buckler's-bury, there 'twill well. hand, To read it well; that is, to understand. II. TO MY BOOK. It will be look'd for, Book, when some but see Become a petulent thing, hurl ink, and wit, To catch the world's loose laughter, or vain gaze. III. TO MY BOOKSELLER. Thou that mak'st gain thy end, and wisely well, IV. TO KING JAMES. How, best of kings, dost thou a sceptre bear! And such a prince thou art, we daily see, V. ON THE UNION. When was there contract better driven by Fate, VI. TO ALCHEMISTS. If all you boast of your great art be true; VII. ON THE NEW HOT-HOUSE. Where lately harbor'd many a famous whore, VIII. ON A ROBBERY. RIDWAY robb'd DUNCOTE of three hundred [die; pound, Ridway was ta'en, arraign'd, condemn'd te The courtier is become the greater thief." IX. TO ALL TO WHOM I WRITE. More high, more holy, that she more would crave. What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things! What sight in searching the most antique springs! What weight, and what authority in thy speech! May none whose scatter'd names honor my book, Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst For strict degrees of rank or title look : "Tis 'gainst the manners of an epigram; And I a poet here, no herald am. X. TO MY LORD IGNORANT. Thou call'st me POET, as a term of shame; At court I met it, in clothes brave enough, still. XII. ON LIEUTENANT SHIFT. SHIFT, here in town, not meanest amongst squires, That haunt Pickt-hatch, Marsh-Lambeth, and White-friars, Keeps himself, with half a man, and defrays The charge of that state, with this charm, god pays. By that one spell he lives, eats, drinks, arrays pays. That lost, he keeps his chamber, reads essays, Lent him a rocky whore. - She hath paid him. XIII. TO DOCTOR EMPIRIC. When men a dangerous disease did 'scape, XIV. TO WILLIAM CAMDEN CAMDEN! most reverend head, to whom I owe All that I am in arts, all that I know; [owes, (How nothing's that?) to whom my country The great renown, and name wherewith she gocs! [grave, Than thee the age sees not that thing more teach. Nor need'st thou for those few, by oath releast, Make good what thou dar'st do in all the rest. Keep thy self there, and think thy valor right; He that dares damn himself, dares more than fight. XVII. TO THE LEARNED CRITIC. May others fear, fly, and traduce thy name, And but a sprig of bays, given by thee, tree. XVIII. TO MY MERE ENGLISH CENSURER. To thee, my way in epigrams seems new, men. Prithee believe still, and not judge so fast, Thy faith is all the knowledge that thou hast. XIX. ON SIR COD THE PERFUMED. That Cop can get no widow, yet a knight, XX. TO THE SAME. The expenso in odors, is a most vain sin, XXI ON REFORMED GAMESTER. Lord, how is GAMESTER chang'd! his hair close cut, His neck fenced round with ruff, his eyes half shut! |