71 
 
 .TIMBER- 
 
 DISCOVERIES 
 
 . r 
 
 MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER 
 
 EDITED 
 WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 FELIX E. SCHELLING 
 
 Professor of English Literature in the University 
 OF Pennsylvania 
 
 UNIVERSITir 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY 
 
 1892 
 
^0 6~^if 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1892, 
 
 By FELIX E. SCHELLING, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 Presswork by Ginn & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 
TS 
 
 •7 '^i 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 MY TEACHER, COLLEAGUE, AND FRIEND 
 
 JOHN GEORGE REPPLIER McELROY 
 
-^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Discoveries of Ben Jonson deserve attention for two 
 reasons : as one of the best examples of later Elizabethan 
 prose, and as one of the earli est cons cious efforts at simple 
 literarypresentment. A higher claim is to be found in the 
 sound sense, discriminating judgment, and lofty moral senti- 
 ment with which the work is pervaded, and in the inexpli- 
 cable and inexcusable neglect that has suffered so rare an 
 English classic to remain practically inedited, and, until 
 quite recently, all but unknown. The memory of the man 
 has been long since reclaimed from ignorant and perverse 
 detraction, and his literary achievements acknowledged to 
 be surpassed alone by the master who has surpassed all ; 
 but there remains yet somewhat to a complete knowledge 
 of " one of the noblest, manliest, most honest and most 
 helpful natures that ever dignified and glorified a powerful 
 intelligence and an admirable genius." (Swinburne, A 
 Study of Ben Jonso7i, p. 130.) 
 
 Although the evident disorder of many parts of the 
 Discoveries suggests and courts rearrangement, I have pre- 
 ferred to follow the original order throughout, and to depart 
 as little as possible from the readings of the edition of 1641. 
 It was found necessary to use greater freedom with the 
 punctuation. Variants from the folio in Whalley, Gilford, 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Colonel Cunningham's edition and Professor Morley's, will 
 be found under the notes, together with emendations of Mr. 
 Swinburne and others. 
 
 While as many references as possible have been verified, 
 the notes of the present edition do not pretend to have 
 exhausted the allusions with which the text is literally brist- 
 ling. If any apology be deemed necessary, I can but urge 
 the words of so capable and scholarly a critic as William 
 Gifford {Works of Joiison, ed. Cunningham, ii. p. 51) : 
 " The variety and extent of Jonson's reading are altogether 
 surprising ; nothing seems to have been too poor and trifling, 
 too recondite and profound, for his insatiable curiosity and 
 thirst for knowledge. It is but seldom, and even then acci- 
 dentally, that I can fall in with him : the general range of his 
 wide and desultory track is to me nearly imperceptible." 
 
 It gives me much pleasure to record my obligations to the 
 courtesy and the scholarship of Dr. Horace Howard Furness 
 T of Philadelphia, Professor Albert S. Cook of Yale University, 
 Mr. Charlton T\_ Lewis of New York, Dr. Paul Shorey of 
 Bryn Mawr College, Mr. William R. Thayer of Concord, 
 Mass., and Mr. Joseph Jacobs, of London, England. Nor 
 is my indebtedness less to my colleagues, Dr. Oswald Sei- 
 densticker. Professor William A. Lamberton, Dr. Morton 
 W. Easton, Dr. Hermann V. Hilprecht, Dr. Morris Jastrow, 
 Jr., and Dr. William Romaine Newbold. 
 
 F. E. S. 
 
 Philadelphia, December, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 Sketch of the Life of Ben Jonson ix 
 
 Publication and Date of Composition xiv 
 
 Literary Influences xviii 
 
 Style xxi 
 
 Analysis xxvii 
 
 Discoveries i 
 
 Notes 89 
 
 Index of Proper Names 163 
 
 vii 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. Sketch of the Life of Ben Jonson. 
 
 {^Compiled chiefiy from his Conversations with Drumtnond, Sytnond's Life, 
 and Ward's English Dramatic Literature.^ 
 
 Ben Jonson was born in the year 1573. He came of a 
 border family of Anandale, and was the posthumous son 
 of a minister who had *' losed all his estate under Queen 
 Marie, having been cast into prison and forfeited." i^Co7i- 
 versaiions with Drumjnond.^ His widow marrying again, 
 Jonson was " brought up poorly," but " put to school " at 
 Westminster, and there befriended by the learned anti- 
 quary Camden. Fuller states that from Westminster Jon- 
 son went to [St. John's College] Cambridge. If so, he re- 
 mained but a short time ; for he afterwards told Drummond 
 that " he was Master of Arts in both Universities by their 
 favor, not his study." The trade of his step- father, that of 
 a bricklayer, proving distasteful, Jonson enlisted as a soldier, 
 and relates that, " in his service in the Low Countries," he 
 had, " in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy and 
 taken opi7na spolia from him." It seems likely that Jonson 
 was again in England in 1592, and married while yet under 
 age. He told Drummond that " his wife was a shrew, yet 
 honest." He had several children by her, none of whom 
 survived him. 
 
 The beginning of Jonson's career as a dramatist cannot be 
 fixed with certainty ; but the advances of money made to 
 him by Philip Henslow, the manager and stage-broker, in 
 1597, prove that he was a recognized playwright by that 
 
X INTR on UC TION. 
 
 time, doing 'prentice-work, according to the custom of his 
 age, in the reconstruction and adaptation of earlier plays. 
 The pleasing tradition that Jonson owed his introduction to 
 a dramatic career to the good offices of Shakespeare is not 
 susceptible of proof; although his first dramatic success, 
 Every Man in his Humor, was acted in 1598 by the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Servants, Shakespeare's company, and Shake- 
 speare was himself an actor in it. The notion that Jonson 
 and Shakespeare Hved in a state of rivalry and enmity is 
 based upon no evidence worthy of a moment's considera- 
 tion. (See the notes, especially 23 9 and 23 28.) 
 
 In this year Jonson had the misfortune to kill a fellow- 
 actor, in a duel, for which he was tried at Old Bailey, con- 
 victed on his own confession, and, pleading his clergy, 
 escaped capital punishment with a brand upon the thumb 
 of his left hand and forfeit of goods and chattels. While 
 in prison he became converted to the Roman Church, and 
 remained of that faith for twelve years. The duel severed 
 his connection with Henslow and drew him into writing for 
 Shakespeare's rival company. 
 
 In 1599 Queen Elizabeth witnessed Jonson's next play, 
 Every Man out of his Humor, the first of the series of 
 dramatic satires, which were soon to involve their author in 
 internecine warfare with his fellow-craftsmen. During the 
 next three years Jonson was a leading combatant in what is 
 known as "The War of the Theatres," Cynthia's Revels giving 
 the affront, the Poetaster, Marston and Dekker's Satiromas- 
 tix, and many other plays continuing the battle. Notwith- 
 standing Jonson's " aggressive and egotistic personality," and 
 the gall and venom of both parties, it may be doubted if the 
 terrors of these literary frays were such as the historians of 
 literature would have us believe. At all events the collabo- 
 ration of Dekker and Jonson in the pageants attending the 
 accession of James, and the fervent dedication of Marston's 
 Ala/content to Jonson in 1604, preclude the possibility of 
 
 I 
 
INTR OD UC TfON. xi 
 
 our believing these enmities to have been either very deep 
 or very lasting. 
 
 Sejanus, Jonson's first tragedy, was produced at the 
 Globe Theatre in 1603, Shakespeare again taking a part; 
 but it was not well received. In consequence Jonson turned 
 his attention to a different species of the drama, and, the 
 festivities attending the progress of the new king offering a 
 splendid field for his talents, began with the The Satyre in 
 1603, that series of stately Masques and Entertainments 
 which alone would be sufficient to render his name remark- 
 able in the history of our literature. He soon gained the 
 royal favor, and with it the patronage of many noble houses ; 
 and for years the most notable courtly entertainments and 
 civic feasts were enriched with '^ the poetry and learning 
 of Master Ben Jonson and the invention and architecture of 
 Master Inigo Jones." 
 
 ' In 1605 Chapman and Marston were imprisoned for cer- 
 tain passages of the comedy. Eastward Ho ! which an 
 irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to the Scotch ; 
 and Jonson, who had a hand in the play but not in the 
 offensive passages, "voluntarily imprisoned himself" with 
 them. But both Chapman and Jonson had influence at 
 Court and the playwrights were soon at Hberty. Jonson con- 
 tinued for years to furnish entertainments for the Court, and 
 appears to have accompanied many of the royal progresses. 
 In 1 6 16 the Laureateship, with a pension of one hundred 
 marks a year, was conferred upon him ; this with his fees and 
 retainers from several noble patrons, and the small earnings 
 of his plays, formed the bulk of his income. Two years 
 later the king granted him the reversion of the office of 
 Master of the Revels, but Jonson did not live to enjoy its 
 perquisites. It is even said that at one time Jonson nar- 
 rowly escaped the honor of knighthood, which King James 
 was wont to lavish with indiscriminate hand. 
 
 Volpone was produced in 1605 ; The Silent Woman, in 
 
V 
 
 xii INTR OD UC TTON. 
 
 1609, and The Alchemist followed in the succeeding year. 
 These masterly comedies met with unqualified success, as 
 did Barfho/omeiu Fair m 1614. A less degree of popular 
 approbation awaited his second tragedy, Caii/i?ie, which was 
 produced in 161 1. This group of plays represents Jonson 
 at the height of his dramatic power. 
 
 From 1616 to 1625 Jonson produced nothing for the 
 stage, although still not infrequently engaged in the com- 
 position of courtly entertainments. During this period 
 of prosperity he was enabled to continue the prosecution of 
 those studies which have made him memorable as one of 
 the greatest scholars of a scholarly age, and to collect his 
 rich and varied library, afterwards unhappily destroyed by 
 fire. He told Drummond that " the Earl of Pembroke sent 
 him ^20 every first day of the new year to buy new books." 
 With another patron, Lord d'Aubigny, he lived for a period 
 of five years. Jonson accompanied the eldest son of Sir 
 Walter Raleigh to Paris as his tutor in 16 13, and told Drum- 
 mond that he had written certain parts of Sir Walter's His- 
 tory of the World for him (see notes 30 34). Later, in 
 16 18, Jonson set out on foot for Scotland, and spent some 
 time with the Scotch poet, William Drummond, at Havv- 
 thornden, the latter's country-seat. In the words of Pro-j 
 fessor Ward : '' His [Jonson's] moral like his physical 
 nature was cast in a generously ample mould ; he spoke hi^ 
 mind freely in praise and blame ; uttered his opinion of men 
 and books in round terms ; and probably never gave a 
 second thought to his sayings after they had flowed as copi- 
 ously as the canary which had removed the last barrier of 
 self-restraint. Talk such as this will not always bear analy- 
 sis ; and when Drummond, after Ben Jonson's departure, 
 summarized his impressions of his guest in a note of his own 
 — not of course intended for the public eye — it does not 
 follow that he was in a fit mood for the purpose." 
 
 Courtly patronage failed Jonson towards the close of the 
 
IN TR OD I rc TFON. xiii 
 
 reign of James, and in 1625 he had recourse once more to 
 the stage. While the sweeping assertion of Dryden that 
 these later plays are " Jonson's dotages " is unfair, their 
 inferiority to the work of his better days is as marked as it 
 is deplorable. But there were many compensations yet left 
 to the veteran of letters. None of the great English liter- 
 ary dictators enjoyed a rule more absolute than that of Ben 
 Jonson, whether in the earlier days of the Mermaid, where, 
 in the words of Herrick : 
 
 We such clusters had 
 As made us nobly wild, not mad; 
 And yet each verse of thine 
 Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine; 
 
 or in the later times of the Apollo room of the Devil Tavern. 
 Nor was this homage confined to " the billowy realms of 
 Bohemia." To use the words of Professor Ward once 
 more : " Contemporary literature of every description — 
 from Clarendon to Milton, and from Milton to Herrick — 
 abounds with testimonies together proving his position to 
 have been unrivalled among the men of letters of his times ; 
 and on his death a crowd of poets hastened to pay their 
 tributes of acknowledgment to one who seems to have been 
 loved more than he was feared, and to have left behind him 
 a gap which it was felt must remain unfilled." 
 
 Unhappily, poverty, disease, and increasing years were 
 now aggravated by renewed petty squabbles, especially with 
 Inigo Jones, who used his influence at Court unworthily to 
 prevent the employment of his unhappy rival. In 1628, on 
 the death of Thomas Middleton, Jonson obtained the post 
 of Chronologer to the City of London, and in the ensuing 
 year King Charles renewed his father's patronage of the old 
 laureate with a gift of ;£ioo, and an increase of Jonson's 
 standing salary. Now much of his time bedridden, the old 
 poet became dependent on the liberality of noble patrons, 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION.- 
 
 and yet the friendship of many of the greatest and noblest 
 men of his day, and the adoration of a younger generation 
 " sealed of the tribe of Ben," must have gone far towards 
 brightening even these darkening days. Ben Jonson died 
 August 6, 1635, ^^d although a projected monument failed 
 of erection in the midst of the poHtical tension that was 
 rapidly hurrying the nation to civil war, all must agree that 
 '^ no time will efface the brief but sufficient legend 
 
 * O rare Ben Jonson.' " 
 
 2. Publication and Date of Composition. 
 
 Ben Jonson's Exploi-ata, Timber or Discoveries as 
 pubHshed posthumously in 1641, filling the last forty-seven 
 pages of the second volume of the folio edition of 1640 
 Since Dr. Brinsley Nicholson's examination and collation 01 
 the folio editions of Jonson (see Notes and Queries^ Fourth 
 Series, vol. v. p. 573), we may dismiss the supposition of 
 Lowndes that a third folio edition was printed, bearing date 
 1 64 1, as well as his affirmation of the existence of a second 
 volume of the first folio of 1616. It was not until the 
 reprint of 1640 that a second volume, containing the Dis- 
 coveries and other pieces variously dated, appeared. Gififord 
 supposed that this volume was printed from manuscripts 
 surreptitiously obtained (ed. Cunningham, iii. p. 277) ; but 
 Dr. Nicholson has shown conclusively, and for reasons which 
 space will not permit me to set forth here, that at least two 
 of the plays contained in this volume had received touches 
 from the hand of the author, and that " as to the pieces 
 dated 1640 and 1641, some of the smaller poems are from 
 the author's revised copies, while the same pieces in the 
 quarto and duodecimo non-surreptitious editions of 1640 
 are from earUer drafts." 
 
 The separate title of the Discoveries bears no imprint 
 beyond the words, "London, printed M.DC.XLL" The 
 
IN TR OD UC TION. XV 
 
 pagination runs continuously through Horace, his Arte of 
 Poetrie, pp. 1-29, The English Grammar, pp. 31-84, and 
 the Discoveries, pp. 85-132 ; while each of the former sep- 
 arate titles displays the imprint, " Printed M.DC.XL." Dr. 
 Nicholson, however, informs us that the general title of the 
 second volume bears the imprint of R. Meighan, 1640, who 
 was not the publisher of the other volume of'*lhe second 
 folio. The exemplar, the property of the present editor, 
 contains no such general title ; and it would seem from 
 Gifford's note, referred to above, that his copy exhibited a 
 like defect. Dr. Nicholson assures us that whatever the 
 ot\ r variants, all the copies of the Discoveries bears the 
 dJ^o of £6^1,., 
 
 In view of the corrupt state of portions of the- text, the 
 evident disorder of many of the notes, and the ignorant 
 misplacement and repetition of marginal references, it is 
 clear that the work could never have been intended, by so 
 careful an author as Jonson, for publication in its present 
 form. And yet, considering the age and its posthumous 
 appearance, the condition of the text of the folio is far from 
 justifying the brilliant strictures of Mr. Swinburne. The 
 truth seems that editors of Jonson have generally wearied 
 of their task before reaching the later products of their 
 author's brain ; and, while most of the mistakes of the folio 
 have been reproduced with sedulous fidelity, not a few new 
 errors have crept into the text through carelessness or 
 unnecessary zeal in emendation. 
 
 As appears from the title, the Discoveries is a " species 
 of commonplace book of aphorisms flowing out of the poet's 
 daily reading." But it would be far from just to regard this 
 as all. For every note is stamped with the powerful indi- 
 viduality of the writer, so that even the reflected thoughts 
 of others have become wholly Jonson's own ; while the care 
 with which the notes have been penned, and the painstaking 
 attention to matters of style and expression^ entitle Jonson 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 here as elsewhere to challenge the first place of his age as 
 a master of vigorous, idiomatic English prose. There is 
 internal evidence, too, pointing to an intent to publish, in 
 the words : " I had not told posterity this but for their igno- 
 rance, who choose that circumstance to commend their 
 friend by wherein he most faulted " {De Shakespeai'c nos- 
 trati, 23 u-ie), to which may possibly be added the several 
 passages susceptible of an autobiographical interpretation 
 (18 8-19 2, 31 28-32 3, 43 24-44 23, etc.) 
 
 The date of the composition of the Discoveries cannot 
 be determined with any degree of accuracy ; and it is highly 
 probable, from the nature of the work, that it was written 
 from time to time through a series of years. One piece of 
 external evidence we have in a letter of James Howell to 
 Jonson, dated June 27, 1629, and containing a series of 
 quotations on the madness of poets, nearly all of which are to 
 be found in a passage of the Discoveries (see 75 24-76 8, 
 and the notes thereon, in which Howell's letter is quoted). 
 Unfortunately for this bit of evidence, the letter mentions 
 The Magjictic Lady as a finished work, and that play was 
 not acted until 1632. It is unUkely that Jonson kept the 
 finished manuscript of his play in his desk three years before 
 performance, and still more improbable that Howell should 
 write thus familiarly of a play as yet untried. Moreover, 
 Anthony a Wood declares (^Athence. Oxofiie?ises, ed. 181 7, 
 iii. col. 746) that " many of the said letters were never 
 written before their author was in the Fleet [1642], as he 
 pretends they were, only feigned (no time being kept with 
 the dates), and purposely pubhshed to gain money to relieve 
 his necessities." Hence, while it is quite possible that 
 Howell sent such a letter to Jonson, the date can prove 
 nothing as to the composition of Jonson's note, if indeed 
 the evidence of Anthony a Wood does not raise a presump- 
 tion of direct borrowing on the part of Howell from Jonson's 
 already published Discoveries. 
 
INTR OD UC TION. xvii 
 
 A few parallel passages between the Discoveries and other 
 works of Jonson may be found, as the statement " that poets 
 are far rarer births than kings " {Disc. 76 12, Epigram, 79, 
 and the Epilogue to New Infi), or the allusion to the pas- 
 sage oi Julius Ccesar {Disc. 23 27, and the Induction to The 
 Staple of Newes) ; but such points prove little, and need 
 not be pressed. The two or three parallels between the 
 Discoveries and works of contemporary authors (Bacon's 
 Advance me fit of Learning, 31 13, Q>Q) 12, 17 ; Selden's Table 
 Talk, 73 3) are of about equal uncertainty. Several allu- 
 sions to contemporary persons and events are somewhat more 
 fruitful. The disgrace of Lord Bacon in 1621 was assuredly 
 prior to the writing of the note (31 28-32 3) ; whilst that 
 concerning his eloquence (30 10-21) — unless the literality 
 of the translation from Seneca mislead — must have been 
 written subsequent to the chancellor's death in 1626. The 
 allusions to Taylor, the Water Poet (22 9 and u), amount 
 to nothing, as Taylor continued the production of his book- 
 lets long after the death of Jonson ; that to Heath's Epi- 
 grams (22 8) is more definite, unless reminiscent, as Heath 
 does not appear to have written subsequent to 1620. These 
 allusions lead to 1620 or 1621, as the earliest possible 
 date assignable to the composition of any of the notes 
 constituting the Discoveries ; while the date, 1630, con- 
 tained in the note on Archy Armstrong (13 is) , the reminis- 
 cent character of Jonson's remarks on Bacon, Shakespeare, 
 and others, the adaptation of Seneca's words on the failure 
 of his memory to Jonson himself (18 12-29) and his frequent 
 bitterness of spirit (11 I8-29, 21 16 seqq., 43 24-44 23), all 
 point to a still later period as the probable date of compo- 
 sition. It is likely that little violence will be done to the 
 truth in assigning the composition of the Discoveries to the 
 last years of the poet's life. 
 
xviii INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 X. Literary Influences. 
 
 The nature of this work is not such as to warrant the 
 treatment of so extended a topic as the learning of Ben 
 Jonson, We must therefore be content with a brief consid- 
 eration of the hterary influences discernible in the Discov- 
 eries. In view of the restoration of some scores of passages 
 to their respective owners — for which the reader is referred 
 to the notes — it is to be hoped that the Discoveries may 
 thenceforth be regarded in a very different light from a pro- 
 duction of original English prose. As Whalley said long 
 ago^-^ed ^onson, vii. p. 71), and as the title of the work 
 imports, " Many of the following passages are imitations or 
 observations made upon the authors of Jonson's daily read- 
 ing " ; and I may add that quite as many are literal quota- 
 tions, Jonson's own merely in the sense that he has translated 
 them, and applied their very words to the changed conditions 
 of his time. It is notable that to this latter class belong 
 several of the passages most commonly quoted as auto- 
 biographical or reminiscent of the poet's contemporaries 
 {e.g. 18 10-29, 28 17 seqq., and the notes thereon), and not a 
 few which have been enthusiastically admired as Jonson's 
 by those imperfectly conversant with their originals. See 
 especially the passage of Euripides, translated at 4 15, and 
 highly extolled by Mr. Swinburne in his Study of Ben Jotison, 
 p. 131 ; and the discussion of the advantages of a public 
 over a private education at 53 21 seqq.^ a literal transcript 
 of a well-known passage of Quintilian, equally exalted as 
 Jonson's with the lavish panegyric of which the same critic 
 is so consummate a master {ibid. p. 167-168, and my note 
 on 54 16), and pronounced by Professor Ward " very English 
 in spirit" {English Dramatic Literature^ i. p. 542, note 2). 
 
 In reading the Discoveries, it is not difficult to discern 
 the influences under which a given series of notes was 
 written. Now the author was reading the elder Seneca, and 
 
IN TR OD UC TION. xix 
 
 the reminiscent character of the pro(xmia to the several 
 books of his Controversies led Jonson into an application 
 of the rhetorician's words to himself (18 8-29, 28 i7-29 3), 
 to the eloquence of Lord Bacon (30 10-21), or to his recol-, 
 lection of Shakespeare (23 22-24) . A diligent study of the ' 
 histitutes of Quintilian and the Poetics of Aristotle inspires 
 respectively~fhe essays on style and poetry. TrTaiiother place 
 we find traces of Plutai'cir'runniilg through several pages, 
 dipping into the various topics of the Morals, gleaning an 
 anecdote here and there from the Lives, and diverted 
 through similarity of subject-matter into other allusions. 
 The more usual Greek and Latin classics are of course [ 
 pervading ; and quotations from the writings of Petronius 
 Arbiter, Varro, Aulus Gellius, Vitruvius, and the collections 
 of Stobaeus are sufficient to prove the range and the diver- 
 sity of Jonson's classical reading. Of the moderns he has 
 made no less use ; and we find frequent reference or famil- 
 iar allusion to the commentaries and original works of the 
 famous scholars of the classical Renaissance, such as the < 
 ScaHgers, Erasmus, Vives, Lipsius, Heinsius, and others. ' ^ 
 Elsewhere a consideration of the attributes of princes brings 
 into discussion tenets of Macchiavelli, and involves the cita- 
 tion of several passages of The Prince (see pp. Zl-^^ pas- ^ 
 sim) ; whilst other notes are the result of a recent study of \ \ 
 the essay On the Advancement of Learjiing or other parts \ \ 
 of the Instauratio Magna. (For references to these seve- 
 ral authors, see the Index and Notes.) 
 
 Thus we find the Discoveries, like all the other produc- 
 tions of this veritable Titan, attesting Jonson's unparalleled 
 reading and that audacious power with which he has appro- 
 priated the literary spoils of all ages to his royal will and 
 disposal, holding a reckless course beneath a burden of 
 learning that must have overpowered a less than colossal 
 frame. In the words of Mr. Symonds {Ben Jonson, English 
 Worthies, p. 52) : '' This wholesale and indiscriminate trans- 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lation is managed with admirable freedom. He held the 
 prose writers and poets of antiquity in solution in his spa- 
 cious memory. He did not need to dovetail or weld his 
 borrowings into one another, but rather, having fused them 
 in his own mind, poured them plastically forth into the 
 mould of thought." 
 
 In a case like the present we should guard against apply- 
 ing our own conditions to a consideration of the past. In 
 the essay on style (see 77 14) Jonson speaks of an ability 
 " to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his 
 own use " as " a requisite in our poet " only second to 
 " natural wit " and the exercise of his powers. And Dryden 
 shows his appreciation of this theory, as well as of its prac- 
 tice, in the words : " The greatest man of the last age, Ben 
 Jonson, . . . was not only a professed imitator of Horace, 
 but a learned plagiary of all the others ; you track him every- 
 where in their snow. . . . But he has done his robberies 
 so openly that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any 
 law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would 
 be theft in other poets is only victory in him " {An Essay 
 on Dramatic Poesy, Arber's Efiglish Gamer, iii. pp. 551 
 and 519). Plagiarism has been well termed "an invention 
 of the nineteenth century," and, in view of the extended 
 borrowings of Shakespeare and other lesser Elizabethans, may 
 properly be considered a crime Httle recognized as such to 
 that age. Jonson was consistent in theory and practice, and 
 believed a great thought to be always his who expresses it 
 best. As to Jonson's power in this respect, we may agree 
 with the judicious Fuller when he says : " What was ore in 
 others he was able to refine unto him " ( Worthies of England, 
 ed. 1840, ii. p. 425). 
 
 Finally, whatever may be said of Jonson's other works, in 
 that under consideration the very title disarms criticism in 
 this particular. " Si/^a, timber, the raw material of facts 
 and thoughts," are the author's words; and such is the 
 
IN TR on UC TION. xxi 
 
 humble relation which he would have the Discoveries bear 
 to the Forest and Underwoods of his works. 
 
 4. Style. 
 
 The Discoveries ^ come in character as in time midway 
 between Hooker and Dryden^and they incline rather to the 
 "mofelTian to the less modern form " (Sai ntsbury, H i^M2:v^ , / 
 of Elizabethan Literature^ p. 219). Two things explain 
 this positTon. jonson's vocabulary is somewhat more anti- 
 quated than that of most of his contemporaries, and the 
 conservatism of mcreasing years only added to that of con- 
 stituHon. " Word§J:)orrowed of antiquity," he writes, "do / . 
 lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their 
 dehght sometimes ; for they have the authority of years and 
 out of their intermission do win themselves a kind of grace 
 like newness" (61 u-is). A comparison of the vocabulary 
 of Sir Philip Sidney's Defense of Foesie W\\h that of thej . 
 Discoveries, written nearly sixty years later, will disclose a^ 
 far larger number of words demanding explanation in the ■ 
 latter. On the other hand, a like comparison between the 
 two works with reference to the structure of sentence and 
 paragraph will exhibit a form and symmetry, a sense of 
 order and proportion, and a~cbnsciousness__of^j]i e demands 
 of literary .presentment in the Discoveries for which we may 
 look in vain in the somwhat loosely-strung periods and form- \ 
 less paragraphs of the Defense. This contrast becomes the 
 more startHng when we remember that Sidney's work is 
 characterized by a logical sequence and continuity of 
 thought often wanting in the disjointed entries of the 
 Discoveries. 
 
 The chief traits of Jonson's prose are force, condensity and ^ * 
 directness. The first often rises to genuine doquence and 
 displays in its reserve and union with grace a truly classic 
 dignity. (See the well-known passage on the eloquence of 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Bacon, 30 7-21 ; 17 8-13, 33 6-22 and many others.) Jon- 
 son's condensity and directness are pervading, and achieved 
 largely by a prevailing shortness and crispness in the con- / 
 struction of sentence, and an omission of qualifiers an d ' 
 con nective s wherever the sense permits. 
 "" Brevity is attained in matter by avoiding idle comple- 
 ments, prefaces, protestations, parentheses, superfluous circuit 
 of figures and digressions : in the composition, by omitting 
 conjunctions . . . and such Hke idle particles, that have no 
 great business in a serious letter but breaking of sentences, 
 as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnecessary 
 baits " (70 4-12). As an example of the application of these 
 principles, read the passage on Counsel (3 18-4 4) which 
 Mr. Swinburne describes as possessed of " too strong a 
 flavor of the style of Tacitus in its elaborate if not laborious 
 terseness of expression" {Study of Ben Jonson, p. 131) ; 
 and notice Jonson's further expression of his theory on this 
 subject : " Periods are beautiful when they are not too long " 
 (62 31). Elsewhere he commends *' a strict and succinct 
 style . . . where you can take away nothing without loss, and 
 that loss to be manifest " {ibid. 19-21). 
 
 Jonson is rarely obscure ; and involved or confused con- 
 [ structions are totally foreign to the constitution of a mind 
 by nature clear, precise and painful in its attention to detail. 
 Such occasional obscurities as do occur are almost invariably 
 traceable to excessive condensity, as : *' In the Greek poets, 
 as also in Plautus, we shall see the economy and disposition 
 of poems better obser\'ed than in Terence and the later 
 [Greek poets] who thought " etc. (57 35-58 5) ; or to Latin 
 influence as : " Creatures . . . that continually labor under 
 their own misery and other's envy,'' i.e. the envy which they 
 feel towards others. (47 ir), and see 36 7). Other instances 
 , of L atinism are, the variation between the infinitive and 
 im^jerative, 54 25-28 ; " he denied figures to be invented " 
 28 35 ; etc. : a comparison of the passages translated from 
 
INTR OD UC TION. xxiii 
 
 Quintilian and Seneca will disclose many other examples. 
 Barring the use of several words in their Latin sense, as : 
 opinion^ reputation (6 3), discipline, learning (7 3), copy, 
 abundance (26 32), zwice, remark, saying (37 17), delicate, 
 chosen (44 22), election, selection i^^ is), translations, meta- 
 phors (60 25), to concoct, to digest (77 20), and offices, duties 
 or obligations (78 26), many of them common to the age ; 
 occasional forms like umbractical (16 25), itidagations (28 11), 
 or digladiation {fo^ 35) ; and the still rarer coining of a word 
 like recession (50 19) ; Jonson's voca,blllarx_ is remarkably 
 English for a scholar of his da y. 
 
 Jonson considered that "some words are to be culled out 
 for ornament and color," but they had better grow in our 
 style as in a meadow," etc. (61 31 ; see also on this topic 
 62 2, 63 16-32 and 63 33-64 14). JHis practice is entirely con- 
 sistent with this, and it would 4e difficult to find a writer of 
 equal vigor so sparing in the use of figures) In the Discov- 
 eries Jonson shows a prevailing preference for simile over 
 metaphor, and elaborated comparisons like that of the 
 world to a play (36 22 seqq?), or even the apt figure of the evil 
 man riding coated and booted through the dirty ways of the 
 world (43 19-24) are rare. (See, however, 65 19 seqq.) /He 
 often caps a semi-humorous passage with an implied or ex- 
 pressed comparison that amounts almost to the force of the 
 hke trick of Swift or Carlyle ; thus counsellors that advise 
 a pHnce to becruel afe~called " hangmen's factors '/ (39 e), 
 and the depth of certain writers, which you may find " with 
 your middle finger " is " cream-bowl — or but puddle-deep " 
 (25 13). 
 
 Again, Jonson rarely indulges in hyperbole ; unless we can ! 
 grant that term, in asorTrHwTiat "extended sense, to those 
 passages in which he becomes impassioned through bit- 
 terness of feeling (21 16-31 and 43 24 Jeq'q.') ,"~or through 
 power and brilliancy of satire and invective : see especially 
 the essay on Parasites (51 10 seqq.). This latter quality is 
 
xxi V IN TRODUC TION. 
 
 to be expected of Jonson, whose method in his dramas 
 and in his Conversations, as reported by Drummond, was 
 " to color highly but not falsely," and to present the subject 
 in hand, so to speak, somewhat heightened into an abnor- 
 mal alto-rilievo by seeing too far on each side. 
 
 Jonson has succeeded in avoiding_severaUaulj;s_pecuhar 
 t o his a ge. He almost totally eschews compound words, 
 and it may be doubted if any of his own coinage can be 
 found in the Discoveries, {kn exception must be made in 
 the burlesque word noted above, 25 13.) Moreover, Jonson 
 has kept the vocabulary of poetry as well as the use of poetic 
 figures and measured cadence well apart from his prose ; 
 although I believe that Mr. Swinburne has discovered an 
 exception to this last in the fine line on nature at 7 12 : 
 
 " Men are decayed, and studies : she is not." 
 
 Neither excessive balance nor undue antithesis mar the flow 
 of Jonson's style. There are passages, however, in which 
 attention to this particular is apparent ; as : " When a virtu- 
 ous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to 
 his enemies, and glory to his posterity. . . . He is grown to 
 active men an example, to the slothful a spur, to the envious 
 a punishment" (42 20-25). The practise of wanton alUtera- 
 tion too is not among his faults, though rare instances occur 
 in which he has fallen into that " species of indefensible 
 Ciceronianism " which delights in playing on the sounds of 
 words {e.g. 4G 12, 13 and 69 24). 
 
 For a closer consideration of the prose style of Jonson the 
 reader must be referred to the following pages, and espe- 
 cially to the essay on 6!<^ii<?-fSui,26-72 4), in which, while cull- 
 ing much from the writings of Quintilian, Cicero and Horace, 
 Jonson has laid down the rules of his own practise with a 
 remarkable degree of success. ''The more I study his 
 writings," says Coleridge, in words as applicable to his prose 
 as to his verse, " the more I admire them ; and the more my 
 
 
IN TR OD UC TION. XXV 
 
 study of him resembles that of an ancient classic in the 
 minuticB of his rhythm, metre, choice of words, forms of 
 connection and so forth, the more numerous have the points 
 of my admiration become " {Notes on Ben Jonson^ Works of 
 S. T. Coleridge, American ed. 1884, iv. p. 186). A com- 
 parison of the prose of Jonson with the style of his various 
 classical authorities as indicated in the notes, or with the 
 prose of contemporaries such as Sei^ri or Sir Thoiji ^s 
 Overb i^y, would be attended with fruitful results, and might 
 establish beyond the peradventure of a doubt that the con- 
 scious cultivation of English prose style began to be prac- ^ 
 tised at least a generation before Abraham Cowley and John | 
 Dryden. ._. j 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 Of fortune. Good and ill fortune to be borne with equanimity, 3 1-13. 
 
 L-hange of fortune, 3 14-17. 
 Anyone may learn by the advice of another, 3 18-4 4. 
 A wounded reputation, 4 5-9. 
 Dangers attending " great affairs," 4 10-14. 
 Love of country a necessity, 4 15-17. 
 Natures hardened to evil, 4 18-20. 
 Praise of things present and past, 4 21-24. 
 j^The nature of reputat ion, 4 25-31. 
 
 ^imposiury, 4 i'2-S i^r 
 
 Of those that set out to deceive, 4 32-5 3. 
 
 Insincerity of social conventions, 5 4-8. The hypocritical dissenter 
 of the day defined, 5 9-14. 
 .Of counsel, 5 15-7 8. 
 
 Interdependence of sovereignty and learning, 5 15-24. 
 *4lequisites of the counsellor : Knowledge of nature and man, 
 5 25-35; reputation for honesty and wisdom, 6 1-10; com- 
 plaisance, kindliness, and circumspection, 6 11-25; becoming 
 modesty,^^ 26-35; clearness and elegance of diction in the y/ 
 delivery of counsel, 7 1-8. 
 
 nd the dependence of learning on nature and ^.v^ 
 authority, 7 9-8 30, 
 Nature not spent and decayed, 7 9-13. 
 
 Set not too much store on antiquity, 7 14-8 10; truth lies open to 
 all, 7 25-27; and should be followed with independence, 
 7 28-8 10. 
 Dignity of liberal studies, 8 11-24; honest ambition is honorable 
 in every form, 8 25-30. 
 Proverbs, 8 31-9 26. 
 
 A shameless husband, 8 31-34. 
 1 1 1^ The teachings of affliction, 9 1-2. 
 '''" Industry misemployed, 9 3-7. 
 
 oO 
 
xxviii ANAL YSIS. 
 
 A cripple may win the race, 9 8-9, 
 "'^AjL Money useless to the prodigal, 9 10-12. [i t\ ^"'■ 
 
 /^ A neglectful housewife, 9 13-15. -^ *'^ 
 
 A desperate debt, 9 16-17. 
 I ^\ "^^The ruling passion, 9 18-26. 
 The fruit of calumny, 9 27-30. 
 The tedious and impertinent, 9 30-10 4. 
 The labors of smatterers, and the difference between them and the 
 learned, 10 5-22. 
 fc^he speciousness of imposture, 10 23-30. 
 •Princes and their ministers, 10 31-11 13. 
 '"■'" ' Of envy and calumny, 11 14-13 11. 
 
 \ ' " Envy no new thing, 11 14-20; born of the despair of the little to 
 emulate the great, 11 20-29. 
 Scurrility and petulance of rimers, 11 30-12 4; disrepute of the <. 
 
 poet, 12 4-9; envy and slander the diet of the times, 12 9-20. 
 Morbid craving for novelty of theme, slander the disease of the 
 
 age, 12 21-30. 
 The cowardliness of envy, 12 31-13 3, The lies of the envious 
 not even well apparelled, 13 4-11. 
 A specimen of hear-say news, 13 12-20. 
 Of garrulity, 13 21-16 7. 
 
 A wise tongue should be governed, 13 21-35. Plain wisdom prefera- 
 ble to foolish eloquence, 14 1-18. 
 Anecdotes of the taciturnity of the wise, 14 19-15 14. The faults 
 of speakers more easily discernible than their excellence, 
 14 15-20. An instance of foolish but witty loquacity, 15 20-32. 
 "^ Vulgar love of novelty in eloquence, 15 33-16 7. 
 Greatness of name in the father a disadvantage to the sons, 16 8-13. 
 Eloquence, 16 14-33. 
 
 Difficult of attainment, 16 14-17. 
 
 Difference in the theory and practice of eloquence, 16 17-33. 
 Of injuries and benefits, 16 34-18 7. 
 
 Foolish love allied to hatred, 16 34-17 7. 
 The nature of injuries, 17 7-13. 
 ■"" The characteristics of courtesy, 17 14-35. 
 
 The benefits of nature often bought and sold, 18 1-7. 
 Of memory, 18 8-19 2, 
 
 In its nature frail, 18 8-10. Jonson's own memory described in 
 the words of Seneca, 18 10-29. Nature of other memories : 
 the ready-witted, slow of memory, and vice versa, 18 30-19 2. 
 
ANAL YSIS. XXIX 
 
 The inequality of suffrage, 19 .3-7. 
 
 Partiality and malice in the judgment of friend and foe, 19 8-17. 
 God is read in his creations, 19 18-27. 
 ^ <gfjrruth,^9 28-20 5. 
 
 "No vice without his patronage," 20 6-33. 
 
 Of wit, 20 34-21 15. A writer need not be everywhere witty. Straining 
 after wit reprehended as an affectation of the age, 21 5-15. 
 ^ Of poets, 21 16-23 31. \-' 
 
 Preposterous nature of current opinion, 21 16-22 2; worthlessness 
 
 of contemporary estimates of literature, 22 2-18. 
 Poetry a cruel mistress, 22 19. Those poets have flourished who 
 have made poetry a pastime, 22 20-29. The honest old ser- 
 vant must write and starve, 22 30. 
 Vulgar love of bombast and bravado, 22 31-23 8. 
 « Jonson on Shakespeare, who is commended by the players for that 
 wherein he most faulted, 23 9-16. Jonson's love of the man, 
 and honor for his memory, 23 16-18. Shakespeare's nature, 
 and the wealth of his genius, 23 18-31. 
 Of the difference of "wits," 23 32-27 27. 
 
 Diversity of mind quite as great as that of body, 23 32-24 10. 
 The forward and bold, 24 11-20. 
 The ostentatious and superficial, 24 21-24. 
 >V Those that ape eccentricity and originality, 24 25-25 5. 
 The effeminate and shallow, 25 6-14. 
 The ha sty plagiar jst^^gj, 15-25. 
 <y -— The mendacious coiner of authorities, 25 26-30. 
 
 Those that conceal their study to gain credit for unusual natural 
 
 gifts, 25 31-26 6. 
 Those who presume on their own talents, and deride learning in 
 
 others, 26 7-12. 
 Ignorant imitators of these, 26 12-21. 
 
 Ignorance may succeed where wisdom fears to advance, 26 23-34. 
 "The true artificer " true to life, 26 34-27 2. He avoids extrava- 
 gance, conceals his art, 27 2-8. Misjudged by his age, he 
 is appreciated by posterity, 27 8-15. His qualities, 27 18-27. 
 Of knowledge^_27_28232j5. 
 
 No disease of the soul but ignorance, 27 28-28 3. 
 
 Knowledge, the action of the soul, 28 4-13. 
 Relaxation necessary to success in study, 28 14-17. Reminiscence 
 
 of a vehement student, 28 17-29 3. 
 Men's eminence appears in their own way, 29 4-19. 
 
-^ 
 
 XXX ANAL YSIS. 
 
 Of renowned orators, 29 20-30 21. 
 Men of present spirit, 29 20-29. 
 Necessity a spur to eloquence, 29 20-30. 
 Diligence and study the greatest aid, 30 1-6. 
 Dangers of a single model, 30 7-10, 
 Bacon as a model of eloquence, 30 10-21. 
 List of English writers, 30 22-31 12. Bacon the centre of the 
 
 great literary age of England, 31 8-10. 
 A wise statesman fosters education and learning, 31 12-27. 
 *-«- Personal estimate of Bacon, 31 27-32 3. 
 
 Corruption of language an indication of corrupt manners, 32 4-15. 
 Of the uncertainty of human affairs, 32 16-24. 
 Of princes, 32 25-34 11. 
 
 NSluiL uf tUd Oul^ar, and their presumption in censuring their 
 
 sovereign, 32 25-33 5. 
 The prince to be loved next to God : his position as head of the 
 
 Church and arbiter of life and death, ZZ 6-16. 
 Mercy should be his chief attribute, ZZ 17. 
 The clemency of James I., 33 23-26. 
 
 A prince should be wise rather than learned, 33 27-34 11. 
 Of the malignity of the learned, 34 12-35 23. 
 Misuse of learning, 34 12-24. 
 Dignity of the poet above that of the philosopher, divine, or 
 
 statesman, 34 24-35 3. 
 Idle controversy and controversionalists, 35 4-17. Religious con- 
 troversy disapproved, 35 18-23. 
 Untimely boasting, 35 24-31. 
 Of flattery, 35 32-36 21. 
 
 No necessity can justify a man in becoming a parasite, 35 34. 
 ■■^ Flattery a necessity to some, 36 1-21. 
 Human life a play, 36 22-37 4. In which most are imitators, and the 
 
 good alone contemn the play of'fortune. 
 Of thr_rhnr^rfpristif;n nf pi'lnr-p^ nml flmr-.e about them^ 37 5-43 15. 
 Familiarity in the prince a sign of usurpation, 37 5-10. 
 Infamous complaints of tyrants, 37 11-22. 
 Classes of the nobility, 37 23-34. 
 
 The unselfish servants of the prince. 
 The selfish (i) Such as shun trouble. 
 
 (2) Such as serve their own profit. 
 The firmest right "of kings, that of heredity, 37 3>5-3S 1. 
 Difference between him who is raised to sovereignty by the favor 
 of his peers and by the power of the people, 3S 1-19. 
 
"y 
 
 ANALYSIS. XXXI 
 
 The glory of clemency, 38 20-39 25. 
 Religion the strength of empire, 39 26-30. 
 
 Religion in the prince includes all other virtues, 39 30-32. 
 No man should murmur at the action of the prince, -10 4-8. 
 Of tyrants and their wickedness, 40 i)-29. 
 
 Js. good king is a public servant, 40 28-29. 
 l^he illiterate prince, a pilot without eyes, 40 30. 
 
 The victim of ill-counsel and flattery, 40 30-41 11. 
 The true prince the pastor of his people, 4! 12-28. 
 
 Justice above power, 41 30. 
 
 Wars of aggrandizement disapproved, 41 30-33. 
 
 Care in the administration of justice at home, 42 1-7. 
 
 Recognition of merit, 42 7-19. 
 The honors of the virtuous are the honors of their time, 42 20-25. 
 The well-born often heirs to their ancestors' vices, 42 20-33. 
 Thieves of public money, 42 34-43 5. 
 
 Not always safe from the justice of the prince, 43 6-15. 
 Of the good, and the evil, 43 16-48 35. 
 
 The good and evil contrasted, 43 10-24. 
 
 The innocent need no defence, 43 24. 
 Personal reminiscence, 43 25-44 23. 
 
 Jonson accused to the king on insufficient grounds, 
 
 43 27-44 9; abused as a maker of verses, 
 
 44 10-12: his context misconstrued, 44 12-18; 
 his poverty made a reproach, 44 19-23. 
 
 Great wickedness not the product of poverty, 44 24-27. 
 
 Poverty praised, 44 27-32. Money not true riches, which reside 
 
 alone in the mind, 44 33. 
 Unworthiness of the ostentation of wealth, 45 1-46 5. 
 Worthlessness of the world of fashion, 46 6-28. 
 Folly of luxury in building and adornment, 46 29-47 11. 
 Folly of those that count all by loss and gain, 47 12-25. 
 Wickedness of those that delight in the vices of others, 47 26-48 3. 
 ■ Vice must be shunned in reality as well as in appearance, 48 4-13. 
 - Virtue alone gives glory, 48 14-26. 
 Those who depend on appearances are short-lived in their pride, 
 48 28-35. 
 Poetry and painting compared, 49 1-51 9. 
 Their likeness to nature, 49 1-6. 
 
 The pen nobler than the pencil, 49 6-8. 
 
 Their common ends, nature above art in both, 49 9-14. 
 
a 
 
 fA 
 
 xxxil ANAL VS/S. 
 
 Of painting, its nearness to nature and its divine origin, 49 15-21. 
 
 Various painters excel in various qualities, 49 22-30. 
 
 Discoveries in painting, 49 30-33, 
 
 Need of variety of style in both arts, 49 34-50 7. 
 The advancement of painting, 50 8-51 9. 
 
 Origin of art in poetry and geometry, 50 8-10. 
 
 Symmetry, elegance, perspective, 50 10-20. 
 
 Philosophy as affecting art, 50 20-27. 
 
 Danger of departing from nature into the grotesque, 50 27-31. 
 
 Original of plastic art in pottery, 50 31-34. 
 
 Socrates a teacher of art, 50 34-51 1. 
 
 Succession of ancient Greek painters, 51 2-5. 
 
 Six famous artists of Italy named, 51 5-9, 
 Pfs£^rasii£SjJ2^10-52 2G. 
 
 TT^e species defined, 51 10-17, 
 
 / Their servility in praise and dispraise, 51 17-26. 
 
 Contrasted with the true man, 51 27-52 10, 
 '^Parasites mark the impotence of the great, 52 11-14. 
 gossip beneath the contempt of the honorable, 52 14-18. 
 The fate of a parasite, 52 19-23. 
 
 To praise all as great a vice as to blame all, 52 24-26, 
 On style, 52 27-72 4, 
 
 Address to " his lordship," 52 27-53 3, 
 E^jucation of the young, 53 3-54 18. 
 
 Should be adapted to different natures, 53 4-12* 
 
 Change, a recreation, 53 12-15. 
 
 Gentle means as incentives to study, 53 15-21. 
 
 Public preferable to a private education, 53 21-54 9. 
 
 Judicious praise, 54 10-16, 
 
 Disapproval of corporal punishment, 54 16-18. 
 . Necessaries to a good style, 54 19-56 8. 
 / jl. Read the best authors. 
 
 2, Observe the best speakers. 
 
 3, Exercise in writing, 54 19-22. 
 Involves a. What to write, 
 
 d. The manner of it. 
 
 c. Its arrangement, 54 22-28, 
 Practice should be slow but Incessant, 54 28-32. 
 Revision should be frequent, 54 32-55 18. 
 Dangers of ready writing, 55 18-23. 
 Follow your natural bent, 55 23-27. 
 
ANAL YSIS. xxxiii 
 
 Study of good models valuable : 
 
 1. In exciting the mind and memory, 
 
 2. In exciting emulation, 
 
 3. As a means of quotation, 55 27-56 4. 
 Various styles should be exercised, 56 4-8. 
 
 Method of teaching, 56 n-59 8. 
 
 "^"""^periment more valuable than precept; precept preferable 
 -^ to reprehension, 56 9-17. 
 Nature more availing than rules of art, 56 21-26. 
 Natural defects in style, 56 27-57 7. 
 
 Dependent on age, and not to be reprehended too severely 
 
 in the young, 56 32-57 7. 
 Early impressions the most lasting, 57 7-15. 
 The clearest and simplest authors to be read first, 57 15-58 5. 
 Extremes of antiquity and newness to be avoided, 57 
 
 18-30. 
 Great authors to be read for their matter, 57 30-58 5. 
 "Nature no niggard in her endowments, 58 6-lS. 
 Labor necessary to all attainment, 58 18-23. 
 Many things may be learned together, 58 23-59 8. 
 Misuse of learning, 59 9-21. 
 
 Elementarii senes, gabblers, pedants. 
 /Value of pure and plain language, 59 22-32. 
 
 Speech the distinguishing trait of man and the instrument of 
 
 society, 59 33-60 2. 
 Words and sense the body and soul of language, 60 3-7. 
 \ Of words, 60 7-62 21. 
 
 Words should be chosen : 
 
 1. According to the speaker. 
 
 2, With reference to the subject, 60 7-16, 
 Use and misuse of metaphors, 60 1<)-61 1. 
 Dangers of coining new words, 61 1-8. 
 Custom the mistress of language, 61 9-14. 
 Use of archaic words, 61 14-31. 
 
 Words of ornament should grow out of style, 61 31-62 6. 
 Importance of accuracy, 62 6-11. 
 
 Style should be such that nothing can be taken away without 
 loss, 62 11-21. 
 Varieties of style, 52 22-66 9. 
 
 Enumerated as (i) the brief, (2) the concise, (3) the abrupt, 
 
 (4) the congruent and harmonious, 62 22-30. 
 Periods should not be too long, 62 31-33. 
 
^y 
 
 xxxiv ANAL YSIS. 
 
 Clearness and obscurity, 62 33-63 16. 
 Use of hyperbole, 63 16-32. 
 Use and misuse of metaphor, 63 32-64 14. 
 Le style c'est Vhomme, 64 15-66 9. 
 
 In general, 64 15-22. 
 
 With respect to structure, 64 23-65 13. 
 
 As to " figure and feature," 65 14-18. 
 
 As to " composition," i.e. construction, 65 19-24. 
 
 Further comparison of style to the human frame, 65 24-66 9. 
 Observations of Bacon on the distempers of learning in : 
 
 1. The study of words. 
 
 2. Vain matter, 
 
 3. Deceit, 66 10-16. 
 
 Danger of undue regard for authority applied to the question of 
 
 style, 66 16-67 11. 
 Of the able writer, 67 12-68 13. 
 
 Necessity of a correspondence of matter and manner, 67 17- 
 08 13. 
 Of epistolary style, 68 14-72 4. 
 
 1. Invention, 68 14-30. 
 
 2. Ordering : a. According to the understanding of the 
 
 recipient. 
 b. In logical sequence, 68 30-69 9. 
 
 3. Style : a. Brevity, determined by the estate of him to whom 
 
 you write ; obtained by avoiding idle words, 69 10-70 21. 
 
 b. Perspicuity, attained by avoidance of undue brevity or 
 
 circumlocution, 70 22-71 26. 
 
 c. Vigor, obtained by proper use of figure, allusion, 
 
 71 27-32. 
 
 d. Discretion, in what fits the writer, and the recipient, 
 
 71 32-72 4. 
 Of poetry, 72 5-87 19. 
 
 The " peccant humors " of poetry, 72 5-18. 
 Satire justified, 72 19-73 26. 
 ^*^ The poet and his art defined, 73 27-36. 
 
 Length not determinative of the word/^rw, the varieties of poems, 
 
 74 1-18. 
 Poesie, the poet's art or craft, 74 19-75 13. 
 
 1. Of divine origin, 74 28. 
 
 2. The rule and pattern of living well, 74 32-75 6. 
 
 3. "The nearest kin to virtue," 75 8. 
 
 4. " A dulcet and gentle philosophy," 75 11-13. 
 
ANAL YSIS, XXXV 
 
 Nature and requisites of the poet, 75 13-21. 
 
 1. Perfection of natural gifts, 75 22-24. >^ 
 
 2. Divine inspiration, 75 24-76 13. ^^ 
 
 3. Exercise of his talents and diligent labor, 76 14-77 12. 
 
 4. Imitation, " the power to convert the riches of another 
 
 poet to his own use," 77 13-28. 
 
 5. " Study and multiplicity of reading," 77 29-78 2. 
 
 6. Art, the crown of the rest. To be attained by study of 
 
 Horace and Aristotle, and the adaptation of study to 
 his own talents, 78 2-32. 
 
 7. Civil prudence and eloquence, 78 32-79 3. 
 The poet nearest to the orator, 79 3-C. 
 
 Especially the writer of comedy, 79 G-29. 
 The freedom of the poet in his art affirmed, 79 30-80 6. 
 Aristotle as an exponent of the art of poetry, 80 6-12. 
 Aristophanes on Euripides, 80 13-17. 
 The poet alone can judge of poets, 80 18. 
 The nature of critics, 80 20-30. 
 
 Horace's and other critical opinions of Latin poets, 
 80 30-81 26. 
 Parts of the drama, 81 29-83 13. 
 ^ — Its end to teach by moving, 81 29-33. 
 
 The mere causing of laughter unworthy, 81 33-83 13. 
 Of the magnitude and compass of the fable, 83 14-87 19. 
 The fable (/xO^os) defined, 83 18-30. 
 
 Its magnitude varies with the nature of the work, 83 30-84 10. 
 Unity of action differs in dramatic and epic form, 84 11-25. 
 The measure of the fable must not be too great or too small, 
 
 84 25-85 3. 
 The compass of the fable, 85 4-20. 
 
 Necessity of proportion, involves : 
 
 1. Unity of time. 
 
 2. Scope for episode. 
 
 Unity considered with reference to its parts, 85 21-34. 
 
 A single hero not sufficient to connect disjointed adventures, 
 
 85 34-86 17. '•■'- 
 
 Instances of correct usage and of violation of unity, 
 
 86 18-87 6. 
 
 A necessary part such that its removal will destroy unity, 
 
 87 7-13. 
 An episode defined, 87 13-19. 
 Misplaced note on roughness of style, 87 20-24. 
 
TIMBER: 
 
 OR, 
 
 DISCOVERIES 
 
 MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER, AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT 
 
 OF HIS DAILY READINGS; OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO 
 
 HIS PECULIAR NOTIDNS OF THE TIMES, 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 Tecum habita, ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex. 
 
 — Persius, Satire iv, 52. 
 
SYLVA 
 
 Rerum et sententiarum quasi ""tKi] dicta a multiplici materia et 
 varietate in iis contenta. Quejuadmodum enim vulgo solemus infini- 
 tam arborum nascentium indisc'riminatim multitiidinem Sylvam 
 dicere : ita etiam libros suos in quibus varice et diverse? tiiaterice 
 opuscula temere congesta erant, Sylvas appellabant antiqui: Timber- 
 trees. 
 
X"' 
 
 ' J' » 
 
 EXPLORATA: 
 
 OR, 
 
 DISCOVERIES 
 
 »*<c 
 
 Fortuna. — 111 fortune never crushed that man whom 
 good fortune deceived not. I therefore have counselled 
 my friends never to trust to her fairer side, though she 
 seemed to make peace with them ; but to place all things 
 she gave them so, as she might ask them again without s 
 their trouble ; she might take them from them, not pull 
 them : to keep always a distance between her and them- 
 selves. He knows not his own strength that hath not 
 met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses ; 
 but no ill can happen to a good man. Contraries are lo 
 not mixed. Yet that which happens to any man may 
 to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts 
 it and will make it. 
 
 Co'sus. — Change into extremity is very frequent and 
 
 easy. As when a beggar suddenly grows rich, he com- ^s 
 
 monly becomes a prodigal ; for, to obscure his former 
 
 obscurity, he puts on riot and excess. 
 
 i Consilia. — No man is so foolish but may give another 
 
 wl9od counsel sometimes ; and no man is so wise but may 
 
 3 
 
4 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 easily err, if he will take no others' counsel but his own. 
 V •■; '.pBut very i"ev> • ihea are wise by their own counsel, or 
 \ , Jearned, by their, o\Vn teaching. For he that was only ^ 
 
 ;•■ kaaght by 'buT'Sblf had a fool to his master. 
 ^^' ^^^- — A ^"^^ th^i ^s wounded to the world would 'h-- 
 
 V be better cured by another's apology than its own : for ^ 
 few can apply medicines well themselves. Besides, the / 
 man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds 
 oppress him : he is not easily emergent^ f 
 
 lo Negotia. — In great affaw^s it is a w6rk of difficulty to 
 please all. And oft times we lose the occasion of carry- 
 
 / ing a business well and thoroughly by our too much haste. 
 For passions are spiritual rebels, and raise sedition against 
 the understanding. 
 
 15 Amor patricE. — There is a necessity all men should 
 love their country : he that professeth the contrary may 
 be delighted with his words, but his heart is ihere. 
 
 Ingenia, — N^^tures that are hardened to evil you shall 
 s^ner break than make straight ; they are like poles 
 
 20 that are crooked and dry, there ijrio attemuting them. 
 Applausus. — We prQ/(se the thmgs we hear with much 
 more willingness than those we s^, because we envy 
 the present and reverence the past ; thinking ourselves 
 instructed by the yone, and OA^rlaid by the other. v 
 
 ■''\'^'; Opinio. — Opmion is a light, vain, cmde, and imper- 
 fect thing ; settled in the imagination, but never arriving 
 at the understanding, there to obtain the tincture of 
 reason. We labor with it more than truth. There is 
 much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one 
 
 30 thing, an ill fortune is another ; yet both oftentimes sway 
 us alike, by the errm- of our thinldng. y 
 
 Impostura. — Many men believe not themselves what 
 they would persimde /thers ; and less do the things 
 which they would impose on others; but least of r|' 
 
 35 know what they themselves most confidently boast. C | 
 
DISCO VERIES. 5 
 
 they set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, 
 and sacrifice to their gut and their groin in their inner 
 closets. / / V 
 
 fr) /actum vipE. — Wnat a deal of cojd ousiness doth a ' 
 m^ misspend the better part of life in ! in scattering 5 
 compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting 
 news, following feasts and plays, making a little winter- 
 love in a dark corner. 
 
 / Hypocrita. — Puritanus Hypocrita est Hcereticus, quem 
 opinio propricB perspicacice, qua sibi videtur^ cuiti paucis, 10 
 in Ecclesia dogmatibus errores quosdant animadvertisse, 
 de statu mentis deturbavit : unde sacro furore percitus, 
 phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus, sic ratus obedien- / 
 tiam prcestare Deo. 1 / / •? 
 
 Mutua auxilia. — Learning needs rest- sovereignty 1$ ^ 
 gives it. Sovereignty needs counsel : learning aftords ^ 
 it. There is such a consociation of offices between --! 
 the prince and whom his favor breeds, that they 
 may help to sustain his power as he their knowledge. ^' 
 It is the greatest part of his liberality, his favor ; and 20 
 from whom doth he hear discipHne more willingly, or /' 
 the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those ^ 
 whom his own bounty and benefits have made able '^ 
 and faithful? , ^ if 
 
 Cojnit\_io'] universu — In being able to counsel others, 25 
 a man must be furnished with a universal store in 
 himself, to the knowledge of all nature — that is, the 
 matter and seed-plot : there are the seats of all argu- 
 ment and invention. But especially you must be cun- ' 
 ning in the nature of man : there is the variety of things lof 
 which are as the elements and letters, which his art and 3 
 wisdom must rank and order to the present occasion, -p, 
 For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places "^ 
 in particular discourses. That cause seldom happens 
 wherein a man will use all arguments. 35 
 
6 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 P' Consiliarii adjunct\_i\ probitaSy sapientia. — The two 
 
 ■/ chief things that give a man reputation in counsel are the 
 
 opinion of his honesty and the opinion of his wisdom : 
 
 the authority of those two will persuade when the same 
 
 5 counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of 
 
 no efficacy or working. 
 
 Vita recta. — Wisdom without honesty is mere craft ^ 
 and cozenage. And therefore the reputation of honesty 
 must first be gotten, which cannot be but by living well. 
 
 lo A good life is a main argument. 
 
 Obseque?itia, humanitas, solid tudo. — Next a good 
 life, to beget love in the persons we counsel, by dissem- 
 bling our knowledge of ability in ourselves, and avoiding 
 all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to their instruc- 
 
 15 tion, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his 
 sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, 
 only expressing care and solicitude. And not to counsel 
 rashly, or on the sudden, but with advice and medita- 
 tion. Dat nox co7isilium. For many foolish things fall 
 
 20 from wise men, if they speak in haste or be extemporal. 
 It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circum- 
 spect ; especially to beware of those with whom he is not 
 thoroughly acquainted, lest any spice of rashness, folly, 
 or self-love appear, which will be marked by new per- 
 
 25 sons and men of experience in affairs. 
 ^c^ Modestia, parrhesia. — And to the prince, or his supe- 
 rior, to behave himself modestly and with respect. Yet 
 free from flattery or empire. Not with insolence or pre- 
 cept ; but as the prince were already furnished with the 
 
 30 parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For 
 in other things they will more easily suffer themselves to 
 be taught or reprehended : they will not willingly con- 
 tend, but hear, with Alexander, the answer the musi- 
 cian gave him : Absit, o trx, ut tu melius luec sciaSy 
 
 35 quam ego. 
 
DISCO VERIES. 7 
 
 Perspicuitas, clegantia. — A man should so deliver 
 himself to the nature of the subject whereof he speaks, 
 that his hearer may take knowledge of his discipline with 
 some delight ; and so apparel fair and good matter, that 
 the studious of elegancy be not defrauded ; redeem arts 5 
 from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and 
 overgrown with thorns, to a pure, open and flowery light, 
 where they may take the eye and be taken by the hand. 
 ^ 'y Natura no7i effoeta. — I cannot think Nature is so 
 spent and decayed that she can bring forth nothing 10 
 worth her former years. She is always the same, like 
 herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still. 
 Men are decayed, and studies : she is not. 
 J I J Non nimium credendum antiquitati. — I know nothing 
 can conduce more to letters than to examine the writings 15 
 of the ancients, and not to rest in their sole authority, or 
 take all upon trust from them, provided the plagues of 
 judging and pronouncing against them be away ; such as 
 are envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scur- 
 rile scoffing. For to all the observations of the ancients 20 
 we have our own experience, which if we will use and 
 apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true 
 they opened the gates, and made the way that went be-^ /Mjof >^^** 
 fore us, but as guides, not commanders : Non domini ^/v^vOv'*'*'^A, 
 nosff'i, sed duces fuere. ^ Truth lies open to all; it is no 25 , j^^Jjuc* 
 man's several. Patet omnibus ver-itas ; nondum est occu- 
 pata. • Multum ex illa^ ^tiapi Juturis relictum est. 
 
 ptss'enttre licet^sed cum >ratione. — If in some things I 
 dissent from others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and 
 judgment, I look up at and admire, let me not therefore 30 
 hear presently of ingratitude and rashness. For I thank 
 those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare 
 not think the scope of their labor and inquiry was 
 envy their posterity what they also could add and find out. 
 If I err, pardon me : Nulla ars simul et inventa est et 35 
 
 Z 1/ 
 
8 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 ahsoluta. I do not desire to be equal to those that went 
 before ; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and 
 so much faith to be given them, or me, as those shall 
 evict. I am neither author nor fautor of any sect. I will 
 5 have no man addict himself to me ; but if I have any- 
 thing right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it con- 
 duceth to a common good. It profits not me to have 
 any man fence or fight for me, to flourish, or take a side. 
 Stand for truth, and 'tis enough : Non jnihi cedendum, 
 
 xo sed veritate. -'kIA" ' '• -' ^•^-^, 
 
 ^ Scientice. Uberales non vulgi simt. — Arts that respect 
 the mind were ever reputed nobler than those that serve 
 the body, though we less can be without them, as tillage, 
 spinning, weaving, building, etc., without which we could 
 
 15 scarce sustain life a day. But these were the works of 
 every hand ; the other of the brain only, and those the 
 most generous and exalted wits and spirits, that cannot 
 rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with 
 labor : Opere pascitur. 
 
 20 There is a more secret cause, and the power of liberal 
 studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out by 
 profane wits. It is not every man's^way to hit. There are 
 men, I confess, that set the caract and value upon things 
 as they love them ; but science is not every man's mistress. 
 
 25 It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and 
 by a wrong person, .as can be done to a noble nature. 
 
 Honesta atnbitio. -=- If divers men seek fame or honor 
 by divers ways, so both be honest, neither is to be blamed ; 
 but they that seek immortality are not only worthy of love, 
 
 30 but of praise. 
 
 Maritus improbiis. — He hath a delicate wife, a fair 
 fortune, a family to go to be welcome ; yet he had 
 rather be drunk with mine host and the fiddlers of such 
 a town, than go home. 
 
DISCO VERTES. 9 
 
 Afflictio pill }nagistra. — Affliction teacheth a wicked 
 person sometime to pray : prosperity never. 
 
 Deploratis facilis desce7isiis Avertii. — Many might go 
 to heaven with half the labor they go to hell, if they 
 would venture their industry the right way ; but " The s 
 devil take all ! " quoth he that was choked in the mill- 
 dam, with his four last words in his mouth. 
 
 .^gidius ctirsu superat. — A cripple in the way out- 
 travels a footman or a post out of the way. 
 
 Prodigo nummi nauct. — Bags of money to a prodigal lo 
 person are the same that cherry-stones are with some 
 boys, and so thrown away. 
 
 MuJida et sordida. — A woman, the more curious she 
 is about her face is commonly the more careless about 
 her house. 15 
 
 Debitiun deploratum. — Of this spilt water there is a 
 little to be gathered up : it is a desperate debt. 
 
 Latro sesquipedalis. — The thief that had a longing at 
 the gallows to commit one robbery more before he was 
 hanged. And like the German lord, when he went out 20 
 of Newgate into the cart, took order to have his arms set 
 up in his last herborough : said he was taken and com- 
 mitted upon suspicion of treason, no witness appearing 
 against him ; but the judges entertained him most civ- 
 illy, discoursed with him, offered him the courtesy of the 25 
 rack ; but he confessed, etc. 
 
 Calumnicc fructus. — I am beholden to calumny, that 
 she hath so endeavored and taken pains to belie me. 
 Tt shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep 
 a better watch upon my actions. 30 
 
 A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple \iJLjLA4jLu, 
 from, gallop down any steep hill to avoid him ; forsake 
 his meat, sleep, nature itself, with all her benefits, to 
 shun him. A mere impertinent ; one that touched 
 neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened 
 
\J 
 
 10 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 an entry into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I 
 spake to him of garhc, he answered asparagus ; consulted 
 him of marriage, he tells me of hanging, as if they went 
 by one and the same destiny. 
 5 Bellujti scriboitimn. — What a sight it is to see writers 
 committed together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, 
 points, colons, commas, hyphens, and the like, fighting as 
 for their fires and their altars ; and angry that none are 
 frighted at their noises and loud brayings under their 
 lo asses' skins. There is hope of getting a fortune without 
 digging in these quarries. Sed meliore in omne ingenio 
 anhnoque qiiani fortuna sum usus. 
 
 Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. 
 
 Differentia inter doctos et sciolos. — Wits made out 
 
 15 their several expeditions then for the discovery of truth, 
 to find out great and profitable knowledges ; had their 
 several instruments for the disquisition of arts. Now 
 there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the 
 skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything 
 
 20 of solid literature to commend them. They may have 
 some edging or trimming of a scholar, a welt or so ; but 
 it is no more. 
 
 Impostoruin fucus. — Imposture is a specious thing, 
 yet never worse than when it feigns to be best, and to 
 
 25 none discovered sooner than the simplest. For truth 
 and goodness are plain and open ; but imposture is ever 
 ashamed of the light. 
 
 Icunculaj-tun motio. — A puppet-play must be shad- 
 owed and seen in the dark ; for draw the curtain, et sor- 
 
 30 det gesticiilatio. 
 
 Principes et administri. — There is a great difference 
 in the understanding of some princes, as in the quality of 
 their ministers about them. Some would dress their 
 masters in gold, pearl, and all true jewels of majesty ; 
 
DISCOVERIES. 1] 
 
 Others furnish them with feathers, bells, and ribbons, and 
 are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. But they are 
 ever good men that must make good the times ; if the 
 men be naught, the times will be such. Finis exspecian- 
 dus est in unoquoque ho7ninu7n ; anifnali ad mutatiotie7n 5 
 protnptissimo. 
 
 Scitum Hispanic urn. — It is a quick saying with the 
 Spaniards, Aries inter haredes non dividi. Yet these 
 have inherited their fathers' lying, and they brag of it. 
 He is a narrow-minded man that affects a triumph in any 10 
 glorious study ; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie them- 
 selves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond 
 her bounds : but impudence knows none. ,/, - 
 
 Non nova res livor. — Envy is no new thing, nor was it .^ 
 
 born only in our times. The ages past have brought it 15 
 forth, and the coming ages will. So long as there are men i V^ « 
 fit for it, quorum odium virtute relicta placet, it will never""' 
 be wanting. It is a barbarous envy, to take from those 
 men's virtues which, because thou canst not arrive at, 
 thou impotently despairest to imitate. Is it a crime in 20 
 me that I know that which others had not yet known but 
 from me ? or that I am the author of many things which 
 never would have come in thy thought but that I taught 
 them ? It is a new but a foolish, way you have found out, 
 that whom you cannot equal or come near in doing, you 25 
 would destroy or ruin with evil speaking ; as if you had 
 bound both your wits and natures prentices to slander, 
 and then came forth the best artificers when you could / 
 
 form the foulest calumnies. ^ ,-,„..>, / 
 
 Nil gratius proteHw 4ih\ro\. — Indeed nothing is of 30 
 more credit or request now than a petulant paper, or 
 scoffing verses ; and it is but convenient to the times and 
 manners we live with, to have then the worst writings and 
 studies flourish when the best begin to be despised. Ill 
 
 ^' A 
 
12 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 I 
 
 arts begin where good end. The time was when men 
 would learn and study good things, not envy those that- 
 had them. Then men were jiad in,' price ibr learning;/^ 
 now letters only make men \\\e:^^dm l^le^ soroent^ ^o''^,^ 
 ^ is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a most con-f^J 
 . temptible nick-name : but the professors, indeed, have 
 made the learning cheap — railing and tinkling rimers, 
 
 • whose writings the vulgar more greedily read, as being 
 taken with the scurrility and petulancy of such wits. He 
 j.A lo shall jipt have a reader now unless he jeer and he. ^Pastus ^ l 
 x^ /iodiVr\^m']-wgefi[u^. It is the food of men's natures; 
 
 the diet of the times : gallants cannot sleep else. The 
 writer must he and the gentle reader rests happy to hear ^tvM. 
 the worthiest works misinterpreted, the clearest actions ''♦W 
 
 15 obscured, the innocentest hfe traduced : and in such a^i^b^ 
 hcence of lying, a field so fruitful of slanders, how can 
 there be matter wanting to his laughter ? Hence comes 
 the epidemical infection; for how can they escape the 
 contagion of the writings, whom the virulency of the cal- 
 
 20 u;i:mies hath not staved off from reading? 
 
 Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader than an 
 unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than 
 to see a person of an unblamed life made ridiculous or 
 odious by the artifice of lying ? Sed seculi 77iorbus. But it 
 
 25 is the disease of the age ; and no wonder if the world, 
 growing old, begin to be infirm : old age itself is a disease. 
 It is long since the sick world began to dote and talk 
 idly : would she had but doted still ! but her dotage is 
 
 \now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere 
 
 30 frenzy.,^ ^ -^ .,_ /, .. < ■' ^^^ .., '..:?■'• J 
 3k/-"V*^'^ 'Jimshris mahtia. — This Alastor; who hath left nothing 
 unsearched or unassailed by his impudent and licentious 
 lying in his aguish writings (for he was in his cold quak- 
 ing fit all the while), what hath he done more than a 
 , 35 troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; 
 
DISCO VERfES. 13 
 
 had a fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him 
 with a musty bone ? But they are rather enemies of my i^" 
 fam^ than mq, thes^e ^barjcers^/. ^ ^^ |, ^ , ;/ , , , ^^^^MA ^/Tto^V 
 J/^// Choragi fuere. — It is an "art to have so niuch ^j^j4^ 
 judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good 5 
 dressing ; that though the nakedness would show de- 
 formed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their 
 readers. Some love any strumpet, be^ she never so shop- 
 like or meretricious, in good clothes. But these, nature 
 could not have formed them better to destroy their own lo 
 testimony and to overthrow their calumny. 
 
 Hear-say news. — That an elephant, [in 1 3630, came 
 hither ambassador from the Great Mogul, who could both 
 write and read, and was every day allowed twelve cast of 
 bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and 15 
 almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he had a 
 Spanish boy to his interpreter, and his chief negociation 
 was to confer or practise with Archy, the principal fool of 
 state, about stealing hence Windsor Castle and carrying it 
 away on his back if he can. 20 
 
 Lingua sapientis, potius qiiain loquentis optanda. — A 
 wise tongue should not be licentious and wandering ; but 
 moved and, as it were, governed with certain reins from 
 the heart and bottom of the breast : and it was excel- 
 lently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or 25 
 parapet of teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petu- 
 lancy of our words ; that the rashness of talking should 
 not only be retarded by the guard and watch of our heart, 
 but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed 
 in the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall 30 
 see some so abound with words, without any seasoning or 
 taste of matter, in so profound a security, as "^hlle they 
 are speaking, for the most part they confess to speak they 
 know not what. 
 
14 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 Of the two — if either were to be wished — I would rather 
 
 have a plain downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected 
 
 eloquence. For what is so furious and Bedlam like as a 
 
 vain sound of chosen and excellent words, without any 
 
 5 subject of sentence or science mixed ? 
 
 Whom the disease of talking still once possesseth, he 
 can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not 
 discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, 
 not hearkened unto, he comes off most times like a 
 lo mountebank, that when he hath praised his medicines, 
 finds none will take them, or trust him. He is Hke 
 Homer's Thersites d/xcTpoeTn^^, aKpLT6fxv6o<;, speaking 
 without judgment or measure. Loquax ?nagis, quam 
 facundus ; satis loquentice, sapientice parum. 
 
 15 rXco(r<rr}t tol Orjcravphs iu audpwiroKnv 6.pi(rTos 
 
 ^etScDArjs, ttX^'kttt) Se X^P'-^ Kara jx^rpov lovcnjs. 
 Optimus est homini linguae thesaurus, et ingens 
 Gratia, quae parcis mensurat singula verbis. 
 
 Ulysses, in Homer, is made a long-thinking man 
 20 before he speaks ; and Epaminondas is celebrated by 
 Spintharus to be a man that, though he knew much, yet 
 he spoke but little. Demaratus, when on the bench he 
 was long silent and said nothing, one asking him if it 
 were folly in him, or want of language, he answered, 
 25 " A fool could never hold his peace." For too much 
 talking is ever the index of a fool. 
 
 Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi; 
 Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit. 
 
 Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be 
 30 passed over without the note of ignorance ; who being 
 invited to a feast in Athens, where a great prince's am- 
 bassadors were entertained, and was the only person had 
 said nothing at the table ; one of them with courtesy 
 asked him: "What shall we return from thee, Zeno, to 
 
DISCOVERIES. 15 
 
 the prince our master, if he ask us of thee?" "Nothing," 
 he repUed, " more, but that you found an old man in 
 Athens that knew to be silent amongst his cups." It was 
 near a miracle to see an old man silent, since talking is 
 the disease of age ; but amongst cups makes it fully a 5 
 wonder. 
 
 Argute dictmn. — It was wittily said upon one that was 
 taken for a great and grave man so long as he held his 
 peace : " This man might have been a counsellor of state, 
 till he spoke ; but having spoken, not the beadle of the 1° 
 ward." 'E;>(e/xv^ta. Pythag\_orce~\ quafu laudabilis / yXdid- 
 (Tiq<i Trpo T(x)v oAXtoj/ KpareL, ^eots e7ro/x£vo9. Lingiiam coliibe, 
 prce aliis omnibus, ad deorum exemplum. Digito com- 
 pesce ladellum. 
 
 Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes. — There is 15 
 almost no man but he sees clearlier and sharper the vices 
 in a speaker, than the virtues. And there are many, 
 that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken 
 foolishly than can give allowance to that wherein you 
 are wise silently. The treasure of a fool is always in his 20 
 tongue, said the witty comic poet ; and it appears not in 
 anything more than in that nation, whereof one, when he 
 had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange, would 
 needs sell it ; and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues 
 of it. " Nothing ever thrived on it," saith he. " No owner 25 
 of it ever died in his bed ; some hung, some drowned 
 themselves ; some were banished, some star\'ed ; the trees 
 were all blasted ; the swine died of the measles, the cattle 
 of the murrain, the sheep of the rot ; they that stood were 
 ragged, bare, and bald as your hand ; nothing was ever 30 
 reared there, not a duckling, or a goo^e." Hospitiutn 
 fuerat calamitatis. Was not this man lil^to ^11 it? 
 
 Vulgi expectatio. — Expectation of the vulgar is more 
 drawn and held with newness than goodness ; we see it 
 
16 DISCO VERTES. 
 
 in fencers, in players, in poets, in preachers, in all where 
 fame promiseth anything ; so it be new, though never so 
 naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken. 
 Which shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best 
 5 men's reputation with the people is, their wits have out- 
 lived the people's palates. They have been too much or 
 too long a feast. 
 
 Claritas patricE. — Greatness of name in the father oft- 
 times helps not forth, but overwhelms the son ; they stand 
 
 lo too near one another. The shadow kills the growth : so 
 much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener 
 to be heir of the first, than doth the second : he dies 
 between ; the possession is the third's. 
 
 Eloqiientia. — Eloquence is a great and diverse thing : 
 
 15 nor did she yet ever favor any man so much as to be- 
 come wholly his. He is happy that can arrive to any 
 degree of her grace^ Yet there are who prove themselves 
 masters of her, and absolute lords ; but I believe they 
 may mistake their evidence : for it is one thing to be 
 
 20 eloquent in the schools, or in the hall ; another at the 
 bar, or in the pulpit. There is a difference between 
 mooting and pleading ; between fencing and fighting. 
 To make arguments in my study, and confute them, is 
 easy ; where I answer myself, not an adversary. So I can 
 
 25 see whole volumes dispatched by the umbratical doctors 
 on all sides. But draw these forth into the just lists ; let 
 them appear sub dio, and they are changed with the place, 
 like bodies bred in the shade ; they cannqt. suffer the sun 
 or a shower, nor bear the open air ; they scarce can find 
 
 30 themselves, that they were wont to domineer so among 
 their auditors : but indeed I would no more choose a 
 rhetorician for reigning in a school, than I would a pilot 
 for rowing in a pond. 
 
 Amor et odium. — Love that is ignorant, and hatred, 
 
 35 have almost the same ends. Many foolish lovers wish 
 
DISCOVERIES. 17 
 
 the same to their friends, which their enemies would : as 
 to wish a friend banished, that they might accompany 
 him in exile ; or some great want, that they might relieve 
 him ; or a disease, that they might sit by him. They 
 make a causeway to their courtesy by injury, as if it were 5 
 not honester to do nothing than to seek a way to do good 
 by a mischief. 
 
 Injuria. — Injuries do not extinguish courtesies : they 
 only suffer them not to appear fair. For a man that doth 
 me an injury after a courtesy, takes not away the cour- 10 
 tesy, but defaces it : as he that writes other verses upon 
 my verses, takes not away the first letters, but hides 
 them. 
 
 Beneficia. — Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant ■-* 
 us ; and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks 15 
 to rivers,(ttia.t they carry our boats ; , or winds, that they 
 be favoring and fill our sails ; or meats, that they be 
 nourishing. For these are what they are necessarily. 
 Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. 
 It is true, some men may receive a courtesy and not 20 
 know it ; but never any man received it from him that 
 knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by 
 accidents ; but they were not remedies. I myself have 
 known one helped of an ague by falling into a water, 
 another whipped out of a fever : but no man would ever 25 
 use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the i 
 event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. " My /'' 
 adversary may offend the judge with his pride and imper- 
 tinenc«s, and I win my cause ; but he meant it not me 
 as a courtesy. k»SK:aped pirat»^4}y beiipg shipwracked ; 3° 
 was the wrack a benefit therefore ? No ; the doing of 
 courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own 
 sakejand for mine. He that doeth them merely for his 
 own sake is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them : 
 he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield. 35 
 
18 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 Valor renifn. — The price of many things is far above 
 what they are bought and sold for. Life and health, 
 which are both inestimable, we have of the physician ; 
 as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the mind, 
 5 from our schoolmasters. But the fees of the one or the 
 salary of the other never answer the value of what we 
 received, but served to gratify their labors. 
 
 Me77ioria. — Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is 
 
 the most delicate and frail ; it is the first of our faculties 
 
 lo that age invades. Seneca, the father, the rhetorician, 
 
 yconfesseth of himself he had a miraculous one, not only 
 to receive but to hold. I myself could, in my youth, 
 have repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued 
 till I was past forty ; since, it is much decayed in me. 
 ^ 15 Yet I can repeat whole books that I have read, and 
 *K^.»^ poems of some selected friends which I have liked to 
 charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to 
 me ; but shaken with age now, and sloth, which weak- 
 , ens the strongest abilities, it may perform somewhat, but 
 ^:\ 20 cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made bet- 
 (. ter and serviceable. Whatsoever I pawned with it while 
 
 I was young and a boy, it offers me readily, and without 
 stops ; but what I trust to it now, or have done of later 
 years, it lays up more negligently, and often times loses ; 
 'ijj^ 25 so that I receive mine own (though frequently called for) 
 as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find 
 presently from it what I do seek ; but while I am doing 
 % another thing, that I labored for will come ; and what 
 I sought with trouble will offer it self when I am quiet. 
 30 Now, in some men I have found it as happy as Nature, 
 who, whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without 
 book presently, as if they did then write in their mind. 
 And it is more a wonder in such as have a swift style, for 
 their memories are commonly slowest ; such as torture 
 35 their writings, and go into council for every word, must 
 
DISCO VERIES, 19 
 
 needs fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though 
 but through their own vexation. 
 
 Comit\iorum'\ suffragia. — Suffrages in Parliament are 
 numbered, not weighed ; nor can it be otherwise in those 
 public councils where nothing is so unequal as the equal- 5 
 ity ; for there, how odd soever men's brains or wisdoms 
 are, their power is always even and the same. 
 
 Sfare a par fib us. — Some actions, be they never so 
 beautiful and generous, are often obscured by base and 
 vile misconstructions, either out of envy or ill-nature, that 10 
 judgeth of others as of it self. Nay, the times are so 
 wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he 
 be a friend, all sits well about him, his very vices shall be 
 virtues ; if an enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing 
 is good or tolerable in him ; insomuch that we care not 15 
 to discredit and shame our judgments to soothe our pas- 
 sions. 
 
 Deus in creaturis. — Man is read in his face ; God in 
 His creatures ; but not as the philosopher, the creature of 
 glory, reads him ; but as the divine, the servant of hu- 20 
 mility ; yet even he must take care not to be too curious. 
 For to utter truth of God, but as he thinks only, may be 
 dangerous, who is best known by our not knowing. Some 
 things of Him, so much as He hath revealed or com- 
 manded, it is not only lawful but necessary for us to 25 
 know ; for therein our ignorance was the first cause of 
 our wickedness. 
 
 Veritas proprium hoiniiiis. — Truth is man's proper 
 good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mor- 
 tality to use. No good Christian or ethnic, if he be hon- 30 
 est, can miss it ; no statesman or patriot should. For 
 without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, 
 or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he 
 hates him worse than he^-mouth that utters one thing 
 with his tongue and keeps another in his breast. Which 35 
 
J 
 
 20 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 high expression was grounded on divine reason; for a 
 lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the con- 
 tagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is 
 feigned ; it will have another face than it had, ere long. 
 
 5 As Euripides saith, " No lie ever grows old." 
 
 Nullum vitium sine patrocinio. — It is strange there 
 should be no vice without his patronage, that when we 
 have no other excuse we will say, we love it, we cannot 
 forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We 
 
 lo cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it 
 because we will defend it. We will rather excuse it than 
 be rid of it. That we cannot is pretended ; but that we 
 will not is the true reason. How many have I known 
 that would not have their vices hid ; nay, and, to be 
 
 15 noted, live like Antipodes to others in the same city : 
 never see the sun rise or set in so many years, but be as 
 they were watching a corpse by torch-light ; would not 
 sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity. 
 They would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy ; they 
 
 20 were ambitious of living backward ; and at last arrived at 
 that, as they would love nothing but the vices, not the 
 vicious customs. It was impossible to reform these na- 
 tures ; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They 
 may say they desired to leave it, but do not trust them ; 
 
 25 and they may think they desire it, but they may lie for 
 all that ; they are a little angry with their follies now and 
 then; marry, they come into grace with them again 
 quickly. They will confess they are offended with their 
 manner of living : like enough ; who is not? W^hen they 
 
 30 can put me in security that they are more than offended, 
 that they hate it, then I'll hearken to them, and perhaps 
 believe them : but many now-a-days love and hate their 
 
 ^ m together., ^;/N 
 
 ^ ' De vere^ a'rguth. — I do hear them say often: some 
 
 35 men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty ; 
 
DTSCO VERTES. 21 
 
 than which nothing is more foohsh. If an eye or a nose 
 be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye 
 or nose ? I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, 
 chin, lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in 
 the place. But now nothing is good that is natural ; right 5 ^ 
 and natural language seem[s] to have least of the wit in it ; 
 that which is writhed and tortured is counted the more 
 exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroid- 
 ered ; as if no face were fair that were not pouldred or 
 painted ; no beauty to be had but in wresting and writh- 10 
 ing our own tongue. Nothing is fashionable till it be .^ 
 deformed ; and this is to write like a gentleman. All 
 must be affected and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, 
 sweet-bags, and night- dressings, in which you would think 
 our men lay in, like ladies, it is so curious. '5 ' U 
 
 Censura de poetis. — Nothing in our age, I have ob- ^^ \ 
 
 served, is more preposterous than the running judgments "^.sy-j 
 upon poetry and poets ; when we shall hear those things '. 
 commended and cried up for the best writings which a 
 man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug 20 
 in : he would never light his tobacco with them. And 
 those men almost named for miracles, who yet are so vile 
 that if a man should go about to examine and correct 
 them, he must make all they have done but one blot. 
 Their good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one 25 
 must draw on the other's death with it. A sponge dipped 
 in ink will do all : 
 
 Comitetur Tunica librum 
 Spongia. 
 
 Et paiilo post, 30 
 
 Non possunt . . . multx, 
 
 una litura potest. 
 
 Yet their vices have not hurt them ; nay, a great many 
 they have profited, for they have been loved for nothing 
 
22 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best 
 men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in 
 his time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant 
 durst. They learned him without book, and had him often 
 5 in their mouths ; but a man cannot imagine that thing so 
 foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer ; at 
 least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now 
 in despite of the play^ers; Heath's epigrams and the 
 
 !-. A r 
 
 Sculler's poems have their applause. There are never 
 
 lo wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst 
 pleaders, the worst poets ; not that the better have left to 
 write or speak better, but that they that hear them judge 
 worse ; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hi co7'ruptius Judicant. 
 Nay, if it were put to the question of the water- rimer's 
 
 15 works, against Spenser's, I doubt not but they would find 
 more suffrages ; because the most favor common vices, 
 out of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judg- 
 ments and like that which is naught. 
 
 Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mis- 
 
 20 tress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, 
 or given their names up to her family. They who have but 
 saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their 
 visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of 
 their own professions — both the law and the gospel — 
 
 25 beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves 
 without her fevor. Wherein she doth emulate the judi- 
 cious but preposterous bounty of the time's grandees, who 
 accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man 
 in their friendship ; but think an old client or honest 
 
 30 servant bound by his place to write and starve. 
 
 Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do 
 fencers or wrastlers, who, if they come in robustiously 
 and put for it with a deal of violence, are received for 
 the braver fellows ; when many times their own rude- 
 
 35 ness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of 
 
DISCO VERIES. 23 
 
 their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. 
 But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, 
 and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater 
 than polished, and scattered more numerous than com- 
 posed. Nor think this only to be true in the sordid mul- 5 
 titude, but the neater sort of our gallants ; for all are the 
 multitude, only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or 
 understanding. 
 
 De Shakespeare nostrat\J\. — I remember the players 
 have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, 10 
 that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never 
 blotted out a line. My answer hath been, " Would he /- 
 had blotted a thousand," which they thought a malevolent 
 speech. I had not told posterity this but for their igno- 
 rance, who chose that circumstance to commend their 15 
 friend by wherein he most faulted ; and to justify mine 
 own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his 
 memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, 
 indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature ; had an 
 excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, 20 
 wherein he flowed with that facihty that sometime it 
 was necessary he should be stopped. " Sufflaminandus 
 erat^^ as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in hisi 
 own power; would the rule of it had been so too.' ^ 
 Many times he fell into those things, could not escape 25 
 laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one 
 speaking to him: "Caesar, thou dost me wrong." He 
 replied : " Caesar did never wrong but with just cause ; " 
 and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed 
 his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him 30 
 to be praised than to be pardoned. 
 
 Ingeniorum discrimina. — In the difference of wits 
 I have observed there are many notes ; and it is a little 
 maikry \6 know them, to discern what every nature. 
 
24 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 every disposition will bear : for before we sow our 
 land we should plough it. There are no fewer forms 
 of minds than of bodies amongst us. The variety is in- 
 credible, and therefore we must search. Some are fit to 
 
 5 make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some physicians ; 
 some to be sent to the plough, and trades. There is no 
 
 *•» doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some 
 wits are swelling and high ; others low and still ; some 
 hot and fiery ; others cold and dull ; one must have a 
 
 lo bridle, the other a spur. 
 
 There be some that are forward and bold ; and 
 these will do every little thing easily : I mean that is 
 hard by and next them, which they will utter unretarded 
 without any shamefastness. These never perform, much, 
 
 15 but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden ; 
 they show presently, like grain that, scattered on the 
 top of the ground, shoots up, but takes no root, has a 
 yellow blade, but the ear empty. They are wits of good 
 promise at first, but there is an ingenistitiicm ; they stand 
 
 20 still at sixteen, they get no higher. 
 
 You have others that labor only to ostentation ; and are 
 
 / ever more busy about the colors and surface of a work 
 than in the matter and foundation, for that is hid, the 
 other is seen. 
 
 25 Others that in composition are nothing but what is 
 rough and broken. Qn(^ per sakbj-aSj altaqtie saxa 
 cadufit. And if it would come gently, they trouble itjfr^ 
 <^ of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs,' 
 ^ as if that style were more strong and manly tlmFstrote y ; 
 
 I 
 
 '^'>^ 
 
 \\* 30 the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not 
 by chance, but knowingly and willingly ; they are like 
 men that affect a fashion by themselves ; have some 
 singularity in a ruff, cloak, or hat-band ; or their beards 
 specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon 
 35 themselves. They would be reprehended while they are 
 
DISCO VERIES. 25 
 
 looked on. And this vice, one that is in authority with 
 the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated ; 
 so that oft-times the faults which he fell into the others 
 seek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a pre- 
 cedent. • 5 
 
 Others there are that have no composition at all ; but 
 a kind of tuning and riming fall in what they write. It 
 runs and slides, and only makes a sound. Women's 
 poets they are called, as you have women's tailors. 
 
 They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream, lo 
 
 In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream. 
 
 You may sound these wits and find the depth of them 
 with your middle finger. They are cream-bowl-, or but ^^ 
 
 J^^^ ^ Some that turn over ^11 books, and are equally search- 15 
 ing in all papers ; that write out of what they presently 
 find or meet, without choice. By which means it hap- 
 pens that what they have discredited and impugned in 
 one work, they have before or after extolled the same in 
 another. Such are all the essayists, even their master 20 
 Montaigne. These, in all they write, confess still what 
 books they have read last, and therein their own folly so 
 much, that they bring it to the stake raw and undigested ; 
 not that the place did need it neither, but that they 
 thought themselves furnished and would vent it. 25 
 
 Some, again who,, aft^r they have got authority, or, 
 which is less, opinion', by their writings, to have read 
 much, dare presently to feign whole books and authors, 
 and lie safely. For what never was, will not easily be 
 found, not by the most curious. 30 > 
 
 And some, by a cunning .protestation against all read- 
 ing, and false venditation of " their own naturals, think 
 to divert the sagacity of their readers from themselves, 
 and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts ; when 
 
26 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 ' yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages 
 
 I together usurped from one author ; their necessities 
 
 compelHng them to read for present use, which could not 
 
 be in many books ; and so come forth more ridiculously 
 
 5 and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot 
 trace, they yet would slander their industry. 
 
 But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners 
 of all helps and arts ; such as presuming on their own 
 naturals, which, perhaps, are excellent, dare deride all 
 
 lo diligence, and seem to mock at the .terms when they 
 understand not the things ; thinking "that way to get 
 off wittily with their ignorance. These are imitated often 
 by such as are their peers in negligence, though they can- 
 not be in nature ; and they utter all they can think with 
 
 15 a kind of violence and indisposition, unexamined, with- 
 out relation either to person, place, or any fitness else ; 
 and the more wilful and stubborn they are in it the more 
 learned they are esteemed of the multitude, through their 
 excellent vice of judgment, who think those things the 
 
 20 stronger that have no art ; as if to break were better than 
 to open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose. 
 
 It cannot but come to pass that these men who com- 
 monly seek to do more than enough may sometimes 
 happen on something that is good and great ; but very 
 
 25 seldom : and when it comes it doth not recompence 
 the rest of their ill. ^ox their jests, and their sen- 
 tences, which they only and ambitiously seek for, stick 
 out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile 
 about them ; as lights are more discerned in a thick 
 
 30 darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak 
 all they can, however unfitly, they are thought to.have the 
 greater' Qopy ; where^'tKe learned use ever election and a 
 mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and 
 make all an even and proportioned body. The tj;u£_arti- 
 
 35 ficer will not run away from Nature as he were afraid of 
 
DISCO VERIES. 27 
 
 her, or depart from life and the Hkeness of truth, but 
 speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his 
 language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly 
 from all humanity, with the. Tamerlan es and Tain£.r- rhams ' 
 of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical 5 
 strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the 
 ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art so to carry it, 
 as none but artificers perceive it. In the mean time, per- 
 haps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by 
 what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by 10 
 these men who, without labor, judgment, knowledge, or 
 almost serine, are received or preferred before him. He 
 "^^l^tulates them and their fortune. An other age, or juster\-» 
 men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wis- 
 dom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength 15 
 he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes 
 them ; in inveighing, what sharpness ; in jest, what urban- 
 ity he uses ; how he doth reign in men's affections ; how 
 invade and break in upon them, and make their, minds 
 like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold 20 
 what word is proper, which hat)i ornq^pnt, which height, 
 what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which 
 gentle, which strong, to show the composition manly ; 
 and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, 
 humble, improper, or effeminate phrase ; which is not 25 
 only praised ofBie.most, but commended, which is worse, 
 especially for that it is naught. / 
 
 Ignorantia' animcE. — I know no disease of the soul 
 but ignorance, not of the arts and sciences, but of it self; 
 yet relating to those it is a pernicious evil, the darkener 3° 
 of man's life, the disturber of his reason, and common 
 confounder of truth, with which a man goes groping in 
 the dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Great 
 understandings are most racked and troubled with it; 
 
28 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 nay, sometimes they will rather choose to die than not to 
 know the things they study for. Think thpn what an evil 
 it is, and what good the contrary. ■? 
 
 Saefitia. — Knowledge is the action of the soul, and is 
 
 5 perfect without the senses, as having the seeds of all 
 science and virtue in it self; but not without the service 
 of the senses ; by those organs the soul works ; she is a 
 perpetual agent, prompt and subtle : but often flexible 
 and erring, entangling herself like a silkworm, but her 
 
 lo reason is a weapog, .with two edges, and cuts through. 
 In her indagatioris oft-times new scents put her by, and 
 she takes in errors into her by the same conduits she 
 doth trut.^iy^ {ihApiu^^ 
 
 Otium stu'dio7'um. — Ease and relaxation are profitable 
 
 15 to all studies. The mind is .Hke a.i)ow, the stron2;er by 
 being unbent. Buf the ^temp^r m spirits is all, when to 
 command a man's wit, when to favor it. I have known a 
 man vehement on both sides, that knew no mean, either 
 to intermit his studies or call upon them again. • .When 
 
 20 he hath set himself to writing he would join night' to day, 
 press upon himself without release, not minding it, till he 
 fainted ; and when he left off, resolve himself into all 
 sports and looseness again, that it was almost a despair 
 to draw him to his book; but once got to it, he grew 
 
 25 stronger and more earnest by the ease. His whole pow- 
 ers were renewed ; he would work out of himself what he 
 desired, but with such excess as his study could not be 
 ruled ; he knew not how to dispose his own abilities, or 
 husband them ; he was of that immoderate power against 
 
 30 himself. Nor was he only a strong, but an absolute 
 speaker and writer ; but his subtlety did not show it self; 
 his judgmeir|,t thought that a vice ; for the ambush hurts 
 more that), is hid. He never forced his language, nor 
 went out of the highway of speaking but for some great 
 
 35 necessity or apparent profit ; for he denied figures to be 
 
/ 
 
 DISCO VERIES. 29 
 
 iav.ented for prnament, but for aid ; and still thought it ^'^^ 
 an extreme madness to bind or wrest that which ought to 
 
 still emincntia. — It is no wonder mens emmence^ 
 ^ appears but in their own way. Virgil's felicity left him 5 
 in prose, as TuUy's forsook him in verse,' Sallust's ora- 
 tions are read in the honor of story, yet the most elo- 
 quent Plato's speech, which he made for Socrates, is 
 neither worthy of the patron nor the person defended. 
 Nay, in the same kind of oratory, and where the matter 10 
 is one, you shall have him that reasons strongly, open p' 
 negligently ; another that prepares well, not fit so well. 
 And this happens not only to brains, but to bodies. One 
 can wrastle well, another run well, a third leap or throw 
 the bar, a fourth lift or stop a cart going : each hath his ^s 
 way of strength. So in other creatures — some dogs are 
 for the deer, some for the wild boar, some are fox- 
 hounds, some otter-hounds. Nor are all horses for the 
 coach or saddle, some are for the cart and panniers. 
 
 De Claris oratoribus. — I have known many excel- 20 
 lent men that would speak suddenly to the admiration of 
 their hearers, who upon study and premeditation have 
 been forsaken by their own wits, and no way answered 
 their feme ; their eloquence was greater than their read- 
 ing, and the things they uttered better than those they 25 
 knew ; their fortune deserved better of them than their 
 care. For men of present spirits, and of greater wits 
 than study, do please more in the things they invent 
 than in those they bring. And I have heard some of 
 them compelled to speak, out of necessity, that have so 30 
 infinitely exceeded themselves, as it was better both for 
 them and their auditory that they were so surprised, not 
 prepared. Nor was it safe then to cross them, for their 
 adversary, their anger made them more eloquent. Yet 
 these men I could not but love and admire, that they 35 
 
30 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 returned to their studies. They left not dihgence, as 
 
 many do, when their rashness prospered ; for dihgence is 
 
 a great aid, even to an indifferent wit ; when we are not 
 
 contented with the examples of our own age, but would 
 
 5 know the face of the former. Indeed, the more we con- 
 
 y fer with the more^we profit by, if the persons be chosen. 
 
 \rri^\ Doifimus V'erulamiiis. — One, though he be excellent 
 
 ^ I ipV'.and the chief, is not to be imitated alone ; for never no 
 
 ^ * imitator ever grew up to his author ; likeness is always on 
 
 lo this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one noble 
 
 ,y speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking ; his lan- 
 guage, where^ |iej:ould spare or pass by a jest, was nobly 
 censoridu^f No man ever spake more neatly, more 
 presiy, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less 
 
 15 idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech 
 but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not 
 cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He com- 
 manded where he spoke, ai;id, had his judges angry and 
 pleased at his devotion. ' No man had their affections 
 
 2^ more in his power. The fear of every man that heard 
 him ^as lest he .should make an end. 
 
 Scriptorium catalogus. — Cicero is said to be the only 
 wit that the people of Rome had equalled to their em- 
 pire. Ingeniutn par impei'io. We have had many, and 
 
 25 in their several ages (to take in but the former seculuni) 
 Sir Thomas More, the elder Wyatt, Henry Earl of Surrey, 
 Chaloner, Smith, Eli»t, B[ish«p] Gardiner, were for 
 their times admirable ; and the more, because they began 
 eloquence with us. Sir Nico[las] Bacon was singular, 
 
 30 and almost alone, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's 
 times. Sir Philip Sidney and Mr. Hooker (in different 
 matter) grew great masters of wit and language, and in 
 whom all vigor of invention and strength of judgment 
 met. The Earl of Essex, noble and high ; and Sir Walter 
 
 35 Raleigh, not to be contemned, either for judgment or 
 
DISCOVERIES. » 31 
 
 Style ; Sir Henry Savile, grave, and truly lettered ; Sir 
 Edwin Sandys, excellent in both ; Lo[rd] Egerton, the 
 Chancellor, a grave and great orator, and best when he ^ «, 
 was provoked; but his learned and able, though vi^iioi-^f/^'^^' * 
 tunate, successor is he who hath filled up all numbers, s 
 and performed that in our tongue which may be com- 
 pared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty 
 Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, 
 were all the wits born that could honor a language or 
 help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, lo 
 and eloquence grows backward; so, that he may be- 
 named and stand as the, mark and d/c/A^ of our language.' "* , 
 X>e augmentis\scientiari!^in. —i ^ave ever observed it ^^ 
 to have been the office of a wise patriot, among the 
 greatest affairs of the State, to take care of the common- ^s 
 wealth of learning. For schools, they are the seminaries 
 of State ; and nothing is worthier the study of a states- 
 man than that part of the republic which we call the ad- 
 vancement of letters. Witness the care of Julius Caesar, 
 who, in the heat of the civil war, writ his books of Anal- 20 
 ogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late 
 Lord S[aint] Alban entitle his work Novum Orgafiujfi ; 
 which, though by the most of superficial men, who cannot 
 get beyond the tide of nominals, it i§ not penetrated 
 nor understood, it really openeth all defects of learning 25 
 whatsoever, and is a book 
 
 Qui longum noto scriptori porriget xvum. 
 
 My conceit of his person was never increased toward 
 him by his place or honors. But I have and do rever- 
 ence him for the greatness that was only proper to him- 30 
 self, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of 
 the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that 
 had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed 
 that God would give him strength ; for greatness he could 
 
32 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable 
 for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, 
 but rather help tQ^i^ake it nianifqst. 
 
 ' De corrupteldf mo7'um. — There cannot be one color 
 5 of the mind, another of the wit. If the mind be staid, 
 grave, and composed, the wit is so; that vitiated, the 
 other is blown and deflowered. Do we not see, if the 
 mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon an 
 effeminate person, his very gait confesseth him. If a man 
 
 lo be fiery, his motion is so ; if angry, it is troubled and vio- 
 lent. So that we may conclude wheresoever manners 
 and fashions are corrupted, language is. It imitates the 
 public riot. The excess of feasts and apparel are the 
 notes of a sick state, and the wantonness of language, of 
 
 15 a sick mind. 
 
 De rebus imindanis. — If we would consider what our 
 affairs are indeed, not what they are called, we should 
 find more evils belonging us than happen to us. How 
 often doth that which was called a calamity prove the 
 
 20 beginning and cause of a man's happiness ? and, on the 
 contrary, that which happened or came to another with 
 great gratulation and applause, how it hath lifted him but 
 a step higher to his ruin? as if he stood before where he 
 might fall safely. 
 
 25 Viilgi moi'es. — Mo?-hus eomitialis. — The vulgar are 
 commonly ill-natured, and always grudging against their 
 governors ; which makes that a prince has more business 
 and trouble with them than ever Hercules had with the 
 bull or any other beast ; by how much they have more 
 
 30 heads than will be reined with one bridle. There was 
 not that variety of beasts in the ark, as is of beastly natures 
 in the multityde ; especially when they come to that 
 iniquity to censure their sovereign's actions. Then all 
 the counsels are made good or bad by the events ; and 
 
DTSCO VERIES. 33 
 
 it falleth out that the same facts receive from them 
 the names, now of diligence, now of vanity, now of 
 majesty, now of fury ; where they ought wholly to hang 
 on his mouth, as he to consist of himself, and not others' 
 counsels. 5 
 
 Princeps. — After God, nothing is to be loved of man 
 like the prince ; he violates Nature that doth it not with 
 his whole heart. For when he hath put on the care of 
 the public good and common safety, I am a wretch, and 
 put-of[f] man, if I do not reverence and honor him, in 10 
 whose charge all things divine and human are placed. 
 Do but ask of Nature why all living creatures are less 
 delighted with meat and drink that sustains them than 
 with venery that wastes them ? and she will tell thee, the 
 first respects but a private, the other a common good, 15 
 propagation. He is the arbiter of life and death : when 
 he finds no other subject for his mercy, he should 
 spare himself. All his punishments are rather to correct 
 than to destroy. Why are prayers with Orpheus said to 
 be the daughters of Jupiter, but that princes are thereby 20 
 admonished that the petitions of the wretched ought to 
 have more weight with them than the laws themselves. 
 
 De opf\Jmo'\ Rege Jacobo. — It was a great accu[mu]- 
 lation to His Majesty's deserved praise that men might 
 openly visit and pity those whom his greatest prisons 25 
 had at any time received or his laws condemned. 
 
 De Pri7ic\ipum'\ adjunctis. — Sed ve7-e pnidens hand 
 concipi possit Princeps, nisi simul et domes. Wise is 
 rather the attribute of a prince than learned or good. 
 The learned man profits others rather than himself; the 30 
 good man rather himself than others ; but the prince 
 commands others, and doth himself. The wise Lycurgus 
 gave no law but what himself kept. Sylla and Lysander 
 did not so ; the one living extremely dissolute himself, 
 enforced frugality by the laws ; the other permitted 35 
 
34 ^ DISCO VERIES. 
 
 those licenses to others which himself abstained from. 
 But the prince's prudence is his chief art and safety. 
 In his counsels and dehberations he foresees the future 
 times : in the equity of his judgment he hath remem- 
 s brance of the past, and knowledge of what is to be 
 done or avoided for the present. Hence the Per- 
 sians gave out their Cyrus to have been nursed by a 
 bitch, a creature to encounter it, as of sagacity to seek 
 out good ; showing that wisdom may accompany forti- 
 lo tude, or it leaves to be, and puts on the name of rash- 
 ness. 
 
 De malign\_itate\ studentium. — There be some men 
 are born only to suck out the poison of books : Habent 
 venenum pro victu ; imo, pro deliciis. And such are they 
 
 15 that only relish the obscene and foul things in poets, 
 which makes the profession taxed. But by whom? Men 
 that watch for it ; and, had they not had this hint, are so 
 unjust valuers of letters as they think no learning good 
 but what brings in gain. It shows they themselves would 
 
 20 never have been of the professions they are but for the 
 profits and fees. But if another learning, well used, can 
 instruct to good life, inform manners, no less persuade 
 and lead men than they threaten aud compel, and have 
 no reward, is it therefore the worst study ? I could never 
 
 25 think the study of wisdom confined only to the philoso- 
 pher, or of piety to the divine, or of state to the politic ; 
 but that he which can feign a commonwealth (which is 
 the poet) can gown it with counsels, strengthen it with 
 laws, correct it with judgments, inform it with religion 
 
 30 and morals, is all these. We do not require in him mere 
 elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse, but the exact 
 
 - knowledge of all virtues and their contraries, with ability 
 to render the one loved, the other hated, by his proper 
 embattling them. The philosophers did insolently, to 
 
DISCOVERIES. 35 
 
 challenge only' to themselves that which the greatest gen- 
 erals and gravest counsellors never durst. For such had 
 rather do than pronjisethe best things. 
 
 Cotitrovers[iales'\ scri^to7'es. — Some controverters in 
 divinity are like swaggerers in a tavern that catch that 5 
 which stands next them, the candlestick or pots ; turn 
 everything into a weapon : oft-times they fight bhndfold, 
 and both beat the air. More Andabatarum qui clausis 
 oculis pugnant. The one milks a he-goat, the other 
 holds under a sieve. Their arguments are as fluxive as 10 
 liquor spilt upon a table, which with your finger you may 
 drain as you will. Such controversies or disputations 
 (carried with more labor than profit) are odious ; where 
 most times the truth is lost in the midst or left untouched. 
 And the fruit of their fight is, that they spit one upon 15 
 another, and are both defiled. These fencers in religion 
 I like not. 
 
 Moi'bi. — The body hath certain diseases that are with 
 less evil tolerated than removed. As if to cure a leprosy 
 a man should bathe himself with the warm blood of a 20 
 n)urdered child, so in the Church some errors may be 
 dissimuled with less inconvenience than can be dis- 
 covered. 
 
 Jactantia inteinp estiva. — Men that talk of their own 
 benefits are not believed to talk of them because they 25 
 have done them ; but to have done them because they 
 might talk of them. That which had been great, if 
 another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is noth- 
 ing, if he that did it speak of it. For men, when they 
 cannot destroy the deed, will yet be glad to take advan- 30 
 tage of the boasting, and lessen it. 
 
 Adulatio. — I have seen that poverty makes men do - 
 unfit things ; but honest men should not do them ; they 
 should gain otherwise. Though a man be hungry, he 
 should not play the parasite. That hour wherein I would 35 
 
36 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 repent me to be honest, there were ways enow open 
 for me to be rich. But flattery is a fine pick-lock of 
 tender ears ; especially of those whom fortune hath 
 borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity 
 
 5 and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For, 
 indeed, men could never be taken in that abundance 
 with the springes of others' flattery, if they began not 
 there ; if they did but remember how much more profit- 
 able the bitterness of truth were, than all the honey dis- 
 
 lo tilling from a whorish voice, which is not praise, but 
 poison. But now it is come to that extreme folly, or 
 rather madness, with some, that he that flatters them 
 modestly or sparingly is thought to malign them. If 
 their friend consent not to their vices, though he do not 
 
 15 contradict them, he is nevertheless an enemy. When 
 they do ah things the worst way, even then they look for 
 praise. Nay, they will hire fellows to flatter them with 
 suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments. 
 They have livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the 
 
 20 spit, that wait their turns, as my lord has his feasts and 
 guests. 
 
 De vita huniana. — I have considered our whole life 
 is like a play : wherein every man forgetful of himself, is 
 in travail with expression of another. Nay, we so insist in 
 
 25 imitating others, as we cannot when it is necessary return 
 
 to ourselves ; like children, that imitate the vices of 
 
 stammerers so long, tifl at last they become such, and 
 
 make the habit to another nature, as it is never forgotten. 
 
 Depiis et probis. — Good men are the stars, the planets 
 
 30 of the ages wherein they live and illustrate the times. 
 God did never let them be wanting to the world : as 
 Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of purity, 
 Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so 
 of the rest. These, sensual men thought mad because 
 
 35 they would not be partakers or practisers of their mad- 
 
DISCO VERFES. 37 
 
 ness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, 
 looked down on the stage of the world and contemned 
 the play of fortune. For though the most be players, 
 some must be spectators. 
 
 Mores aulici. — I have discovered that a feigned 5 
 familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation 
 on the less. For great and popular men feign them- 
 selves to be servants to others to make those slaves to 
 them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, 
 dace, etc., that they may be food to him. 10 
 
 Impiorufn querela. — The complaint of Caligula was 
 most wicked of the condition of his times, when he said 
 they were not famous for any public calamity, as the 
 reign of Augustus was, by the defeat of Varus and the 
 legions ; and that of Tiberius, by the falling of the thea- 15 
 tre at Fidense ; whilst his oblivion was eminent through 
 the prosperity of his affairs. As that other voice of his 
 was worthier a headsman than a head when he wished 
 the people of Rome had but one neck. But he found 
 when he fell that they had many hands. A tyrant, how 20 
 great and mighty soever he may seem to cowards and _^.y V 
 
 sluggards, is but one creature, one animal. p^^^ \fi ,;^^, 
 
 Nobilium ingenia. — I have marked among the nobil-' ^,. 
 
 ity some are so addicted to the service of the prince and ''' 
 commonwealth, as they look not for spoil ; such are to 25 
 be honored and loved. There are others which no ob- 
 ligation will fasten on ; and they are of two sorts. The 
 first are such as love their own ease ; or, out of vice, of 
 nature, or self-direction, avoid business and care. Yet 
 these the prince may use with safety. The other remove 30 
 themselves upon craft and design, as the architects say, 
 with a premeditated thought, to their own rather than 
 their prince's profit. Such let the prince take heed of, 
 and not doubt to reckon in the list of his open enemies. 
 
 Principum vaiia\jio'\ Finnissima vero omnium basis 35 
 
38 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 jus hcBreditarium Principis. — There is a great variation 
 between him that is raised to the sovereignty by the fa- 
 vor of his peers and him that comes to it by the suffrage 
 of the people. The first holds with more difficulty, be- 
 5 cause he hath to do with many that think themselves his 
 equals, and raised him for their own greatness and op- 
 pression of the rest. The latter hath no upbraiders, but 
 was raised by them that sought to be defended from 
 oppression : whose end is both the easier and the honester 
 
 lo to satisfy. Beside, while he hath the people to friend, 
 who are a multitude, he hath the less fear of the nobility, 
 who are but few. Nor let the common proverb of he 
 that builds on the people builds on the dirt, discredit my 
 opinion : for that hath only place where an ambitious and 
 
 15 private person, for some popular end, trusts in them 
 against the public justice and magistrate. There they 
 will leave him. But when a prince governs them, so as 
 they have still need of his administration (for that is his 
 art), he shall ever make and hold them faithful. 
 
 20 dementia. — A prince should exercise his cruelty not 
 by himself, but by his ministers ; so he may save himself 
 and his dignity with his people by sacrificing those when 
 he list, saith the great doctor of state, Machiavell. But 
 I say he puts off man and goes into a beast, that is cruel. 
 
 25 No virtue is a prince's own, or becomes him more, than 
 this clemency : and no glory is greater than to be able to 
 save with his power. Many punishments, sometimes and 
 in some cases, as much discredit a prince, as many fu- 
 nerals a physician. The state of things is secured by 
 
 30 clemency ; severity represseth a few, but it irritates more. 
 Hand infima ars in p7'incipe, ubi ienitas, ubi severitas 
 plus polleat in cominune bonum, callere. The lopping of 
 trees makes the boughs shoot out thicker ; and the tak- 
 ing away of some kind of enemies increaseth the number. 
 
 35 It is then most gracious in a prince to pardon when 
 
DISCO VERIES. 39 
 
 many about him would make him cruel ; to think then 
 how much he can save when others tell him how much 
 he can destroy ; not to consider what the impotence of 
 others hath demolished, but what his own greatness can 
 sustain. These are a prince's virtues : and they that give s 
 him other counsels are but the hangman's factors. 
 
 dementia tutela opti7?ia. — He that is cruel to halves 
 (saith the said S[ain]t Nicholas) loseth no less the oppor- 
 tunity of his cruelty than of his benefits : for then to use 
 his cruelty is too late ; and to use his favors will be lo 
 interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the 
 thanks. Still the counsel is cruelty. But princes, by 
 hearkening to cruel counsels, become in time obnoxious 
 to the authors, their flatterers, and ministers ; and are 
 brought to that, that when they would, they dare not is 
 change them ; they must go on and defend cruelty with 
 cruelty ; they cannot alter the habit. It is then grown 
 necessary, they must be as ill as those have made them : 
 and in the end they will grow more hateful to themselves 
 than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the 20 
 merciful prince is safe in love, not in fear. He needs no 
 emissaries, spies, intelligencers to entrap true subjects. 
 He fears no libels, no treasons. His people speak what 
 they think, and talk openly what they do in secret. They 
 have nothing in their breasts that they need a cypher for. 25 
 He is guarded with his own benefits. 
 
 Religio. — The strength of empire is in religion. What 
 else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy so 
 long from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sov- 
 ereign to the subject than it. For he that is religious 30 
 must be merciful and just necessarily : and they are two 
 strong ties upon mankind. Justice is the virtue that 
 innocence rejoiceth in. Yet even that is not always so 
 safe, but it may love to stand in the sight of mercy. For 
 sometimes misfortune is made a crime, and then inno- 35 
 
40 DISCO VEKIES. 
 
 cence is succored no less than virtue. Nay, oftentimes 
 virtue is made capital ; and through the condition of the 
 times it may happen that that may be punished with our 
 praise. Let no man therefore murmur at the actions of 
 
 5 the prince, who is placed so far above him. If he offend, 
 he hath his discoverer. God hath a height beyond him. 
 But '' where the prince is good," Euripides saith, " God 
 
 1 is a guest in a human body." 
 
 12 Tyranni. — There is nothing with some princes sacred '-^ 
 Jho above their majesty, or profane, but what violates their i 
 
 \ sceptres. But a prince, with such counsel, is like the ' 
 god Terminus, of stone, his own landmark, or as it is in 
 
 9- the fable, a crowned lion. It is dangerous offending such 
 a one, who, being angry, knows not how to forgive ; that 
 
 15 cares not to do anything for maintaining or enlarging of 
 empire ; kills not men or subjects, but destroy eth whole 
 countries, armies, mankind, male and female, guilty or 
 not guilty, holy or profane ; yea, some that have not seen 
 the light. All is under the law of their spoil and licence. 
 
 2o But princes that neglect their proper office thus their fort- 
 une is oftentimes to draw a Sejanus to be near about them, 
 who will at last affect to get above them, and put them 
 in a worthy fear of rooting both them out and their family. 
 For no men hate an evil prince more than they that 
 
 25 helped to make him such. And none more boastingly 
 weep his ruin than they that procured and practised it. 
 The same path leads to ruin which did to rule when men 
 profess a licence in governing. A good king is a public 
 servant. 
 
 30 Illiteratus princeps. — A prince without letters is a pilot 
 
 / without eyes. All his government is groping. In sover- 
 
 / eignty it is a most happy thing not to be compelled ; but 
 
 so it is the most miserable not to be counselled. And 
 
 how can he be counselled that cannot see to read the 
 
 35 best counsellors, which are books : for they neither flatter 
 
DISCOVERIES. 41 
 
 us nor hide from us? He may hear, you will say; but 
 how shall he always be sure to hear truth, or be counselled 
 the best things, not the sweetest? They say princes 
 learn no art truly but the art o{_ horsenianship. The 
 reason is the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw 5 
 a prince as soon as his groom. Which is an argument 
 that the good counsellors to princes are the best instru- 
 ments of a good age. For though the prince himself be 
 of a most prompt inclination to all virtue, yet the best 
 pilots have need of mariners besides sails, anchor, and 10 
 other tackle. 
 
 Character principis. — If men did know what shining 
 fetters, gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones and 
 sceptres were, there would not be so frequent strife about 
 the getting or holding of them ; there would be more 15 
 principalities than princes ; for a prince is the pastor of 
 the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep ; to 
 take their fleeces, not their fells. Who were his enemies 
 before, being a private man, becom.e his children now he 
 is public. He is the soul of the commonwealth, and 20 
 ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great 
 was wont to say, he hated that gardener that plucked his 
 herbs or flowers up by the roots. A man may milk a 
 breast till the blood come ; churn milk and it yieldeth 
 butter, but wring the nose and the blood followeth. He 25 
 is an ill prince that so pulls his subjects' feathers as he 
 would not have them grow again ; that makes his ex- 
 chequer a receipt for the spoils of those he governs. No, 
 let him keep his own, not affect his subjects' ; strive 
 rather to be called just than powerful. Not, like the 30 
 Roman tyrants, affect the surnames that grow by human 
 slaughters ; neither to seek war in peace, nor peace in 
 war, but to observe faith given, though to an enemy. 
 Study piety toward the subject; show care to defend 
 him. Be slow to punish in divers cases, but be a sharp 35 
 
42 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 and severe revenger of open crimes. Break no decrees 
 or dissolve no orders to slacken the strength of laws. 
 Choose neither magistrates, civil or ecclesiastic, by favor 
 or price ; but with long disquisition and report of their 
 
 5 worth by all suffrages. Sell no honors, nor give them 
 hastily, but bestow them with counsel and for reward ; if 
 he do, acknowledge it though late, and mend it. For 
 princes are easy to be deceived ; and what wisdom can 
 escape it where so many court-arts are studied? But, 
 
 lo above all, the prince is to remember that when the great 
 day of account comes, which neither magistrate nor prince 
 can shun, there will be required of him a reckoning for 
 those whom he hath trusted, as for himself, which he must 
 provide. And if piety be wanting in the priests, equity in 
 
 15 the judges, or the magistrates be found rated at a price, 
 what justice or religion is to be expected ? which are the 
 only two attributes make kings akin to gods, and is the 
 Delphic sword, both to kill sacrifices and to chastise 
 offenders. 
 
 20 De gratiosis. — When a virtuous man is raised, it brings 
 gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to 
 his posterity. Nay, his honors are a great part of the 
 honor of the times ; when by this means he is grown to 
 active men an example, to the slothful a spur, to the 
 
 25 envious a punishment. 
 
 Divites. — He which is sole heir to many rich men, 
 having, besides his father's and uncles', the estates of 
 divers his kindred come to him by accession, must needs 
 be richer than father or grandfather ; so they which are 
 
 30 left heirs ex asse of all their ancestors' vices, and by their 
 good husbandry improve the old and daily purchase new, 
 must needs be wealthier in vice, and have a greater 
 revenue or stock of ill to spend on. , ^ .^^^|.jLi 
 
 Fures publici. — The great thieves of a state are lightly '^- 
 
 35 the officers of the crown ; they hang the less still, play the 
 
DISCO VERIES. 43 
 
 pikes in the pond, eat whom they list. The net was never 
 spread for the hawk or buzzard that hurt us, but the harm- 
 less birds : they are good meat : 
 
 ■ Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. 
 
 Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio. 5 
 
 But they are not always safe though, especially when 
 they meet with wise masters. They can take down all 
 the huff and swelling of their looks, and like dexterous 
 auditors place the counter where he shall value nothing. 
 Let them but remember Lewis XL, who to a Clerk of lo 
 the Exchequer that came to be Lord Treasurer, and 
 had for his device represented himself sitting upon Fort- 
 une's wheel, told him he might do well to fasten it with 
 a good, strong nail, lest, turning about, it might bring him 
 where he was again. As indeed it did. 15 
 
 De bonis et malts ; de innocentia. — A good man 
 will avoid the spot of any sin. \ The very aspersion is 
 grievous, (which makes him choose his way in his hfe as 
 he would in his journey. The ill man rides through all 
 confidently ; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener 20 
 he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in 
 fashion.' His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is 
 worn is the less cared for. It is good enough for the 
 dirt still, and the ways he travels in. An innocent man 
 needs no eloquence, his innocence is instead of it, else I 25 
 had never come off so many times from these precipices, 
 whither men's malice hath pursued me. Pit is true I 
 have been accused to the lords, to the kin/ and by great 
 ones,7but it happened my accusers had not thought of the 
 accusation with themselves7and so were driven, for want 30 
 of crimes, to use invention^ which was found slander|or 
 too late (being entered so fair) to seek starmig-holes for 
 their rashness,'Jwhich were not given them./ And then 
 they may think what accusation that was like to prove, 
 
44 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 when they that were the engineers feared to be the 
 authors. \ Nor were they content to feign things against 
 me, but to urge things, feigned by the ignorant, against 
 my profession, which though, from their hired and mer- 
 
 5 cenary impudence, I might have passed by as granted to 
 a nation of barkers that let out their tongues to Uck 
 others' sores ; yet I durst not leave myself undefended, 
 having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or have those 
 things said of me which I could truly prove of them. 
 
 lo They objected making of verses to me, when I could 
 object to most of them, their not being able to read them, 
 but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they would offer to urge 
 
 ^ mine own writings against me, but by pieces (which was 
 an excellent way of malice), as if any man's context might 
 
 IS not seem dangerous and offensive, if that which was knit 
 to what went before were defrauded of his beginning ; or 
 that things by themselves uttered might not seem subject 
 to calumny, which read entire would appear most free. 
 At last they upbraided my poverty : I confess she is my 
 
 20 domestic ; sober of diet, simple of habit, frugal, painful, a 
 good counseller to me, that keeps me from cruelty, pride, 
 or other more delicate impertinences, which are the 
 nurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the 
 great and monstrous wickednesses, they shall never find 
 
 25 those in poor families. They are the issue of the wealthy 
 giants and the mighty hunters, whereas no great work, or 
 worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor cradles. 
 It was the ancient poverty that founded commonweals, 
 built cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armed 
 
 30 men against vices, rewarded them with their own virtues, 
 and preserved the honor and state of nations, till they 
 betrayed themselves to riches. 
 
 Amor nummi. — Money never made any man rich, but 
 I his mind. He that can order himself to the law of 
 1 35 Nature is not only without the sense but the fear of 
 
DISCOVERIES. 45 
 
 poverty.) O, but to strike blind the people with our 
 wealth and pomp is the thing ! What a wretchedness is 
 this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars 
 within ; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and 
 sordid things of the world ; not the great, noble, and 5 
 precious ! We serve our avarice, and, not content with 
 the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and 
 dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those 
 things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He 
 knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep 10 
 and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we 
 may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature 
 hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it 
 were more honor for us if we could contemn necessary. 
 What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of 15 
 waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins ? She requires 
 meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think 
 no wealth enough but such a state for which a man may 
 be brought into 3.prcefminire, begged, proscribed, or poi- 
 soned ? O ! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet 20 
 and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, 
 cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands ; what orchards, stews, 
 ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare ; 
 what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack ; 
 and then how short and uncertain his life is ; he were in 25 
 a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of 
 these delights, and be the dictator of fashions. But we 
 make our selves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve 
 fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery. Have not 
 I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom, and what a foreign 3° 
 king could bring hither also to make himself gazed and 
 wondered at, laid forth, as it were, to the show, and 
 vanish all away in a day? And shall that which could 
 not fill the expectation of few hours, entertain and take 
 up our whole lives, when even it appeared as superfluous 3S 
 
46 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 to the possessors as to me that was a spectator? The 
 bravery was shown, it was not possessed ; while it boasted 
 itself it perished. It is vile, and a poor thing to place 
 our happiness on these desires. Say we wanted them all, 
 
 5 famine ends famine. 
 
 De mollibus et effcemhiatis. — There is nothing valiant 
 or solid to be hoped for from such as are always kempt 
 and perfumed, and every day smell of the tailor ; the 
 exceedingly curious that are wholly in mending such an 
 
 lo imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in 
 the neck, or bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming 
 and bridling their beards, or making the waist small, 
 binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at waste : too 
 much pickedness is not manly. Not from those that will 
 
 15 jest at their own outward imperfections, but hide their 
 ulcers within, their pride, lust, envy, ill-nature, with all 
 the art and authority they can. These persons are in 
 danger, for whilst they think to justify their ignorance by 
 impudence, and their persons by clothes and outward 
 
 20 ornaments, they use but a commission to deceive them- 
 selves : where, if we will look with our understanding, 
 and not our senses, we may behold virtue and beauty 
 (though covered with rags) in their brightness ; and vice 
 and deformity so much the fouler, in having all the 
 
 25 splendor of riches to gild them, or the false light of 
 honor and power to help them. Yet this is that where- 
 with the world is taken, and runs mad to gaze on — 
 clothes and titles, the birdhme of fools. 
 
 De stuliitia. — AVhat petty things they are we wonder 
 
 30 at, like children that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fair- 
 ing before their fathers ! What difference is between us 
 and them but that we are dearer fools, coxcombs at a 
 higher rate ? They are pleased with cockleshells, whistles, 
 hobbyhorses, and such like ; we with statues, marble 
 
 35 pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath is lath 
 
DISCOVERIES. 47 
 
 and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we take pleasure in the lie, 
 and are glad we can cozen ourselvesn Nor is it only in 
 our walls and ceilings, but all that we call happiness is 
 mere painting and gilt, and all for money. What a thin 
 membrane of honor that is, and liow hath all true reputa- 5 
 tion fallen, since money began to have any ! Yet the 
 great herd, the multitude, that in all other things are 
 divided, in this alone conspire and agree — to love 
 money. They wish for it, they embrace it, they adore it, 
 while yet it is possessed with greater stir and torment 10 
 than it is gotten. 
 
 De sibi molestis. — Some men what losses soever they 
 have they make them greater, and if they have none, 
 even all that is not gotten is a loss. Can there be 
 creatures of more wretched condition than these, that 15 
 continually labor under their own misery and others' 
 envy? A man should study other things, not to covet, 
 not to fear, not to repent him ; to make his base such 
 as no tempest shall shake him ; to be secure of all 
 opinion, and pleasing to himself, even for that wherein 20 
 he displeaseth others ; for the worst opinion gotten for 
 doing well, should delight us. Wouldst not thou be just 
 but for fame, thou oughtest to be it with infamy ; he that 
 would have his virtue published is not the servant of vir- 
 tue, but glory. 25 
 
 Periciilosa 77ielancholia. — It is a dangerous thing when 
 men's minds come to sojourn with their affections, and 
 their diseases eat into their strength ; that when too 
 much desire and greediness of vice hath made the body 
 unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded with the sight and 30 
 spectacle of it in others ; and for want of ability to be 
 an actor, is content to be a witness. It enjoys the 
 pleasure of sinning in beholding others sin, as in dicing, 
 drinking, drabbing, etc. Nay, when it cannot do all 
 these, it is offended with his own narrowness, that 35 
 
48 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 excludes it from the universal delights of mankind, and 
 oft times dies of a melancholy, that it cannot be vicious 
 enough. 
 
 FalscB species fugiendce. — I am glad when I see any 
 
 5 man avoid the infamy of a vice ; but to shun the vice 
 itself were better. Till he do that he is but like the 
 prentice, who, being loth to be spied by his master 
 coming forth of Black Lucy's, went in again ; to whom 
 his master cried, "The more thou runnest that way to 
 
 lo hide thyself, the more thou art in the place." So are 
 those that keep a tavern all day, that they may not be 
 seen at night. I have known lawyers, divines — yea, 
 great ones — of this heresy. 
 
 Decipimur specie. — There is a greater reverence had 
 
 15 of things remote or strange to us than of much better 
 if they be nearer and fall under our sense. Men, and 
 almost all sorts of creatures, have their reputation by 
 
 .. distance. Rivers, the farther they run and more from 
 their spring, the broader they are, and greater. And 
 
 20 where our original is known, we are the less confident ; 
 among strangers we trust fortune. Yet a man may live 
 as renowned at home, in his own country, or a private 
 village, as in the whole world. For it is virtue that gives 
 glory ; that will endenizen a man everywhere. It is only 
 
 25 that can naturalise him. A native, if he be vicious, 
 deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the common- 
 wealth as an alien. \ 
 
 Dejectio aulic\_drum']. — A dejected countenance and 
 mean clothes beget often a contempt, but it is with the 
 
 30 shallowest creatures : courtiers commonly. Look up 
 even with them in a new suit, you get above them 
 straight. Nothing is more short-lived than [their] pride ; 
 it is but while their clothes last : stay but while these are 
 worn out, you cannot wish the thing more wretched or 
 
 35 dejected. 
 
DISCO VERIES. 
 
 /4O 
 
 V 
 
 Poesis et pictura. — Poetry and picture are arts of a 
 like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was 
 excellently said of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, -^ 
 and picture a mute poesy. For they both invent, feign, 
 and devise many things, and accommodate all they 5 y 
 invent to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two 
 the pen is more noble than the pencil ; for that can 
 speak to the understanding, the other but to the sense. 
 They both behold pleasure and profit as their common -.,' 
 object ; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest 10 
 they should err from their end, and, while they seek to 
 better men's minds, destroy their manners. They both 
 ^y^ are born artificers, not made. Nature is more powerful ]X 
 in them than study. , / 
 
 De pictura. — Whosoever loves not picture is injurious 15 
 to truth and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the 
 invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to 
 Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always of one and 
 the same habit ; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the 
 inmost affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as 20 
 sometimes it o'ercomes the power of speech and oratory. 
 There are divers graces in it, so are there in the artificers. 
 One excels in care, another in reason, a third in easiness, 
 a fourth in nature and grace. Some have diligence and 
 comehness, but they want majesty. They can express a 25 
 human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, 
 but they miss the authority. They can hit nothing but 
 smooth cheeks ; they cannot express roughness or gravity. 
 Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather lovers 
 of likeness and beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said 30 
 to be contemporaries ; the first found out the reason of 
 lights and shadows in picture, the other more subtlely 
 examined the lines. \j \ \ 
 
 De stilo. — In picture light is required no less than ' 
 shadow ; so in style, height as well as humbleness. But 35 r 
 
50 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 beware they be not too humble, as Phny pronounced 
 of Regulus's writings. You would think them written, 
 not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own 
 obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words — as 
 5 occupy J nature, and the like ; so the curious industry in 
 some, of having all alike good, hath come nearer a vice 
 than a virtue. 
 
 De progress\ione\ picturce. — Picture took her feigning 
 from poetry; from geometry her rule, compass, lines, 
 
 lo proportion, and the whole symmetry. Parrhasius was the 
 first \\^n reputation by adding symmetry to picture ; he 
 added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy to the hair, 
 love-lines to the face, and by the public voice of all 
 artificers, deserved honor in the outer lines. Eupompus 
 
 15 gave it splendor by numbers and other elegancies. From 
 the optics it drew reasons, by which it considered how 
 things placed at distance and afar off should appear less ; 
 how above or beneath the head should deceive the eye, 
 etc. So from thence it took shadows, recession, light, 
 20 and heightenings. From moral philosophy it took the soul, 
 the expression of senses, perturbations, manners, when 
 they would paint an angry person, a proud, an inconstant, 
 an ambitious, a brave, a magnanimous, a just, a merciful, 
 a compassionate, an humble, a dejected, a base, and the 
 25 like. They made all heightenings bright, all shadows dark, 
 all swellings from a plane, all solids from breaking. 
 See where he [Vitruvius] complains of their painting 
 Chimaeras, by the vulgar unaptly called grotesque, saying 
 that men who were born truly to study and emulate 
 
 30 Nature did nothing but make monsters against Nature, 
 which Horace so laughed at. The art plastic was mould- 
 ing in clay or potter's earth anciently. This is the parent 
 of statuary, sculpture, graving, and picture ; cutting in 
 brass and marble, all serve under her. Socrates taught 
 
 35 Parrhasius and Clito, two noble statuaries, first to express 
 
DISCO VERIES. 51 
 
 manners by their looks in imagery. Polygnotus and 
 Aglaophon were ancienter. After them Zeuxis, who was 
 the lawgiver to all painters after Parrhasius. They were 
 contemporaries, and lived both about Philip's time, the 
 father of Alexander the Great. There lived in this latter 
 age six famous painters in Italy, who were excellent and 
 emulous of the ancients — Raphael de Urbinb, Michael 
 Angelo Buonarotti, Titian, Antony of Correggio, Sebastian 
 of Venice, Julio Romano, and Andrea [del] Sarto. 
 
 % 
 
 Parasiti ad ??te?isam, wwio serviles. — These are flat- lo 
 terers for their bread, that praise all my oraculous lord 
 does or says, be it true or false ; invent tales that shall 
 please ; make baits for his lordship's ears ; and if they 
 be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of 
 the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, 15 
 deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied ; 
 fit their discourse to the persons and occasions. What 
 they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another ; 
 and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, 
 while they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and 20 
 dilate business of the house they have nothing to do with. 
 They praise my lord's wine and the sauce he Hkes ; 
 observe the cook and bottle-man ; while they stand in 
 my lord's favor, speak for a pension for them, but pound 
 them to dust upon my lord's least distaste, or change of 25 
 his palate. 
 
 How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak 
 sparingly ! for it is not enough to speak good, but timely 
 things. If a man be asked a question, to answer ; but to 
 repeat the question before he answer is well, that he be 30 
 sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity. For it is less 
 dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. 
 The ears are excused, the understanding is not. And in 
 things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by 
 
52 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 the affectation of knowing too much he lose the credit he 
 hath by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he 
 utters. Nor seek to get his patron's favor by embarking 
 himself in the factions of the family, to inquire after 
 
 5 domestic simulties, their sports or affections. They are 
 an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the 
 house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like 
 pies or swallows, carry it to their nest, the lord's ears, and 
 oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they 
 
 lo have seen and heard. 
 
 These are called instruments of grace and power with 
 great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their 
 impotency, and marks of weakness. For sufficient lords 
 are able to make these discoveries themselves. Neither 
 
 15 will an honorable person inquire who eats and drinks 
 together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with 
 whom such a one walks, what discourse they held, who 
 sleeps with whom. They are base and servile natures 
 that busy themselves about these disquisitions. How 
 
 20 often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the 
 family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled 
 thriftily. These are commonly the off-scouring and dregs 
 of men that do these things, or calumniate others ; yet 
 I know not truly which is worse, he that maligns all, or 
 
 25 that praises all. There is as great a vice in praising, and 
 as frequent, as in detracting. 
 
 It pleased your lordship of late to ask my opinion 
 touching the education of your sons, and especially to the 
 advancement of their studies. To which, though I 
 30 returned somewhat for the present, which rather mani- 
 fested a will in me than gave any just resolution to the 
 thing propounded, I have upon better cogitation called 
 those aids about me, both of mind and memory, which 
 shall venter my thoughts clearer, if not fuller, to your lord- 
 
DISCO VERIES. 53 
 
 ship's demand. /I confess, my lord, they will seem but 
 petty and minute things I shall offer to you, being writ for 
 children, and of them. But studies have their infancy as 
 well as creatures. We see in men even the strongest 
 compositions had their beginnings from milk and the 5 
 cradle ; and the wisest tarried sometimes about apting 
 their mouths to letters and syllables. / In their education, 
 therefore, the care must be the greater had of their 
 beginnings, to know, examine, and weigh their natures ; 
 which, though they be proner in some children to some 10 
 disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all by 
 degrees, and with change. For change is a kind of 
 refreshing in studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of 
 recreation. Thence the school itself is called a play or 
 game, and all letters are so best taught to scholars. They 15 
 should not be affrighted or deterred in their entry, but 
 drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth should 
 not be made to hate study before he know the causes to 
 love it, or taste the bitterness before the sweet ; but called 
 on and allured, entreated and praised : yea, when he 20 
 deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to 
 the best school, and a pubhc, which I think the best. 
 Your lordship, I fear, hardly hears of that, as willing to 
 breed them in your eye and at home, and doubting their 
 manners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more 25 
 danger in your own family, among ill servants (allowing 
 they be safe in their schoolmaster), than amongst a 
 thousand boys, however immodest. Would we did not 
 spoil our own children, and overthrow their manners our- 
 selves by too much indulgence ! To breed them at home 30 
 is to breed them in a shade, whereas in a school they 
 have the light and heat of the sun. They are used and 
 accustomed to things and men. When they come forth 
 into the commonwealth, they find nothing new, or to seek. 
 They have made their friendships and aids, some to last 35 
 
54 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 their age. They hear what is commanded to others as 
 well as themselves, much approved, much corrected ; all 
 which they bring to their own store and use, and learn as 
 much as they hear. Eloquence would be but a poor 
 s thing if we should only converse with singulars, speak but 
 man and man together. Therefore I like no private 
 breeding. I would send them where their industry should 
 be daily mcreased by praise, and that kindled by emula- 
 tion. It is a good thing to inflame the mind ; and 
 
 lo though ambition itself be a vice, it is often the cause of 
 great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise excites, 
 glory puts on, or disgrace grieves ; he is to be nourished 
 with ambition, pricked forward with honor, checked with 
 reprehension, and never to be suspected of sloth. Though 
 
 15 he be given to play, it is a sign of spirit and liveliness, so 
 
 there be a mean had of their sports and relaxations. And 
 
 from the rod or ferule I would have them free, as from 
 
 the menace of them ; for it is both deformed and servile. 
 
 y . ' De stilo, et Optimo soHbendi genere. — For a man to 
 
 20 write well, there are required three necessaries — to read 
 
 < the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much 
 exercise of his own style. In style, to consider what 
 ought to be written, and after what manner, he must first 
 think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words, 
 
 25 and examine the weight of either. Then take care, in 
 
 placing and ranking both matter and words, that the 
 
 composition be comely; and to do this with diligence 
 
 and often. No matter how slow the style be at first, so it 
 
 I be labored and accurate ; seek the best, and be not glad 
 
 I 30 of the forward conceits,''6r first words, that offer them- 
 
 * selves to us ; but judge of what we invent, and order 
 
 what we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly 
 
 written ; which beside that it helps the consequence, and 
 
 makes the juncture better, it quickens the heat of imagi- 
 
 35 nation, that often cools in the time of setting down, and 
 
DISCOVERIES. 55 
 
 gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the going 
 back. As we see in the contention of leaping, they jump 
 farthest that fetch their race largest ; or, as in throwing a 
 dart or javelin, we force back our arms to make our loose 
 the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of wind, I forbid s 
 not the steering out of our sail, so the favor of the gale de- 
 ceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in the 
 conception of birth, else we would never set it down. But 
 the safest is to return to our judgment, and handle over 
 again those things the easiness of which might make them lo 
 justly suspected. So did the best writers in their begin- 
 nings ; they imposed upon themselves, care and industry; 
 they did nothing rashly : they obtained" first to write well, 
 and then custom made it easy and a habit. By little and 
 little their matter showed itself to them more plentifully ; 15 
 their words answered, their composition followed ; and 
 all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the 
 place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes 
 not good writing, but good writing brings on ready 
 writing. Yet, when we think we have got the faculty, 20 
 it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse 
 a check sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much 
 stop his course as stir his mettle. Again, whither a man's 
 genius is best able to reach, thither it should more and 
 more contend, lift and dilate itself; as men of low stature 25 
 raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, 
 if not eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and able 
 writers to stand of themselves, and work with their 
 own strength, to trust and endeavor by their own fac- 
 ulties, so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study 30 X 
 others and the best. For the mind and memory are more 
 sharply exercised in comprehending another man's things 
 than our own ; and such as accustom themselves and are 
 familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon find 
 somewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression 35 
 
56 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 of their minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter 
 something Hke theirs, which hath an authority above their 
 own. Nay, sometimes it is the reward of a man's study, 
 the praise of quoting another man fitly; and though a 
 5 man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than 
 another, yet he must exercise all. For as in an instru- 
 ment, so in style, there must be a harmony and consent 
 of parts. 
 
 Prcccipiejidi modi. — I take this labor in teaching others, 
 1 lo that they should not be always to be taught, and I would 
 
 / bring my precepts into practice, for rules are ever of less 
 
 ' " force and value than experiments ; yet with this purpose, 
 
 rather to show the right way to those that come after, than 
 
 to detect any that have slipped before by error. And I 
 
 15 hope it will be more profitable \ for men do more will- 
 ingly listen, and with more favor, to precept, than repre- 
 hension. Among divers opinions of an art, and most of 
 them contrary in themselves, it is hard to make^election ; 
 and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things 
 
 2o after so many, he may do a welcome work yet to help 
 posterity to judge rightly of the old. .But arts and 
 precepts avail nothing, except Nature be beneficial . and 
 aiding. And therefore these things are no more written 
 to a dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a barren 
 
 25 soil. No precepts will profit a fool, no more than beauty 
 will the blind, or music the deaf. As we should take care 
 that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty, we 
 should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far- 
 fetched descriptions : either is a vice. But that is worse 
 
 30 which proceeds out of want, than that which riots out of 
 plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is easy, but no labor 
 will help the contrary. I will like and praise some things 
 in a young writer which yet, if he continue in, I cannot 
 but justly hate him for the same. There is a time to be 
 
 35 given all things for maturity, and that even your country 
 
 \i 
 
DISCO VERIES. 57 
 
 husbandman can teach, who to a young plant will not put 
 the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the iron, as 
 not able to admit the scar. No more would I tell a 
 green writer all his faults, lest I should make him grieve 
 and faint, and at last despair. For nothing doth more s 
 hurt than to make him so afraid of all things as he can 
 endeavor nothing. Therefore youth ought to be instructed 
 betimes, and in the best things ; for we hold those longest 
 we take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and the 
 tinct the wool first receives. Therefore a master should lo 
 temper his own powers, and descend to the other's infirm- 
 ity. If you pour a glut of water upon a bottle, it receives 
 httle of it; but with a funnel, and by degrees, you shall 
 fill rpany of them, and spill little of your own; to their , - 
 capacity they will all receive and be full. And as it is fit 15 
 to read the best authors to youth first, so let them be of . 
 the openest and clearest, as Livy before Sallust, Sidney-j,*. IjO^i/- 
 before Donne. And beware of letting them taste Govver ,.^fc)-«.0»^ 
 or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in love with 
 antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow 20 
 rough and barren in language only..?. When their judgments 
 are firm, and out of danger, let them read both the old 
 and the new; but no less take J)'eed that their new flowers 
 and sweetness do not 'as much corrupt as the others' 
 dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. 25 
 Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language ; yet 
 I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read 
 Ennius. The reading of Homer and Virgil is counselled 
 by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and 
 confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised 3° 
 with the height and sublimity of such a verse, it takes 
 spirit from the greatness of the matter, and is tincted " 
 with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry is good 
 too, and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader 
 be once in safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, 35 
 
58 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 we shall see the economy and disposition of poems better 
 observed than in Terence and the later [qu. Greek 
 poets], who thought the sole grace and virtue of their 
 fable the sticking in of sentences, as ours do the forcing 
 5 in of jests. 
 
 Fals\ji\ querel\ji\ fugie7id\a'\. — We should not pro- 
 tect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is a 
 false quarrel against Nature, that she helps understand- 
 ing but in a few ; when the most part of mankind are 
 
 lo inclined by her thither, if they would take the pains, 
 no less than birds to fly, horses to run, etc. : which if 
 they lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by 
 that means become her prodigies, not her children. I 
 confess. Nature in children is more patient of labor in 
 
 15 study than in age ; for the sense of the pain, the judg- 
 ment of the labor is absent : they do not measure what 
 they have done. And it is the thought and consideration 
 that affects us more than the weariness itself. Plato was 
 not content with the learning that Athens could give him, 
 
 20 but sailed into' Italy for Pythagoras's knowledge : and 
 yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into 
 Egypt, to the priests, and learned their mysteries. He 
 labored, so must we. Many things may be learned to- 
 gether, and performed in one point of time ; as musi- 
 
 25 cians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, 
 and sometimes their head and feet at once. And so a 
 preacher, in the invention of matter, election of words, 
 composition of gesture, look, pronunciation, motion, useth 
 all these faculties at once. And if we can express this 
 
 30 variety together, why should not divers studies, at divers 
 hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to refresh 
 and repair us? As, when a man is weary of writing, to 
 read ; and then again of reading, to write. Wherein 
 howsoever we do many things, yet are we, in a sort, still 
 
 35 fresh to what we begin ; we are recreated with change, 
 
DISCO VERIES. 59 
 
 as the stomach is with meats. But some will say this 
 variety breeds confusion, and makes, that either we lose 
 all, or hold no more than the last. Why do we not then 
 persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help 
 it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, 5 
 prune trees, look to bee-hives, rear sheep, and all other 
 cattle at once ? It is easier to do many things and con- 
 tinue, than to do one thing long. 
 
 Prcecept\^a\ elemcni\aria\, — It is not the passing ^"^ 
 through these learnings that hurts us, but the dwelling 10 
 and sticking about them. To descend to those extreme 
 anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is able to 
 break a wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery 
 and vainness, to be elementarii series. Yet even letters 
 are, as it were, the bank of words, and restore themselves 15 
 to an author as the pawns of language. But talking and 
 eloquence are not the same : to speak, and to speak well, 
 are two things. A fool may talk, but _a wise man spe aks ; 
 and out of the observation, knowledge, and the use of 
 things, many writers perplex their readers and hearers 20 
 with mere nonsense. Their writings need sunshine. / 
 Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary, y -& 
 A barbarous phrase hath often made me out of love with 
 a good sense, and doubtful writing hath wracked me, 
 beyond my gati^ence. The reason v/hy a poet is said 25 
 that tie ought to have all knowledges is, that he should 
 not be ignorant of the most, especially of those he will 
 handle. And indeed, when the attaining of them is pos- 
 sible, it were a sluggish and base thing to despair ; for 
 frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly. 30 
 If a man should prosecute as much as could be said of 
 everything, his work would find no end. 
 
 De bratwhis ^ignitate. — Speech is the only benefit V 
 man hath to express his excellency of mind above other 
 creatures. It is the instrument of society ; therefore 35 
 
60 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 Mercury, who is the president of language, is called 
 deoruin hoiJiimnnque interpres. In all speech, words 
 and sense are as the body and the soul. The sense is as 
 the life and soul of language, without which all words are 
 5 dead. Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowl- 
 edge of human life and actions, or of the liberal arts, 
 which the Greeks called 'EyKi;KXo7rai8etav. Words are the * 
 people's, yet there is a choice of. them to be made ; for 
 verborum delectus origo est eloqiientice. : They are to be 
 
 lo chose according to the persons we make speak, or the 
 things we speak of. Some are of the camp, some of the 
 council-board, some of the shop, some of the sheepcot, 
 some of the pulpit, some of the bar, etc. And herein is 
 seen their elegance and propriety, when we use them fitly 
 
 15 and draw them forth to their just strength and nature by 
 way of translation or metaphor. . But in this translation 
 we must onl}^^erve necessity {iiaititetnere nihil transferiur 
 a prudenti) or commodity, which is a kind of necessity : ^ .^ 
 that is, when we either absolutely want a word to express J 
 
 20 by, and that is necessity ; or when we have not so fit a 
 word, and that is commodity ; as when we avoid loss by 
 it, and escape obsceneness, and gain in the grace and'^ j 
 property which helps significance. Metaphors far-f6t ' 
 hinder 'to be under'stdocl ; an(i affected, lose their grace. 
 
 25 Or when the person fetcheth his translations from a wrongs 
 place : as if a privy councillor should at the table take his 
 metaphor from a dicing-house, or ordinary, or a vintner's 
 vault ; or a justice of peace draw his simiUtudes from the 
 mathematics ; or a divine from a bawdy-house, or taverns ; 
 
 30 or a gentleman of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, or 
 the Midland, should fetch all the illustrations to his 
 country neighbors from shipping, and tell them of the 
 main-sheet and the bowline. Metaphors are thus many 
 times deformed, as in him that said, Castratam morte 
 
 35 Africani re?npublicam ; and another, Stercus curice Glau- 
 
DISCO VER/ES. 61 
 
 ciam, and Can a nive conspiiit A /pes. All attempts that 
 are new in this kind, are dangerous, and somewhat hard, 
 before they be softened with use. A man coins not a new 
 word without some peril and less fruit ; for if it happen 
 to be received, the praise is but moderate ; if refused, the s 
 scorn is assured. Yet we must adventure ; for things at '^^ 
 first hard and rough are by use made tender and gentle. It 
 is an honest error that is committed, following great chiefs. 
 y'Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the 
 public stamp makes the current money. But we must lo 
 not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining, 
 nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages ; 
 since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and noth- 
 ing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. 'VVords^ 
 borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, 15 
 and are not without their delight sometimes ; for they 
 have the authority of years, and out of their intermission 
 do win themselves a kind of gracelike newness. Butj 
 the eldest of the present, and newest of the past lan-| 
 guage, is the best. For what was the ancient language, '20 
 which some men so dote upon, but the ancient custom? 
 Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar 
 custom ; for that were a precept no less dangerous to 
 language than life, if we should speak or live after the 
 manners of the vulgar : but that I call custom of speech, 25 
 which is the consent of the learned ; as custom of life, 
 which is the consent of the good. Virgil was most lov- 
 ing of antiquity ; yet how rarely doth he insert aguai 
 diVid pic tail Lucretius is scabrous and rough in these; 
 he seeks them : as some do Chaucerisms with us, which 30 
 were better expunged and banished. Some words are I 
 to be culled out for ornament and color, as we gather I 
 flowers to straw houses or make garlands; but they 
 are better when they grow to our style as in a meadow, 
 where, though the mere grass and greenness delights, yet 35 
 
62 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 the variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify. Marry, 
 we must not play or riot too much with them, as in paro- 
 nomasies ; nor use too swelUng or ill-sounding words, 
 qucB per salebras, altaque saxa cadiint. It is true, tliere 
 5 is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the bitterest con- 
 fections are grateful to some palates. Our composition 
 J must be more accurate in the beginning and end than in 
 the midst, and in the end more than in the beginning ; 
 for through the midst the stream bears us. And this is 
 
 lo attained by custom, more than care or diligence. We 
 must express readily and fully, not profusely. There is 
 difference between a hberal and prodigal hand. As it 
 is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to 
 enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract 
 
 15 it, is of no less praise, when the argument doth ask it. 
 Either of them hath their fitness in the place. A good 
 man always profits by his endeavor, by his help, yea, 
 when he is absent ; nay, when he is dead, by his example 
 and memory : so good authors in their style. A strict and 
 
 20 succinct style is that where you can take away nothing 
 without loss, and that loss to be manifest. 
 
 Tacitus^ The Laconic, Suetonius, Seneca, and Fabi- 
 ^;/?/j-. -^The brief style is that which expresseth much 
 in little ; the 'concise style, which expresseth Qot enough 
 
 25 but leaves somewhat to be understood ; fhe abrupt 
 style, which hath many breaches, and doth not seem to 
 end but fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of 
 parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and force 
 of knitting and connection ; as in stones well squared, 
 
 30 which will rise strong a great way without mortar. 
 
 Periods are beautiful when they are not too long ; 
 for so they have their strength too, as in a pike or 
 javelin. As we must take the care that our words and 
 sense be clear, so if the obscurity, happen through the 
 
 35 hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to 
 
DISCOVERIES. 63 
 
 1 answer for them, no more than for their not Hstening or 
 
 I marking ; I must neither find them ears nor mind. But 
 
 / a man cannot put a word so in sense but something about 
 
 I it will illustrate it, if the writer understand himself; for 
 
 ^\ order helps, mu9h to . perspicuity, ' as confusion h^urts.^s^^ 
 
 ^^'^Rectitudo liicem ad/eft } ohliquitas et cir chin due tlo offusca't ' -j^ 
 
 !We should therefore speak what we can the nearest way, 
 so as we keep our gait, not leap ; for too short may as 
 well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in. 
 ^^'Obscurttas offundit tenebras. Whatsoever loseth the grace lo 
 and clearness, converts into a riddle; the obscurity 
 is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and is 
 passed by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should 
 be Hke a skein of silk, to be carried and found by the 
 right thread, not ravelled and perplexed : then all is a U 
 knot, a heap. There are words that do as niuch raise J 
 a style as others can depress it. Superlation and over- 
 muchness amplifies ; it may be above faith, but never 
 above a mean. It was ridiculous in Cestius, when he said 
 of Alexander: , .. .*.,..-* -^ - ^° 
 
 Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quod ferfas relinquas. 
 But propitiously from Virgil : 
 
 Credas innare revulsas 
 Cycladas. . /jA/^^ 
 
 He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so. ^s^^"^ 
 Although it be somewhat incredible, that is excused ^ 
 before it be spoken. But there are hyperboles which 
 will become one language, that will by no means admit 
 another. As Eos esse Fyopuli] R\omani\ exercitus, (jiii 
 caelum possint perrumpere, who would say with us, but a 30 
 madman ? Therefore we must consider in every tongue 
 what is used, what received. ,/Quintilian warns us, that 
 in no kind of translation, or metaphor, or allegory, we 
 
64 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch the 
 original of our metaphor from sea and billows, we end 
 not in flames and ashes : it is a most foul inconsequence. 
 Neither must we draw out our allegory too long, lest 
 5 either we make ourselves obscure, or fall into affectation, 
 which is childish. But why do men depart at all from 
 the right and natural ways of speaking ? Sometimes for 
 necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, to speak 
 that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered 
 
 lo plainly would offend the hearers ; or to avoid obscene- 
 ness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers 
 turn out of the highway, drawn either by the cornmooity^ 
 of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields, y 
 --/-y^Vnd all this/is called ia-xrji^aTLa-fx^vrh or figured language. / 
 
 js * Oratio imago animi. — ^^Language most shows a man : 
 
 ^•^>A Speak, that I may see tnee. It springs out of the most 
 
 retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the 
 
 parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or 
 
 likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man ; 
 
 20 and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so 
 words in language ; in the greatness, aptness, sound struc- 
 ture, and harmony of it. 
 
 Structura et statiira. — Some men are tall and big, so 
 I some language is high and great : sublimis. Then the 
 
 25 words are chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, 
 the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, 
 ^ and strong. Some are httle and dwarfs, /////;///?>, ///w/7t?; 
 so of speech, it is humble and low, the words poor and flat, 
 the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting 
 ^ 30 or number. Mediocris plana etplacida. — The middle are 
 of a just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing ; 
 even without stopping, round without swelling : all well- 
 torned, composed, elegant, and accurate. Vitiosa oratio^ 
 vasta, tumens^ enormis, affectata, abjecta. — The vicious 
 
 35 language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular : when 
 
DISCO VERIES. 65 
 
 it contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and point- 
 edness; as it affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, 
 full of bogs and holes. ^^And according to their subject 
 these styles vary, and rose their names : for that which is 
 high and loftAj, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast 5 
 and turnOt^iisy speaking of petty and inferior things ; so 
 that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject, 
 will appear most poor and humble in a high argument. 
 Would you not laugh to meet a great councillor of State . ^ 
 (in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobby-horse cloak, 10 '^1 
 his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a 
 velvet gown, furred with sables ? There is a certain lati- 
 tude in these things, by which we find the degrees. 
 
 The next thing to the stature is the figure, Jig7ira, and y 
 feature in language, that is, whether it be round and straight, 15 
 which consists of short and succinct periods, numerous and ^ 
 
 polished ; or square and firm, which is to have equal and ^'>^^ 
 strong parts everywhere answerable, and weighed. %,Ti^^ i ^ /y)^f 
 
 The third is the skin and coat, ^aifts sive cortex, which .■ V ^ 
 rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of 20 *^ 
 words, compositio ; whenas it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, 
 like a table upon which you may run your finger without , 
 rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint ; not horrid, rough, ^ 
 
 wrinkled, gaping, or chapped. \J\ 
 
 After these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question. 25 ^ 
 We say it is a fleshy style, cai-nosa, when there is much 
 periphrasis, and circuit of words ; and when with more 
 than enough, it grows fat and corpulent, adipata, redim- jjT ' 
 
 dans: arvina orationis, full of suet and tallow. It hath ' . v>' 
 blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their 30 
 sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked — oratio 
 uncta, et bene pasta. But where there is redundancy, both 
 the blood ' and ju^ce are faulty and vipious : : — Redundat 
 s'afiguuk, 'qtl.a'nimio'''plus dicit, quani 'necesse <f'i/v"^uice y 
 
 in language is somewhat less than blood ; for if the words 3S 
 
66 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, 
 there is juice ; but where that wanteth, the language is 
 thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, 
 jejuna, macilenta, strigosa, and shews like stones in a sack. 
 5 Some men, to avoid redundancy, run into that ; and while 
 they strive to have no ill blood or juice, they lose their 
 good. There be some styles, again, that have not less 
 blood, but less flesh and corpulence. , These are bony 
 and sinewy, ossea etjiervqsa; Os^a habent, et nervos.^ '-^ 
 
 Not£B'do?hihi~$[anc'\t\_i'i Alhani de' doctrin\_ce] mtem-f \;^,^ 
 
 ■M 
 
 per\_antia\. — It \fe.s well noted by the late Lord S[ain]t 
 ;'.»'. ,Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of 
 ^ :- ' learning; vain matter the second; and a third distemper 
 .V >^^ is deceit, or the likeness of truth, imposture held up by 
 . ^^ 15 credulity. All these are the cobwebs of learning, and to \ 
 
 let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish. Nothing 
 )<js more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as X, 
 the schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite 
 knowledge receives by it ; for to many things a man 
 20 should owe but a temporary belief, and a suspension of 
 his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of him- 
 self, or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others 
 have their dues ; but if we can make farther discoveries 
 of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied ?-^Let 
 25 us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish or 
 deface ; we may improve, but not augment. By dis- 
 crediting falsehood, truth grows in request. We must 
 not go about, like men anguished and perplexed for 
 vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the separa- 
 ^ \k ■ 30 tion of opinions, find the errors yhave intervened, awake 
 
 ^ antiquity, call former times into question ; but make no 
 
 parties with the present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, 
 mingle no matter of doubtful credit with the simplicity 
 of truth ; but gently stir the mould about the root of the 
 35 question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or 
 
DISCO VERIES. 67 
 
 superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concat- 
 enation of truth ; stoop only to point of necessity, and 
 what leads to convenience. Then make exact animadver- 
 sion where style hath degenerated, where flourished and 
 thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean compo- 5 
 sition of sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an 
 illustration by tropes and figures, weight of matter, worth 
 of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, and 
 depth of judgment. This is monte potiri, to get the hill ; 
 for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a 10 
 level.^ ,^_ \, ,,.^i''/7.i •.,'»• 
 
 De Optimo scriptore. — Now that I have informed you ^^' 
 in the knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand ^^ *^ 
 
 a little farther, in the direction of the use, an,d make you an "" A 
 
 able writer by practice^/' The cbffteits bfthe mind are ^s\ i^'^ 
 pictures of things, and the tongue is the interpreter of '^^ a , 
 those pictures. The order of God's creatures in themselves - \ '^ 
 is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent : then 
 he who could apprehend the consequence of things in their 
 truth, and utter his apprehensions as truly, were the best 20 
 wpter or speaker.. Therefore Cicero sji^ muph, when he 
 saia, Dicej-e recte neino^'poiest, nisi qiii p7'udenter intelligit. 
 Th^ shame of speaking unskilfully were small if the tongue 
 only thereby were disgraced ; but as the image of a king 
 in his seal ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the 25 
 wax, or the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it repre- 
 senteth, so disordered speech is not so much injury to the 
 lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoher- 
 ence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. 
 Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose 30 
 words do jar ; nor his reason in frame whose sentence 
 is preposterous ; nor his elocution clear and perfect, 
 whose utterance breaks itself into fragments and uncer- 
 tainties. Were it not a dishonor to a mighty prince, to 
 have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless 35 
 
J 
 
 68 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 ambassador ? and is it not as great an indignity, that an 
 excellent conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle 
 tongue, should be disgraced ? Negligent speech doth not 
 only discredit the person of the speaker, but it discrediteth 
 5 the opinion of his reason and judgment ; it discrediteth 
 the force and uniformity of the matter and substance. If 
 it be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and 
 where one good phrase begs pardon for many incon- 
 gruities and faults, how shall he then be thought wise 
 
 lo whose penning is thin and shallow ? how shall you look for 
 wit from him whose leisure and head, assisted with the 
 examination of his eyes, yield you no life or sharpness in 
 his writing? 
 
 De stilo episfolaj'i. — Inventio. — In writing there is to 
 
 15 be regarded the invention and the fashion. For the in- 
 vention, that ariseth upon your business ; whereof there 
 can be no rules of more certainty, or precepts of better 
 direction given, than conjecture can lay down from the 
 several occasions of men's particular lives and vocations. 
 
 20 But sometimes men make baseness of kindness : As " I 
 could not satisfy myself till I had discharged my remem- 
 brance, and charged my letters with commendations to 
 you ; " or, " My business is no other than to testify my love 
 to you, and to put you in mind of my willingness to do 
 
 25 you all kind offices ; " or, '' Sir, have you leisure to descend 
 to the remembering of that assurance you have long pos- 
 sessed in your servant, and upon your next opportunity 
 make him happy with some commands from you ? " or 
 
 / the like ; that go a-begging for some meaning, and labor 
 to be delivered of the great burden of nothing. When 
 you have invented, and that your business be matter, and 
 not bare form, or mere ceremony, but some earnest, then 
 are you to proceed to the ordering of it, and digesting the 
 parts, which is had out of two circumstances. One is the 
 
 35 understanding of the persons to whom you are to write ; 
 
 k 
 
DISCO VERIES. 69 
 
 the other is the coherence of your sentence for men's 
 capacity to weigh what will be apprehended with greatest 
 attention or leisure, what next regarded and longed for 
 especially, and what last will leave satisfaction, and, as it 
 were, the sweetest memorial and belief of all that is passed 5 
 in his understanding whom you write to. For the con- 
 sequence of sentences^ you must be sure tl]4t every clause 
 do give the cue one toilite 'other, and be'Sespoken ere it 
 come. So much for invention and order. 
 
 Modus. — I. Brevitas. — Now for fashion : it consists 10 
 in fo ur thin gs, which are qualities of your style. The 
 first is brevity ; for they must not be treatises or dis- 
 courses (your letters) except it be to learned men. 
 And even among them there is a kind of thrift and 
 saving of words. Therefore you are to examine the 15 
 clearest passages of your understanding, and through 
 them to convey the sweetest and most significant words 
 you can devise, that you may the easier teach them 
 the readiest way to another man's apprehension, and 
 open their meaning fully, roundly, and distinctly, so 20 
 al^^e reader may not think a second view cast away 
 upon your letter. And though respect be a part follow- 
 ing this, yet now here, and still I must renipmber it, if 
 you write to a man, whose estate and ce]ise,"as senses, 
 you are familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a task 25 
 to his brain) venter on a knot. But if to your superior, 
 you are bound to measure him in three farther points : 
 first, with interest in him ; secondly, his capacity in your 
 letters ; thirdly, his leisure to peruse them. For your 
 interest or favor with him, yoij^are tp be the shorter or 30 
 longer, more familiar of ^tttM-hiss," as"' he will afford you 
 time. For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller 
 of those reaches and glances of wit or learning, as he is 
 able to entertain them. For his leisure, you are com- 
 manded to the greater briefness, as his place is of greater 35 
 
70 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 discharges and cares. But with your betters, you are not 
 to put riddles of wit, by being too scarce of words ; not 
 to cause the trouble of making breviates by "writing too 
 riotous and wastingly. \ Brevity is attained in matter by 
 
 / 5 avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, paren- 
 
 ^ ■ theses, superflous circuit of figures and digressions : in 
 
 the composition, by omitting conjunctions — not only . . . 
 
 but also, both the one and the other, whereby it cometh to 
 
 pass — and such like idle particles, that have no great 
 
 lo business in a serious letter but breaking of sentences, as 
 oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnecessary 
 baits. 
 
 But, as Quintilian saith, there is a briefness of the parts 
 sometimes that makes the whole long : " As I came to 
 
 15 the stairs, I took a pair of oars, they launched out, rowed 
 apace, I landed at the court gate, I paid my fare, went 
 up to the presence, asked for my lord, I was admitted." 
 All this is but, " I went to the court and spake with my 
 lord." This is the fault of some Latin writers within 
 
 20 these last hundred years jof my reading, and perhaps 
 
 Seneca may be appeacHed of it ; I accuse him not. 
 v/ 2. Perspicuitas. — The next property of epistolary style 
 is perspicuity, and is oftentimes [lost] by affectation of 
 some wit ill angled for, or ostentation of some hidden 
 
 25 terms of art. Few words they darken speech, and so 
 do too many ; as well too much light hurteth the eyes, 
 as too little ; and a long bill of chancery confounds the 
 understanding as much as the shortest note. Therefore, 
 let not your letters be penned like English statutes, and 
 
 30 this is obtained. These vices are eschewed by pondering 
 your business well and distincdy concerning yourself, 
 which is much furthered by uttering your thoughts, and 
 letting them as well come forth to the light and judgment 
 of your own outward senses as to the censure of other 
 
 35 men's ears ; for that is the reason why many good schol- 
 
DTSCO VERIES. 71 
 
 ars speak but fumblingly ; like a rich man, that for want 
 of particular note and difference can bring you no certain 
 ware readily out of his shop. Hence it is that talkative, 
 shallow men do often content the hearers more than the 
 wise. But this may find a speedier redress in writing, 5 
 where all comes under the last examination of the eyes. 
 First, inm^ It well, then pen it, then examine it, then 
 amend it, and you may be in the better hope of doing 
 reasonably well. Under this virtue may come plainness, 
 which is not to be curious in the order as to answer a 10 
 letter, as if you were to answer to interrogatories. As to 
 the first, first ; and to the second, secondly, etc. ; but 
 both in method to use (as ladies do in their attire) a 
 diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom ; 
 though with some men you are not to jest, or practise 15 
 tricks ; yet the delivery of the most important things may 
 be carried with such a grace, as that it may yield a pleas- 
 ure to the conceit of the reader. There must be store, 
 though no excess of terms ; as if you are to name store, 
 sometimes you may call it choice, sometimes plenty, 20 
 sometimes copiousness, or variety ; but ever so, that the 
 word which comes in lieu have not such difference of 
 meaning as that it may put the ser)se of tl^e first in hazard ^y^ 
 to be mistaken. You are not to cast a ring for the per- 
 lumed terms of the time, as accommodation, comple7nenty 25 
 spirit, etc., but use them properly in their place, as others. 
 
 3. Vigor. — There followeth life and quickness, which 
 is the strength and sinews, as it were, of your penning 
 by pretty sayings, similitudes, and conceits ; allusions, 
 
 some known history, or other common- place, such as 30 „ , 
 are in the Courtier, and the second book of Cicero De 
 Oratore. ^'. 
 
 4. Discreiio. — The last is, respect to discern what fits 
 yourself, him to whom you write, and that which you ^ 
 handle, which is a quahtyfit to conclude the rest, because 35 ^- 
 
x/' 
 
 72 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 it doth include all. And that must proceed from ripeness 
 of judgment, which, as one truly saith, is gotten by four 
 means, God, nature, diligence, and conversation. Serve 
 the first well, and the rest will serve you. | 
 
 5 De Poetica. — We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, 
 ,j^ let us now make a diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the 
 
 \ primogeniture, had many peccant humors, and is made 
 
 to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy of 
 men's judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevail- 
 lo ing eloquence, and of the most exalted charact. Now the ^-• 
 discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through 
 ^ men's study of depravation or calumny ; their practvpe. 
 V' ^ ybeing to ^ive it diminutioi:i of credit, by lessening "the pro- ■'■^4^ 
 AT Te'ssors' estimation, arid making the 'age afraid of their lib- 
 1^ IS erty ; and the age is grown so tender of her fame, as she 
 calls all writings " aspersions." That is the state word, 
 the phrase of court, Placentia College, which some call 
 Parasites Place, the Inn of Ignorance. '.'-'^'V^^', (x 
 
 Whilst I name no persons, but deride follies, tv^y should* 
 2o any man confess or betray himself ? why doth not that of 
 
 S[aint] Hierome come into their i^md^Cm geneM^s i^h^de'-^ 
 {■ Vitiis dispufatio, ibi nullius esse per'sona injuriain? It iS^^ ' 
 ^A^ Sjuch an inexpiable crime in poets to tax vices generally, 
 ^^';^'*^and no offence in them, who by their exception confess 
 25 they have committed them particularly. Are we fallen 
 into those times that we must not 
 
 Auriculas teneras mordaci radere vero? ( P'' 
 
 . Rei;iedii votum sejiiper verius /erat} quam spes. If' 
 
 men' may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but 
 
 30 when it offends not, why do physicians cure with sharp 
 
 i ' medicines, or corrosives ? is not the same equally lawful 
 
 • . in the cure of the mind that is in the cure of the body ? 
 
 Some vices, you will say, are so foul that it is better they 
 
 should be done than spoken. But they that take offence 
 
DISCO VKRIES. 73 
 
 where no name, character, or signature doth blazon them 
 seem to me hke affected as women, who if they hear any- 
 thing ill spoken of the ill of their sex^are pre^e^tly moved, 
 as if the contumel>( respected their particular/;! and on the 
 contrary, when they hear good of good women, conclude 5 
 that it belongs to them all. If I see anything that toucheth 
 me, shall I come forth a betrayer of myself presently? 
 No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it ; if honest, I'll avoid it, 
 lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw there 
 noted without a title. A man that is on the mending hand 10 
 will either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his 
 disease. And the wise and virtuous will never think any- 
 thing belongs to themselves that is written, but rejoice that 
 the good are warned not to be such ; and the ill to leave 
 to be such. The person offended hath no reason to be of- 15 
 fended with the writer, but with himself; and so to declare 
 that properly to belong to him which was so spoken of all 
 men^' a^Ht Could be no man's several, but his that would 
 wilfully and desperately claini it. It sufficeth I know 
 what kind of persons I displease, men bred in the declin- 20 
 ing and decay of virtue, betrothed to their own vices ; that 
 have abandoned or prostituted their good names ; hungry 
 and ambitious of infamy, invested in all deformity, en- 
 thralled to ignorance and malice, of a hidden and con- 
 cealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all 25 ^ 
 evil. \y^ 
 
 What is a Poet? — A poet, pacta, is that which by the 
 Greeks is called ko.t itoxyv, o Trotr/rrJ?, a rnaker, *6r a 
 feigner : his art, an art of imitation or feigning ; express- 
 ing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and har- 
 mony ; according to Aristotle from the word Trotetv, which , ^^^ 
 signifies to make or feign. Heilce he is called a poet, \J*- "1 
 not he which writeth in measure only, but that feigneth // 
 and formeth a fable, and writes things like the truth. For r 
 the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and soul of 35 
 any poetical work or poem. 
 
74 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 What meafi you by a Poem ? — A poerrij poema, is not 
 
 alone any work or composition of the poet's in many or 
 
 few verses ; but even one alonelverae sometimes makes a 
 
 perfect poem. As when ^neas hangs up and consecrates 
 
 5 the arms of Abas with this inscription : 
 
 yEneas hcec de Danais victoribus arma, 
 
 \ 
 
 and calls it a poem or carmen. Such are those in 
 Martial : 
 
 , Omnia, Castor, emiS: sic fiet, ut omftia vendas, " 
 
 Pauper vjderi Cinna vult, et est pauper. ^ 7 
 
 So were Horace his odes called Car?hina, his lyric songs. ' 
 And Lucretius ^designs a whole book in his si^th — 
 
 Quod m prime qitoque carmme claret. / " yr^S, 
 
 ^5 And anciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or 
 whatever sentence was expressed, were it much or little, 
 it was called an Epic, Dramatic, Lyric, Elegiac, or Epi- 
 grammatic poem. 
 
 But how differs a Poem fro77i what we call a Poesy ? — 
 
 ^° A poem, as I have told you, is the work of the poet ; the 
 end and fruit of his labor and study. Poesy, /^<?i-/i", is his^>^^jl 
 skill or craft of making ; the very fiction itself, the reason^'*^ js, 
 or form of the work. And these three voices differ, as the.>V^^ 
 thing done, the doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, ' 
 
 25 the feigning, and the feigner ; so the poem, the poesy, ^\t.s ^^ 
 
 Vn^ and the poet. Now the poesy is the habit or the art ; " ^ 
 
 nay, rather the queen of arts, artium regina, which had 
 
 her original from heaven, received thence from the 
 
 Hebrews, and had in prime estimation with the Greeks, 
 
 30 transmitte^.to the Latins and all nations that professed 
 cmlity!' ' The study of it, if we will trust Aristotle, offers 
 L/^>> to mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well and * 
 
DISCOVERIES. 75 
 
 happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society. If we 
 will believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, \ 
 delights our age, adorns our prosperity, comforts our ad- t 
 versity, entertains us at home, keeps us company abroad, 
 travels with us, watches, divides the times of our earnest 5 
 and sports, shares in our country recesses and recreations ; 
 insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thoughtJjV 
 her the absolute mistress of manners and nearest of kinl^ ^-^Jtt* 
 to virtue. And whereas they entitle philosophy to be a ^^^^ y 
 rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the contrary, styled »p JV^^J^ 
 poesy a dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on -' "^ 
 K and guides us by the hand to action with a ravishing 
 delight and incredible sweetness. But before we handle 
 the kinds of poems, with their special differences, or 
 make court to the art itself as a mistress, I would lead 15 
 you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect informa- 
 . tion what he is or should be by nature, by exercise, by 
 t- ^ imitation, by study, and so bring him down through the 
 disciplines of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the ethics, 
 adding somewhat out of all, peculiar to himself, and 20 
 worthy of your admittance or reception, 
 v" First, we require in our poet or maker (for that title 1 ^ 
 
 >t^ 
 
 1 
 
 liJ 
 
 our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) ay ' 
 goodness of natural wit, ingenium. For whereas all other 
 arts consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must 25 
 be able by nature and instinct to pour out the treasure 
 of his mind, and as Seneca %2i\\}i\\Aliqiiando secundum 
 Anacreontem insaniir jiiaindum esse ) by which he 
 understands the poetical rapture. And according to 
 
 lefitei 
 
 divihe ■ in^timct, when it contemnsr common and known 
 conceptions. It utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. 35 
 
 0^ 
 
76 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 'A : 
 
 Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither 
 before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets under- 
 stood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus ; and this 
 niade Ovid to bpast, 
 
 5 Est deits in nobis, agitante cklescimus illo : v 1 
 
 / Sedibus sethereis spiritus ille yenit. , * • 1 
 
 And Lipsius to affirm, ^^ Scio poetam nefninetn prcestan-/^-^ 
 
 tern fiiisse, si?ie parte quadaiii uberio7'e divince aum!^^^-^ 
 
 And hence /it is that the CQminsr.up of srood poets (for 
 
 lo 1 mmd not ineaiocres x)r unos) is so thm and rare among 
 
 us. Every beggarly corporation affords Jhe ^tate a mayor 
 
 or two bailiffs yearly : but solus rex', aut po^ta, hon quo- 
 
 tannis piascitur. 
 
 ^^ , To this perfection of nature in our poet we require 
 
 ^5 exercise of those parts, exercitatio, and frequent. If his 
 
 wit will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of the ancients, 
 
 let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be over hastily 
 
 angry, offer to turn it away from study in a humor ; but 
 
 come to it again upon better cogitation, try another time 
 
 2o with labor. If then it succeed not, cast not away the 
 
 quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor 
 
 desk, but bring all to the forge and file again ; torn it 
 
 anew. There is no statute law of the kingdom bids you 
 
 be a poet against your will o'^the first quarter ; if it comes 
 
 25 in a year or two, it is well. The common rimers pour 
 
 forth verses, such as they are, ex tempore ; but there 
 
 s ^ i^\iAi "never come[s] from them one sense worth the fife of a day. 
 
 ^ <i.| -^ rimer and a poet are two things. It is said of the 
 
 l^^i^v incomparable Virgil that he brought forth his verses like 
 
 ■' ^v^^o a bear, and after formed them with licking. Scaliger the 
 
 "' ,j.%, father writes it of him, that he made a quantity of verses 
 
 v>' in the morning, which afore night he reduced to a less 
 
 v'^yic number. But that which Valerius Maximus hath left 
 
 / recorde ^ of Euripides, the tragic poet, his answer to 
 

 DISCO VERIES. 77 
 
 Alcestis, another poet, is as memorable as modest ; who, 
 when it was told to Alcestis that Euripides had in three 
 days brought forth but three verses, and those with some 
 difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he could with ease 
 have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundly 5 
 replied, " Like enough ; but here is the difference : thy 
 verses will not last those three days, mine will to all time." 
 /which was as much as to tell him he could not write a 
 verse.) I have met many of these rattles that made a 
 noise and buzzed. They had their hum, and no more. 10 
 / Indeed, things wrote with labor deserve to be so read, 
 and will last their age. 
 
 ^^ The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, \ 
 
 \^i7?titatio, to be able to convert the substance or riches""of 
 " another poet to his own use. To make choice of one ^s 
 excellent man above the rest, and so to follow him till he 
 
 y grow veryjie,*'^r so like him as the copy may be mistaken 
 for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what 
 it takes in, crude, raw, or undigested ; ,bjLit \.\^ feeds with 
 an appetite, and hath a stomach to c'ohcoc*t, divide, and 20 
 turn all into nourishment. Not to imitate servilely, as 
 Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw , 
 forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, • 
 \ and turn all into honey, work it into one relish and savor ; 
 make our imitation sweet ; observe how the best writers 25 
 have imitated, and follow them : how Virgil and Statins 
 have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how 
 Alcseus, and the other lyrics ; and so of the rest. 
 
 But that which we especially require in him is an exact- V.; 
 ness of study and multiplicity of reading, lectio ^ which y^ tj^ 
 maketh a full man, not alone enabling him to know the 
 history or argument of a poem and to report it, but so to 
 master the matter and style, as to show he knows how to 
 handle, place, or dispose of either with elegancy when 
 need shall be. And not think he can leap fortL'- suddenly 35 
 
 y 
 
78 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 a poet by dreaming he hath been in Parnassus, or having 
 washed his Hps, as |hev say, in Helicon. There goes more 
 to his making than m\ for to nature, exercise, imitation, 
 •^ ^^d ^study arj ;iiust be Added to make all these perfect. 
 5 Ars coron {a/ opus\ . And though these challenge to them- 
 selves much in the making up of our maker, it is art only 
 can lead him to perfection, and leave him there in posses- 
 sion, as planted by her hand. It is the assertion of Tully, 
 if to an excellent nature there happen an accession or con- 
 lo formation of learning and discipline, there will then remain 
 somewhat noble and singular. For, as Simylus saith in 
 Stobaeus, Oure ^uo-ts iKavy] yivtrai T€^vr]<i arep, ovre irav T€)(yrj 
 1X7} (fiva-Lv K€KTr}fjiiv7}, without art nature can never be per- 
 fect ; and without nature art can claim no being. But 
 15 our poet must beware that his study be not only to learn 
 of himself ; for he that shall affect to do that confesseth 
 his ever having a fool to his master. He must read many, 
 but ever the best and choicest ; those that can teach him 
 anything he must ever account his masters, and reverence. 
 2o Among whom Horace and he that taught him, Aristotle, 
 , deserved to be the first in estimation. Aristotle was the 
 ^yf first accurate critic and truest judge, nay, the greatest 
 ^y philosopher the world ever had ; for he noted the vices of 
 M^ all knowledges in all creatures, and out of many men's 
 ^^\ / 25 perfections in a/gcipn^^e formed still one art. So he 
 ,: */ j[/v5iaught us two qfficei^ iogetfier, how we ought to judge 
 ^ a;V /^;^ightly of others, and what we ought to imitate specially 
 \r'^\f in ourselves : but all this in vain without a natural wit and 
 ^^ a poetical nature in chief. For no man, so soon as he 
 30 knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the better ; 
 but as he is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow the 
 perfecter writer. He must have civil prudence and elo- 
 quence, and that whole, not taken up by snatches or pieces 
 in sentences or remnants when he will handle business or 
 35 carry counsels, as if he came then out of the declaimer's 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
DISCOVERIES. 79 
 
 gallery, or shadow furnished but out of the body, o^ the/ ' 
 ^tate, wjiich) commonly is the school of men : l^orum\^ 
 $-tno2a respub^ica\.^v\i^ poet is the nearest borderer, 
 Y- upon the orator, and expresseth all his virtues, though he / i _ 
 be tied more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, and 5 
 above him in his strengths. And of the kind the comic ' 
 comes nearest ; because in moving the minds of men, and 
 stirring of affections, in which oratory shows, and especially 
 approves her, eminence, he ohiefly excels. What figure of 
 a body .was Lysippus ever able to form with his gravenor \oj) ^ 
 ApeBes^ "to .Qaint with his pencil, ^s ffie< comeayiome 
 j/lo e^>res^e?h soj many and various affections 0^ the mindiBj^ 
 . rThere shall the spectator see^some" insulting witn joy/^^*^ 
 W others fretting with melancholy, raging with anger, mad 
 with love, boiling with avarice, undone with riot, tortured 15 
 with expectation, consumed with fear : no perturbation in 
 common life but the orator finds an example of it in the 
 scene. And then for the elegancy of language, read but 
 this inscription on the grave of a comic poet : x 
 
 Immortales mortales si fas esset flere, \ > 20 
 
 Flerent div^e Camoenae N?evium poetam ; 
 Itaque postquam est Orcino tiaditus thesauro, 
 Obliti sunt Romce lingua loqui Latina. 
 
 Or that modester testimony given by Lucius ^Elius \ 
 
 Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, Musas, si La fine loqui 25 "^^ 
 
 , voluissent, Platitino sermo?ie fuisse locniurasJ' And that 
 
 I illustrious judgment by the most learned M[arcus] Varro ' ^^ 
 
 Jl^^of him,) who pronounced him the prince of letters and 'L\^>l// 
 
 elegancy in the Roman language. ^ * '^ ^^^^ ^\1^^" • > 
 
 I am not of that opinion to conclude a poet's liberty 3^ . c 
 within the narrow limits of laws which either the gram- {sf-. 
 marians or philosophers prescribe. For before they *^;^>-^ 
 found out those laws there were many excellent poet&-, '-> .^ 
 that fulfilled them, amongst whom none more perfec^ v^ c^ 
 
80 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 than Sophocles, who Hved a Httle before Aristotle. Which 
 of the Greeklings durst ever give precepts to Demosthenes ? 
 or to Pericles, whom the age surnamed Heavenly, because 
 he seemed to thunder and lighten with his language ? or 
 5 to Alcibiades, who had rather Nature for his guide than 
 Art for his master? But whatsoever nature at any time 
 dictated to the most happy, or long exercise to the most 
 laborious, that the wisdom and learning of Aristotle hath 
 brought into an art, because he understood the causes of 
 lo things ; and what other men did by chance or custom he' 
 doth by reason ; and not only found out the way not to 
 err, but the short way we should take not to err. 
 
 Many things in Euripides hath Aristophanes wittily 
 reprehended, not out of art, but out of truth. For Eu-* 
 15 ripides is sometimes peccant, as he is most times perfect. 
 But judgment when it is greatest, if reason doth not 
 y, accompany it, is not ever absolute. 
 
 K To judge of poets is only the facult^^ of. poets • andJ . 
 
 . not o/^ll po^ts, bi^ the l>est. Nejiio infilihui's '^e poiilf^f^- 
 ^^'^fiaicd^it^\uam qui 'de pvetis scri)>sit. But some will 
 say critics are a kind of tinkers, that make more faults 
 than they mend ordinarily. See their diseases and those 
 of grammarians. It is true, many bodies are the worse 
 for the meddling with ; and the multitude of physicians 
 25 hath destroyed many sound patients with their wrong 
 ^_^ ■ practice. But the office of a true critic or censor is, not 
 ^ / "to throw by a letter anywhere, or damn an innocent syl- 
 lable, but lay the words together, and amend them ; judge 
 sincerely of the author and his matter, which is the sign 
 30 of solid and perfect learrupg ^^ a man. Such was Horace, 
 an author of much civility!,"' and, if any one among the 
 heathen can be, the best master both of virtue and wis- 
 dom ; an excellent and true judge upon cause and 
 reason, not because he thought so, but because he knew 
 35 so out of use and experience. 
 
DISCO VERIES. uv \ 81 
 
 '\^y^^ 
 
 Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Liicilius 
 
 Cato Grammaticus, Latina Siren, 
 ^ Qui solves legit, et facit poetas. 
 
 Qmntilian of the^same heresy, but rejected. Horace 
 his judgment of Choerillus defended against Joseph 5 
 ScaUger, and of Laberius against JuUus. But chiefly 
 his opinion of Plautus vindicated . against majay that are 
 offended, and say it is a hard censure upon" the parent 
 of all conceit, and sharpness. And they wish it had not 
 fallen from so great a master and censor in the art, whose ^o 
 bondmen knew better how to judge of Plautus than any 
 that dare patronise the family of learning in this age ; 
 who could not be ignorant of the judgment of the times 
 in which he lived, when poetry and the Latin language 
 were at the height ; especially being a man so conversant 15 
 and inwardly familiar with the censures of great men that 
 did discourse of these things daily amongst themselves. 
 Again, a man so gracious and in high favor with the ' 
 
 Emperor, as Augustus often called him his witty man- 
 ling, for the Httleness of his stature ; and, if we may trust 20 
 antiquity, had designed him for a secretary of estate, and 
 invited him to the palace, which he modestly prayed off 
 and refused. Horace did so highly esteem Terence his 
 comedies, as he ascribes the art in comedy to him alone 
 among the Latins, and joins him with Menander. 25 
 
 Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend 
 Horace his judgment to posterity, and not wholly to con- 
 demn Plautus. 
 
 The parts of a comedy ajid tragedy. — The parts of a 
 comedy are the same with a tragedy, and the end is 30 
 partly the same, Jor they both ^ dehght, and teachj^the 
 comics are called Stko-KaXdi oV the lir^e^s Mo iks th4n 
 the tragics. Nor is the moving of laughter always the 
 
 1>'- 
 
82 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 ijend of comedy ; that is rather a fowHng for the people's 
 
 flight, or their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, 
 
 the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of 
 
 J^ turpitude that depraves some part of a man's nature with- 
 
 5 out a disease. As a wry face without pain moves laughter, 
 
 or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady's 
 
 habit and using her actions ; we dislike and scorn such 
 
 representations which made the ancient philosophers ever 
 
 :\ iv>^^ think laughter unfitting in a wise many And this induced 
 
 .V> Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, be- »^ 
 ^ cause he presented the gods sometimes laughing. As 
 also it is divinely said of Aristotle, that to seem ridicu- 
 lous is a part of dishonesty, and foolish. So that what 
 either in the words or sense of an author, or in the 
 
 15 language or actions of men, is awry or depraved doth 
 strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for the most 
 part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all in- 
 solent and obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, 
 injuries to particular persons, perverse and sinister say- 
 
 20 ings and the rather unexpected in the old comedy did 
 move laughter, especially where it did imitate any dis- 
 honesty ; and scurrility came forth in the place of wit, 
 which, whcy^uiiderstands the nature and genius of laughter 
 cannot but perfectly know. 
 
 25 Of which Aristophanes affords an ample harvest, hav- 
 ing not only outgone Tlautus or any other in that kind, 
 but expressed all the moods and figures of what is ridicu- 
 lous oddly. In short, as vinegar is not accounted good 
 until the wine be corrupted, so jests that are true and 
 
 30 natural seldom raise laughter with the beast, the multi- 
 tude. They love nothing that is right and proper. The 
 farther it runs from reason or possibility with them the 
 better it is. What could have made them laugh, like 
 ^xo_set_ Socrates presented, that exam])le of all good life, 
 
 35 honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley. 
 
 I 
 
DISCOVERIES. 83 
 
 and there play the philosopher in a basket ; measure how 
 
 many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, 
 
 and edify the people fr6'fil^me engine. This was theatri-M .^^^'^Y 
 
 cal w it, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, in- , ,> 'j;; 
 
 vented for scorn and laughter ; whereas, if it had sayorqd » 
 
 of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candor, to have tasten . - 
 
 a wise or a learned palate, — spit it out presently ! this 
 
 is bitter and profitable : this instructs and would inform 
 
 us ! what need we know any thing, that are nobly born, 
 
 more than a horse-race, or a hunting- match, our day to ^o 
 
 break with citizens, and such innate mysteries ? This is 
 
 truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril again, reducing 
 
 all wit to the original dung-cart. 
 
 Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or 
 
 dj'amatic. ^s 
 
 ^ What the measure of a fable is. — The fable or plot 
 of a poem defined, —r? The epic f^ble, differing fro?n the 
 dramatic. — To^tfe >gsiifciJ^--x>jLtnlsrquesi^on we must 
 first agree in the definition of the fable. The fable is. 
 called the imitation of one entire and perfect action] 20'" 
 whose parts are so joined and knit together, as nothing 
 in the structure can be changed, or taken away, without 
 impairing or troubling the whole, of which there is a pro- 
 portionable magnitude in the members. As for example : 
 if a man would build a house, he would first appoint a 25 
 place to build it in, which he would define within certain 
 bounds. So in the constitution of a poem, the action is 
 aimed at by the poet, which answers place in a building, 
 and that action hath his largeness, compass, and propor- 
 tion. But as a court or king's palace requires other 30 
 dimensions than a private house, so the epic asks a 
 magnitude from other poems, since what is place in the 
 one is action in the other ; the difference is in space. 
 
84 DISCO VERIES. 
 
 n 
 
 AT 
 
 So that by this definition we conclude the fable to be 
 he imitation of one perfect and entire action, as one 
 perfect and entire place is required to a building. By 
 perfect, we understand that to which nothing is wanting, 
 5 as place to the building that is raised, and action to the 
 fable that is formed. It is perfect, perhaps not for a 
 court or king's palace, which requires a greater ground, 
 but for the structure we would raise ; so the space of the 
 action may not prove large enough for the epic fable, 
 lo yet be perfect for the dramatic, and whole. 
 
 What we understaiid by whole. — Whole we call that, 
 A * and perfect, which hath a beginning, a midst, and an end. 
 jj/..^ So the place of any building may be whole and entire for 
 that work, though too little for a palace. As to a tragedy 
 15 or a comedy, the action may be convenient and perfect 
 ^^ that would not fit an epic poem in n-^aaiiitude. .So d* Hon 
 is a perfect creature in himself, though^t_b'ele^s' than that 
 of a buffalo or a rhinocerote. They differ but in specie : 
 either in the kind is absolute ; both have their parts, and 
 20 either the whole. Therefore, as in every body so in every 
 action, which is the subject of a just work, there is required 
 a certain proportionable greatness, neither too vast nor 
 too minute. For that which happens to the eyes when 
 we behold a body, the same happens to the memory when 
 25 we contemplate an action. I look, upon a monstrous giant, 
 as. Tityus, whose .^body covered' nine acres of land, and 
 mine eye sticks upon every part ; the whole that consists 
 jyv'- of those parts will never be taken in at one entire view. 
 i^>^^^ ii^ 3. fable, if the action be too great, we can never 
 ■^ 30 comprehend the whole together in our imagination. Again, 
 if it be too litde, there ariseth no pleasure out of the ob- 
 ject ; it affords the view no stay ; it is beheld, and van- 
 isheth at once. As if we should look upon an ant or 
 pismire, the parts fly the sight, and the whole considered 
 35 is almost nothing. The same happens in action, which 
 
DISCO VERIES. 85 
 
 is the object of memory, as the body is of sight. Too 
 vast oppresseth the eyes, and exceeds the memory ; too 
 little scarce admits either. 
 
 What the utmost Iwund of a fable. — Now in every 
 action it behoves the poet to know which is his utmost 5 
 bound, how far with fitness and a necessary proportion 
 he may produce and determine it ; that is, till either good 
 fortune change into the worse, or the worse into the better. 
 For as a body without proportion cannot be goodly, no 
 more can the action, either in comedy or tragedy, without ^^ 
 his fit bounds. And every bound, for the nature of the 
 subject, is esteemed the best that is largest, till it can 
 increase no more ; so it behoves the action in tragedy or > 
 comedy to be let grow till the necessity ask a conclusion ; 
 wherein two things are to be considered : first, that 
 
 place left for digression and art. For the episodes and ^ Q>^ ^ 
 
 t household stuff 
 1 so far form the 
 measure and extent of a fable dramatic. 20 
 
 WJiat \is meant^ by 07ie and e?tti7'e. — Now that it 
 should be one and entire. One is considerable two ways ; 
 either as it is only separate, and by itself, or as being 
 composed of many parts, it begins to be one as those 
 parts grow or are wrought together. That it should be 25 
 one the first way alone, and by itself, no man that hath 
 tasted letters ever would say, especially having required 
 before a just magnitude and equal proportion of the parts 
 in themselves. Neither of which can possibly be, if the 
 action be single and separate, not composed of parts, 30 
 which laid together in themselves, with an equal and fit- 
 ting proportion, tend to the same end ; which thing out 
 of antiquity itself hath deceived many, and more this day 
 it doth deceive. 
 
 So many there be of old that have thought the action 35 
 
 ■- - o , - -- it-v^ 
 
 exceed not the compass of one day ; next, that there be j' x^^-*"^ ^^ 
 place left for digression and art. For the episodes and ^ Q)-^^^ 
 digressions in a fable are the same that household stuff ^^v^*|J^ 
 and other furniture are in a house. And so far form the ^^^^ 
 
86 DISCOVERIES. 
 
 c 
 
 ,(i>^ of one man to be one, as of Hercules, Theseus, Achilles, 
 
 ^^^ Ulysses, and other heroes ; which is both foolish and false, 
 
 ^ since by one and the same person many things may be 
 
 severally done which cannot fitly be referred or joined to 
 
 5 the same end : which not only the excellent tragic poets, 
 
 but the best masters of the epic. Homer and Virgil, saw. 
 
 For though the argument of an epic poem be far more 
 
 diffused and poured out than that of tragedy, yet Virgil, 
 
 writing of ^neas, hath pretermitted many things. He 
 
 lo neither tells how he was born, how brought up, how he 
 
 fought with Achilles, how he was snatched out of the batde 
 
 by Venus ; but that one thing, how he came into Italy, he 
 
 prosecutes in twelve books. The rest of his journey, his 
 
 ^^^r^i s^, the sack of Troy, are put not as the argu- 
 5 ment of the work, but episodes of the argument. So 
 Homer laid by many things of Ulysses, and handled no 
 more than he saw tended to one and the same end. 
 
 Contrary tg^ which, and foolishly, those poets did, 
 whom the'^'pnilbsopher taxeth, of whom one gathered 
 >>^' 2o all the actions of Theseus, another put all the labors of 
 ercules in one work. So did he^ whom Juvenal men- 
 ons in the beginning, " hoaVseCodXis," that recited a 
 volume compiled, which he called his TJicseid, not yet 
 finished, to the great trouble both of his hearers and 
 25 himself; amongst which there were many parts had no 
 coherence nor kindred one with other, so for they were 
 from being one action, one fable. For as a house, con- 
 sisting of divers materials, becomes one structure and 
 one dwelling, so an action, composed of divers parts, may 
 30 become one fable, epic or dramatic. For example, in 
 a tragedy, look upon Sophocles his Ajax: Ajax, deprived 
 of Achilles's armor, which he hoped from the suffrage of 
 the Greeks, disdains, and, growing impatient of the in- 
 jury, rageth, and turns mad. In that humor he doth 
 35 many senseless things, and at last falls upon the Grecian 
 
 i.{ 
 
 J 
 
DISCOVERIES. 87 
 
 flock and kills a great ram for Ulysses : returning to his 
 sense, he grows ashamed of the scorn, and kills himself; 
 and is by the chiefs of the Greeks forbidden burial. 
 These things agree and hang together, not as they were 
 done, but as seeming to be done, which made the action 5 
 whole, entire, and absolute. 
 
 The conclusion concerning the whole, and the parts. — 
 IVJiich a7'e episodes — For the whole, as it consisteth of 
 parts, so without all the parts it is not the whole ; and to 
 make it absolute is required not only the parts, but such 10 
 parts as are true. For a part of the whole was true, 
 which, if you take away, you either change the whole or 
 it is not the whole. For if it be such a part, as, being 
 present or absent, nothing concerns the whole, it cannot 
 be called a part of the whole ; and such are the episodes, ^s 
 of which hereafter. For the present here is one example : 
 the single combat of Ajax with Hector, as it is at large 
 described in Homer, nothing belongs to this Ajax of 
 Sophocles. 
 
 You admire no poems but such as run like a brewer's 20 
 cart upon the stones, hobbHng : 
 
 Et, quK per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt, a/ 
 
 Actius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt. /''f^^'f^^^^ 
 Attonitusque legis terra'i, frugiferai. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 1. Tecum habita, etc. Persius, Satires, 4. 52. Thus translated by 
 
 Gifford : 
 
 To your own breast in quest of worth repair, 
 And blush to find how poor a stock is there. 
 
 2 1. Silva rerum et sententiariim, etc. Silva, the raw material of 
 facts and thoughts, 'vKri, wood, as it were, so called from the multi- 
 plicity and variety of the matter contained therein. For just as we are 
 commonly wont to call a vast number of trees growing indiscriminately 
 " a wood " (timber) ; so also did the ancients call those of their books, 
 in which were collected at random articles upon various and diverse 
 topics, a wood (timber-trees). Cf. Jonson's Underwoods. Preface to 
 the Reader : " With the same leave the ancients called that kind of 
 body sylva, or 1^X77, in which there were works of divers nature and 
 matter congested; as the multitude called timber-trees promiscuously 
 growing, a wood or forest, so I am bold to entitle these lesser poems of 
 later growth by this of Underwood, out of the analogy they hold to the 
 Forest in my former book, and no otherwise." See also The Alchemist, 
 3. 2 : " The whole family or vi^ood of you." Sylva is often opposed to 
 stcpellex. See the quotation from Persius, above, and the following 
 of Bacon : " Minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have 
 not gathered that which Cicero (^Orator, 80) calleth sylva and stipellex 
 (stuff and variety) to begin with those arts," etc. (^Advancement of 
 Learning, Bk. II. p. 72, ed. 1819). 
 
 3 5. As. That. As is used for that after so in Elizabethan English. 
 Cf. 13 32, 26 1, 27 8, 34 18, 36 25, 36 28, 37 25, 41 26, 49 29, 57 6, 69 20, 
 72 15, 81 24, and 83 21; and see Shakespeare Grammar, § 109. Occa- 
 sionally Jonson uses so — that, as in modern English, 7 10 and 72 34; 
 and even the pleonastic as that, but there after such, 71 17. 
 
 3 14. Casus. Change. 
 
 3 18. Consilia. Advice, counsel. 
 
 89 
 
90 NOTES. 
 
 3 I'J. No man . . . l^tt^ may. Note the omission of the subject, 
 no unusual practice where the subject cannot be mistaken. See S/i. 
 Gram. § 399. 
 
 4 4. Taught by hi^nself. avrodidaKTos, foot-note of the foHo of 1642. 
 4 4. Had a fool to his master. Cf. 13 17, 38 10, 69 26, and 78 17. 
 
 See Sh. Gram. § 189. 
 
 4 5. Fama. Reputation. 
 
 4 9. Emergent. Capable of extricating himself, 
 
 4 10. Negotia. Business. 
 
 4 12. Our too much haste. Note the order. See Sh. Gram.% ^\. 
 Much is used as an adjective after a pronomial adjective. 
 
 4 15. Amor patrice. I>ove of the fatherland. A literal translation 
 of Euripides, Phcenissa:, 358-361, ed. Didot. 
 
 IlaTpidos epdv dirapras' 6s dXXws X^7et, 
 Aoyoiai xai'pet, top 8^ vovv €K€l<t e^et. 
 
 Mr. Swinburne has quoted this beautiful passage, as Jonson trans- 
 lates it, with the prefatory words, " The ring of what follows is pure 
 gold" {A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 131). He has also suggested an 
 emendation in the insertion of the word "not" before the final word; 
 i.e. " his heart is [not] there." It will be noticed that the emendation 
 is unnecessary, in view of the original. Cf. a later passage of Mr. 
 Swinburne's (p. 179), in which he falls afoul of Jonson for the state- 
 ment that Euripides " is sometimes peccant, as he is most truly perfect." 
 Mr. Swinburne's words are : " The perfection of such shapeless and 
 soulless abortions as the Phcenisscz and the Hercules Furens is about as 
 demonstrable as the lack of art which Ben Jonson regretted and con- 
 demned in the author of Hamlet and Othello.''' It may well be doubted 
 if Mr. Swinburne has even been convicted of praising Euripides before. 
 
 4 15. There is a necessity all men should love, etc. Note the omis- 
 sion of the relative. Cf. 7 14, 18 11, 19 29, 19 33, 20 6, 23 25, 24 G, 34 19, 
 37 23, etc.; and see Sh. Gram. § 244. 
 
 4 18. Ingenia. Innate dispositions. 
 
 4 20. Attempting. Making trial of. 
 
 4 21. Applausus. Praise. A literal translation from Paterculus, 
 Hist. Rom. 2. 92: Audita visis laudamus lihentius, etc. (Whalley). 
 
 4 24. Overlaid. Burdened, oppressed. 
 
 4 25. Opinio. Opinion; in modern English, reputation. See 6 3, 
 25 27; and cf. i Hen. IV. 5. 4. 48; and Othello, 2. 3. 195. 
 
 4 32. Impostura. Imposture. 
 
NOTES. 91 
 
 5 -i. yactura viUc. A waste or casting away of life. 
 
 5 9. Furitanus hypocrita est, etc. A Puritan is a heretical hypo- 
 crite, whom conceit in his own perspicacity has disturbed in the balance 
 of his mind, by which he flatters himself that he, together with a few 
 others, has detected certain errors in the dogmas of the Church, whence, 
 driven by a sacred fury, he madly fights against civil authority in the 
 belief that thus he is rendering obedience to God. 
 
 5 15. Miitua aiixilia. Mutual assistance. Translated by Jonson, 
 consociation, intimate fellowship, a word since superseded by associa- 
 tion. Cf. Jeremy Taylor, Works, ed. 1835, I. p. 220 : "To fight a duel 
 is ... a consociation of many of the worst, acts." 
 
 5 18. And lohoni his favor breeds. Cf. 14 6. 
 
 5 25. Cogiiit\_io'] universi. Jonson's translation is " the knowledge 
 of all nature "; i.e. of the whole world. 
 
 6 1. Consiliarii adjunct\i'\, probitas, sapientia. The joint coun- 
 sellors, honesty and wisdom. Cf. Ben Jonson's Conversations with 
 Drummond (Sh. Soc. Pub. p. 37) : " Of all styles he loved most to 
 be named Honest, and hath of that ane hundreth letters so naming 
 him." 
 
 6 3. Opinion. Cf. 4 25, 25 27. 
 
 6 7. Vita recta. An upright life. 
 
 6 8. Cozenage. Cajolery. The folio reads coosinage. Cf. 47 2. 
 
 6 11. Obsequeniia, humanitas, solicitudo. Complaisance, civility or 
 kindliness, care or circumspection. Marginal notes in the folio. 
 
 6 19. Dat nox consilium. Night gives counsel. Cf. Bacon, Essays, 
 20, of Counsel : In node consilium ; and Reynold's note thereon in his 
 ed. of the Essays (Macmillan, 1891, p. 151), where are references to 
 the Greek original, 'Ev pvktI ^ovXifj; Gaisford, Parccmiographi Grccci, 
 etc. See also a note of Erasmus on this head : Adagia, sub titulo. In 
 node consilium, 2. 2. 43; and finally the French proverb, " La nuit porte 
 conseil.^'' 
 
 6 20. Extemporal. Unpremeditated. Cf. " Some extemporal god 
 of rime," LLL. i. 2. 189. 
 
 6 26. Modestia, parrhasia. Marginal note in the folio. Parrhasia 
 is ingenuousness, openness of speech. 
 
 6 28. Empire. Governing influence; here almost show of power. 
 Cf. The Magnetic Lady, 3. 4. 
 
 6 34. Absit, rex, etc. Plutarch, de Alex. s. virt. s. fort. ( Oratio, 
 2. i) : "Far be it from thee, O king, to know these things better than 
 I." Bacon includes this anecdote among his Apothegms, 254. It will 
 be noticed that Jonson inaccurately refers the story to Alexander in 
 
92 NOTES. 
 
 place of his father, Philip. The reference of the folio, in vita Alex., 
 is also incorrect. 
 
 7 1. PerspicuiiaSi elegantia. Clearness, grace. 
 
 7 3. Discipline. Learning. 
 
 7 6. Braky. Abounding in brambles. 
 
 7 9. Natura non effceia. Translated in the text. 
 
 7 14. Non nifnium o'edendtim, etc. Freely : Set not too much 
 store on antiquity. Cf. Jonson's opinion of the authority of Aristotle, 
 66 lG-24. 
 
 7 14. Nothing can conduce. Cf. 4 17, 18 11, 20 6, 23 25, 24 6, 34 19, 
 37 23. 
 
 7 24. Noji domini ftostri, etc. They were not our lords, but our 
 leaders. 
 
 7 26. Several. Separate possession. Cf. 73 18. 
 
 7 26. Patet omnibus, etc. Translated by Jonson. 
 
 7 27. Mttltum ex ilia, etc. Much of it yet remains for those who 
 shall be hereafter. The folio reads relicta for relictum, which Mr. 
 Swinburne corrects. 
 
 7 28. Dissentire licet; sed cum ratione. Dissent if you will, but 
 with reason. 
 
 7 30. Look up at. Look up to, in modern English. 
 
 7 31. Presently. At once. Cf. 18 27, 73 3, 83 7; Othello, 5. 2. 52: 
 
 Desdemona. Yes, but not yet to die. 
 Othello. O yes, presently ; 
 
 and North's Plutarch, 1016 e: "Setting forth to the reader, not as a 
 battle already fought, but presently a-fighting." 
 
 7 35. Nulla ars sitnul, etc. No art is completed as soon as dis- 
 covered. 
 
 84. Evict. Mr. Swinburne explains: "In modern English — if 
 the text is not corrupt — as the comparison or confutation of theirs with 
 mine shall elicit" (^A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 133). Evict in the 
 sense evince, prove, is, however, not unusual. Cf. " The main question 
 is evicted" (Jeremy Taylor, Works, ed. 1835, ^I- P- ^S^)- 
 
 84. Fautor. A favorer, patron, or abettor. Cf. "The pope who 
 is the fautor or rather the padrone of all the saints " (ScoXX^ s Discoverie 
 of Witchcraft, reprint of ed. of 1584, p. 443). 
 
 8 7. It profits not me. Note the order, and cf. 36 1, 47 18. 
 
 8 9. Non mihi cedendum, etc. Not that submission is due to me, 
 but to truth. 
 
 8 11. Scientiic liberates, etc. Translated in the text. 
 
NO TES. 93 
 
 8 22. Wits. Mental powers. Jonson uses the word in the plural, 
 10 14, 16 5, 23 33, 24 8; in the singular, 30 23 and 54 11; and in its 
 modern sense, 68 11. 
 
 8 22. There are. The folio reads they are. 
 
 8 23. Caract. Carat, the usual Elizabethan form of the word. Cf. 
 Every Man in his Humor, 3. 2. 
 
 8 27. Honesta ambitio. Honorable ambition. 
 
 S 29. Worthy of love. The folio reads leave fur love. 
 
 8 31. Maritus improbus. A shameless husband. 
 
 8 31. Delicate. Choice, agreeable. Cf. 44 22. 
 
 9 1. AJ/lictio pia magistra. Freely, but sufficiently translated in 
 the text. 
 
 9 3. Deploratis fact lis descensus Ave mi. To the lost, easy is the 
 descent into hell. An adaptation of Virgil's well-known words : "facilis 
 descensus Averno''^ {^/Eneid, 6. 126). 
 
 9 8. yEgidius cursu superat. .^gidius wins in the race, or excels 
 at running. /Egidius was a Roman commander in Gaul under Majorian 
 (457-461 A.D.). He is described by Gibbon (^Decline and Fall, chap. 
 36) as one "who equalled or at least imitated the heroes of ancient 
 Rome." The allusion of the text is not clear. \\<^H f*<^,' 
 
 9 9. Footman. A runner attending a person of rank, to go before 
 and assist on bad roads or in crossing streams (Halliwell). 
 
 9 10. Prodigo nummi nauci. Money is worthless to a spend- 
 thrift. 
 
 9 13. Munda et sordida. Bedizened but filthy. Cf. the proverb : 
 The more women look in their glasses, the less they look to their 
 houses (Ray's English Proverbs.^ p. 34, and Outlandish Proverbs, No. 
 250, London, 1640). 
 
 9 18. Latro sesqiiipedalis. A thief and a half. Cf. Horace, Ars 
 Poetica, 9. 7 : Sesquipedalia verba, foot and a half foot words. 
 
 9 18. The thief that had a longing. The folio gives the marginal 
 note, " with a great belly " ; i.e. with a great appetite. Cf. a similar and 
 more common use of the word " stomach " in the same sense. Bettris, 
 sent to invite Benedick to supper, plays upon the word "stomach," 
 appetite or courage {Much Ado, 2. 3. 265). 
 
 9 20. Like the German lord. The folio gives as marginal note, 
 Com\es~\ de Schortenhien, which Gifford, on I know not what authority, 
 corrects to Schertenhein ; Cunningham reads Schortenhein. 
 
 9 22. Herborough or harborough. A place of temporary residence, 
 an inn or lodging. 
 
 9 27. Calumnies fructus. The fruit of calumny. 
 
94 NOTES. 
 
 9 34. A mere impertinent. The folio has the marginal note im- 
 pertinens. 
 
 10 5. Bellum scribentium. War of writers. Cf. *' How do the 
 grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case in Jupiter ! How do 
 they break their own pates to salve that of Priscian ! . . , Yea, even 
 among wiser militants, how many wounds have been given, and credits 
 slain, for the poor victory of an opinion or the beggarly conquest of a 
 distinction ! Scholars are men of peace ; they bear no arms, but their 
 tongues are sharper than Actius, his razor; their pens carry farther, 
 and give louder report than thunder : I had rather stand the shock of 
 a basilisco, than the fury of a merciless pen " (Sir Thomas Brown, 
 Religio Medici, ed. Macmillan, p. 98). 
 
 10 11. Sed meliore in omne, etc. But I have enjoyed a mind and 
 disposition in all respects better than my fortune. 
 
 10 13. Piugue solum lassat, etc. Rich soil wearies, but labor itself 
 is delightful. 
 
 10 14. Differentia inter doctos et sciolos. The difference between 
 the learned and smatterers. 
 
 10 14. Wits. Cf. 8 22, 16 5, 54 11, and 68 11. 
 
 10 21. Welt. A hem, or border; an edge made by folding cloth 
 over a cord. Still in use in some parts of the United States. 
 
 10 23. Impostor U7n fucus. The pretence of impostors. 
 
 10 28. Icunctdarum motio. Puppet play, 
 
 10 29. Et sordet gesticulatio. And the gestures become despi- 
 cable. 
 
 10 31. Principes et administri. Princes and their ministers. 
 
 11 4. Finis expectandus, etc. Freely: We should await the out- 
 come of the career of each man, for man is a being most subject to 
 change. Possibly in allusion to the well-known story of Solon's reply 
 to Croesus, that no man can be considered happy until his death. See 
 Herodotus, Clio, 30 et seqq. 
 
 11 7. Scitum Hispanicum. A Spanish maxim. 
 
 11 7. A quick ; i.e. a current saying. 
 
 11 8. Artes inter hceredes non dividi. A man's accomplishments 
 are not divisible amongst his heirs. 
 
 11 14. Non nova res livor. Translated in the words immediately 
 following. Mr. Swinburne considers the next five sections a connected 
 essay on envy and calumny, and adds, " for weight, point, and vigor, it 
 would hardly be possible to overpraise it " {A Study of Ben Jonson, 
 p. 136). 
 
 11 17. Quorum odium virtute relicta placet. Whom it gives satis- 
 
NOTES. 95 
 
 faction to hate, abandoning virtue. I have purposely preserved the 
 ambiguity of the words quorum odium. 
 
 11 30. Nil gratius protervo lib\ro\ Nothing is more delightful 
 than a racy book. 
 
 12 4. Jam litterce sordent. Nowadays literature is despised; lit- 
 erally, filthy. 
 
 12 4. He is upbraidingly called a poet. Cf. 22 19 and 44 10. As 
 to this disrepute of poetry, see the Defense of Poesie (ed. Cook, p. 45) : 
 " And now that an over-faint quietness should seem to strew the house 
 for poets, they are almost in as good reputation as mountebanks at 
 Venice." See also Puttenham : " P"or as well poets as poesy are 
 despised, and the name become of honorable, infamous, subject to 
 scorn and derision " {Arte of English Poesie, 1.8). 
 
 12 10. Pasttts hodier\ni'\ ingen{ii\ "The diet of the times," in 
 the author's words. Note the personal element of these five extracts 
 on calumny, breaking forth at last into the personal pronoun: "but 
 they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers." 
 
 12 12. Gallants cannot sleep else. Cf. Juvenal, Satire, 3. 281 : 
 Ergo non aliter poterit dormire; and Proverbs, 4. 16. 
 
 12 24. Sed seculi morbus. Translated in the text. 
 
 12 28. Her dotage is noio broke forth. For this use of be instead of 
 the modern English have, see Sh. Gram. § 295. 
 
 12 31. Alastoris malitia. The malice of Alastor, an avenging deity 
 or genius. Cf Plutarch, Life of Marius (Clough, III. p. 54, note) : 
 " Marius boasted that he had brought upon him [Metellus] an avenging 
 genius, an Alastor; i.e. had put him, as it were, within the range of 
 punishment divinely attaching to particular acts, however committed." 
 See also Life of Cicero {ibid. V. p. 86), where ctXdo-ra;/) is translated 
 " divine vengeance." Shelley's use of the word as the " spirit of soli- 
 tude " is very different. 
 
 13 4. Mali choragi fuere. They were bad choragi ; ?'.<?. they dis- 
 charged their duties unworthily. The choragus, or choregus, was one 
 who discharged the duties of the choregia, one of the most expensive 
 of the ordinary liturgies at Athens. These duties consisted chiefly in 
 providing the chorus, their costumes, and their trainer, and keeping all 
 during the period of rehearsal. 
 
 13 9. Meretricious. The folio reads meritorious, a palpable mis- 
 print, corrected by Giffbrd. 
 
 13 9. But these. As to these; a classical construction, 
 
 13 12. That an Elephant [/J^jo. The folio omits the numeral /. 
 
 13 14. Cast. Allotment, share. 
 
96 NOTES. 
 
 13 15. Canary sack. A strong, sweet wine. " Sack if it be Seres 
 
 (as it should be), you shall know it by the mark of a cork, burned 
 
 on one side of the bung, and they be ever full gage, and so are other 
 
 sacks, and the longer they lye, the better they be. . . . Your strong 
 
 sacks are of the Islands of the Canaries and of Malligo " (Needham's 
 
 English Housewife, quoted in Drake, Sh. and his Times, II. p. 131, ^/ 
 
 seqq.). Sack is almost as constantly associated with the name of 
 
 Jonson as with that of Falstafif, not, however, with the same justice. 
 
 See, however, Jonson's Epigram, loi. Inviting a Friend to Supper, in 
 
 which he promises him 
 
 A pure cup of rich Canary wine, 
 
 Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine. 
 
 13 17. A Spanish boy to his interpreter. Cf. 4 4, 38 10, 69 2G, 78 17. 
 
 13 18. Archy, the principal fool of state. The real name of this 
 court jester was Archibald Armstrong. He appears to have been in 
 high repute with Charles I. as prince and king. Jonson alludes to 
 Archy again in his Staple of Newes, 3. I, and in Neptune's Triumph, a 
 masque in celebration of the return of Prince Charles from Ireland in 
 1624. Archy seems at times to have transcended the privileges of his 
 class, as the records of the Council, March ii, 1637-8, show that 
 "Archibald Armstrong, the king's fool, for certain scandalous words of 
 a high nature, spoken by him against the Lord Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury his grace, shall have his coat pulled over his head, and be dis- 
 charged the king's service and banished the court" (Rushworth, Pt. II. 
 vol. I. p. 471). Muckle John, Archy's successor, was perhaps the last 
 regular personage of the kind (Douce, Illustrations of Shakespeare, II. 
 p. 308). 
 
 13 21. lingua sapientis potius quam loquentis optanda. The wise 
 man's tongue should be desired rather than the gabbler's. 
 
 13 25. That there was a zvall, etc. Cf. Plutarch, Aloralia, de Gar- 
 riditate, 3, thus translated by Goodwin : " And yet there is no member 
 of human bodies that nature has so strongly enclosed within a double 
 fortification as the tongue, entrenched within a barricade of sharp 
 teeth, to the end that, if it refuses to obey and keep silent when reason 
 ' presses the glittering reins ' within, we should fix our teeth in it till 
 the blood comes rather than suffer inordinate and unseasonable din " 
 (IV. p. 223). 
 
 13 30. But you shall see; i.e. may or will see. Applied to that 
 which is of common occurrence, or so evident that it cannot but be 
 seen (67/. Grain. § 315, p. 224, subfn.). Cf. 29 11 and 79 13. 
 
 13 31, Abound with words. See Sh. Gram. § 193. 
 
NO TES. 97 
 
 13 32. As. That. See 3 5, and references there. 
 
 14 3. Bedlam-like. The folio reads Bet'' lent, the intermediate form 
 between Bethlehem and Bedlam. Cf. Best Flays of Thomas Dekker, 
 Mermaid ^Q.x\Q.%, p. 173. 
 
 14 6. Whom the disease . . . he. Note the Latin construction in 
 the omission of the demonstrative before whom. See SJl. Gram. 
 §§ 242, 243, and cf. 5 18. 
 
 14 8. He will hire men to hear him. A common practice in Rome, 
 Cf. Quintilian's allusion : " They [common speakers] cannot endure the 
 awful silence of attention, but court the shouts of the mob that is either 
 hired to applaud them, or that stands round the tribunal by accident " 
 {de Institutioiie Oratoria, 4. 2. 37; and Pliny, Epistles, 6. 2). 
 
 14 12. Hoiner^s Ther sites. Hiad, 2. 211, et seqq. "Ill-favored 
 beyond all men that came to Ilios." 
 
 14 12. ' KfieTpoeiTT^s, cLKpLTOfivdos. Immoderate talker, senseless 
 babbler. Cf. Iliad, 2. 212 and 246. Homer uses the former word as 
 descriptive of Thersites, and puts the second into the mouth of Ulysses, 
 in his rebuke of the heroic representative of blatant democracy. 
 
 14 13. Loqiiax magis, quam factindus. Clamorous rather than elo- 
 quent. An expression applied by Quintilian to one M. Acilius Palicanus 
 {Inst. 4. 2. 2). 
 
 14 14. Satis loquentice, sapientice partwi. Abundance of talk, but 
 little wisdom (Sallust, Oratio C. Cottce Consulis ad Fopuliim, Frag- 
 menta, 6). Both quotations will also be found in A. Gellius, I. 15. 4 
 and 7. 
 
 14 15, rXwo-o-Tjs TOL 6rjcravp6s, etc. Repeated in the following Latin, 
 Hesiod, Opera et Dies, 719. Thus translated: "The best treasure, 
 look you, among men, is a sparing tongue, and the most grace is that 
 of one which moves measuredly." 
 
 14 19. At this point the folio has the following marginal references : 
 Homeri Ulysses, Pindari \i.e. Spinthari] Epaminond[as], Demacatus 
 \i.e. Demaratus] Plutarchi, Vid[e] Zeuxidis pict[oris] serm[onem] ad 
 Megabizum, Plutarch. I can find no remark of Zeuxis, such as any of 
 those contained in the text, either in Plutarch or elsewhere. It will be 
 noticed that the references to the text are complete without this one. 
 This portion of the text is peculiarly corrupt. 
 
 14 19, Ulysses . . . a long-thinking man. Cf. 6 5^ ttoit/tt/s rhv 
 \oyn!)TaTov 'Odvcrcr^a crLUTrrjXSTarop ireiroir]Ke (Plutarch, de Garrtilitate, 
 8) ; and see Iliad, 3. 216, et seqq. : " But whenever Odysseus full of wiles 
 rose up, he stood and looked down with eyes fixed upon the ground, 
 and waved not his staff either backwards or forwards; but he held it 
 
98 NOTES. 
 
 stiff, like a man of no understanding. One would deem him to be 
 churlish, and naught but a fool. But when he uttered his great voice 
 from his chest, then could no mortal man contend with Odysseus; then 
 marvelled we not thus to behold Odysseus's aspect." 
 
 14 20. Epaminondas is celebrated by Spintharns. The folio read- 
 ing is by Pindar. Epaminondas, the famous Theban general and states- 
 man, who, with his friend Pelopidas, raised Thebes to the height of her 
 power, after freeing her from the Spartan supremacy. He was killed 
 at the battle of Mantineia in 362. There is an error in the folio, as 
 Pindar is supposed to have died in 442, some thirty years prior to the 
 probable birth of Epaminondas. Jonson must have had the following 
 passage of Plutarch before him {De Gen. Socrat. 23), thus freely trans- 
 lated by Grote (^Hist. of Greece X.' p. 167): "His [Epaminondas's] 
 patience as a listener, and his indifference to showy talk on his own 
 account, were so remarkable that Spinthariis (the father of Aristoxenus), 
 after numerous conversations with him, affirmed that he never met with 
 any one who understood more, and talked less." I am indebted to my 
 friend and colleague. Professor Lamberton, for the suggestion that the 
 word Pindar (IltVSa/JOs) is a misprint for Spinthar (Zirivdapos), a mis- 
 take which may have arisen either in manuscript or in the printer's 
 office; and one the more likely to occur in Jonson's day from the com- 
 pound Greek characters then in use. This error was noticed, but not 
 explained, in a note entitled, Pare Ben Jonson canght tripping (^Noies 
 and Queries, Series 5, vi. pp. 346 and 398). 
 
 14 22. Demaratus. The folio reads Dcmarcatus, a misprint, followed 
 by all the editors. Demaratus was a Corinthian, friend of Philip and 
 Alexander. The story is told by Plutarch {^Moralia, Apophihcgtuata 
 Laconica, Demaratus, i). The saying is also attributed to Bias (</<? 
 Garrulitate., 4). 
 
 14 22. Demaratus, whejt on the bench he. See Sh. Gram. § 242 : 
 " When a proper name is separated by an intervening clause from its 
 verb, then for clearness the redundant pronoun is often inserted." 
 Cf. 31 IG. 
 
 14 27. Diivi tacet indoctus, etc. As long as the ignoramus holds 
 his tongue, he may be ac(!ounted wise, for he covers the diseases of his 
 mind by his silence. Referable to the Greek aphorism : iras rts airal- 
 3euTos <f>pouLfMd)TaT6s iart anoirOiy: Whoso is unlearned, is wisest being 
 silent. 
 
 14 29. Zeno of Citium flourished between 350 and 258. He was 
 the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, and resided mostly at 
 Athens, where he was highly honored. This anecdote is related by 
 
NO TES. 99 
 
 Plutarch {de Garrulitate, 4). Lord Bacon relates the same, slightly 
 varied, in his Apothegms, 230. 
 
 14 30, Who being invited. Cf. Sh. 67- am. § 263. 
 
 15 3. That kneiu to be. Note omission of hoiv. 
 15 7. Argute dicttim. A witty saying. 
 
 15 9. This man might have been a counsellor of state, etc. Cf. 
 Congreve's treatment of the same subject (Anderson's British Poets, 
 
 vii- P- 557) : 
 
 When Lesbia first I saw so heavenly fair, 
 
 With eyes so bright, and with that awful air, 
 
 I thought my heart, which durst so high aspire. 
 
 As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. 
 
 But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke. 
 
 Forth from her coral lips such folly broke. 
 
 Like balm the trickling nonsense healed my wound, 
 
 And what her eyes enthralled her tongue unbound. 
 
 15 11. 'Exe^i'^/a. Taciturnity. On the general topic, see Plu- 
 tarch {de Gamditate^, whence, as has been seen, Jonson derives 
 several of the quotations and allusions of his text. Pythagoras is 
 spoken of in Pseudo-Phitarchea (ed. Didot, p. 144) as a man i^ fxa.- 
 Xicrra TjpeaKev 17 ix^fJi-vdia Kal to <nydv a /xrj xpV ^^jei-v : To whom 
 taciturnity was most delightful, and silence as to what it was not neces- 
 sary to speak. 
 
 15 11. Pj'thagl^orc^'] qiiam laudalnlis ! Plow praiseworthy is the 
 maxim of Pythagoras ! T\ib<T<x7)s, etc. Translated in the following 
 Latin, and thus Englished : Above all things, control the tongue, fol- 
 lowing the gods (lamblichus, Adhort. ad Philos. 21, MUllach's Frag. 
 Philos. i. p. 505, b, 15). The folio has here the marginal note, Vide 
 Apuleium, of which I can make nothing. 
 
 15 13. Digito compesce labellum. With your finger lock your lips 
 (Juvenal, Satire, i. 160). 
 
 15 15. Acutius cermintur vitia qiia??i virtutes. Vices are more 
 sharply discerned than virtues. 
 
 15 16. Clearlier and sharper. Note the two forms of adverb. 
 Adjectives, as well positive as comparative, stand for adverbs. See 
 17 15, 33 34, 70 4, and Sh. Gram. § I. 
 
 15 20. The treasure of a fool. I cannot identify this passage in 
 Plautus, Terence, Menander, or other " witty comic poet." There are, 
 however, hundreds of similar proverbs: e.g. "The tongue of a fool 
 carves a piece of his heart to all that sit near him" (Hazlitt, English 
 Proverbs, p. 388). 
 
100 NOTES. 
 
 15 23. Inheritance of an tinlucky old grange. Plautus, Trinwn- 
 vius, 2. 4. 115. 
 
 15 25. Nothing ever thrived on it, etc. The speech of Stasimus 
 {ibid. 2. 4. 122, et seqq.), almost literally translated. 
 
 15 31. Hospitiiwi fuerat calamitatis. It was the lodging of calamity 
 {ibid. 2. 4. 152). Jonson adapts the tense to his context. 
 
 15 32. Was not this man like to sell it ? Jonson has misinterpreted 
 this-iscene x>f Plautus. It was not the purpose of Stasimus, the speaker 
 of the passage above, to sell the farm, but to dissuade Philto, by this 
 ruse, from accepting it as a dowry for his master's sister, as the farm 
 was all that was left to the prodigal. Jonson's words are explained, 
 however, by reference to the marginal note of the folio: Sim[iliter] 
 Mart[ialis] hb[er] I. Epligrammata'], 86, \_De Mario']: 
 
 Venderet excultos colles cum praeco facetus, etc. 
 
 Thus translated (Bohn, p. 67) : "A wag of an auctioneer, offering for 
 sale some cultivated heights and beautiful acres of land near the city, 
 said, * If any one imagines that Marius is compelled to sell, he is mis- 
 taken. Marius owes nothing. On the contrary, he rather has money 
 to put out at interest. What is his reason, then, for selling? In this 
 place he lost all his slaves and his cattle and his profits; hence he does 
 not like the locality. Who would have made any offer unless he had 
 wished to lose all his property? So the ill-fated farm remains with 
 Marius.' " 
 
 15 32. Like. Likely. 
 
 15 33. Vulgi expectatio. Translated in the text. 
 
 16 3. Taken. Captivated. Cf. Jonson's song ( The Silent Woman, 
 
 
 
 Such sweet neglect more taketh me 
 Than all the adulteries of art. 
 
 16 8. Claritas patricv. Translated in the text. Gififord reads/«//7V. 
 
 16 14. Eloquence. Oratorical delivery. Cf. 54 4 and 72 10. 
 
 16 17. Yet there are who. Cf. the familiar Latin construction, sunt 
 qui, and 22 9. 
 
 16 25. Umbratical doctors. Cf. Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, 2. 
 Defined as scholasticus, qui in umbra sub tecto vitam agit otiosam. See 
 also Quintilian (^hist. i. 2. 18) : Sub dio, in the open air. 
 
 175. A causeway to their courtesy. The folio reads countrey for 
 courtesy, which " palpable and preposterous misprint " of " the unspeak- 
 able editors " Mr. Swinburne very properly corrects. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 3? 
 
 17 14. Unless it be meant us. Note the omission o 
 
 Cf. 32 18; and see Sh. Gram. § 220 for these old datives 
 
 17 15. Friendly and lovingly. Cf. 15 16. ' 
 
 17 35. He hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield. LI. 2 lienry 
 /F. 1.2. 55: 
 
 Falstaff. Where's Bardolph? 
 
 Page. He's gone to Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. 
 Falstaff. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield ; 
 an I could get me a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed and wived. 
 
 Malone quotes the following from a collection of old proverbs: 
 " Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to Paul's for a man, and to 
 Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a scold, a knave, and a jade " 
 (Malone's Shakespeare, XVII. p. 27). 
 
 18 1. Valor rerum. The price of things. • ' * 
 
 18 2. Bought and sold for. Cf. 18 17, 23 15, 28 2, 39 25, ^2 33, 
 43 23, 24, 51 14. Modern English diskke's this transpos-tior* cf the 
 preposition. See Sh. Gram. § 424. ' . . * ~ .,-.•;;• 
 
 18 2. Health . . . of the physician. Note the earlier meaning of 
 the preposition of; and see Sh. Gram. § 165. 
 
 18 8. Memory, of all the powers of the mind, etc. Seneca, Contro- 
 versiarum. Lib. i. Procemiwn, I. 2, ed. Bursian: Memoria est res 
 ex omnibus animi partibus maxime delicata et fragilis : in quam primam 
 senectus incurrit. 
 
 18 10. Seneca . . . the rhetorician . . . confesseth, etc. The pas- 
 sage in which Seneca speaks of his memory is as follows : Hanc ali- 
 quando in me floruisse, ut non tantum ad usum sufiiceret; sed in 
 miraculum usque procederet, non nego, etc. {ibid.'). What follows will 
 be found almost word for word in Seneca. In these passages, culled 
 from the ancients, Jonson not infrequently adapts the sentiments of his 
 original to the changed circumstances of his own time; more frequently, 
 however, his translation is literal. On this passage Mr. Swinburne 
 offers this prefatory comment: "The following touch of mental auto- 
 biography is no less curious than interesting. Had Shakespeare but 
 left us the like." Of Marcus Annseus Seneca, the rhetorician, it is 
 sufficient to say that he is described, " A man of letters after the fashion 
 of th.e time when rhetoric andfalse eloquence was most in vogue." 
 
 18 11. Confesseth he had. Cf. 4 15. 
 
 18 13. Made. Composed, especially in verse. Cf. the Elizabethan 
 use of the word maker for poet, 73 28, 75 22, 77 13. 
 
 18 16. Which I have liked to charge my memory with. Among 
 
]02 NOTES. 
 
 these poems were " Donne's verses of the lost chain" {Elegy, ii, On 
 the loss of his juislresss chain for which he made satisfaction,^ and that 
 passage of The Calm, " that feathers and dust do not stir all was so 
 quiet" (lines 17-18); Sir Henry Wotton's Character of a Happy Life 
 (Ward, English Poets, iii. p. 109) ; certain portions of Chapman's 
 Homer., " a piece of the thirteenth Iliad'''' \ and " part of the Shepherd 
 Calendar about wine between CoHne and Percy " (^Eclogue, 10. 107, 
 et seqq.). See the Conversations %vith Drummond, p. 8. 
 
 18 17. Charge my memory with. Cf. 18 2, and references. 
 
 18 21. Whatsoever I pawned with it; i.e. placed in store or keep- 
 ing with it. The Latin runs : Nam quaecumque apud illam aut puer 
 aut juvenis deposui,- quasi recentia, aut modo audita sine cunctatione 
 profert. At si qua illi intra proximos annos commisi, sic perdidit et 
 amisit, ut etiamsi ssepius ingerantur, totiens tamen tanquam nova 
 audi am ( Pro-oem . ^vntrev. 1 . 3 ) . 
 
 18 27. Presently. Cf. 7 31, 73 3, 83 7. 
 
 18- 30. JVpx^'i in some mih: " Was Shakespeare, we must ask our- 
 selves,^, ont^ c^f 'these? "'interpolates Mr. Swinburne. Cf. Seneca, how- 
 ever : Memoria et natura quidem felix, plurimum tamen arte adjuta. 
 Numquam ille quae dicturus erat, ediscendi causa relegebat : edidicerat 
 ilia, cum scripserat, unde eo magis in illo mirabile videri potest, quod 
 non lente et anxie, sed eodem paene quo dicebat, impetu scribebat. 
 Illi qui scripta sua torquent, qui de singulis verbis in consilium eunt, 
 necesse est, quoe totiens animo suo admovent, novissime affigant. At quo- 
 rumcumque stilus est velox est, tardior memoria est. In illo non tantum 
 naturalis memorice felicitas erat, sed ars summa et ad conprehendenda, 
 quae tenere debebat, et ad custodienda; adeo ut omnes declamationes 
 suas, quascumque dixerat, teneret {Controv. i, Procem. 17 and 18). 
 
 It will be noticed that Jonson has adapted this passage, rather than 
 translated it, applying Seneca's remarks as to the natural endowments 
 of his friend, Porcius Latro, to general qualities of mind, curtailing and 
 omitting, but preserving the texture none the less. In these parallel 
 passages, Jonson follows his original so closely that it would be a waste 
 of space to again translate. I shall, therefore, content myself with 
 pointing out such parallels in their originals. 
 
 19 3. Comit {iortwi\ suffragia. Popular votes. 
 19 7. Stare a partibus. To stand by one's party. 
 
 19 11. // self The usual Elizabethan form. See 27 29. 
 19 18. Deus in creaturis. Translated in the text. 
 19 28. "Veritas proprium hominis. Translated in the words imme- 
 diately following. 
 
NOTES. 103 
 
 19 29. The only ivDiiortal thing was given. Note the omission of 
 the relative pronoun. Cf. 4 15, and references there given. 
 
 19 33. Homer says he hates, etc. The words of Achilles addressing 
 Odysseus {Iliad, 9. 312 and 313, and see 4 17). 
 
 20 3. Nothing is lasting that is feigned. Cf. Ficta omnia cclcriter 
 tamquam flosculi decidunt, nee simulatum quidquam esse diuturnum 
 (Cicero, de OJJiciis, 2. 12. 43, Morley). 
 
 20 5. No lie ever grotos old. I have not been able to verify this 
 quotation. 
 
 20 6. Nullum vitium, etc. Translated in the text. 
 
 20 6. // is strange there should be. Cf. 4 15, 7 14, IS 11, 23 25, 24 7, 
 34 19, 37 23. 
 
 20 7. Without his patronage. Cf. Sh. Gram. § 228. His is the 
 old genitive of it, and was still in general use in Shakespeare's time. 
 Jonson occasionally uses the newer form its. Cf. 44 16, 47 35, 76 1, 
 83 29, 85 5. 
 
 20 15. Live like Antipodes. Those that turn night into day. Cf. 
 Seneca, Epistola, 122: "There are those who invert the order of night 
 and day, and who never open their eyes, still heavy with yesternight's 
 debauch, till night returns again. They seem to be in the state 
 of those whom nature, as Virgil saith, hath placed opposite us, with 
 their feet to our feet. ... It is not that their region or country is 
 opposite and contrary to that of other men, but their life. There are 
 oftentimes antipodes in the same city, who, as Marcus Cato observes, 
 never saw the sun either rising or setting" (ed. Morell, ii. p. 352). 
 
 20 20. At last arrived at that, as they zaould. See Sh. Gram. § 280. 
 
 20 34. De vere argutis. Of the truly witty. 
 
 20 34. Do hear them say. Cf. 4 15. Notice the use of the pronoun 
 for men, people, and see Sh. Grain. § 224. 
 
 21 8. Cloth of bodkin. A species of rich cloth of silk and gold 
 thread. Tissue. Cloth interwoven with gold and silver threads. 
 Cf. 45 24. 
 
 21 14. Siveet-bags. Qu. pomanders? 
 
 21 14. N'ight- dressings. Dressing gowns. 
 
 21 16. Censura de poetis. Translated in the text. Cf. the dis- 
 repute into which poetry had fallen, 12 4 and 44 10. 
 
 21 21. Tobacco. The use of tobacco had spread very fast in 
 England, notwithstanding the animadversions of King James and 
 Barnaby Rich. The latter in his 77^*? Honestie of this Age, 16 14 (pp. 
 25-26), ttomplains of the money thus wasted, and says that it is reported 
 that seven thousand houses lived by the trade of tobacco selling in 
 
104 NOTES. 
 
 London. The following passage from Harrison's Chronology, 1573, 
 published in the Appendix I, of Dr. Furnivall's Harrison's England 
 (p. Iv), is of interest: "In these days the taking in of the smoke of 
 the Indian herb called tobacco by an instrument formed like a little 
 ladle, whereby it passeth from the mouth into the head and stomach, 
 is greatly taken up, and used in England against rheums and some 
 other diseases engendered in the lungs and inward parts, and not with- 
 out effect." See also the bills of Shift {alias Seignior Whiff, in Every 
 Man out of his Humor, 3. I and 3), which he set up in St. Paul's, setting 
 forth his abilities to teach the " practise of the Cuban ebolition, euripus, 
 and whiff": "If you please to be a practitioner, I will undertake in 
 one fortnight," says Shift, "to bring you, that you shall take it plausibly 
 in any ordinary, theatre, or the tilt-yard." Finally, " the practitioner " 
 is to be brought to such proficiency that " he shall receive the first, 
 second, and third whiff, and upon the receipt take horse, drink his 
 three cups of Canary, and expose {i.e. exhale) one [whiff] at Hunslow, 
 a second at Staines, and a third at Bagehot " {ibid. 3. 6). 
 
 21 27-32, Comitetur Punica, etc. Let a Carthaginian sponge ac- 
 company the book. Many erasures are not sufficient, one sponging 
 would be enough. The passage is adapted from Martial, Epigra?ns, 
 4. 10. 5, which runs thus: 
 
 Curre, sed instructus ; comitetur Punica librum 
 Spongia : muneribus convenit ilia meis 
 Non possunt nostros multae, Faustina lituras 
 Emendare jocos : una litura potest. 
 
 22 2. Cestius . . . preferred to Cicero. L. Cestius Pius, the rhetori- 
 cian. The source of this allusion is doubtless this: Pueri fere aut 
 juvenes scolas frequentant: hi non tantum dissertissimis viris . . . 
 Cestium suum proeferunt [sed etiam Ciceroni pcerferrent] nisi lapides 
 timerent {Excerpta Controv. 3, Procem. 15). Seneca abounds in allu- 
 sions to Cestius. The passage may be thus translated : Mere boys and 
 young men resorted to him in large numbers as pupils. They not only 
 preferred their Cestius to the most learned of his contemporaries, but 
 would even have placed him above Cicero had they not feared stoning. 
 
 22 8. HeatJi's epigrams. John Heath, according to Brydges {Res- 
 titnta, ii. p. ii), fellow of New College, Oxford, and born in 1588. He 
 published Tivo Centuries of Epigrams in 1610, and The House of 
 Correction, or certaine satyricall Epigrams, together with a few Char- 
 acters called Par Pari or like to like, qtioth the Devil to the Collier, 
 1 61 9. Two of these epigrams will be found quoted in Azotes and 
 
NOTES. 105 
 
 Queries, Series 3, vol. 4, 318. They are both on Raleigh's unlucky 
 voyage to " Gwyana." Brydges remarks that several squibs passed 
 between Heath and Sir John Davies. This John Heath is not to be 
 confounded with Robert Heath, his younger and abler contemporary, 
 the author of Clarastella, a collection of verses, published in 1650. 
 
 22 !). The Sculler's poems. In allusion to John Taylor, the water 
 poet, who plied the trade of boatman on the Thames, and " wrote 
 sixty-three booklets to amuse the public with their oddities," making 
 them a present to his customers, and receiving whatever they might 
 offer in return. Among these works is Taylor'' s Travels in Germanie, 
 or Three Weeks, Three Hours, and Three Days Travels from London 
 to Hamburg, etc., 1 61 7. Taylor was high in the favor of King James 
 for a time, and Jonson himself reports the king as having said: " Sir 
 Philip Sidney was no poet. Neither did he see ever any verses in 
 England to the sculler's " : a somewhat severe comment on the poetic 
 judgment of the royal author of the Essays of a Prentise in Poesie 
 (^Conversations, p. 26). Jonson believed that Taylor, who journeyed 
 north on his " penniless pilgrimage " about the time that Jonson set 
 out on his journey to Scotland, was sent " to scorn him " (ibid. p. 36). 
 This, however, Taylor expressly denies, declaring : " Whereas many 
 shallow-brained critics do lay aspersions on me, that I was set on by 
 others, or that I did undergo this project, either in malice or mockage 
 of Master Benjamin Jonson, I vow by the faith of a Christian that their 
 imaginings are all wide, for he is a gentleman, to whom I am so much 
 obliged for many undeserved courtesies that I have received of him, 
 and from others by his favor, that I durst never be so impudent or un- 
 grateful as either to suffer any man's persuasion or mine own instiga- 
 tion to incite me to so bad a requital for so much goodness formerly 
 received." Taylor adds elsewhere that Jonson gave him "a piece of 
 gold of two and twenty shillings to drink his health in England " when 
 he left Edinburgh (^Conversations, etc., Preface, p. viii). Taylor's jour- 
 ney to Scotland yielded The Pennyles Pilgrifnage or the Moneyless 
 Perambulation of John Taylor, alias the King's Majesty's Water- 
 Poet from London to Edinburg on foote, 1618. Taylor lived into 
 Commonwealth times, and fought for the king in squibs of verse. See 
 Morley, Eirst Sketch of English Literature, pp. 530 and 541. 
 
 22 9. There are never wanting that dare. Cf. 16 17. 
 
 22 11. Left to write. Left off writing. 
 
 22 13. Non illi, etc. Translated in the previous sentence. 
 
 22 14. The water-rimer's tuorks against Spenser's. By implication 
 Spenser is here the type of a true poet. Jonson told Drummond that 
 
106 NOTES. 
 
 he had " by heart some verses of Spenser's Calendar about wine 
 between Cohn and Percy" (^Conversations, p. 9, and Shepherd'' s Caleti- 
 dar. Eel. 10, 107-108). Elsewhere Jonson is not favorable to Spenser, 
 declaring that " his stanza pleased him not, nor his matter " {ibid. 
 p. 2). See also Jonson's animadversions on Spenser's affectation of 
 archaism, 57 2G. 
 
 22 19. Poetry . . . but a viea?i viistress. Cf. 12 4, 44 10, and 
 Drummond's remark : " He dissuaded me from poetry, for that she had 
 beggared him ; when he might have been a rich lawyer, physician, or 
 merchant" (^Conversations, p. 37). 
 
 22 21. They who have but saluted her on the by ; i.e. who have not 
 followed poetry solely as a profession. On this passage Laing suggests : 
 " Ben Jonson may have here meant to refer to men like Sir John Davies, 
 Dr. Donne, and Bishop Hall" (ibid. p. 37, note <:). For the expres- 
 sion, on the by, see The Magnetic Lady, I. i : "It would beget me such 
 a main authority on the by." 
 
 22 27. Bounty of the time'' s grandees. A passage evidently prompted 
 by the neglect into which Jonson fell in later life. 
 
 22 32. Robustiously. Cf. Hamlet, 3. 2. 10 : " To see a robustious, 
 periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters." 
 
 23 9. De Shakespeare nostrati. Of Shakespeare, our fellow-coun- 
 tryman. Cf. this paragraph with Jonson's two poems. On the Portrait 
 of Shakespeare and To the Memory of my Beloved A/aster William 
 Shakespeare and rvhat he hath left us (ed. Cunningham, iii. pp. 287- 
 289). I have condensed the following from Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith's 
 excellent note on this passage in Shakespeare'' s Centurie of Prayse 
 (^New Sh. Soc. Publ., pp. 174-175) : "In the remarks, de Shakespeare 
 nostrati, we have doubtless Ben's closet-opinion of his friend. . . . 
 Though Ben regretted and condemned his friend's rapidity of execu- 
 tion, it does not appear that he assumed (like Cowley, Preface to his 
 Poems, ed. 1656) the right to * prune and lop away ' what did not square 
 with his canons of criticism." The same author refers to two passages 
 of the Discoveries (54 28 and 55 18), in which Jonson expatiates on the 
 duty of self-restraint in composition : " No matter how slow the style 
 be at first, so it be labored and accurate"; and again: "So that the 
 sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing; but good writing 
 brings on ready writing. Yet, when we think we have got the faculty, 
 it is even then good to resist it." Note, however, the reference of these 
 passages to their Latin original in my notes. 
 
 23 22. Sufflamitiandus erat. He ought to have been clogged. 
 This anecdote is recorded by the elder Seneca (^Exc. Controv. 4, 
 
NOTES. 107 
 
 Proccm. *]). Jonson has translated the very words, applying them to 
 Shakespeare : Tanta erat illi velocitas orationis, ut vitium heret. Itaque 
 divus Augustus optime dixit : ' Haterius noster sufflaminandus est.' Quin- 
 tus Haterius was a senator and rhetorician under Augustus and TiVjerius; 
 see Tacitus, Annals^ 4. 61. Notwithstanding the "obvious " nature of 
 Jonson's allusions to the classics, as Whalley terms them, that editor, 
 in a learned note, has missed the true source of this allusion. 
 
 23 25. Fell into those things could not. Cf. 4 15. 
 
 23 28. Civsar did never wrong, but tuith just cause. Cf. The Staple 
 of Newes, Induction : " Cry you mercy, you never did wrong but with 
 just cause." A clear allusion to Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar, 3. i. 47. 
 This passage reads as follows in the folio of 1623 : 
 
 CcBsar. Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause 
 Will he be satisfied. 
 
 On this, Gifford remarks {Ben Jonson, Cunningham, II. p. 275), after 
 accepting Jonson's version as probably the true one : " The fact seems 
 to be that this verse, which closely borders upon absurdity, without 
 being absolutely absurd, escaped the poet [Shakespeare] in the heat 
 of composition, and, being unluckily one of those quaint sHps which 
 are readily remembered, became a jocular and familiar phrase." Craik, 
 \.oQj^r^Pk£ ^nglish of Shakesp eare, p. 27 3), considers Jonson's criticism 
 as " good evidence that the passage did not originally stand as we have 
 it." On the other hand, Mr. W. Aldis Wright remarks the following 
 (J. C, Clarendon Press Series, pp. 152-153) : " I am not convinced 
 that any change is necessary. Caesar claims infallibility in his judg- 
 ments and a firmness of temper in resisting appeals to his vanity. 
 Metellus, bending low before him, begins a flattering speech. Caesar, 
 knowing that his object was to obtain a reversal of the decree of ban- 
 ishment which had been pronounced against his brother, abruptly 
 interrupts him. To appeal against the decree implied that the decree 
 was unjust; to demand his brother's recall without assigning a cause 
 was to impute to Caesar that fickleness of purpose which he disdains in 
 such strong terms. If it had not been for Ben Jonson's story, no one 
 would have suspected any corruption in this passage. The question is 
 whether his authority is sufficient to warrant a change. ... If the 
 lines stood as Jonson quotes them, we must suppose one of two things, 
 — either that in consequence of the ridicule they excited, Shakespeare 
 himself altered them, or that they were altered by the players who 
 edited the first folio, as Gifford believed. The former supposition is 
 not probable, because if Jonson's remarks are hypercritical, and the 
 
108 NOTES. 
 
 lines yield a tolerable sense, Shakespeare would have been aware of 
 this as well as any of his commentators, and is not likely to have made 
 a change which is confessedly unnecessary. ... If the players intro- 
 duced the alteration, it is not easy to see why they should have left out 
 the words which Jonson puts into the mouth of Metellus, ' Caesar, thou 
 dost me wrong,' nor why they should have written, ' Know, Caesar doth 
 not wrong,' instead of * Caesar did never wrong.' . . . On the whole, I 
 am disposed to believe that Ben Jonson loved his jest better than his 
 friend, and repeated a distorted version of the passage without troub- 
 ling himself about its accuracy, because it afforded him an opportunity 
 of giving a hit at Shakespeare." There is one word to add to this 
 view of the question. I should prefer a more charitable explanation 
 of Ben Jonson's remark, and concur in the opinion of Hudson, White, 
 and Collier, that Jonson " was speaking only from memory, which, as 
 he himself says, was ' shaken with age now' (above 18 18), and so mis- 
 quoted Shakespeare." In support of the text of the folio many other 
 commentators might be cited. It is sufficient to note here Mr. J. O. 
 Halliwell-Phillips's observation : " If wrong be taken in the sense of 
 injury or harm, as Shakespeare sometimes uses it, there is no absurdity 
 in this line." Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith finally caps the question by 
 referring Shakespeare's passage to the well-known legal maxim, " The 
 king can do no wrong." It may be added that Mr. Fleay {Shakespeare^ s 
 Manual, p. 38) considers our present form of Julius Ccvsar a recen- 
 sion of Jonson. 
 
 23 32. Ingeniorum discrijuina. The difference of wits; /.i?. " di- 
 versity of accomplishment and understanding," as Mr. Swinburne 
 explains the title. Cf. the critic's admirable commentary, A Study of 
 Ben Jonson, pp. 140-144, /«j«;;/. The folio has a marginal Not [a], 
 I, 2, etc., to each paragraph of this essay. Cf. Quintilian : Virtus 
 prceceptoris haberi solet, nee immerito, diligenter in iis, quos erudien- 
 dos susceperit, notare discrimina ingeniorum, et quo quemque natura 
 maxime ferat, scire. Nam est in hoc incredibilis quaedam varietas, 
 nee pauciores animorum paene quam corporum formae. . . . Namque 
 erit alius historiac magis idoneus, alius compositus ad carmen, alius 
 utilis studio juris, ut nonulli rus fortasse mittendi {Inst. 2. 8. i, et seqq.). 
 The note is little more than a literal translation. 
 
 23 33. Wits. See 8 22. 
 
 23 34. Maistry, Mastery. Old French, maistre. 
 
 24 6. No doctrine will do good. Cf. 4 15, 7 14, 18 11, 20 6, 23 25, 
 34 19, 37 23. 
 
 24 14. Shamfastness. The usual Elizabethan form. The modern 
 
NOTES. 109 
 
 shamefaced '\% a corruption. Cf. Fairie Qncene, 4. 10. 50 and Richard 
 III. I. 3. 142. 
 
 24 19. Ingenistititim. A wit-stand. The marginal note of the 
 folio. 
 
 24 21. Labor only to ostentation. See Sh. Gram. § 186. 
 
 24 26. Qu(C per salebras, etc. Which tumble over rough places 
 and lofty rocks (Martial, Epig. Ii. 90). Cf. 62 4 and 87 22, where the 
 line is quoted again. 
 
 24 27. Trouble it of purpose. On purpose. See Sh. Gram. § 175. 
 Mr. Swinburne thinks that Dr. Donne is glanced at in this passage. 
 See 57 17, note. 
 
 24 28. Run ivithout rubs. Uneven places in the surface of a bowl- 
 ing alley, by which the ball was deflected. A common expression in 
 Jonson's day. Cf. Hamlet, 3. i. 65 and Richard If. 3. 4. 4. 
 
 24 33. Beards specially cut to provoke beholders. " Neither will I 
 meddle with our variety of beards, of which some are shaven from the 
 chin, like those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of 
 Marquess Otto, some made round like a rubbing-brush, others with a 
 pique de vant. (Oh, fine fashion !) or now and then suffered to grow 
 long, the barbers being grown to be so cunning in this behalf as the 
 tailors. And therefore if a man have a lean and straight face, a Mar- 
 quess Otton's cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a 
 long, slender beard will make it seem the narrower; if he be weasel- 
 beked, then much hair left on the cheeks will make the owner look 
 big like a bowdled hen, and as grim as a goose" (Harrison, Descrip- 
 tion of England, 1577-87, Camelot ed. p. 109). 
 
 25 6. Composition. Style. 
 
 25 7. A kind of tuning and riming fall. Mr. Swinburne applies 
 this passage to Daniel, the laureate (^A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 142). 
 Jonson told Drummond that Daniel was a good honest man, but no 
 poet; and that he was "at jealousies with him" {^Conversations, pp. 2 
 and 10). 
 
 25 15. Some that turn over, etc. Supply there are from 25 5, above. 
 
 25 21. Montaigne, Michael Ey quern, Sieur de Montaigne, 1533- 
 1592. "Whether Montaigne himself invented the famous title Essays 
 or not, is a matter of the very smallest importance. It is certain that 
 he w^as the first to give the word its modern meaning, though he dealt 
 with his subjects in a spirit of audacious desultoriness, which many of 
 his successors have endeavored to imitate, but which few have imitated 
 successfully. . . . The two main points which differentiate him are : 
 first, the audacious egotism and frankness^ith. wh icl^Ji e discourses of 
 
 i UNIVERSITir ) 
 
 V r-. '^' .. // 
 
110 NOTES. 
 
 his private affairs and exhibits himself in undress; secondly, the flavor 
 of subtle scepticism which he diffuses over his whole work " (Saintsbury, 
 Short Hist, of French Literature, p. 241, et seqq.). 
 
 25 24. Not that the place did need it neither. For the Elizabethan 
 practice of the double negative, see Sh. Gram. § 406, and cf. 30 8. 
 
 25 27. Opinion. Reputation. Cf. 4 25 and 6 3. 
 
 25 32. Venditation of their own naturals. Boastful display of their 
 own natural gifts. Cf. " When the professors are grown so obstinate 
 contemners of it and presumers on their own naturals " (To the Reader, 
 The Alchemist, quarto, 161 2). 
 
 26 1. As. That. Cf. 3 5, and references there. 
 
 26 11. Thinking that way. In that way. See Sh. Gram. ^ 202; 
 and 3 Henry IV. 4. 5. 126. 
 
 26 18. Esteemed of the multitude. In modern English <5[y. See 5/4. 
 Gram. § 171. Cf. 18 2 and 27 26. 
 
 26 27. Only. Particularly. Cf. Sh. Son. i. 10. 
 
 26 32. Copy. Abundance. Latin copia. Where. Whereas. 
 
 26 32. Election. Selection. Cf. 56 18. 
 
 26 33. A itiean. Moderation. 
 
 27 4. Taffierlanes and Tamer-chams. Christopher Marlowe's 
 Tamburlaine, the first part of which was acted in or before 1588, was 
 one of the most popular plays of its day. The historical importance 
 of this play can scarcely be overestimated. It made blank verse once 
 and for all the medium of English tragedy, and infused a genuine pas- 
 sion into the drama. Like The Spanish Tragedy, Tamburlaine, from 
 its bombastic, inflated language, became a common mockery among 
 the later playwrights; eg. Eastward Ho ! 2. I, and elsewhere. Jonson 
 did not mention Marlowe in his Conversations. Tafuer-cham or cam 
 is not the same play as Ta?nburlaine, although probably on a similar 
 subject. Henslow's Diary contains an entry of the payment of 40J. 
 to E. Alleyn " for his book of Tamberzan, the 29th October, 1602 " (see 
 Collier, /Tw/. of Dram. Poetry, iii. p. 105); and it appears that "the 
 platt of the first part of Tamer-cam'''' was actually discovered by 
 Malone at Dulwich College, of which Alleyn was the founder. This 
 "platt" seems to have been little more than a list of entrances and 
 exits to be hung in the wings for the information of the actors and those 
 assisting behind the scenes. Collier's notion that the play was extem- 
 pore seems untenable. The " platt" will be found in Malone's Shake- 
 speare (Boswell), iii. p. 356. It is said that the original has since 
 disappeared. 
 
 27 13. Gratulates. Congratulates. 
 
NOTES. Ill 
 
 27 19, Make. The folio reads makes. 
 
 27 20. Elocution. Eloquence. Cf. 34 31 and 67 32. 
 
 27 22. Translated. Expressed figuratively. 
 
 27 26. Praised of the most. By the most. Cf. 26 18. " The rest 
 of the note," says Mr. Swinburne, " is valuable as a studious and elabo- 
 rate expression of Jonson's theory or ideal of dramatic poetry, . . . 
 regrettable only for the insulting reference to the first work of a yet 
 greater poet than himself." T^a^^jt-ij-i.'xr^. 
 
 11 28. Ignorantia animce. Ignorance of soul. Nay sometimes they 
 [those of great understanding] will rather choose to die than not know 
 the things they study for. Mr. Swinburne, in his commentary, refers us 
 to Robert Browning's A Gramtnariati's Funeral : 
 
 That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 Sees it and does it : 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 
 That low man goes on adding one to one. 
 
 His hundred's soon hit; 
 This high man, aiming at a million, 
 
 Misses a unit. 
 That, has the world here — should he need the next. 
 
 Let the world mind him ! 
 This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed, 
 
 Seeking, shall find him. 
 
 28 3. What [^a'\ good the contrary. Mr. Swinburne's emendation. 
 28 2. Things they study for. See 18 2. 
 
 28 11. Indagations. Inquiriesj investigations. 
 
 28 14. Otium studiorum. Scholarly relaxation. 
 
 28 16. The temper in spirits is, etc. The tempering (quality of 
 pliability) in man's nature consists, etc. 
 
 28 17. I have known a ?nan vehement, etc. This well-known passage 
 is frequently quoted as a personal reminiscence (see Ward, Hist, of 
 Dram. Lit. i. p. 544, and Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 146); 
 and perhaps it was so intended by Jonson. The whole is, however, a 
 literal translation from the elder Seneca, and is applied to M. Porcius 
 Latro, the rhetorician, Seneca's friend, contemporary, and fellow-coun- 
 tryman. After recalling the pleasure which he felt in the remembrance 
 of his old friend Latro, and a few preliminary words as to his eloquence, 
 Seneca continues : In utraque parte vehement! viro modus deerat : nee 
 intermittere studia sciebat nee repetere. Quum se ad scribendum con- 
 citaverat, jungebantur noctibus dies et sine intervallo gravius sibi insta- 
 
112 NOTES. 
 
 bat nee desinebat nisi defecerat; rursus quum se dimiserat, in omnes 
 lusus, in omnes jocos se resoluebat . . . ut vix posset ad priorem con- 
 suetudinem retrahi. . . . Quotiens ex intervallo dixerat, multo acrius 
 violentiusque dicebat : exultabat enim novato atque integro robore et 
 tantum a se exprimebat quantum concupierat. Nesciebat dispensare 
 vires suas, sed immoderati adversus se imperii fuit, etc. {Controv. i, 
 Procem. 13 and 14). 
 
 28 20. Would join. Was accustomed to join. See Sh. Gram. 
 § 330. Cf. 28 26. 
 
 28 30. Absolute. Highly accomplished, perfect (Halliwell). 
 
 28 32. Hurts more that is hid. That it is hid. 
 
 28 35. He denied Jigures to be invented for ornament. Note the 
 Latin construction, and cf. 28 19 and 34 7. 
 
 29 3. Right. Straight. 
 
 29 4. Stili eminentia. Greatness or distinction of style. 
 
 29 4. Men's eminence appears but in their own way. Cf. Seneca, 
 where the passage appears almost entire: Magna quoque ingenia a 
 quibus multum abesse me scio, quando plus quam in uno eminuerunt 
 opere? Ciceronem eloquentia sua in carminibus destituit; Vergilium 
 ilia felicitas ingenii [in] oratione soluta reliquit; orationes Sallustii in 
 honorem historiarum leguntur; eloquentissimi viri Platonis oratio quo- 
 que pro Socrate scripta nee patrono nee reo digna est, etc. etc, {Excerpta 
 Controv. 3, Procem. S-lo). 
 
 29 5. VirgiVs felicity . . . Tully^s verse. Virgil's letters to Augustus 
 are all that is known of the poet's prose. " In poetry," says Teuffel, 
 " Cicero was little more than a common versifier." See Hist, of Roman 
 Lit. i. pp. 426 and 306; Juvenal, Sat. 10. 124; and Martial, Epig. 
 2. 89. 
 
 29 8. Plato^s speech, etc. This is not the usual opinion. See 
 Grote's Plato, p. 281 et seqq. 
 
 29 11. You shall have him. See Sh. Gram. § 315, p. 224, and cf. 
 13 30 and 79 13. 
 
 29 20. De Claris oratoribus. Of famous orators. 
 
 29 20. / have known many excellent 7nen. The Latin runs : Quos- 
 dam disertissimos agnovi viros non respondentes ia.\x\x su* cum decla- 
 marent, in foro maxima omnium admiratione dicentes, simul ad has 
 domesticas excercitationes secesserant desertos ab ingenio suo. . . . 
 Eloquentia ejus longe major erat quam lectio. . . . Melius semper 
 fortuna quam cura de illo merebatur {Excerpta Controv. 3, Procem. 
 
 I- 3- 5)- 
 
 29 27. Eor men of present spirits. Cf. Vir enim prcesentis animi 
 
NOTES. 113 
 
 et majoris ingenii quam studii magis placebat in his qua; invenichat 
 quam in his quae attulerat {ibid. 4). 
 
 29 29. And I have heard some. Cf. Ex tempore coactus dicere 
 infinite se antecedebat. Numquam non utilius erat illi deprchendi 
 quam proeparari; sed magis ilium suspiceres quod diligentiam non 
 relinquebat, cum illi tam bene temeritas cederet {ibid. 6). 
 
 29 34. Their anger made them inore eloquent. Cf. 31 3 and Jam 
 vero iratus commodius dicebat {ibid. 4). 
 
 30 1. They left not diligence. Cf. Numquam tamen hocc felicitas 
 illi persuasit neglegentiam {ibid. 5). 
 
 30 7. Dominus Verulamius. Lord Bacon. Cf. 31 4 and 31 22. 
 
 30 7, One though he be excellent. Cf. Non est unus, quamvis proe- 
 cipuus sit, imitandus, quia numquam par sit imitator auctori. Hoec rei 
 natura est : semper citra veritatem est similitudo ( Controv. i, Proam. 6). 
 
 30 8. For never no imitator. Note the double negative. See 25 24. 
 
 30 10. One noble speaker. The famous Francis Bacon, Baron 
 Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, 1 561-1626. This interesting pas- 
 sage on the eloquence of the great Chancellor is borne out by the testi- 
 mony of others, his contemporaries. James Howell says that Bacon 
 was " a man reconditce scientice, et ad salutem literarum natus, and I 
 think the eloquentest that was born in this isle " {Epistolce Ho-EliancE, 
 ed. Stott, ii. p. 47). Jonson was well acquainted with Lord Bacon, and, 
 besides the several allusions of the Discoveries, addressed a poem to 
 him on his sixtieth birthday ( Underwoods, 70) . In the Conversations 
 ivith Drummond, Jonson tells us : " My lord Chancellor of England 
 wrings his speeches from the strings of his bands, and other counsellors 
 from the pickings of their teeth" (p. 25). Elsewhere he relates that 
 on the occasion of the poet's pedestrian journey to Scotland, Sir Francis 
 said, •' I love not to see poesie go on other feet than poetical dactylus 
 and spondseus" {ibid. p. 22). It is interesting to note that this 
 famous passage, which, so far as I know, has never been supposed any- 
 body's but Jonson's, is really little more than an application of classical 
 lore to contemporary men and conditions. The original will be found 
 almost entire in the elder Seneca's description of the eloquence of 
 Severus Cassius, an orator and satirical writer under Augustus and 
 Tiberius. I give the parallel passages of Seneca in the following notes. 
 
 30 11. His language %vhere he could spare a jest, etc. Quam diu 
 citra jocos se continebat, censoria oratio erat {Excerpta Controv. 3, 
 Procem. 4). 
 
 30 13. A^o man ever spake more neatly, etc. In nuUo enim hoc 
 fiebat notabilius. Oratio ejus erat valens cultu, ingentibus plena sen- 
 
114 NOTES. 
 
 tentiis: nemo minus passus est aliquid in actione sua otiosi esse; nulla 
 pars erat quce non sua virtute staret, nihil in quo auditor sine damno 
 aliud ageret, omnia intenta, aliquo petentia; nemo magis in sua potes- 
 tate habuit audientium affectus. Verum est quod de illo dicit Gallio 
 noster : quum diceret, rerum potiebatur. Adeo omnes imperata facie- 
 bant : quum ille voluerat, irascebantur. Nemo non illo dicente timebat 
 ne desineret {ibid. 1-3). 
 
 30 13. Censorious. The Latin censorius, rigid, severe. 
 
 30 14. Presly. Concisely, succinctly. Jonson translates the Latin, 
 ingentibus plena sententiis, freely. Cunningham's emendation, prestly 
 for presly, is at least unnecessary. Cf. Parker, The Platonick Philoso- 
 phie, 1667, p. 39: "Though he may pursue his task presly and cohe- 
 rently." 
 
 30 16. His own graces. The folio reads the own. 
 
 30 19. Devotion. Disposal, power of disposing. At his devotion 
 is Jonson's translation of qintm ille voluerat. Mr. Lowell has finely 
 applied this passage to Emerson {Emerson as a Lecturer, My Study 
 Windows, p. 384). 
 
 30 22. Scriptorum catalogus. List of writers. 
 
 30 22. Cicero . . . ingenium par ijuperio. Seneca, Controv. I, 
 Procem. ii. Translated in the text. 
 
 30 23. Wit. Cf. 8 22, 10 14, 16 5, 23 33, 24 8, and 54 11. 
 
 30 25. Seculum. Age. 
 
 30 26. Sir Thomas More (1480-1535). "It was the story of No- 
 where, or Utopia, which More began in 1515 to embody in the v/onder- 
 ful book which reveals to us the heart of the new learning. ... In 
 More the same free play of thought which had shaken off the old 
 forms of education and faith turned to question the old forms of society 
 and politics" (Green's Hist, of the Engl. People, ii. p. 100). 
 
 30 26. The elder Wyatt (1503- 1 542), Henry Earl of Surrey 
 (1516-1547). Of these poets the Rev. Stopford Brooke says: "They 
 were both Italian travellers, and in bringing back to England the 
 inspiration they had gained from Petrarca they re-made English poetry. 
 They are our first really modern poets, the first who have anything of 
 the modern manner" {Engl. Lit. p. 68). 
 
 30 27. Sir Thomas Chaloner {i^2i-l^6^) was a diplomatist and 
 scholar, of note alike for his Latin and English poetry. Sir Thomas 
 Smith, Secretary of State (15 14-1579), in his earlier day endeavored 
 with Sir John Cheke to reform the existing method of pronouncing 
 Greek. His chief work was a Latin treatise, de Republica Anglorum 
 (see Morley, Eirst Sketch, p. 301). Sir Thomas Elyot (1490- 1546) 
 
NOTES. 115 
 
 was the author of The Governor, a popular prose treatise on education. 
 Stephen Gardner Bishop of Winchester (1483-1555), Chancellor under 
 Mary, was a scholar of rare attainment and steady in his patronage of 
 learning. For his general character, see Froude, I list, of Engl. vi. 
 
 PP- 370-371- 
 
 30 29. Sir Nicholas Bacon (1509-1579), the father of Sir Francis, 
 was Lord Keeper for twenty years. Macaulay ranks him second only 
 to Burleigh in ability and statesmanship (Essay on Lord Bacon). 
 
 30 31. Sir Philip Sidney (i 554-1 586). See 57 17, and Professor 
 Cook's Introduction to his ed. of the Defense of Poesie, pp. ix.-xi. 
 Fulk Greville, Sidney's intimate, said of him : " I never knew him other 
 than a man; with such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, 
 as carried grace and reverence above greater years. His talk ever of 
 knowledge, and his very play tending to enrich his mind" (^Life of 
 Sidney, ed. 1652, p. 7). 
 
 30 31. Richard Hooker (1553-1600), the author of The Laws of 
 Ecclesiastical Polity. To Hooker, Mr, Saintsbury grants " the profound 
 and unpretentious art of mixing the useful and the agreeable " {Hist, 
 of Elizabethan Lit. p. 47). Jonson has several remarks on Sidney in 
 his Conversations with Drununond, but they are mostly of a gossipy 
 nature. Hooker he dismisses with the observation, " He spoke best 
 for church matters," parenthetically remarking that " his children are 
 now beggars" {Conversatiotts, pp. 2. 10. 15, and 10). 
 
 30 34. Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex (1567-1601), the 
 well-known favorite of Elizabeth. Warton says : " He was a vigorous 
 and elegant writer of prose. But if Essex was no poet, few noblemen 
 of his age were more courted by poets. . . . He scarce ever went out 
 of England . . . without a pastoral in his praise or a panegyric in 
 metre, which were sold and sung in the streets. ... I know not 
 if the queen's fatal partiality, or his own inherent attractions, his love 
 of literature, his heroism, integrity, and generosity, — qualities which 
 abundantly overbalance his presumption, his vanity, and impetuosity, — 
 had a greater share in dictating these praises " {Hist, of Eitgl. Poetry, 
 iii. p. 341). A familiar instance of the great popularity of Essex is to 
 be found in Shakespeare's allusion to him in the chorus. Act V. of 
 Henry V. 30: 
 
 Were now the general of our gracious empress, 
 As in good time he may, from Ireland coming, 
 Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, 
 How many would the peaceful city quit 
 To welcome him ! 
 
116 NOTES. 
 
 30 34. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), courtier and favorite of 
 Elizabeth. Rich on the products of monopolies and deep in the in- 
 trigues and frivolities of court life, he had yet the time to devote atten- 
 tion to literature, and besides his poetry, which is much praised by his 
 contemporaries, wrote a History of the World during his long imprison- 
 ment. A close contact existed between Raleigh and Jonson. The 
 latter was tutor to Sir Walter's graceless son, and accompanied him 
 abroad in the year 161 3. Jonson told Drummond "that Sir Walter 
 Raleigh esteemed more of fame than conscience. The best wits of 
 England were employed for making his History. Ben himself had 
 written a piece to him {i.e. for him] of the Punic War, which he 
 altered, and set in his book" (^Conversations.^ pp. 21 and 15). As to 
 this allegation, Mr. Saintsbury remarks : " In none of his reported 
 helpers' own work do the peculiar graces of the purple passages of the 
 History occur" (^Elizabethan Literature, p. 213). 
 
 31 1. Sir Henry Savile (1549- 1622). An historical writer of note, 
 warden of Merton College, Oxford, and provost of Eton. The death 
 of bis son caused Savile to devote his property to the encouragement 
 of learning; and in 161 9 he founded, at Oxford, the Savilian Professor- 
 ship of Astronomy and Geometry (Morley's First Sketch, p. 470). 
 Jonson addressed an interesting Epigra7n (95) to Savile, in which he 
 praises him for his translation of part of Tacitus. 
 
 31 1. Sir Edwin Sandys (i 561- 1 629). A scholar and diplomat. 
 His chief literary work was an account of the religious condition of 
 Europe under the title EuropcB Speculum. 
 
 31 2. Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Baron Ellesmere and Vis- 
 count Brackley (1540-1617), Lord Chancellor preceding Bacon. 
 Egerton was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. Jonson wrote 
 three epigrams in his honor (^Epigram, 74, and Underuwods, 50 and 
 51). Egerton published little during his life. 
 
 31 3. Best when he 7vas provoked. Cf. 29 34. 
 
 31 4. But his learned, though unfortunate successor ; i.e. Lord 
 Bacon. See 30 7 and 31 22. 
 
 31 5. Insolent Greece and haughty Rome. Cf. the lines from Jon- 
 son's To the Memory of my Beloved Master, William Shakespeare : 
 
 Leave thee alone, for the comparison 
 
 Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome 
 
 Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. 
 
 It is, perhaps, needless to add that those who attribute Shakespeare's 
 plays to Bacon make much capital out of this parallel, which is quite 
 
NOTES. 117 
 
 "as applicable to Bacon's prose as to Shakespeare's verse." The 
 whole passage is imitated from Seneca : Deinde ut possitis oestimare, 
 in quantum quotidie ingenia decrescant et, nescio qua iniquitate naturae, 
 eloquentia se retro tulerit : quidquid Romana facundia habet quod inso- 
 lenti Graecix aut opponat aut praeferat circa Ciceronem efiloruit; omnia 
 ingenia qux' lucem studiis nostris adtulerunt tunc nata sunt. In dete- 
 rius deinde quotidie data res est, etc. (^Controv. I, Froccm. 6-7). 
 
 31 12. aKiiT], In modern critical jargon, " high-water mark." 
 
 31 13. De augmentis scientiarum. The title of the opening chap- 
 ter of Bacon's Instauratio Magna, and translated by him On the 
 Advancement of Learning. 
 
 31 16. For schools they are. Cf. 14 22. 
 
 31 20. Books of Analogy. Caesar's lost work, de Analogia, or, de 
 Ratio7te Latine Loquendi. It was dedicated to Cicero, contained inves- 
 tigations into the nature of the Latin language, and is said to have 
 been written while Caesar was crossing the Alps. See Suetonius, Cicsar, 
 56; and Cicero, Brutus, 72. 253. 
 
 31 22. Novum Organum. The most original and important part 
 of the Instauratio Magna, that in which Bacon proposed the new 
 method of pursuing science. " Lord Bacon," says Ueberweg, " stripped 
 off from natural philosophy the theosophical character which it bore 
 during the transitional period, and limited it in its method to experiment 
 and induction. He thus became the founder — not, indeed, of the em- 
 pirical method of natural investigation, but — of the empirical line of 
 modern philosophers. . . . His historical significance arises from these 
 facts, — that he indicated some of the essential ends and means of 
 modern culture; that he vigorously emphasized the value of genuine 
 self-acquired knowledge of nature; that he overthrew the scholastic 
 method of a theosophical and inexperimental science, and that he indi- 
 cated the fundamental features of inductive inquiry " (^Hist. of Philoso- 
 phy, ii. p. 33). See a very different estimate of Bacon by Dr. Draper, 
 Intellectual Development of Europe, ii. p. 258. Cf. 30 7 and 31 4. 
 
 31 24. Title of nominals. Mere names of things. 
 
 31 27. Qui longum, etc. I give the text of the folio, which is 
 adapted from Horace, Ars Poetica, 346: Et longum noto scriptori 
 prorogat aevum. Thus translated by Jonson : 
 
 With honor make the far-known author live. 
 
 Colonel Cunningham reads proroget. We find prorogat in the parallel 
 Latin of Jonson's translation. 
 
 31 28. Conceit. Opinion, esteem. Elsewhere Jonson uses conceit 
 
118 NOTES. 
 
 in the simple sense, idea, thought; of. 54 30, 67 15, 68 2, 71 18; once at 
 71 29, to signify a humorous thought or fancy. Cf. also " He never 
 esteemed a man for the name of a lord " (^Conversations^ p, 23). Mr. 
 Swinburne says of this passage : " It may well be questioned whether 
 there exists a finer example of English prose, , . . where sublimity is 
 resolved into pathos, and pathos dilates into sublimity." 
 
 32 4. De corriiptela morum. On the corruption of manners. 
 
 32 16. De rebus mundanis. Of worldly affairs. 
 
 32 18. Alore evils belong us. Cf. 17 14. 
 
 32 25. Morbus comitialis. The disease of parliament. In Royalist 
 parlance, the itch of the Commons to meddle in the affairs of the 
 nation. The expression, however, contains a second allusion, as the 
 morbus comitialis was the term applied by the Romans to the epilepsy, 
 because its occurrence on the day of the comitia, as ominous, broke 
 up the consultation. 
 
 32 26. Grudging agaitist. Finding fault with and envying. The 
 whole passage seems in allusion to the increasing troubles of Charles 
 with his parliament. 
 
 32 28. Hercules and the bull. An allusion to the seventh labor of 
 Hercules, by which he was required to capture the mad Cretan bull 
 which had long been devastating the domain of Minos in revenge for 
 a slight which that monarch had put upon Neptune. 
 
 32 33. To censure. To judge. Here, with much of its modern 
 restriction. As a rule, censure means simply to give an opinion, even 
 a very favorable one, as : " This and some other remarkable abilities 
 made one then give his censure of him, that this age had brought forth 
 another Picus Mirandola" (Walton's Life of Donne, American ed. 
 1846, p. 54) ; and cf. 70 34, 81 8, and 81 16. 
 
 33 5. Princeps. Cf. these royalist sentiments with the sections on 
 Tyrants, the Unlettered Prince, and the Character of a Prince, 40 9- 
 42 19, and with the utterance, 37 20. 
 
 33 10. Put-off man. Discarded, banished man. The folio reads 
 put of. 
 
 33 19. Prayers with Orpheus, . . . the daughters of Jupiter. This 
 figure is used in the speech of Phoinix {Iliad, 9. 502, et seqq.) : " More- 
 over prayers of penitence are daughters of great Zeus, halting and 
 wrinkled and of eyes askance, that have their task withal to go in the 
 steps of Sin. For Sin is strong and fleet of foot, wherefore she far 
 outrunneth all Prayers, and goeth before them over all the earth, mak- 
 ing men fall, and Prayers follow behind to heal the harm. Now who- 
 soever reverenceth Zeus' daughters when they draw near, him they 
 
NOTES. 119 
 
 gladly bless, and hear his petitions; but when one denieth them, and 
 stiffly refuseth, then depart they, and make prayer under Zeus, the son 
 of Kronos, that sin may come upon such an one, and he fall and pay 
 the price" (Trans. Lang, etc. p. 176). 
 
 33 23. De opt\imo\ rege Jacobo. Of the best of kings, James. The 
 relation of James and the court to Jonson was that of immediate patron- 
 age (see Introductioii) . A large number of poems and epigrams attest 
 this fact. See, especially, the two epigrams to James (4 and 51), and 
 the three poems to Charles (^Underwoods, 98 to 100). On the note of 
 adulation in these poems, Gifford justly remarks: "James was his 
 munificent patron; and gratitude, which none felt more ardently than 
 our poet, might excuse some little exaggeration of praise." 
 
 33 23. Accu\jmi\lation. The folio reads acctdation. Gifford and 
 Cunningham both read acciwiulation. 
 
 33 27. De princ\ipn7n'\ adjnnctis. Of the attributes of princes. 
 Mr. Swinburne considers this note " rather Baconian than Jonsonian in 
 its cult of * prudence ' as * his chief art of safety.' " Cf. Bacon's Essays, 
 Of Empire, Golden Treasury ed. p. 75, et seqq. 
 
 33 27. Sed vere prudens, etc. But truly a prince could scarcely be 
 conceived as wise unless at the same time as good. 
 
 33 32. Lycurgus lived about 880 B.C. His life was as austere as 
 his laws were inflexible. See Grote, Hist, of Greece, ii. pp. 455-460. 
 
 33 33. Sylla, L. Cornelius Felix (138-78 B.C.), the dictator. Al- 
 though personally a man of dissolute life, the design of many of Sylla's 
 laws was to effect a restoration of the ancient Roman constitution by 
 the improvement of public morals. Lysander, d. 395 B.C., the Spartan 
 general, spent much of his life among the Asiatic Greeks, to whom, in 
 his legislation, he allowed much that was foreign to his own simple 
 mode of life. 
 
 33 34. Living extremely dissolute. See Sh. Gram. § i, and cf. 704. 
 
 34 7. Cyrus to have been nursed, etc. Note the Latinism, and cf. 
 28 35. For this story, see Herodotus, Clio, no: "The name of the 
 woman whom he (Mithradates, to whom the infant Cyrus was intrusted) 
 married was Cyno, in the language of Greece, and Spaco, in that of 
 the Medes, for the Medes call a bitch, Spaca." 
 
 34 8. A creature to encounter it. Cf. Sh. Gram. § 417, for the 
 independent grammatical relation of the initial noun. Cf. 40 20, 70 25, 
 and Sejanus, 3. 3 : " The prince that feeds great natures, they will slay 
 him." 
 
 34 12. De malign\itate'\ studentiu?n. Of the malignity of the 
 learned. 
 
120 NOTES. 
 
 34 13. Habent venerium^ etc. Poison is their daily food, nay, their 
 delicacy. 
 
 34 IG. Which makes the profession taxed. Cf. 32 27. 
 
 34 18. As. That. Cf. 3 5, and references there. 
 
 34 19. // shews they themselves, etc. Cf. 4 15, 7 14, 18 11, 20 6, 23 25, 
 24 6, and 37 23. 
 
 34 22. Inform. Give shape to. Manners. Here used, as in gen- 
 eral by Jonson, to translate the Latin mores. 
 
 34 26. Piety to the divine. The folio reads poetry. 
 
 34 26. Politic. Politician. 
 
 34 27. But that he which can feign a com?nonwealth. The use of 
 the pronouns, he and she, as nouns signifying man and woman was quite 
 usual in Elizabethan English. See Sh. Grat?i. § 224, and Jonson's 7^o 
 the Memory of my Beloved Master, William Shakespeare : 
 
 And that he 
 Who casts to write a line must sweat. 
 
 Which was used interchangeably with that and who. See Sh. Gram. 
 § 265, and cf. the first words of the Lord's Prayer. Cf. 42 26. 
 
 34 28. Gown it with counsels. This vigorous Elizabethan expression 
 Whalley weakened to govern. 
 
 34 31. Elocution. Eloquence. Cf. 27 20 and 67 32. 
 
 34 35. Embattling. Arranging in order of battle. 
 
 35 4. Controverslialesl scriptores. Polemical writers. 
 
 35 8. More Andabatarum. In the manner of the Andabatcp, who 
 fight with closed eyes. These were a sort of Roman gladiator, whose 
 helmets were without openings for the eyes. See Lipsius, de Amphi- 
 theatre, 2. 12. 
 
 35 9. Milks a he-goat. A proverbial expression for a fruitless task. 
 
 35 19. Cure a leprosy . . . with the warm blood of a murdered 
 child. There are many like stories in the folk lore of the Middle Ages. 
 Cf. Massmann, Kaiserchronik, iii. p. 856, and references there. These 
 stories belong to a still wider class, in which the victim is an adult, and 
 the sacrifice voluntary. Cf. Gesta Romanorum, ed. CEsterle, No. 230, 
 in which a girl afflicted with leprosy, only to be cured by her bathing 
 in royal blood, accepts the sacrifice of her royal lover, who allows so 
 much blood to be taken from him that it causes his death. Cf. also 
 Longfellow's Golden Legend, in which this last story is reversed. 
 
 35 22. Dissimuled. Dissemble, concealed. Cf " With dissimuled 
 sorrow to celebrate his funeral " {Euphues^ Golden Legacy, Lodge, 
 chap. 2). 
 
NOTES. 121 
 
 35 24. yactantia intempestiva. Untimely boasting. 
 
 35 26. Done them because they might. That they might. Cf. Sh. 
 Gram. § 1 17. Because (in order that) refers to the future instead of, 
 as with us, to the past. 
 
 35 32. Adidatio. Flattery. "The note on flattery and flatterers," 
 says Mr. Swinburne, " is as exalted in its austerity as trenchant in its 
 scorn." 
 
 36 1. Repent me. Cf. 47 18. 
 
 36 22. De vita humana. Of human life. 
 
 36 22. Life is like a play. A frequent sentiment of the time, in 
 varying form. Cf. As You Like Lt, 2. 7. 139; Bussy d^Ambois, i. i; 
 New Lnn, I. I (ed. Cunningham, ii. p. 345), etc., and verses prefixed 
 to Hey wood's Apology for Actors : 
 
 The world's a theatre, the earth's a stage, 
 Which God and Nature doth with actors fill. 
 
 Steevens referred these passages to the alleged motto of the Globe 
 Theatre : Totus mundus agit histriotiem^ which is again referable to 
 Petronius Arbiter, Fragmenta, 10: Quod fere totus mundus excerceat 
 histrionejn. Finally, several patristic references to the same sentiment 
 will be found in Notes and Queries, Ser. 6. 4, pp. 148 and 311, with 
 the statement that Hackius attributes the remark to Democrates: 
 6 Kdafjios aK-qv-fi^ 6 /St'os irdpados (Hackius, Epistle Dedicatory to his 
 ed. of Terence, 1657). See 37 2. 
 
 36 25. As. That. See 3 5, and references. 
 
 36 32-34. Abel, etc. The passage is inspired by Heb. 11. 4-8. 
 Abel is the example of innocency, as one unjustly the victim of crime 
 (^Gen. 4); Enoch, son of Jared, of perfected humanity, a man raised 
 to heaven by pleasing God {ibid. 5. 22-24); Noah, of trust, in allusion 
 to the familiar Biblical story of the flood; and Abraham, of faith in 
 God, from his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, 
 
 37 2. The stage of the rvorld. Cf. 36 22. 
 
 37 4. Though the most be players, some must be spectators. Cf. two 
 epigrams which Steevens, Oldys, or somebody, fabricated, and attributed 
 to Jonson and Shakespeare, respectively : 
 
 If but stage actors all the world displays, 
 Where shall we find spectators of their plays? 
 
 Little or much of what we see we do ; 
 We're all both actors and spectators, too. 
 
122 NOTES. 
 
 The quality of these Jonsonian and Shakespearian lines calls for no 
 comment here. It is not unlikely that the passage under consideration 
 inspired these spurious epigrams. See The Centurie of Pray se, p. 410. 
 
 37 5. Mores aulici. Courtly manners. 
 
 37 11. Impioi'um querela. Complaint of the unrighteous. These 
 two anecdotes of Caius Caesar, surnamed Caligula, who reigned A.D. 
 37-41, are related by Suetonius, in his Life of Caligula, 31 and 30. 
 The allusion to the defeat of P. Quintilius Varus in the Teutoburger- 
 wald in the summer, 9 B.C., is sufficiently familiar. The fall of the 
 theatre at Fidense is related by Tacitus, Annals, 4. 62-63. The histo- 
 rian estimates that upwards of fifty thousand persons were killed or 
 maimed thereby. , 
 
 37 16. Fidencp. The folio reads lidence, which Whalley corrects. 
 
 37 17. That other voice ; i.e. remark. 
 
 37 20. Tyrant. The folio reads tyranne. 
 
 37 20. A tyrattt . . . but one creature. "This sentence is worthy 
 of Landor," says Mr. Swinburne; "and those who would reproach Ben 
 Jonson with the extravagance of his monarchical doctrines or theories 
 must admit that such royalism as is compatible with undisguised ap- 
 proval of regicide or tyrannicide might not irrationally be condoned by 
 the sternest and most rigid of republicans " {A Study of Ben Jonson, 
 p. 152). Cf. 4 15, 33 6, and 40 9 et seqq. 
 
 37 23. Nobilium ingenia. Inborn qualities of the nobility. The 
 next eight notes form a connected, if somewhat desultory, essay on the 
 subject of government. 
 
 37 23. / have 7narked some are, etc. Cf. 4 17, 18 11, 20 6, 23 25, 
 24 6, and 34 19. 
 
 37 35. Principum varial^tiol. The difference of princes. This 
 note and the two following point to a reading of Macchiavelli. 
 
 37 35. Firjuissima vero, etc. The firmest base of all, indeed, is the 
 hereditary right of the prince. Cf. " I do affirm, then, that hereditary 
 states, and such as have been accustomed to the family of their prince, 
 are preserved with less difficulty than the new " (Macchiavelli, 77ie 
 Prince, ed. Morley, p. 12). 
 
 38 1. There is a great variation. Cf. " He who arrives at the 
 sovereignty by the assistance of the great ones preserves it with more 
 difficulty than he who is advanced by the people, because he has about 
 him many of his old associates, who, thinking themselves his equals, 
 are not to be directed and managed as he would have them. But he 
 that is preferred by the people stands alone without equals, and has 
 nobody, or very few, about him but what are ready to obey" {ibid. 
 P- 63). 
 
NOTES. 123 
 
 38 6. Oppression of the rest ; i.e. for the oppression of the rest. 
 38 10. Hath the people to friend. Cf. 4 4, 13 17, 69 25, and 78 17. 
 38 12. Of he that bziilds. See Sh. Gram. §§ 205. 206. Cf. the 
 proverb of the text with 2 Henry IV. I. 3. 89: 
 
 An habitation giddy and unsure 
 
 Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 
 
 38 20. dementia. Clemency. A prince should exercise his cruelty, 
 not by himself but by his ministers. Jonson refers to the following, 
 related of Caesar Borgia by Macchiavelli : " And because he discovered 
 that his past severity had created him many enemies, to remove that ill- 
 opinion, and recover the affections of the people, he had a mind to 
 show that, if any cruelty had been exercised, it proceeded not from 
 him, but from the arrogance of his minister; and for their further con- 
 firmation, he caused the said governor to be apprehended, and his head 
 chopped off one morning in the market-place at Cesena, with a wooden 
 dagger on one side of him and a bloody knife on the other, the ferocity 
 of which spectacle not only appeased but amazed the people for' awhile " 
 {The Prince., pp. 48-49). Cf. Overbury's charactef?lation of the host 
 as one that " hath gotten the trick of greatness, to lay all mislikes upon 
 his servants" {Characters., ed. London, 1856, p. 71). 
 
 38 31. Haiid infima ars, etc. It is not the least art in a prince to 
 judge where lenity, where severity, may best prevail for the common 
 good. See an interesting note by Prof. A. W. Ward {Hist, of Engl. 
 Dramatic Literature, i. 185) on Macchiavelli and the references to 
 him and his works throughout Elizabethan literature. Besides various 
 references to Shakespeare, Professor Ward refers to Every Mati out 
 of his Humor, 2. 2, and The Magnetic Lady, i. i. 
 
 Niccolo Macchiavelli (1469-1527), the eminent statesman, diploma- 
 tist, and writer of history and statescraft. While Macaulay's defence 
 can hardly be accepted as a complete vindication of this remarkable 
 man, there need be no hesitancy in affirming that he has labored under 
 much undeserved obloquy. As Hallam says, " His crime, in the eyes 
 of the world, was to have cast away the veil of hypocrisy." 
 
 38 33. Taking atuay. Taking off. 
 
 38 35. // is most gracious then . . . 7vhen. ... To think then . . . 
 when. Note the formality of the correlatives. Cf. 68 30. 
 
 39 6. Factors. Deputies, assistants. 
 
 39 7. dementia tutela opima. Clemency is the highest safeguard. 
 The folio reads tutelat for tutela. He that is cruel to halves, etc. Cf. 
 *' He that usurps the government is to execute all the cruelties which 
 
124 NOTES. 
 
 he thinks material at once, that he may have no occasion to renew 
 them often, but that by his discontinuance he may mollify the people, 
 and by his benefits bring them over to his side. He who does other- 
 wise, whether for fear or ill-counsel, is obliged to be always ready with 
 his knife in his hand; for he can never repose any confidence in his 
 subjects, whilst they, by reason of his continued inhumanities, cannot 
 be secure against him. So then injuries should be committed all at once, 
 that the last being the less, the distaste may be likewise the less; but 
 benefits should be distilled in drops, that the relish may be the greater " 
 {The Prince, chap. 8, p. 6i). And Bacon: "And certain it is that 
 nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and untimely 
 interchange of power, pressed too far and relaxed too much" (C>« 
 Empire, Essays, Golden Treasury ed. p. 76). 
 
 39 7. Cruel to halves. By halves. Cf. 26 18 and 27 26. 
 
 39 25, Need a cipher for. Cf. 18 2, and references there. 
 
 39 28. The Palladiuvi. " Troy, however, was still impregnable so 
 long as the Palladium, a statue given by Zeus himself to Dardanus, 
 remained in the citadel; and great care had been taken by the Trojans, 
 not only to conceal this valuable present, but to construct other statues 
 so like it as to mislead any intruding robber. Nevertheless the enter- 
 prising Odysseus . . . found means to penetrate into the city, and to 
 convey the Palladium by stealth away " (Grote, Hist, of Greece, i. p. 
 410). The folio has the marginal note Palladium Homeri. 
 
 39 30. He that is religious must be merciful and just necessarily, 
 and they (i.e. mercy and justice) are, etc. 
 
 39 33. Innocence rejoiceth in. Cf. 18 2, and the references there. 
 
 40 4. Let no man . . . murmur at the actions of the prince. Cf. 
 the reported utterance of the British Solomon on this prime dogma of 
 Stuart statecraft: "A father cannot injure a son, or a king his sub- 
 jects, so that they may shake off their natural obedience, or to be their 
 revengers. If anything be amiss, all they can do is prcecibus et lacri- 
 mis, non vi et armis''^ {Crumms far n fro?n King Jameses Table, Sir 
 Thomas Overbury, p. 268). 
 
 40 7. Where the prijice is good, etc. I have been unable to find 
 this in Euripides. 
 
 40 11. A prince with such counsel. This is the reading of the folio. 
 Mr. Swinburne, who, it would seem, must have read for his Study of 
 Ben Jonsoti from Gifford's, or at best Cunningham's, edition, very prop- 
 erly corrects Gifford's blunder : " a prince with such a council," by the 
 query "counsel." The query, however, becomes unnecessary with a 
 glance at the folio. 
 
NO TES. 125 
 
 40 12. Terminus. A Roman divinity, presiding over boundaries 
 and frontiers. His statue was merely a stone or .post stuck in the 
 ground to distinguish between properties. 
 
 40 13. T/ie crowned lion in the fable. In allusion to the well-known 
 fable of Reynard the Fox, which was long in great repute, and was 
 one of the works printed by Caxton in 1481. See ^^sop's Fables 
 ed. Caxton, 3. 20, 5. 9, and a discussion of the whole subject, Traeger 
 der Thierfabel, introduction to Grimm's Keinhart Fuchs, p. xliii. 
 et seqq. 
 
 40 20. But princes, etc. Cf. note 34 8 and 70 25. 
 
 40 21. A Sejanus to be near about them. The folio reads him for 
 them in this clause and in the following. 
 
 40 21. Sejanus, yElius. An instrument of the tyranny of Tiberius, 
 over whom he appears to have exercised a strange fascination. He 
 was, however, finally overmatched by the superior duplicity of Tiberius, 
 and put to death a.d. 31. See Jonson's play on this subject, Sejanus, 
 his Fall. 
 
 40 22. Affect to get above him. Aspire to get above him. Cf. " Affect 
 his subjects'," 41 29. 
 
 40 30. Illiteratus princeps. The unlettered prince. 
 
 41 12. Character principis. The characteristics of a prince. 
 
 41 16. A prince is the pastor, etc. Referaljle to the adage : Boni 
 pastoris est, tondere pecus, non deglubere (Erasmus, Adagiorum Opus, 
 chil. 3, cent. 7. 12). 
 
 41 18. Fells. Skins, generally with the hair on. 
 
 41 22. Hated that gardener, etc. This anecdote is related by 
 Erasmus under the adage given at 41 IG. 
 
 41 29. Keep his ozvn, not affect his subjects'' ; i.e. not aspire to his 
 subjects' possessions. Cf. 40 22. 
 
 41 31. Affect the surnames that groxv by htiman slaughters. As 
 African us, applied to the Scipiones; Asiaticus, to a third Scipio, and to 
 some of the Valerii; Macedonicus, the surname of Metellus; Gallaicus, 
 that of Decimus Brutus; Balearicus, Allobrogicus, Numidicus, Atticus, 
 and many others. 
 
 42 3. Choose neither magistrate, civil or ecclesiastic, by favor. Cf. 
 James's own words on this subject, as reported by one of his courtiers : 
 " The wisdom of a king is chiefly seen in the election of his officers, as 
 in places which require a peculiar sufficiency, not to choose them that 
 he affects most, but to use every one according to his proper fitness " 
 {Crumms faVn from. King James's Table, Sir Thomas Overbury, 
 p. 264). 
 
126 NOTES. 
 
 42 4. Disquisition. Inquiry, investigation, 
 
 42 5. By all suffer age s ; i.e. by the suffrages of all, unanimous 
 opinion. 
 
 42 5. Sell no honors. In this glowing picture of a true prince, 
 Jonson could hardly have had in mind his royal patron James, whose 
 incontinent creation of new peerages and dubbing of knights is a 
 frequent subject of ridicule in the old dramas. Cf. Middleton, The 
 Phoenix, I. 6; ed. Bullen, i. p. 135 : "Daughter, what gentleman might 
 this be? No gentleman, sir; he's a knight. Is but a knight? Troth, 
 I would a sworn had been a gentleman." In The Alchemist, 2. 2, Sir 
 Epicure Mammon declares that for the excellent preparation of a feast, 
 " I'll say unto my cook, There's gold, go forth, and be a knight." It 
 is said that Jonson himself narrowly escaped the king's indiscriminate 
 dubbing. 
 
 42 6. And for reward. As a reward. 
 
 42 6. If he do, acknowledge it. The passage is obscure, if not cor- 
 rupt. I have preferred, however, to retain the reading of the folio.. 
 If he do evidently refers back to sell honors. The whole sense is prob- 
 ably somewhat thus: If he do sell honors, and give them hastily, 
 acknowledge the fact, though late in doing so, and correct the abuse. 
 It may be suggested that by supplying the word not after if he do, the 
 clause may be referred logically to what immediately precedes; e.g. If 
 he do not bestow honors with counsel and as a reward, acknowledge it 
 and mend it. 
 
 42 17. Attributes make a king akin to gods. Cf. 4 15, and references 
 there given. 
 
 42 18. The Delphic sword, both to kill sacrifices and to chastise 
 offenders. This is referable to a Greek proverb for making one thing 
 serve two purposes. See Codex Coisliniano (Proverb, 105), where the 
 expression is referred to " the avarice of those who aim at making money 
 out of everything, inasmuch as the Delphians took one pay for the 
 victims and another for the use of the knife." Hesychius {^lexicon, 
 p. 383) explains the allusion somewhat differently, as a knife made of 
 two substances. Phavorinus, too, explains (p. 465. 23) that " the Del- 
 phic knife (named from its make) has the front part (blade?) iron." 
 Cf. Aristotle {Politics, I. 2) "Nature does nothing meanly, like artists 
 who make the Delphic swords; but she has one instrument for one 
 end; for thus her instruments are most likely to be brought to perfec- 
 tion, being made to contribute to one end, and not to many." My col- 
 league. Prof. William A. Lamberton, to whose kindness I am indebted 
 for the above, considers that the proverb in this sense is due to a mis- 
 
NOTES. 127 
 
 interpretation of the expression, daveTv AeXcpiKcp ^i(pei; i.e. to die by a 
 Delphian h?.nd (Euripides, Orestes, 1656). Cf. also Dryden's The 
 Hind and the Panther, 1485-86 : 
 
 Your Delphic sword, the Panther then replied, 
 Is double-edged, and cuts on either side. 
 
 and Erasmus, Adagioruni Opus, chil. 2, cent. 3. 69, where the whole 
 subject is discussed. 
 
 42 20. De gratiosis. Of the favored. Note the balance of the whole 
 passage. 
 
 42 26. Divites. The rich. 
 
 42 26. He, which is sole heir. Cf. 34 27. 
 
 42 28. Diverse his kindred. Note the order. See Sh. Gram. § 13, 
 and cf. the frequent expression, "Good my lord," etc. (J. C. 2. I. 255). 
 
 42 30. Heirs ex asse. Sole heirs. Ex asse means literally from 
 the unit, the as being the unit of weight, measure, and value among 
 the Romans. 
 
 42 34. Fures publici. Thieves of public money. Some of the 
 greatest names of the age of Elizabeth and James justly fall under 
 this head : Sir George Carey, Treasurer at War and later Lord Deputy 
 of Ireland, who had amassed a large fortune and died respected in 
 1 61 6, was a main instrument in the embezzlement of something like 
 ;i^i8o,ooo (nearly $5,ocx),ooo, present value) of public money. In 
 1 62 1 Bacon was convicted of taking bribes; in 1624 Cranfield was im- 
 peached for malversion; and Sir Thomas Gresham, the famous finan- 
 cier, grew into a great capitalist in the previous reign on a salary of 
 2.0s. a day and expenses, only extricating himself at last from an inves- 
 tigation, in which he was all but forced to disgorge, by a happy meeting 
 with Her Majesty when in a giving mood. See Hubert Hall's Society 
 in the Elizabethan Age, pp. 125, 128 seqq. ; 58 seqq. 
 
 42 34. Lightly. Usually. Cf. Puttenham, Art of English Poesie, 
 2. 13 : " But lightly they be iambics because the accent falls sharp," etc. 
 
 43 4. Dat veniam corvis, etc. He grants pardon to ravens, but 
 visits the doves with severest censure; i.e. the innocent man meets with 
 injustice, the guilty man escapes (Juvenal, Sat. 2. 63). 
 
 43 5. Non rete accipitri, etc. Nor fowling net is stretched for 
 hawk or kite (Terence, Phormio, 2. 2. 16). Both passages are freely 
 translated in the text. The marginal reference of the folio incorrectly 
 ascribes this last quotation to Plautus. 
 
 43 8. Huff. Swagger, hector. 
 
 43 9. Value. Count. 
 
128 NOTES. 
 
 43 10-1 3\ Lezvis XL I have been unable to trace the original of 
 this charactengUc anecdote. 
 
 43 16^^<*^^^my et inalis. Of the good and the bad. 
 Else I had never. Note the sudden change to the first per- 
 
 s4i and the autobiographical tenor of the whole. " No one will be 
 
 /surprised to find that Ben Jonson's chosen type or example of high- 
 minded innocence, incessantly pursued by malice, delated, and defamed, 
 but always triumphant and confident, even when driven to the verge of 
 a precipice, is none other than Ben Jonson " (./ Study of Ben Jonson, 
 
 P- 157)- 
 
 44 10. Objected making of verses to me. Cf. the general disrepute 
 of poets, the subject of much complaint among the authors of the day. 
 " I know very many notable gentleman in the court," says Puttenham, 
 "that have written commendably, and suppressed it again, or else 
 suffered it to be published without their own names to it : as if it were 
 a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned, or to show himself amorous 
 of any good art" (^The Arte of English Poesie, ed. Haselwood, p. i6); 
 and cf. 12 4 and 22 19. 
 
 44 12. Urge mine ozvn zvritings against me. A practice continued 
 to the present day by those that consider Shakespeare capable of glori- 
 fication in the belittling of Jonson. See, especially, Giftbrd's redoubta- 
 ble defence of Jonson against M alone and other posthumous foes in 
 the essay prefixed to Gifford's edition of Ben Jonson, entitled Proofs 
 of Ben Jonsoji's Malignity, from the Commentators on Shakespeare (ed. 
 Cunningham, i. pp. Ixxxi.-xcix.). 
 
 44 16. Defrauded of his beginning. See Sh. Gram. § 228. " //^ 
 was not used originally in the Authorized Version of the Bible, and is 
 said to have been rarely used in Shakespeare's time. His still repre- 
 sented the genitive of it as well as of //^." Its is found in several 
 places in Shakespeare {e.g. Lear, 4. 2. 32; W. T. I. 2. 151. 152, and 
 266). Besides his, it, an early provincial genitive, is often used for its. 
 Jonson uses all three forms. Cf. 77ie Silent Woman, 2. 5, Folio ed. 
 1640, p. 479 : " Your knighthood itself shall come on its knees." And 
 a little below : " It shall fright all it friends, with borrowing letters." 
 Cf. 20 6, 47 35, 76 1, and 83 29. 
 
 44 22. Delicate. Choice. Cf. 8 31. 
 
 44 24. The great and monstrotis wickednesses . . . the issue of the 
 xvealthy giants and mighty hunters. Jonson may well have had in 
 mind the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury by Somerset and Frances 
 Howard, the chief scandal of the reign of James, and an imbroglio 
 from which the king himself scarcely emerged with clean conscience. 
 
NO TES. 120 
 
 See Green, History of the English People, iii. p. 87, and cf. A Satyricall 
 Shrub and A Little Shrub growing by, in Jonson's Underwoods, Folio 
 of 1640, p. 190. Jonson wrote an Epilhalamiutn for the marriage of 
 Lady Essex, and was intimate with Sir Thomas Overbury. See his 
 Epigram to the latter, 113. 
 
 44 26. Whereas no great 700 rk or loorthy of praise. Note the 
 inversion. 
 
 44 28. Poverty . . . invented arts, etc. Cf. Theocritus, Idyll, 21. 
 1-3. Thus translated by Lang : " 'Tis poverty alone, Deophantus, that 
 awakens the arts, — poverty, the very teacher of lalior." 
 
 44 33. A?nor nuinmi. Love of money. 
 
 45 19. Brought into a prcsfuunire. More properly prirmonere. 
 " A writ issued out of the King's Bench against one who hath procured 
 any bull or like process of the pope from Rome or elsewhere, for any 
 ecclesiastical place or preferment within the realm, or doth sue in any 
 foreign ecclesiastical court to defeat or impeach any judgment given in 
 the king's court " (Sir Thomas Ridley, Fie^a of the Civil and Ecclesi- 
 astical La-io, Oxford, 1673, p. 153). To incur z. priemunire, according 
 to Stat. 16 Rich. IL c, 5, was to be out of the king's protection, to 
 forfeit lands and goods, and to be imprisoned (Fuller's Church History, 
 ed. 1845, pp. 368 and 373). Cf. "A man may forbear it [the use of 
 certain abbreviations] without danger of falling into a prcBinunire " 
 {English Grammar, Ben Jonson, 5). 
 
 45 19, Begged. Beggared. 
 
 45 22. Stezos. Pools in which to preserve fish for the table, to be 
 drawn and filled again at pleasure (Halliwell). 
 
 45 24. Tissues. See 21 8. 
 
 45 29. Have not I seen . . . vanish all away in a day. The text 
 of the folio, evidently corrupt, reads as follows : Have not I seen the 
 pomp of a whole kingdom, and what a foreign king could bring hither. 
 Also to make himself gazed and wondered at, laid forth, etc. Mr. 
 Swinburne amends : " What a foreign king could bring hither? All to 
 make himself," etc. The reading which I propose has the advantage 
 of involving no more than a change in the punctuation. With these 
 reflections, which, as Mr. Swinburne says, "are uncourtly enough from 
 the hands of a courtly poet " cf. Jonson's masque. The Entertainment 
 of the Two K'ings of Great Britain and Denmark, at Theobalds, July 
 24, 1606, in which the three Hours, Law, Justice, and Peace, addressed 
 the potentates as follows : 
 
 Enter, O longed-for Princes, bless these bowers ! 
 And us, the three, by you made happy Hours ; 
 
130 NOTES. 
 
 We that include all time, yet never knew 
 Minute like this, or object like to you, 
 Two kings, the world's prime honors, whose access 
 Shows cither's greatness, yet makes neither less : 
 Vouchsafe your thousand welcomes in this shower, 
 The maker vows, not Sybil's leaves were truer. 
 
 On this occasion " the carousals at the palace were carried to a most 
 extravagant hight," says Drake (^Shakespeare and his Times, ii, p. 124); 
 and he quotes at length an amusing, if disgusting, account by Sir John 
 Harington (^Nuga; Antigua, i. 349-352) of the spoiling of a masque 
 by the intoxication of its noble presenters and royal listeners; e.g. 
 " Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and Charity. Hope did 
 assay to speak; but wine rendered her endeavors so feeble that she 
 withdrew, and hoped the king would excuse her brevity. Faith was 
 then all alone, for I am certain she was not joined with good works, 
 and left the court in a staggering condition. Charity came to the king's 
 feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had com- 
 mitted, etc. . . . Victory did not triumph long, for after much lament- 
 able utterance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep 
 in the outer steps of the ante-chamber. ... I ne'er did see such lack 
 of good order, discretion, and sobriety, as I have now done." 
 
 46 G. De mollibus et effcefuinatis. Of effeminate weakenings. 
 
 46 10. Moj-phew. A leprous eruption. 
 
 46 11. Gtwiming and bridling beards. Cf. 24 33 and ./ Henry IV. 
 2. 2. I : "I have removed Falstaff 's horse, and he frets like gummed 
 velvet," Explained by R. G. White : " Velvet that was dressed with 
 gum in the manufacture fretted out by reason of its stiffness." Gum- 
 ming is hence stiffening with pomatum; bridling, curbing, trimming. 
 
 46 14. Pickedness. Niceness, affectation. 
 
 46 21. Where. Whereas. 
 
 46 29. De stultitia. Of folly. 
 
 46 30. Fairing. A trifle purchased at a fair. Cf. Bartholomeio 
 Fair, 5. 3, where the overgrown boy. Cokes, in his delight with the 
 actors in a puppet-play, exclaims : " I am in love with the actors already. 
 . . . Hero shall be my fairing. But which of my fairings? Le' me 
 see, i' faith, my fiddle ! and Leander, my fiddle-stick ; then Damon, 
 my drum, etc.; and Pythias, my pipe, and the ghost of Dionysus, my 
 hobby-horse." 
 
 46 35. Lath and lime, perhaps loam. Harrison (^Description of 
 England, ed. Camelot, p. 114) gives this contemporary evidence .on 
 this subject : " The clay wherewith our liouses are impanelled is cither 
 
NOTES. 131 
 
 white, red, or blue; and of these the first doth participate very much 
 of the nature of our chalk; the second is called loam; but the third 
 eftsoons changeth color as soon as it is wrought. ... In plastering 
 of our fairest houses over our heads, we use to lay first a line or two of 
 white mortar, tempered with hair upon laths, which are nailed one by 
 another, or sometimes upon reed of wicker," etc. Cf. Richard J I. i. 
 I. 179: 
 
 Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. 
 
 47 2. Cozen. Deceive. The folio reads consen. Cf. 6 8. 
 
 47 12. De sibi niolestis. Of those a trouble to themselves. 
 
 47 16. Their own misery and others' envy. " The envy they bear 
 towards others," explains Mr. Swinburne, " an equivocal, awkward, and 
 affected Latinism." The critic adds : Jonson " would not — he never 
 would — remember that a phrase or a construction which makes very 
 good Latin may make very bad English" (/i Study of Ben Jonson, 
 p. 163). 
 
 47 26. Perictdosa melancholia. A hazardous disease. Cf. the use of 
 the word melancholy by Robert Burton in the Anatomy of Alelancholy. 
 
 47 30. Gladded. Gladdened. 
 
 47 35. // is offended with his own narroivness. Cf. 20 6, 44 16, 
 76 1, 83 29. 
 
 48 4. Falsce species fugiendce. Even the appearance of evil should 
 be avoided. 
 
 48 14. Decipimiir specie \_recti\ We are deceived by appearance 
 of truth (Horace, de Arte Poetica, 25). Jonson translates: "With 
 likeness of the truth undone." 
 
 48 28. Dejecilo auli\_corum']. Courtiers' despondency. 
 
 48 32. Than [their^ pride. The emendation of Mr. Swinburne. 
 
 49 3. Poetry was a speaking picture, etc, A common saying among 
 the Greeks, and attributed by Plutarch to Simonides: " ^\y\v 6 IIliiovI- 
 Srjs TTjv fxev ^(oypacplav iroLrjcnv (nu}irw(rau irpoa-ayopeveL, Tr)v 5k iroir]- 
 <Tiv ^o)ypa<l)iav \a\ov(rap" (de Gloria Atheniensiwn, 3). There are 
 several other references to the saying in Plutarch and Pseudo-Plutarch. 
 See especially Moralia, de Audiendis Poetis, 3, which is thus translated 
 by Goodwin, 2. 49 : " And we shall fix our young man yet the more if, 
 when we enter him in the poets, we first describe poetry to him, and 
 tell him that it is an imitating art, and doth in many respects corre- 
 spond to painting (otl p.ip.7)TLK7) t^x^V k°-^ dvuafxis icrriu avricrTpocpos rrj 
 ^uypacpLq), not only accjuainting him with the common saying that 
 poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent poetry, but," etc. Lessing, 
 
132 NOTES. 
 
 the founder of modern aesthetics, was far from accepting this maxim. 
 Cf. the Preface to his Laocoon : " The dazzling antithesis of the Greek 
 Voltaire, that painting is a dumb poetry, and poetry articulate painting, 
 was contained in no text-book. It was one of those fancies, so fre- 
 quent in Simonides, the truer part of which is so obvious, that we feel 
 compelled to overlook its accompanying inexactness and falsity." There 
 are many allusions to this apothegm among Elizabethan authors. Cf. 
 John Davies of Hereford, Microcosmos, The Discovery of the Little 
 World with the Govern7}ient thereof, 1603, p. 215. 
 
 49 15. De pictura. On painting. 
 
 49 30. Zeuxis of Heracleia excelled all contemporary painters 
 except Parrhasius. He flourished about 424 B.C., living chiefly at 
 Athens, the court of Archelaus of Macedon, and in Magna Grcvcia. 
 Parrhasius of Ephesus flourished about 400 B.C., and practised his art 
 chiefly at Athens. See Pliny, Natural History, 35. 36. 
 
 49 31. The first found out the reason of lights. Cf Quorum prior 
 luminum umbrarumque invenisse rationem, secundus examinasse sub- 
 tilius lineas traditur, etc. (Quintilian, Inst. 12. 10. 4). 
 
 50 2, Regtdus's tvriting. Regulus, a professional informer and 
 pettifogging lawyer, wrote a eulogy on his dead son, and had it widely 
 circulated. Of this effort Pliny says (^Epistle, 4. 7) : " It was so absurd 
 that it was capable of extorting laughter rather than groans. You 
 would believe it written by a boy, not of a boy (credas non de puero 
 scriptum sed a puero)." 
 
 50 5. Occupy, u^tA^re. Cf. Inst. 8. 3. 44. Whalley also refers to 
 2 Henry IV. 2. 4. lOf^. 
 
 50 8. De progress[^ione'] picttircc. Of the advancement of the art 
 of painting. The marginal reference of the folio, Plin[ius] lib[er] 35 
 c[aput], 2. 5. 6, and 7, is general. The chapters appear to be given 
 inaccurately, however, as Pliny's account of the painting and sculpture 
 of the Greeks is contained between 34 (8) and 46 (12). 
 
 50 14. Etipompus of Sicyon, a distinguished Greek painter, con- 
 temporary with Zeuxis and Parrhasius, was the founder of the third 
 school of Greek art. See Pliny, N'atural History, 35. 36. 
 
 50 IG. Optics. Perspective. 
 
 50 19. Recession. The folio reads recessor, for which I read reces- 
 sion, the analogous English form for the Latin recessus, a going back- 
 ward, here used to denote background or the appearance of an object 
 extending backward. Cf. Cicero, de Oratore, 3. 26 : " Habeat ilia in 
 dicendo admiratio ac summa laus umbram aliquam et recess7im, quo 
 magis id, quod erit illuminatum, exstare atque eminere videatur." Thus 
 
NOTES. 133 
 
 translated : " These strokes \^i.e. the expressions, * very well,' ' excel- 
 lent,' etc.] so much admired in speaking; and this consummate praise 
 should have some kind of recess or shade, that the parts in the stronger 
 light may seem to project and be more eminently conspicuous." Reces- 
 sion in the sense withdrawal is used by Jeremy Taylor ( Works, ed. 
 
 1835. I- 73)- 
 
 50 27. Where he complains of their painting chimceras. Cf. Vitru- 
 vius, de Architectural 7» 5 • " But these subjects, which our forefathers 
 copied from nature, are now, by our depraved manners, disapproved; 
 for monsters rather than the resemblances of natural objects are painted 
 on the stucco; reeds are substituted for columns, etc. ... So also 
 the flowers from stalks have half-Hgures springing therefrom, with heads, 
 some like those of men, some like those of beasts, which things neither 
 are nor can be, nor ever were; and this new mode so prevails that those 
 who are not judges disregard the arts." The marginal reference of the 
 folio, li[ber] 8 et 7, is inaccurate. 
 
 50 31. Which Horace so laughed at. See the first lines of the Ars 
 Poetic a. 
 
 50 34. Socrates taught Parrhasius and Clito . . . Jirst to express 
 manners. This passage is referable to Xenophon's Memorabilia, 3. 10. 
 I seqq., in which are detailed conversations of Socrates with Parrhasius on 
 modes of expression in painting, with Clito, as to the expression of pas- 
 sion in sculpture. Pausanias (i. 22. 8) tells us : " They say that Socrates 
 made Graces" (a group of clothed Graces in the Acropolis) ; and further 
 identifies the philosopher by adding : " The man who by the priestess 
 of Delphi was adjudged the wisest of men." Pliny, however, does not 
 regard this as the philosopher {iVatural History, 36. 4) . Of the sculp- 
 tor Clito, Schneider says : " Hunc plane ignoramus hodie," we know 
 nothing about him to-day. 
 
 50 35. Statuaries. Sculptors. 
 
 51 1-2. Polygnotus. An artist of Thasos, contemporary with Soc- 
 rates. His subjects were chiefly from Homer, and Aristotle says that 
 he painted men more beautiful than they are {Poetica., 2). Aglaophon 
 was his father and teacher in art. See Pliny, Natural History, 35. 36, 
 and Inst. 12. 10. 3. 
 
 51 7-9. For an account of these great masters of Italian art, all of 
 whom flourished in the last quarter of the fifteenth and the first half 
 of the sixteenth century, see Kugler's Handbook of Painting, The 
 Italian School, Part II. passim. "The greatness of Raphael," says Sir 
 Charles Eastlake (ibid. p. 328), " compared with other artists, is not 
 so much in kind as in degree. No master has left so many really 
 
134 NO TES. 
 
 excellent works as he whose days were so early numbered." Michael 
 Angelo " was the great archetype," says Sir Joshua Reynolds {Discourses 
 XV. ii. p. 147), "from whom all his contemporaries and successors have 
 derived whatever they have possessed of the dignified and majestic. . . . 
 Under his hands [painting] is become another and a superior art." 
 Titian or Tiziano Vecellio was the greatest of the Venetian School, 
 which was noted for power in color. Antonio AUegri, surnamed 
 Correggio, is technically the great master of Chiaroscuro. See Fuseli, 
 Lecture on Chiaroscuro. Fra Sebastiano del Piombo was the most 
 important scholar of Giorgione; Julio Romano, the most celebrated 
 scholar of Raphael; and Andrea Vanucchi, commonly caWed Andrea 
 del Sarto, is popularly distinguished as " the faultless painter." As to 
 the last, see Mr. Browning's well-known poem, Alen and Women, 
 p. 184. The folio reads Sartorio. 
 
 51 10. Parasiti ad jnoisam, immo serviles. Parasites at table, nay, 
 slaves. Mr. Swinburne calls attention to the fact that this essay has 
 been improperly split into two. 
 
 51 11. Oraculous. Oracular. The Elizabethans were fond of this 
 termination. Cf. robustiously, 22 32 ; scabrous, 61 29 ; tumorous, 
 65 6. 
 
 51 14. In zuhat they offer at. Cf. 18 2, 18 16, 23 15, 28 2, 39 25, 43 23. 
 
 51 29. If a fuan be asked a question to answer ; i.e. it is not enough 
 to answer, but to repeat the question, etc. The whole passage is diffi- 
 cult, if not corrupt, as the construction is not sustained. 
 
 52 5. Simulties. Private quarrels. 
 52 13. Sufficient. Able. 
 
 52 27. Your lordship. Possibly William Cavendish, Earl, later 
 Duke of Newcastle, a warm friend and benefactor of Jonson in his 
 later years and " himself a dramatic poet." Cf. Ward, Hist, of Engl. 
 Dram. lit. i. p. 533. The Duchess of this Duke of Newcastle, the 
 centre of a later literary circle, wrote that her husband had reported 
 that " he never heard any man read well but Ben Jonson " (^Letters, 
 folio 1664, p. 362). 
 
 53 1. They 2vill seem . . . syllables. Cf. Quintilian, de Institutione 
 Oratoria, I. I. 21, of which the passage is a translation: Parva doce- 
 mus, instituendum oratorem professi : sed est sua etiam studiis infantia : 
 et, ut corporum mox etiam fortissimorum educatio a lacte cunisque 
 intium ducit; ita futurus eloquentissimus edidit aliquando vagitum, et 
 loqui primum incerta voce tentavit, et hresit circa formas literarum. 
 
 53 6. Apting. Fitting. Note the freedom of the translation of the 
 last phrase. 
 
NOTES. 135 
 
 53 7. In their education, etc. Cf. Tradito siln puero, docendi peri- 
 tus ingenium ejus in primis naturaiiKjue perspiciat (^Inst. i. 3. 1). 
 
 53 14. School. A kind of play. Cf. ibid. i. i. 20: Lusus hie sit; 
 et rogetur, et lamletur, etc. 
 
 53 15. They should not be affrighted, (^/bid.) : Nam id in primis 
 cavere oportebit ne studia, qui aniare nundum potest, oderit, et amari- 
 tudinem semel perceptam ctiam ultra rudes annos reformidet. 
 
 53 22. The best school, etc. Cf. Goodwin's Enquiry into Public and 
 Private Education, Enquirer, vii. pp. 56-64, and Quintilian, Inst. i. 
 2. I : Hoc igitur potissimum loco tractanda quaestio est, utiliusne sit 
 domi atque intra privatos parietes studentem continere, an frequentioe 
 scholarum et velut publicis prccceptoribus tradere, etc. 
 
 53 25. They are viore in danger in your oion family. Cf. ibid. 
 I. 2. 4, et seqq., where the subject is treated more at length. 
 
 53 28. Would we did not spoil our own children. The Latin runs : 
 Utinam liberorum nostrorum mores non ipsi perderemus, etc. {ibid. 
 I. 2. 6). 
 
 53 30. To breed them, etc. Cf. Lumen tamen illud conventus 
 honestissimi, tenebras ac solitudini prsetuHssem (ibid. i. 2. 9; and see 
 I. 2. 18-21, where the subject is further expanded). 
 
 54 1. They hear, etc. Cf. Audiet multa quodtidie probari, multa 
 corrigi. . . . Accendunt omnia haec animos (ibid. i. 2. 21, and 22). 
 
 54 4. Eloquence would be but a poor thing. Quintilian writes : 
 Non esset in rebus humanis eloquentia, si tantum cum singulis loquere- 
 mur {ibid. i. 2. 31). 
 
 54 5. Singulars. Individuals. 
 
 54 10, Ambition. Cf. Et licet ipsa vitium sit ambitio, frequenter 
 tamen causa virtutum est {ibid. I. 2. 22). 
 
 54 11. Give me that wit. The Latin runs : Mihi ille detur puer, 
 quem laus excitet, quern gloria juvet, qui victus fleat, hie erit alendus 
 ambitu, hunc mordebit objurgatio, hunc honor excitabit; in hoc desid- 
 iam nunquam verebor {ibid. i. 3. 7). Wit, as usual, quality of mind. 
 Cf. 8 22. 
 
 54 15. Given to play {ibid. i. 3. 8, et seqq.) 
 
 54 17. From the rod. Cf. Caidi vero discentes, quanquam et recep- 
 tum sit et Chrysippus not improbet, minime velim. Primum, cjuia 
 deforme atque servile est, et certe, quod convenit si Ktatem mutes 
 injuria, etc. {ibid. i. 3. 14). 
 
 In short, the bulk of this paragraph is a literal translation of the 
 earlier portions of Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory, incomplete alone 
 in its lack of reference. This and the many other like instances in the 
 
136 NOTES. 
 
 Discoveries need, however, raise no presumption of plagiarism (see 
 Introduction as to this point). In the light of this restoration of a fine 
 passage to its original owner, Mr. Swinburne's remarks become posi- 
 tively entertaining : " If the nineteenth century has said anything on 
 this subject as well worth hearing — as wise, as humane, as reasonable, 
 as full of sympathy and of judgment — as these reflections and animad- 
 versions of a scholar living in the first half or quarter of the seventeenth^ 
 I have never chanced to meet with it" (^ Study of Ben Jonson, pp. 
 167-168). It is but fair to Mr. Swinburne to add that he does men- 
 tion Quintilian on the preceding page as holding views similar to those 
 of Jonson as to discipline, although he is certainly unaware that he is 
 praising the very words of the celebrated subject of Domitian, not that 
 of James I. 
 
 54 19. De stilo, et optimo scribendi genere. Of style, and the best 
 sort of writing. From this point to the conclusion of the Discoveries^ 
 we have a continuous essay on style, although broken and defective in 
 parts. With the paragraph in general, cf. Quintilian, Inst. 10. ^, passim. 
 
 54 22. What ought to be written and after what jnanner. Cf. Sed 
 cum sit duplex qucestio, quomodo, et quce maxime scribi oporteat, etc. 
 {ibid. 10. 3. 4). 
 
 54 23. He must first think, etc. Cf. Sit primo vel tardus, dum dili- 
 gens, stilus, etc. {ibid. 10. 3. 5-7). The literal translation continues 
 even to the illustrations of the javelin hurler, the leaper, and the " veer- 
 ing out of sail " (danda sunt vela). The tenor of the rest of the para- 
 graph will be found in this chapter, at 2. 8. I, et seqq., and elsewhere 
 in the Institutes, although the precise words are not always susceptible 
 of identification. 
 
 54 25. Either. Each. 
 
 54 27. And to do this ; i.e. take care in the placing and ranking of 
 words, etc. 
 
 54 30. Forzuard conceits. First notions. Cf. 31 28, 67 15, 68 2, 
 71 18, and 71 29. 
 
 54 33. Which beside that it helps. Garnett notes the omission of 
 the predicate of -which, the subject being repeated in it, below; i.e. it 
 quickens, etc. 
 
 55 13. Obtain. Attain, reach by endeavor. Cf. " I would obtain 
 to be thought not so inferior" {Areopagitica, Clarendon Press, p. 4). 
 
 55 23, WJiither a man^s genius, etc. I have adopted Mr. Swin- 
 burne's punctuation. Whether for whither is almost constant in the 
 folio. As to the entire passage, cf. Inst. 2. 8. i, et seqq., and 2. 8. 6- 
 
NOTES. 137 
 
 lo, wherein it will be seen that Jonson and Quintilian arc not wholly 
 agreed. 
 
 55 31. The viind and memory are more sharply exercised ut com- 
 prehending another man's things {ibid. 2. 7. 2; and of. 10. 2, passim). 
 
 56 9. Prcccipiendi modi. Modes of teaching. 
 56 18. Election. Selection. Cf. 26 32. 
 
 56 21. But arts and precepts avail nothing. Cf. lUud tamen in 
 primis testandum est, nihil prsecepta atque artes valere, nisi adjuvante 
 natura. Quapropter ei cui deerit ingeniuni, non magis hcec scripta 
 sunt, quam de agrorum cultu sterilibus terris {Inst. Proa;m. 26). 
 
 56 31. The remedy for frtiitfulness, etc. Cf. Facile remedium 
 est ubertatis : sterilia nuUo labore vincuntur, etc. {Inst. 2. 4. 6; ibid. 
 II and 10). 
 
 57 10. Titict. Cf. 57 32. 
 
 57 16. Jiead the best authors. Inst. 2. 5. 19. Note Jonson's advo- 
 cacy of the reading of English authors. 
 
 57 17. Livy before Sallust. T. Livius (59 B.C.-17 A.D.). C. Sal- 
 lustius Crispus (86-34 B.C.). "The style of Livy is lively, elegant, and 
 adapted to every situation with unerring tact. His extensive talent of 
 historical description and his warm sympathy make him as great a his- 
 torical writer as he is insignificant as a historical critic. Sallust, on the 
 other hand, like his model Thucydides, endeavors to be brief, senten- 
 tious, and concise, even so as to become obscure and contorted. There 
 is in him an abundance of reflection and a certain indifference to facts 
 when compared with their psychological interest " (Teufifel, History of 
 Roman Literature, §§ 252 and 204). 
 
 57 17. Sidney before Donne. For Sidney, see 30 31. Jonson's 
 Conversations with Drummond contain several references to Donne of 
 varying nature. In one place Jonson declares that " Donne, for not 
 keeping of accent, deserved hanging " (p. 3) ; in another, that " Donne 
 himself, for not being understood, would perish" (p. 15). On the 
 other hand, in his commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica, " writ dialogue 
 wayes," which was unfortunately lost in the burning of his library, 
 Jonson introduced Donne as Criticus (p. 29) ; and, in a passage, fre- 
 quently quoted, says that he esteems Donne "the first poet in the 
 world in some things" (p. 8). Jonson addressed two epigrams to 
 Donne, the latter returning the compliment in Latin as well as English 
 (Gifford, ciii.). 
 
 Dr. John Donne (1573-1631) has been very variously estimated, 
 but few have questioned his genius. With Jonson himself, he forms 
 the chief literary influence of his day, an influence that transferred the 
 
138 NOTES. 
 
 conceits of the later euphuism — to use the term in its normal, un- 
 germanized sense — to verse, and led the way to that later school of 
 poets, which Dr. Johnson, not so very unwisely, called the Metaphysical 
 School. 
 
 57 18. Go7oer (1330-1408). Rev. Stopford Brooke speaks thus of 
 John Gower : " He belongs to a school older than Chaucer, inasmuch 
 as he is scarcely touched by the Italian, but chiefly by the French influ- 
 ence. ... As he grew older he grew graver; and partly as the relig- 
 ious and social reformer, and partly as the story-teller, he fills up the 
 literary transition between Langland and Chaucer" (^Primer of English 
 Literature, p. 41). 
 
 57 19. Too mtich in love zvith antiquity, etc. Cf. Duo autem genera 
 maxime cavenda pueris puto : Unum, ne quis eos antiquitatis nimius 
 admirator, in Gracchorum, Catonisque, et aliorum similium lectione 
 durescere velit : etc. . . . Alterum, quod huic diversum est, ne recentis 
 hujus lasciviae flosculis capti, voluptate quadam prava delini?.ntur, ut 
 pr^dulce illud genus, et puerilibus ingeniis hoc gratius, quo propius 
 est, adament (^Inst. 2. 5. 21 and 22). 
 
 57 19. Chaucer, Geoffrey (1328-1400). "Here was a healthy and 
 hearty man," says Mr. Lowell, "so genuine that he need not ask 
 whether he was genuine or no, so sincere as quite to forget his own 
 sincerity, so truly pious that he could be happy in the best world that 
 God chose to make, so humane that he loved even the foibles of his 
 kind. Here was a truly epic poet, without knowing it, who did not 
 waste time in considering whether his age were good or bad, but, 
 quietly taking it for granted as the best that ever was or ever could be 
 for him, has left us such a picture of contemporary life as no man ever 
 painted" (^My Study Windows, Chaucer, Camelot ed. p. 207). 
 
 57 26. Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language. Spen- 
 ser's affectation of archaic words is likewise criticised by his friend 
 Sidney : " The Shepherd's Calendar hath much poetry in his eclogues, 
 indeed worthy the reading, if I be not deceived. That same framing 
 of his style to an old rustic language, I dare not allow, since neither 
 Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, or Sanazzaro in Italian did affect 
 it " (^Defense of Poesie, ed. Cook, p. 47). 
 
 57 27. As Virgil read Ennitts. Virgil and Ennius stood in much 
 the relation of Spenser and Chaucer as to their use of language; and 
 the analogy is increased by both Virgil's and Spenser's affectation of 
 archaic diction. Quintus Ennius (between 239-169 B.C.), though of 
 humble birth, lived on terms of intimacy with the elder Scipio Africanus. 
 The Romans united in honoring Ennius as the father of their poetry. 
 
NOTES. 139 
 
 His most important work was a history of Rome in hexameters. Cf. 
 Quintilian's estimate of Ennius (/«j/. lo. I. 88). 
 
 57 28. The reading of Homer and Virgil. The whole passage is 
 culled literally from Quintilian {^Inst. i. 8. 5-9). • 
 
 57 29. Quintilian. M. Fabius Quintilianus, the most celebrated of 
 Roman rhetoricians (40-118 A.D.). Drummond has recorded that 
 " Jonson recommended my reading Quintilian, who, he said, would tell 
 me the faults of my verses as if he lived with me" (^Conversations, 
 Jonson, ed. Cunningham, iii. p. 470). 
 
 57 32. Is tincted. Stained, dyed. Cf. 57 10 and 
 
 And there I see such black and grained spots 
 As will not leave their tinct {Hamlet, 3. 4. 90). 
 
 57 35. In the Greek poets as also in Plautus, etc. "In his prefer- 
 ence of Plautus to Terence," says Mr. Swinburne, " it may be said that 
 Ben Jonson anticipated the verdict of two such very different great 
 men as Jonathan Swift and Victor Hugo " (// Study of Ben Jonson, 
 p. 171). 
 
 T. Maccius Plautus (254-184 B.C.) is pre-eminently the typical comic 
 poet of Rome. But twenty of his one hundred and thirty plays are 
 extant. P. Terentius Afer (195-159 B.C.) was of Carthaginian birth. 
 Six comedies are all that remain to us. Like Plautus, his work is 
 wholly based on Greek originals, amongst whom Menander, chiej 
 the new comedy, is the most important. See Teuffel, Hist, of Roman 
 Lit. §§ 87 and 100 for a comparison of the two. 
 
 58 6. Falsl^al (]uerel\_a] fugiend\_a']. Groundless complaint should 
 be avoided. 
 
 58 6. We should not protect our sloth. Cf. Difficultatis patrocinia 
 prseteximus segnitiae (^Inst. i. 12. 16). 
 
 58 7. // is a false quarrel. The passage in Quintilian, here some- 
 what mutilated, reads thus : " P'alsa enim est querela, paucissimis 
 hominibus vim percipiendi, quae tradantur, esse concessam, plerosquc 
 vero laborem ac tempora tarditate ingenii perdere. Nam contra, plures 
 reperias et faciles in excogitando, et discendum promtos. Quippe id 
 est homini naturale : ac sicut aves ad volatum, equi ad cursum, ad 
 saevitiam ferae gignuntur : ita nobis propria est mentis agitatio atque 
 sollertia : unde origo animi coelestis creditur. Hebetes vero et indociles 
 non magis secundum naturam homines eduntur, quam prodigiosa cor- 
 pora, et monstris insignia: sed hi pauci admodum " (^Inst. I. I. I and 
 2). Cf. a similar passage at the beginning of Sallust's Jugurtha. It 
 will be noticed that Jonson has considerably disarranged the clauses, 
 omitting a part of the illustration and condensing the last sentence. 
 
140 NOTES. 
 
 58 18. Plato was not content, etc. (^Inst. i. I2. 15). After the con- 
 demnation of Socrates (399 B.C.), Plato went to the house of Euclid 
 in Megara, whence he is said to have undertaken a long journey, in 
 the course of whiqja he visited Cyrene and Egypt, and perhaps Asia 
 Minor. Later, when some forty years of age, he visited the Pythago- 
 reans in Italy, and went to Sicily thereafter. Cicero is our chief 
 authority for Plato's journey to Egypt, which, says Cicero, " he under- 
 took for the purpose of obtaining instruction from the priests in mathe- 
 matics and astronomy." See Cicero, de Fin. 5. 29, and Ueberweg, 
 History of Philosophy, i. 98. 
 
 58 23. Many things may he learned together. The subject of the 
 Institutes, I. 12. I and 3. The translation is quite literal, even to the 
 illustration of the musician. 
 
 58 27. Election. Selection. Cf. 26 32, 56 18. The Latin is electio 
 verboriwi. 
 
 58 30. Diverse studies. Inst. I. 12. 4. 
 
 59 9. Pra:cept\_a'\ element\_aria'\. Elementary rules. 
 
 59 12. Anxieties and foolish cavils of the grammarians. Cf. 10 5 
 and Overbury's Characters, a Pedant : " He trades in a rule; and one 
 hand scans verses, and the other holds his scepter. He dares not 
 think a thought that the nominative case governs not the verb ; and 
 he never had meaning in his life, for he travelled only for words. . . . 
 He values phrases, and elects them by sound; and the eight parts of 
 speech are his servants" (^Characters, p. 69). 
 
 59 14. Elementarii senes. Old men at their A, B, C's, still at the 
 rudiments. Cf. Seneca, Epistolcc, 36 (Morell, i. p. 129) : "*[t is a 
 mean and scandalous thing to see an old man at his A, B, C's. It is 
 for young men to learn, and old men to make right use of what they 
 have learned." Jonson uses the expression elsewhere: ''This would 
 ask a larger time and field than is here given for the examination; but 
 since I am assigned to this province, that it is the lot of my age, after 
 thirty years' conversation with men, to be elemcntarius senex, I will 
 promise and obtain so much of myself as to give in the heel of the book 
 some spur and incitement to that which I so reasonably seek " ( The 
 English Grammar, c. 6). 
 
 59 16. Talking and eloquence are not the same. Cf. Antonius . . . 
 ait a se disertos visos esse multos, eloquentem autem neminem (^Inst. 
 8, Pro. 13). 
 
 59 24. Doubtful. Ambiguous. 
 
 59 25. A poet is said that he ought, etc. In modern idiom : The 
 reason it is said that a poet ought, etc. The passage is awkward, if 
 not corrupt. 
 
NO TES. 141 
 
 59 33. De orationis dignitatc. Of the dignity of speech. 
 
 60 1. Mercury deorum hominumque interpres. Cf. Interpres 
 divum, applied to Mercury by Virgil {.^neid, 4. 356 and 377). 
 
 60 7. *E7/cu/cXo7rai5e^a. The circle of general. ;:;ducation {Inst. i. 
 10. I). 
 
 60 7. Words. The folio has the following marginal references : 
 Of words, see IIor[atius] de Art\_e'] Poetic\_a']; Quintil[ianus], l[iber] 
 8; Ludov[ico] Vives \_de Ratione studii pnerilis, Epistola i, editio 
 1555], pp. 6 and 7. These later contain an account of words, speech, 
 and accents. Ludovico Vives (1492-1540) was a Spanish scholar of 
 note, friend of Erasmus and tutor to the Princess Mary. 
 
 60 9. Verboriiin delectus, etc. Choice of words is the beginning 
 of eloquence. Julius Caesar as quoted by Cicero {^Brutus, 72). 
 
 60 10. To be chose. Chosen. 
 
 60 10. Chose according to the persons we make speak. Cf. Ars 
 Poetica, 112. 
 
 60 16. Translation. Here, use of rhetorical figure. Latin trans- 
 latio, quce fieraipopa Grtece vocatur (Quintilian, Inst. 8. 6. 4). 
 
 60 17. Nam temere nihil, etc. A wise man uses no metaphors at 
 random. " Every metaphor should occupy a space otherwise empty, or 
 at least fill it better than the word it excludes." {Ibid.) 
 
 60 19. JVant a word to express by ; i.e. express a thought by. 
 
 60 21. Commodity. Convenience, fitness. 
 
 60 23. Far-fet. Far-fetched, the usual Elizabethan form. 
 
 60 24. Hinder to be understood. Prevent our understanding (being 
 understood). See Sh. Gram. §§ 355 and 356; and cf. 82 33. 
 
 60 25. Translations. See 60 16. 
 
 60 27. Ordinary. A public dining-table at a tavern, where each 
 person pays his share, a table dlibte, as they now use the expression. 
 
 60 34. Castratam morte Africani, etc. The first and second of 
 these illustrations of unbecoming metaphors are from Cicero, de Oratore, 
 3. 41. 164. The third is ascribed to Furius Bibaculus. All three were 
 derived by Jonson from a passage of Quintilian {^Inst. 8. 6. 15 and 17). 
 Cf. Horace's parody of the last (.Sa/. 2. 5. 41) : 
 
 Furius hibernas cana nive conspuet Alpcs ; 
 
 a parallel of this passage in Henry V. 3. 5. 52, and an interesting note 
 thereon in Modern language Notes, April, 1 89 1. 
 
 61 1. Attempts that are new. Ars Poetica, 46, ct seqq. 
 
 61 9. Perspicuitas. Perspicuity; venustas, comeliness; autoritas, 
 authority are here the three marginal notes of the folio. 
 
142 NOTES. 
 
 61 11. Be too frequent with the mint. Resort to the mint too 
 frequently. 
 
 61 13. The chief virtue of a style, etc. Quintilian, Inst. 2. 3. 8 : 
 Prima est eloquentiae virtus, perspicuitas. 
 
 61 28. Aquai and pictai. Cf. yEneid, 7. 464; 9. 26; and aulai, 
 3. 354. The primitive termination of the genitive singular was ai, 
 continued in use among the poets as an archaism. See Inst. 8. 3. 25. 
 
 61 29. Lucretius. See below, 74 14. Of Lucretius, Teuffel says, 
 " His style is unequal, and frequently awkward; his diction trenchant, 
 bold, and of a harshness which possesses a peculiar attraction " (^Ilist. 
 of Roman Literature, § 201). Scabrous. Harsh, rough. 
 
 61 30. As some do Chaucerisms luith us. See Jonson's animadver- 
 sions on Spenser, 57 26. 
 
 61 33. As zve gather flozoers to strata houses. This pleasing custom is 
 thus noticed by Dr. Levinus Lemmius, a German traveller in England 
 in 1560: "The neat cleanliness and exquisite fineness, the pleasant and 
 delightful furniture in every point for household, wonderfully rejoiced 
 me; their chambers and parlors strawed over with sweet herbs refreshed 
 me; their nosegays, finely intermingled with sundry sorts of fragrant 
 flowers, in their bed-chambers and privy rooms, with comfortable smell, 
 cheered me up, and delighted all my senses " ( The Touchstone of 
 Complexions, folio 47, quoted in Harrison's Description of England, 
 Appendix II. p. Ixiv. New Sh. Soc. Pub. 1877). 
 
 62 2. Paronomasies. Puns, irapovofMaata. The folio incorrectly 
 reads Paratiomasia. 
 
 62 4. Quce per salebras, etc. See 24 26 and 87 22. 
 
 62 17. Profits. Here in the sense is of value. 
 
 62 22. Tacitus, the Laconic, Suetonius, Seneca, and Fabianus. 
 These words occur in the folio only on the margin. It will be noticed 
 that each is the exponent of the corresponding style mentioned in the 
 text: Tacitus "of the brief"; the Laconic, for that "which expresseth 
 not enough "; whilst Suetonius represents " the abrupt "; Seneca, " the 
 congruent"; and Fabianus, "the harmonious." 
 
 C. Cornelius Tacitus flourished about 61-120 a.d. His style is 
 "vigorous and pregnant with meaning; labored, but elaborated with 
 art, and stripped of every superfluity." Jonson, like Bacon, was a 
 close student of Tacitus. See especially the elaborate notes to Sejanus. 
 
 C. Suetonius Tranquillus (about 75-160 A.D.) is chiefly remembered 
 for his Lives of the Emperors, from Caesar to Domitian. His style is 
 simple and concise, but monotonous. See Teufl'el, ii. pp. 211-216. 
 
 L. Annaeus Seneca flourished about 1-65 a.d. See below, 70 21. 
 
 I 
 
NO TES. 143 
 
 The style of Seneca was that of a rhetorician, in which briUiancy was 
 put above accuracy. 
 
 Labianus Papirius, a rhetorician, contemporary with the elder Seneca. 
 The younger Seneca declares that as to style Fabianus was surpassed 
 only by Cicero, Pollio, and Livy. 
 
 62 31. Periodiy sentences, is the marginal note of the folio. 
 
 62 35. The rcader''s or hearer''s want of understanding. Mr. 
 Swinburne calls attention to Dr. Johnson's remark : " I have found you 
 a reason, sir ; I am not bound to find you an understanding." 
 
 63 G. Rectitude lucetn adfert, Qic. Directness sheds light; ambiguity 
 and circumlocution obscure. 
 
 63 10. Obsciiritas offundit tenebras. Freely, obscurity of phrase 
 spreads darkness of meaning. The subject is discussed by Quintilian 
 i^hist. 4. 2, passim). 
 
 63 13. Like the pearl in the fable. Phcedrus, 3. 12, and the first 
 Fable of /Esop, as printed by Caxton, 1484. See Mr. Jacob's Reprint, 
 1889, ii. p. 4, and his synopsis of parallels {ibid. p. 230). 
 
 63 17. Superlation. Latin superlatio, exaggeration, hyperbole, the 
 marginal note of the folio. 
 
 63 21, Fremit oceanus, etc. The ocean rages as if it were angry 
 that thou shouldst leave the land (M. Seneca, Suasoria, I. ii). For 
 Cestius, see 22 2. 
 
 63 23. Credas innare, etc. Virgil, y^neid, 8. 691, the line reads: 
 
 pelago credas innare revulsas 
 Cyclades 
 
 You would think that the Cyclades plucked up were swimming in the 
 sea. Quintilian uses this quotation as an illustration of hyperbole 
 {Inst. 8. 6. 68). 
 
 63 29. Eos esse Populi Romani, etc. A reminiscence of the follow- 
 ing: " In quo vos victores existimabatis? An, me deleto, non animum 
 advertebatis, decern habere legiones Populum Romanum, quae non 
 solum vobis obsistere, sed etiam coelum diruere possent ? " {de Bella 
 Hispaniensi, 42). 
 
 64 12. Commodity. Convenience. 
 
 64 15. Oratio imago animi. Speech is the image of the mind. 
 Cf. Inst. 2. 10. 12: Declamatio judiciorum consiliorumque imago. 
 64 18. The parent of it. In avoidance of its parent. Cf. 44 15. 
 64 33. Well-torned. Jonson's usual form. Cf. 76 22. 
 
 In his well-torned and true-filed lines 
 
 ( To the Memory of Shakespeare) . 
 
144 NOTES. 
 
 65 6. Tumorous. Tumid. 
 
 65 10. Flat cap, trunk hose, etc. A costume indicative of the citi- 
 zen or man of ordinary station. Howe says that in the times of Mary 
 and Elizabeth, "apprentices wore flat caps, and others under three- 
 score years of age, as well journeymen as masters." See Gifford's note, 
 Every Man in his Humor, 2. i : 
 
 Flat caps as proper are to city gowns 
 
 As to armor, helmets, or to kings their crowns. 
 
 See also A??iends for Ladies, Dodsley, xi. p. 152, note. Tru7ik hose 
 were wide breeches, at first covering only the thighs, later extending 
 below the knee (Halliwell, Diet. etc. p. 892). Cf. Father Hubbard's 
 Tale, Bullen's ed. of Middleton, vol. viii. : " His breeches, a wonder to 
 see, were full as deep as the middle of winter or the roadway between 
 London and Winchester, and so long and wide withal, that I think 
 within a twelvemonth he might very well put all his lands in them." 
 References to this absurd fashion are innumerable. See especially 
 Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuse, Nezu Sh. Soc., and notes thereto. The 
 hobby-horse cloak was a long cloak, probably so called from the fact 
 that it concealed the lower limbs, like the long piece of cloth which 
 dangled about the ankles of the rider of the hobby horse, or St, George 
 in the old antics of the Morris dance. See Douce's Illustrations of 
 Shakespeare, ii. 463, where "the quadrupedal defects of the hobby 
 horse " are described as " concealed by a long mantle or footcloth that 
 nearly touched the ground." 
 
 65 12. Velvet goivn, furred with sables. The rich and dignified 
 costume of age and station. Cf. Hamlet, 4. 7. 81 : " For youth no less 
 becomes the light and careless livery that it wears than settled age his 
 sables and his weeds." A gown, furred with sables, was the most costly 
 article of male attire. 
 
 65 19. Cutis sive cortex, etc. This extended comparison of the 
 various styles in writing to the stature and dimensions of the human 
 body may be referred in general to Quintilian, Cicero, and other Roman 
 rhetoricians; e.g. QuintiHan {fust. 10. 2. 15) speaks of the skin {ctitis) 
 of eloquence : " Thus your arguments will be more forcible and assume 
 more comeliness, if they show not limbs meagre and destitute, as it 
 were, of flesh" {non nudos et velut came spoliatos artus ostendcriut, 
 ibid. 5. 12. 6). And again: "Such poor naked arts . . . break and 
 shatter all that is generous in a discourse, dry up all the sap of the 
 genius, and leave it like a skeleton body with naked bones. Undoubt- 
 edly bones are necessary, but they should adhere to each other by 
 
 i 
 
NOTES. 145 
 
 their respective ligaments, and be covered with muscular flesh" {il'id. 
 Frocem. 24). 
 
 65 33. Rednndat sanguine, etc. It abounds in blood, by which 
 far more is said than is needful. Cf. List. 10. i. 60, where the style of 
 a poet is said to h^ plurimtun sanguinis atque nervorum. 
 
 66 9. Ossa habent, et nervos. They have bones and sinews. 
 
 66 10. Noiiv do/nini S\_anc'\t\_i'\ Albani de doctrin\_(e\ intemper- 
 \antia\. Observations of the Viscount St. Albans on the extrava- 
 gances of learning. 
 
 6612. The study of words. Cf. The Advanceinent of Learning : 
 " Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study 
 words, and not matter; whereof though I have represented an example 
 of late times, yet it hath been and will be secundutn niajus et minus in 
 all time. And how is it possible but this should have an operation to 
 discredit learning, even with the vulgar capacities, when they see 
 learned men's works like the first letter of a patent or limned book, 
 which, though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter. . . . The 
 second, which followeth, is in nature worse than the former; for as 
 substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so, contrariwise, 
 vain matter is worse than vain words. . . . For the third vice or dis- 
 ease of learning, which concerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the 
 rest the foulest; as that which doth destroy the essential form of 
 knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of the truth; for the 
 truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more 
 than the direct beam and the beam reflected " (Bacon's Works, ed. 
 1819, i. pp. 28-31). 
 
 66 17. Make a7i author a dictator. Cf. Bacon's words : " And as 
 for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors in sciences, 
 in making them dictators, that their words should stand, and not con- 
 suls to give advice; the damage is infinite that sciences have received 
 thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low, at a stay, 
 without growth or advancement. ... Although the position be good, 
 oportet discentem credere, yet it must be coupled with this, oportet 
 edoctuvi judicare ; for disciples do owe unto masters only a temporary 
 belief and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully in- 
 structed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual captivity " {ibid. 
 i. p. 34). And cf. 7 IG. 
 
 66 30. Errors have intervened. Cf. 4 15, and references there. 
 
 66 35. Digladiations. Literally, fights with a sword, sharp con- 
 tests. Cf. "They [the schoolmen] see such digladiations about sub- 
 tilties and no matters of use " {Advancement of Learning, i. p. 46). 
 
146 NOTES. 
 
 67 12, De Optimo scripiore. Of the best writer. 
 67 15. Conceits. Cf. 31 28, 54 30, 68 2, 71 29. 
 
 67 22. Dicere recte, etc. He alone can speak properly that appre- 
 hends intelligently (Cicero, Brutus, 6. 23). 
 
 67 32. Elocution. Cf. 27 20, 34 31. 
 
 68 2. Conceit. Cf. 31 28, 54 30, 67 15, 71 29. 
 68 14. De stilo epistolari. Of epistolary style. 
 
 68 30. When . . . then. Note the formality of the correlatives, 
 and cf. 38 35. 
 
 69 6. Whom you ivrite to. Cf. 18 2, 23 15, and references there. 
 69 7. Give the cue. The folio reads Q. The same word as queue, 
 
 the tail or last words of a previous speech. 
 
 69 20. S( as. So that. Cf. 3 5, and references there. 
 
 69 24. Cense. Worth, estimation. The same word as census. Cf. 
 " She \_i.e. Rome] had five hundred thousand free citizens in a famous 
 cense that was made" (Howell's Familiar Epistles, 1650, ed. Stott, i. 
 p. 122). Morley reads sense. 
 
 69 25. Set a task to his brain. Cf. 4 4, and references there given. 
 
 69 26. Venter. Venture. 
 
 69 31. Submiss. Submissive, humble. 
 
 70 3. Breviates. Summaries, epitomes. 
 
 70 4. Riotous and ivastingly . Cf. 15 IG and 17 15. 
 
 70 13. There is a briefness of parts . . . 7vith77iy lord. Quintilian, 
 Inst. 4. 2. 41 : Solet enim esse quasdam partium brevitas, quce longam 
 tamen efficit summam. In portum veni, navim prospexi, quanti veheret 
 interrogavi, de pretio convenit, conscendi, sublatDe sunt ancorae, solvi- 
 mus Oram, profecti sumus. Nihil horum dici celerius potest, sed sufificit 
 dicere, E portu navigavi. 
 
 70 19. Latin wj-iters within the last hundred years. In allusion to 
 the learned men of the two preceding generations, such as Scaliger, 
 Heinsius, Erasmus, Vives, Lipsius, and others. 
 
 70 21. Seneca. Cf. 62 22. 
 
 70 21. Appeached. Accused, informed against. Cf. AWs Well, 
 I. 3. 197. 
 
 70 23. Oftenti^nes \Jost\ Mr. Swinburne's emendation. 
 
 70 25. Few words, they darken speech. Cf. 34 8. 
 
 70 34. Censure. Cf. 81 8, 81 IG. 
 
 71 7. Mind it. Ponder it, think it out. 
 
 71 14. A diligent kind of negligence. Cf. Jonson's song in The 
 Silent Woman, I. i : 
 
NOTES. 147 
 
 Give me a look, give me a face, 
 That makes simplicity a grace ; 
 Robes loosely flowing, hair as free : 
 Such sweet delight more taketh me, 
 Than all the adulteries of art ; 
 They strike mine eye, but not my heart. 
 
 And see Merrick's Upon Julia's Cloths and Art above Nature (I'al- 
 grave's ed. pp. '^'6 and 90), in the latter of which Jonson's thought is 
 reversed. 
 
 71 18. Conceit. 31 28, 54 30, 67 15, 68 2, 71 29. 
 
 71 23. In hazard to be. Of being. Cf. 73 14. 
 
 71 24. Cast a ring for the pej'fiimed terms of the time. Conjure up. 
 Probably in reference to the astrological meaning of cast ; e.g. to cast 
 a nativity. 
 
 71 29. Conceits, allusions . . . in the Courtier and the second book 
 of Cicero de Oratore. Jonson refers to a popular collection of the day, 
 the title of which ran thus : The English Courtier and the Country 
 gentleman, a pleasant and learned disputation between them both, very 
 profitable and necessarie to be read of all nobilitie and gentlefnen, 1 586 
 
 (Hazlitt's Handbook, p. 126). In the second book of his treatise {de 
 Oratore, 60-71, inclusive) Cicero tells a vast number of anecdotes, 
 witty retorts, etc. 
 
 72 10. Eloquence. In the broad sense of the term, rhetoric. Cf. 
 54 4. 
 
 72 10. Charact. Distinctive mark. Cf. Measure for Measure, 5. 
 I, 56: " Even so may Angelo in all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, 
 be an arch-villain." 
 
 72 13. The professor' s estimation ; i.e. the estimation in which the 
 professors of poetry are held. A Latinism very common in Elizabethan 
 writing. 
 
 72 17. Placentia College. Cf. the Ladies Collegiate of The Silent 
 Women. 
 
 72 21. Ubi generalis, etc. Where there is a general discussion of 
 faults, there is no wrong to any individual. The folio refers this passage 
 to St. Jerome. 
 
 72 27. Auriculas teneras, etc. Grate tender ears with biting truth 
 (Persius, Satires, i. 107), where the order is somewhat different : 
 Sed quid opus teneras mordaci radere vero 
 Auriculas. 
 
 It may be noted that the folio reads rodere, a variant not noticed by 
 editors of Persius. 
 
148 NOTES. 
 
 11 28. Remedii vottnn, etc. When remedy is in question, hopes 
 are always more vivid than expectations. A marginal note of the folio 
 refers this to Livy. 
 
 73 2. Like affected as a 7uoman. Sexus fa:min\^aru})f\, the female 
 sex, is the marginal note of the folio. 
 
 73 3. /// of their sex. Cf. the following from Selden's Table Talk 
 (ed. i860, p. 268) with this passage : "Men are not troubled to hear a 
 man dispraised, because they know though he be naught, there's worth 
 in others; but women are mightily troubled to hear any of them spoken 
 against, as if the sex itself were guilty of some unworthiness." 
 
 73 3. Presently. Cf. 7 31, 18 27, 83 7. 
 
 73 4. Respected their particular. Referred to them especially. 
 
 73 11. Ingemiously. The folio reads ingeniously. 
 
 73 14. Leave to be such. Cf. 71 23. 
 
 73 18. As. That. Cf. 13 22, and references there. 
 
 73 18. Several. Cf. 7 2G. 
 
 73 27. Kar e^oxvf, 6 ttoltjttjs. Par excellence, a poet. 
 
 73 28. Maker. Poet. Cf. 75 22 and 77 13. See Whalley's note 
 on this word, which appears inaccurate in its reference to Scaliger 
 {Poetices, i. i). 
 
 73 35. Fable. The Latin ya^^z/Az, The plot or connected series of 
 events in an epic or dramatic poem. Cf. Aristotle, Poetica, 6 : " A 
 fable is an imitation of action, for I mean by a fable (fxvdos) here the 
 composition of incidents." 
 
 74 3. One alone verse. A single verse. 
 
 74 C. yEneas hcec de Danais vicloribtis arma (^Mneid, 3. 288). 
 Thus translated by Connington : 
 
 yEneas fixes on these doors 
 
 Arms won from Danaan conquerors. 
 
 74 9. Omnia, Castor, etc. (Martial, Epig. 7. 98). Literally: 
 Castor is buying everything : it may so happen that he will have to sell 
 everything. The spirit of Martial, however, is often best rendered in 
 paraphrase : 
 
 Why, Tom, you purchase everything! 'tis well : 
 
 Who can deny you'll have the more to sell (Hodgson). 
 
 74 11. Pauper videri, etc. {ibid. 8. 19). Literally: Cinna wishes 
 to appear poor, and is jioor. More freely : 
 
 Hal says he's poor, in hope you'll say he's not ; 
 
 But take his word for't ; Hal's not worth a groat (Graves). 
 
NOTES. 149 
 
 Jonson quotes Martial several times in the Discoveries. Cf. 15 20, 21 27, 
 24 26, 62 4, 87 22. He has elsewhere translated several of the epigrams. 
 See Jonson's IVorh, ed. Cunningham, iii. p. 388. M. Valerius Martialis 
 flourished under Titus and Domitian. Me left nothing but epigrams. 
 
 74 13. Designs. Designates a whole book by the word carmen. 
 
 74 14. Quod in primo quoque carmine claret {de Reruiii Natura, 
 6. 937), which is set forth in the first part of my poem. T. Lucretius 
 Carus (about 98-55 B.C.), in his didactic poem, de Rerum Naiura, in 
 six books, treated of physics, psychology, and Epicurean ethics in imi- 
 tation of Empedocles and Ennius, See above, 61 29. 
 
 74 21-27. Foesis, artitim regina. Poetry, the queen of arts, the 
 marginal note of the folio. Cf. Sidney's Defense of Poesie,- ed. Cook, 
 p. 26 : " As virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly 
 learning to make his end of, so poetry being the most familiar to teach 
 it, and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent work is 
 the most excellent workman." 
 
 74 31. Civility^ Civilization. Culture, at 80 31. 
 
 74 31. The study of it, etc. The folio refers this to Aristotle. 
 
 75 2. \_Poetiy'] nourisheth and instructeth our youth. The passage 
 is a literal translation from Cicero's oration, pro Archia Poeta, 7 : 
 " Hsec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant," etc. 
 
 75 9. Philosophy . . . a rigid and austere poesy. See several like 
 passages in Sidney's Defense of Poesie, ed. Cook, 3 IG, 13 G-2G : "The 
 philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth you of the particulari- 
 ties, as well of the tediousness of the way, as of the pleasant lodging 
 you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings 
 that may divert you from your way; but this is to no man but to him 
 that will read him, and read him with attentive studious painfulness. 
 . . . [But the poet] doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet 
 a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, 
 he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the 
 very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may 
 long to pass further " (pp. 22-23). 
 
 75 22. The folio has the marginal note, Poet\^(f\ differentia", the 
 distinguishing differences of the poet. 
 
 75 27-33. Aliquando secundum Anacrconteni , etc. The whole 
 passage will be found in Seneca, de Tranquillitate Animi, 15. Thus 
 translated by Lodge : " For if we give credit to the Greek poet : It's 
 sometimes pleasure to be mad and foolish. Or Plato, He that is in his 
 right wits loseth his labor to go and knock at the gate of the Muses. 
 Or Aristotle, There was never any great wit that had not some spice of 
 
150 NOTES. 
 
 folly; if the mind be not stirred, and, as it were, mounted above it self, 
 he can speak nothing highly, nor above others" (ed. 1620, p. 655). 
 It may be noticed that Jonson supplies the name Anacreon for the first 
 quotation, and in that assigned to Plato reads puhavit, the frequenta- 
 tive, for pepulit of the original. There are several passages in Anacreon 
 to vi'hich this sentiment may be referred; e.g. : 
 
 iycS d^ Tov Avaiov 
 
 Kal Tov jxvpov KopeadeU 
 
 Kal T7JS e/XTJs eratpijs, 
 
 di\u}, d^Xu} ixavijvai (^Ciir/nen, 13. 9); 
 
 whilst the passages referring to Plato and Aristotle are probably the 
 following : " All good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beau- 
 tiful poems, not as works of art, but because they are inspired or pos- 
 sessed, and as the Corybantean revellers . . . are not in their right 
 mind. . . . The poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there 
 is no invention in him until he has been inspired, and is out of his 
 senses" (/<?«, Jowett's Plato, i. p. 223). "Those are naturally most 
 adapted to persuade who are themselves under the influence of passion. 
 Hence also, he agitates others who is himself agitated, and he excites 
 others to anger who is himself most truly enraged. Hence poetry is 
 the province of one who is naturally clever, or of one who is insane " 
 (^Poetica, 17), 
 
 76 1. His rider. Cf. 20 7, 44 16, 47 35, 83 29, 85 5. 
 
 76 1. Whither. The folio reads whether here, as in most cases. 
 
 76 3. Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus. Helicon, a range of moun- 
 tains in Bceotia, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and the source of the 
 celebrated fountains of the Muses, Aganippe and Hippocrene. Pegasus, 
 the proverbial steed of the poets, so celebrated chiefly, however, in 
 modern times, as his only ancient connection with the Muses appears 
 to have been the stroke of his hoof, by which the inspiring fountain, 
 Hippocrene, was made to gush forth. Parnassus, the highest portion 
 of a range of mountains, not far north of Delphi, the chief seat of 
 Apollo and the Muses. 
 
 76 5. Est deus in nobis, etc. There is a deity within us, by whose 
 moving we are warmed; from the abode of cether this spirit comes. 
 These two lines are a combination of two passages in Ovid, which run 
 thus: 
 
 Est deus in nobis : agitante calescimus illo : 
 
 Impetus hie sacrae semina mentis habet {Fasti, 6. 5) 
 
NOTES. 151 
 
 and : 
 
 Est deus in nobis ; et sunt commercia cceli 
 Sedibus aetheriis spiritus illc venit i^Ars Amatoria, 3. 549). 
 
 With this entire passage, compare the following extract from a letter 
 of James Howell to Jonson, dated Westminster, 27 June, 1629: 
 " Father Ben, — Nullum fit 7nagnum iugoiiuni sine mixtura dcmoitia: : 
 there's no great wit without some mixture of madness; so saith the 
 philosopher. Nor vvas he a fool who answered, Nee parvuin sine mix- 
 tura stultiticc : nor small wit without some allay of foolishness. Touch- 
 ing the first, it is verified in you, for I find that you have been oftentimes 
 mad ; you were mad when you writ your Fox, and madder when you 
 writ your Alchemist ; you were mad when you writ Catiline, and stark 
 mad when you writ Sejanus ; but when you writ your Epigrams and 
 The Magnetic Lady, you were not so mad : insomuch that I perceive 
 there be degrees of madness in you. The madness I mean is that 
 divine fury, that heating and heightening spirit which Ovid speaks of: 
 
 Est deus in nobis, agitante calesimus illo : 
 
 that true enthusiasm which transports and elevates the souls of poets 
 above the middle region of vulgar conceptions, and makes them soar 
 up to heaven to touch the stars with their laurelled heads, to walk 
 in the zodiac with Apollo himself, and command Mercury upon their 
 errands" {Epistolce Ho-Eliancc, ed. Stott, ii. p. 138). 
 
 This point of contact raises the question, Was Jonson's note a remi- 
 niscence of Howell's letter, or Howell's letter the result of a perusal of 
 Jonson's note or of a conversation with Jonson on the topic? I think 
 that the first supposition may be dismissed as highly improbable. 
 Jonson's was the stronger mind, and the whole tone of the letter is 
 that of friendly badinage in continuance of a topic already discussed. 
 As to the question of date, see Introduction. 
 
 76 7. Scio poetam neminem, &ic. I know there has never been a 
 great poet without a richer share than common of the divine inspira- 
 tion (Lipsius, Electorufn Liber, 75; Opera Omnia, ed. 1629, i. 
 p. 326). Justus Lipsius (i 547-1 606) was a renowned Flemish scholar. 
 See also Cicero, de Oratore, 2. 46, of which the passage is probably a 
 reminiscence. 
 
 76 10. Mediocres or imos. The ordinary or inferior. 
 
 76 11. Mayor. The folio reads major. The words are the same. 
 See Skeat, Etymological Dictionary, sub voce. 
 
 76 12. Solus rex, aut poeta, etc. A king alone, or a poet, is not 
 born every year. Pelron\_ii^ in Fragm\_cnta^ is the marginal note of 
 
152 NOTES. 
 
 the folio. I do not find the quotation in the Fragments or in the 
 Satyricon. Cf. with this sentiment the opening Hnes of Jonson's Epi- 
 gram, 79, addressed to EHzabcth, Countess of Rutland, daughter of Sir 
 Philip Sidney : 
 
 That poets are far rarer births than kings 
 
 Your noblest father proved. 
 
 and also the epilogue of The A^ew Inn : 
 
 A king's or poet's birth doth ask an age. 
 
 76 20. If then it succeed not, cast not azvay the quills. A literal 
 translation of Quintilian (^hist. lO. 3. 21); and see Persitis i. 106. 
 
 76 22. Torn it anew. Cf. 64 33. 
 
 76 24. Or [query? i7i\ the first quarter; i.e. immediately. Cf. 
 what follows. The passage is probably corrupt. 
 
 76 28. A rimer and a poet are two things. Cf. Sidney's Defense of 
 Poesie, ed. Cook, p. 1 1 : "It is not riming and versing that maketh a 
 poet, . . . although, indeed, the senate of poets hath chosen verse as their 
 fittest raiment." Also Shelley's Defense of Poetry : " An observation 
 of the regular mode of the recurrence of harmony in the language of 
 poetical minds, together with its relation to music, produced metre, or 
 a certain system of traditional forms of harmony and language. Yet 
 it is by no means essential that a poet should accommodate his lan- 
 guage to this traditional form, so that the harmony, which is its spirit, 
 be observed. The practice is, indeed, convenient and popular; . . . 
 but every great poet must inevitably innovate upon the example of his 
 predecessors in the exact structure of his peculiar versification. The 
 distinction between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error " {Prose 
 Works, ed. Shepherd, ii. p. 7). 
 
 76 29. Virgil . . . that he brought forth his verses. Dr. O. Seiden- 
 sticker, my colleague, refers me to the Vita incerto auctore, usually 
 prefixed to the works of Virgil. The passage runs thus : " Quum 
 Georgica scriberet, traditur quotidie meditatos mane plurimos versus 
 dictare solitus, ac per totum diem retractando ad paucissimos redigere : 
 non absurde, carmen se ursce more parere dicens, et lambendo demum 
 effingere " (ed. Delphini, i. p. 1 1). See also Inst. 10. 3. 8, where Varus 
 is made the authority for a similar remark. 
 
 76 33. Euripides and Alcestis. Valerius Maximus, an anecdotist 
 of the time of Tiberius (3. 7, Extr. i, Externa'), where it is told 
 substantially as Jonson tells it. 
 
 77 16. Very he. Cf. 34 27. 
 77 20. Concoct. Digest. 
 
NOTES. 153 
 
 77 21. Not to imitate servilely {Ars Poetica, 133). 
 
 77 -'G. How Virgil and Statins have imitated Homer. The fact 
 that Virgil imitated Homer is too well known to call for comment here. 
 Statius based his whole art on the imitation of Virgil, like many other 
 later Roman poets. See Crutnell's Hist, of Roman Lit. p. 275. 
 
 11 '11. Archilochus, Alcceiis, and other lyrics ; z.^. lyrists. Archilo- 
 chus was an early Ionic lyrist, who flourished about 700 B.C. " All 
 antiquity agreed," says Mr, Symonds, " in naming him second only to 
 Homer" {Greek Poets, p. 105). Alcreus of Mitylene flourished about 
 a century later, and was almost as highly esteemed. The fact that 
 Horace imitated these poets, especially in metrical form, is one of the 
 commonplaces of classical literary history. 
 
 77 30. Reading . . . maket/i a full man. In allusion to Bacon's 
 well-known apothegm: "Reading maketh a full man; conference, a 
 ready man; and writing, an exact man" (^Essays, of Studies, ed. 
 Golden Treasury, p. 205). See also the note, p, 341. 
 
 78 2. More to his making than so ; i.e. than that. See Sh. Gram. 
 §63. 
 
 78 5. Ars coroji\_at opns~\. Art crowns the work. 
 
 78 9. If to an excellent nature, etc. Cicero's /r^ Archia Poeta, 7. 
 
 78 12. Stobccus, ovT€ <f)ija-L$, etc. Translated in the text. Joannes 
 Stobaeus is little more than a name, and even the age in which he lived 
 cannot be fixed with any degree of accuracy. We are indebted to him, 
 however, for a large portion of the fragments that remain of the lost 
 Greek poets. Simylus was an Athenian comic poet of the middle 
 comedy, who was alive in B.C. 354. The quotation here given will be 
 found in the Tauchnitz ed., 1838, of the Florilegium, ii. p. 351, and 
 there reads thus : 
 
 ovT^ (pvcTis iKavr) ylyverai t^x^V^ drep 
 irpbs ovd^v iTTLTridev/Jia irapdirav oi/5efi, 
 ovre TrdXt rix^V I^V (pvcnv K€KTr]fM^urj. 
 
 78 17. A fool to his master. Cf. 4 4, 13 17, 38 10, 69 26. 
 
 78 20. Horace and him that taught hitn, Aristotle. In allusion to 
 the Ars Poetica and Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics. 
 
 78 22, The first accurate critic. This glowing tribute is certainly 
 justified by its subject. But that Jonson was none the less sane in his 
 adoration, see above, 66 16. Dr. Draper, after dwelling upon the im- 
 portance of Alexander's assistance to Aristotle, not only in furnishing 
 him time and material for research, but in maintaining for him an 
 organized corps of assistants, concludes : " Aristotle , . . rose from 
 
154 NOTES. 
 
 particulars to universals, advancing to them by inductions; and his 
 system, thus an inductive philosophy, was in reality the true beginning 
 of science " ( The Intellectual Development of Europe, i. pp. 173-176). 
 
 78 26. Offices. Latin officium. Duties, obligations. 
 
 79 2. Viroriim schola respub{lica\ The state is the school of 
 men. 
 
 79 10. Lysippus . . . Apelles. The former a famous sculptor, the 
 latter the most distinguished of Greek painters, both spent much of 
 their lives at the courts of Philip and Alexander. Alexander published 
 an edict, forbidding any one to paint him except Apelles, or any one 
 to model him except Lysippus (Horace, Epistles, 2. I. 239 seqq.). 
 
 79 11. As the comedy. Compared with what the comedy, etc. 
 
 79 13. There shall the spectator see. Cf. 13 30 and 29 11. 
 
 79 13. Insulting. Nares explains insultation as " insulting exulta- 
 tion." Cf. " He looks upon his enemy's dead body with a kind of 
 heaviness, not insultation " (Overbury's Characters, A Worthy Com- 
 mander in the IVarres, ed. London, 1856, p. 107). 
 
 79 20. Ifumortales mortales, etc. This epitaph was composed by 
 Cnaeus Naevius on himself, and is preserved by Gellius {Nodes Attictc, 
 I. 24), where it occurs in a slightly different form, thus: 
 
 Moitalis immortalis flere si foret fas : 
 Flerent divse Camoense Nsevium Poetam ; 
 Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro, 
 Oblitei sunt Romas loquier Latina lingua. 
 
 Thus translated 
 
 Were it right that immortals should sorrow for mortals, 
 The Muses would weep for the poet here dead ; 
 Since Naevius passed through the Stygian portals, 
 From Romans the use of good Latin is fled. 
 
 79 25. Musas se Latine, etc. Cf. Inst. 10. i. 99, where the quota- 
 tion appears in a slightly different form. Varro agrees with /Elius Stilo 
 in saying that if the Muses were to speak Latin, they would speak in 
 the language of Plautus. Stilo, so called from his style, was a Roman 
 knight of the generation preceding Cicero, one of whose teachers he 
 was. See Suetonius, de Illustr. Gram, sub voce. 
 
 79 26. That illustrious judgment by . . . Marcus Varro of him ; 
 i.e. of Plautus. See Varro, Fragmenta, ed. Scaliger, p. 80, quoted also 
 by Gellius, Noct. Attic, i. 24. 2, and ascribed by him to the first book 
 of a treatise de Foetis. The epigram runs thus : 
 
NOTES. 155 
 
 Postquam morte datu'st Plautus, comoedia luget ; 
 bcena est deserta : dein Risus, Ludu' Jocusque, 
 Et numeri innumeri simul omnes coUacrymarunt. 
 
 which may be thus rendered : Since Plautus is dead, comedy languishes; 
 the stage is deserted; from him came sport, laughter, and jest, and 
 verses without number unite in lamenting him. M. Terentius Varro 
 was a friend antl contemporary of Cicero, and known as the most 
 learned of the Romans. Gellius declares that he wrote four hundred 
 and ninety books {ibid. 3. 10). 
 
 79 30. I avi not of that opinion to conclude a poet^s liberty. This 
 affirmation of the freedom of art from all restraints of the critics is 
 as admirable as it is unexpected at the hands of Jonson. Cf. Victor 
 Hugo's Introduction to the first edition of Hernani. 
 
 79 30. Conclude. Include, bound, or limit. 
 
 79 34. None tjiore perfect than Sophocles. " Ancient and modern 
 critics have agreed to place Sophocles first among the Attic tragedians. 
 Though an inferior poet to ^schylus and an inferior philosopher to 
 either [^schylus or Euripides], Sophocles must be regarded a more 
 perfect artist" (Mahaffy, History of Greek Literature, i. p. 317). 
 Sophocles lived between 495 and 406 B.C. 
 
 79 34. Perfect. Perfectly. 
 
 80 2. Demosthenes (382?-322). Greatest of the Greek orators. 
 The erroneous idea that Demosthenes grew up neglected is derived 
 from Plutarch (^Demosthenes, 4). 
 
 80 3. Pericles tuhom the age named heavenly (d. 429 B.C.). Cf. 
 Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium, 2,3 ' UepiKX^a 5c, t6v Kai 'OXiifiiriov 
 Trpocra-yopevdivTa, etc. Pericles, who was surnamed Olympius, for his 
 wisdom and the strength of his eloquence. 
 
 80 5. Alcibiades (450-404 B.C.). In his youth Alcibiades was a 
 pupil of Socrates, and was noted for his quick parts and personal 
 beauty. He represented the worst effects of the forces which ended 
 in the complete disintegration of Greek life. 
 
 80 13. Many things in Euripides hath Aristophanes wittily repre- 
 hended. See especially the Acharnians and the Thesmophoriazusic . 
 Professor Mahaffy says on this subject : " Of course his ridicule of 
 Euripides was most unsparing and most unjust; but the latter was no 
 mere innovator in tragedy, he was also an opponent on social and 
 political questions. There is no greater proof of the real greatness of 
 Euripides than that his popularity combated and overcame the most 
 splendid comic genius set in array against it during the period of its 
 development." (^Hist. of Greek Lit., i. p. 465.) For a modern state- 
 
156 NOTES. 
 
 ment of the question between the two great Athenians, see Browning's 
 Aristophanes' s Apology. 
 
 80 14. Euripides is sometimes peccant. Few poets have received 
 more varied estimation than Euripides (485-406 B.C.). By some he is 
 regarded as the early herald of the wider and loftier dramatic forms of 
 Shakespeare; by others, with contempt and hatred as the innovator 
 that destroyed the stately structure of Greek tragedy. Mr. Swinburne 
 remarks on this passage : " It is unlucky that Ben Jonson should have 
 committed himself to the assertion that Euripides, of all men, ' is some- 
 times peccant, as he is most times perfect.'" See, however, Mr. 
 Swinburne's enthusiastic, if unconscious, praise of a passage of the 
 PhccnisscB., translated by Jonson, 4 15. 
 
 80 19. Nemo infelicius, etc. No one has judged of poets so un- 
 happily as he who wrote of poets. The marginal reference of the 
 folio, p. 129, is: Cens[ura] Scal[igeri] in Lil[ium] Gram[maticum]. I 
 read Gram, for Germ, of the folio, a reading borne out by the text. 
 The opinion of Scaliger upon Lily the grammarian. William Lily 
 (1468-1523) was a noted English scholar, whose work, Brevissima 
 Institutio sen Ratio Gram??iatices Cognoscetidiv, was published in 15 13. 
 See Scaliger's strictures on the grammarians in general, de Causis 
 Lingua Latina, i. i. 
 
 80 21. Critics are a kind of tinkers. The marginal note of the folio, 
 Senec[a] de Brev\_itate'] Vit^ce^, Cap. 13 et Epistlottc'] 88, refers to the 
 following. Thus translated by Thomas Lodge, Jonson's contemporary 
 (ed. 1620, p. 687) : " As for them that spend their days in unprofitable 
 studies, no man doubts, but that with much ado, they do nothing, of 
 which sort there are many now amongst us Romans. It was the 
 Grecian's old disease to beat their brains in finding out how many 
 rowers Ulysses's ship had." Seneca's Epistle, 88, is an expression of 
 the theme, " Liberal studies are not ajnongst good things, neither do 
 they of themselves lead to virtue." Cf. Lodge's translation, ibid. p. 362. 
 
 80 24. The meddling with. Cf. 18 IG, 23 15, 28 2, 39 25, 43 23. 
 
 80 27. Syllable. The folio reads syllabe, the usual Elizabethan 
 form. Cf. Jonson's English Grammar, chap. 6. 
 
 80 31. Civility. Culture, civilization. Cf. 74 31. 
 
 81 1. Cato the Grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. Cf. the spu- 
 rious lines prefixed to Horace's Sat. i. 10. Cato Valerius, poet and 
 rhetorician, flourished in the last days of the Republic. He is supposed 
 to have devoted much attention to the productions of Lucilius. 
 
 81 2. Cato Grammaticus, etc. This compHmentary distich is quoted 
 by Suetonius (yde Illustr. Gram. 11), and is probably from the hand of 
 
NOTES. 157 
 
 some admiring contemporary. It has been thus translated into English, 
 scarcely below the original : 
 
 Cato, the Latin Siren, grammar taught and verse, 
 To form the poet skilled, and poetry rehearse. 
 
 81 4. Qidntiiian of the same heresy ; i.e. a defender of Lucilius. 
 But rejected. Query? not considered a sufficient authority on this sub- 
 ject. See Inst. lo. i. 94; thus translated: "The province of satire is 
 wholly ours; and here Lucilius stands in the first rank, distinguished 
 over all, so that his admirers prefer him, not only to all poets of the 
 same kind, but to all poets whatever. But I differ from them as well 
 as from Horace, who thought the style of Lucilius was muddy, and his 
 sense redundant; for he had great erudition, with a wonderful deal of 
 freedom, humor, and wit of the severest kind " (Guthrie). C. Lucilius 
 (148-103 B.C.) was the founder of Roman satire. In the days of 
 Quintilian the public was so much divided as to the merit of this satir- 
 ist, that it is said men often came to blows on the subject. " Quintilian 
 himself is said to have carried a cudgel under his robe to vindicate the 
 honor of his favorite poet." 
 
 81 4. Horace, his judgment of Chcerilus. The folio has here the 
 marginal reference, Heins[ius] de Sat\_yra Horatiana], with several 
 citations of the pages of this work in an edition which I have not been 
 able to obtain. The courtesy of Mr. C. T. Lewis of New York, how- 
 ever, enables me to give these references in Heinsius's edition of Horace, 
 161 2. Heinsius's defence of Horace's judgment of Choerilus, especially 
 against Joseph Scaliger, will be found on pp. 167-169. Horace's own 
 judgment will be found in the Epistle 2. I. 233, et seqq., where he tells 
 us that Chcerilus was " a favorite of Alexander, who to his uncouth and 
 ill-formed verses owed the many pieces he received of Philip's royal 
 coin." It is not certain that Horace was not here guilty of a huge 
 anachronism. See also Ars Poetica, 357, where Choerilus is used as a 
 synonym for a poet everywhere ridiculous and absurd. 
 
 81 6. And of Laberius against Jtilitis ; i.e. Horace's opinion of 
 Laberius defended against the attacks of Julius Scaliger. This subject 
 is discussed by Heinsius, de Sat. Horat. pp. 170-174. Decimus Labe- 
 rius (107-43 B.C.) was a successful writer of mimes. Horace deprecates 
 his work {^Sat. I. 10. 6). 
 
 81 7. His opinion of Plaiitiis {Epist. 2. I. 170, et seqq.) : " See how 
 Plautus supports the character of a lover under age, how that of a 
 covetous father, how that of a cheating pimp." The folio refers to 
 Heinsius in Comm[entariis, ed. 1612, p. 61], who' interprets this 
 
158 NOTES. 
 
 passage into a censure of Plautus. See also Ars Poeticay 270, where 
 there can be no question as to Horace's " censure." 
 
 81 8. Censure. Cf. 32 34, 70 M, and 81 16. 
 
 81 19. Manling. Manikin, i.e. the poet Horace, ihis story is told 
 by Suetonius in his life of Horace : " Among other drolleries he 
 [Augustus] often called him ... his charming little man, and loaded 
 him from time to time with proofs of his munificence. . . . Augustus 
 offered to appoint him his secretary," and, upon Horace's refusal, 
 " exhibited neither the smallest displeasure, nor ceased to heap upon 
 him tokens of his regard." 
 
 8123. Horace . . . Terence's comedies {Epistles, 2. I. 55): "As 
 often as a debate arises whether this poet or the other be preferable; 
 Pacuvius bears away the character of a learned, Accius, of a lofty 
 writer; Afranius's gown is said to have fitted Menander; Plautus, to 
 hurry after the pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus; Cselius, to excel in 
 gravity; Terence, in contrivance." 
 
 81 32. AtSctcTKaXot. A dramatic poet was called xopo^ 5t5dcr/caXos, 
 teacher of the chorus, or simply teacher, because he himself superin- 
 tended the rehearsals and taught the actors. 
 
 82 3. The moving of laughter, a fault in comedy. The source of 
 this extraordinary statement is to be found in Aristotle, Poetics., 5, as 
 proved by Jonson's almost literal translation of the latter portion of it. 
 The passage is thus translated by Buckley (p. 415) : " But comedy is, 
 as we have said, an imitation, indeed, of bad characters, yet it does not 
 imitate them according to every vice, but the ridiculous only. For the 
 ridiculous is a certain error, and turpitude unattended with pain, and 
 not destructive. Thus, for instance, a ridiculous face is something dis- 
 torted and deformed without pain." There is a long note on this 
 passage (which appears to have given the commentators some trouble) 
 in Twining's translation of the Poetics, i. p. 320. 
 
 82 9. Laughter unfitting a wise 7nan. Cf. Defense of Pocsie (ed. 
 Cook, p. 50) : " But our comedians think there is no delight without 
 laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with 
 delight, yet cometh it not of delight," etc. And cf. Hamlet, 3. 2. 42- 
 48. On this pas"^age Mr. Swinburne remarks : " It is comically pathetic 
 to find that the failure of Jonson's later comedies had led him to ob- 
 serve with the judicious Aristotle that 'the moving of laughter is a 
 fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude,' etc. But this deplorable and 
 degrading instinct of perverse humanity becomes irrepressible and irre- 
 sistible in the reader who discovers in the author of Bartholomezu Fair 
 and The Silent Woman so delicate and sensitive a dislike of plebeian 
 
NOTES. 159 
 
 horse-play and farcical scurrility that he cannot at any price abide the 
 insolence and indecency of so vulgar a writer as Aristophanes" {A 
 Study of Ben Jonson, p. 179)- 
 
 82 10. Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person ( The 
 Republic, 3; Jowett's Plato, ii. p. 212). The passage of Homer is 
 Iliad, I. 599- 
 
 Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laugh- 
 ter which has been indulged to excess almost always occasions an equally 
 violent reaction. 
 That I believe. 
 
 Then persons of worth, even if only mortal, must not be represented as 
 overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods 
 be allowed. , 
 
 Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. 
 
 Then we shall not suffer such expressions to be used about the gods as 
 that in which Homer describes how : 
 
 Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw 
 Hephaestus bustling about the mansion. 
 On your views we must not admit them. 
 82 12. To seem ridiculous, etc. {Ethics, 4. 9). 
 82 23, Who. Whosoever. 
 
 82 25. Aristophanes, born about 444, died soon after 380. While 
 all this is true of the great comic poet, no estimate that forgets that 
 Aristophanes had a serious purpose does justice to this remarkable man. 
 "The epithets," says Mr. J. A. Symonds (77^^ Greek Pods, First Series, 
 p. 287), " which continually rise to our lips in speaking of him — radi- 
 ant, resplendent, swift, keen, changeful, flashing, magical — carry no 
 real notion of the marvellous and subtle spirit that animates his comedy 
 with life peculiar to itself." 
 
 82 26. Outgone. Surpassed. 
 
 82 33. Like to see. Like seeing. Cf. 60 24. 
 
 82 33. From the engine. This was the machine, or ix-r)xo-vfj; oi the 
 Greek stage. It " consisted of a sort of crane with a pulley attached, 
 by which weights could be raised or lowered. It was placed in the kft 
 or western corner of the stage, up at the very top of the back -wall. 
 It was used in case the character in a play had to appear or disappear 
 in a supernatural manner " (Haigh, The Attic Theatre, p. 189). Aris- 
 tophanes used the ti-nxo-vfj, by way of parody, in several of his plays, 
 and with great effect; and it was from this that Socrates hung sus- 
 pended in his basket in The Ootids, 217 seqq. 
 
 83 2. Skip geometrically. This passage occurs earlier in the same 
 play (144. et seqq.). 
 
160 NOTES. 
 
 83 3. This zvas theatrical wit. Cf. Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic 
 Poesy (Arber's English Garner, iii. p. 553) : " The to yeXoTov (facetious 
 absurdities) of the old comedy, of which Aristophanes was chief, was 
 not so much to imitate a man, as to make the people laugh at some 
 odd conceit, which had commonly somewhat of unnatural or obscene 
 in it. Thus when you see Socrates brought upon the stage, you are 
 not to imagine him made ridiculous by the imitations of his actions; 
 but rather, by making him perform something very unlike himself, 
 something so childish and absurd, as, by comparing it with the gravity 
 of Socrates, makes a ridiculous object for the spectators." 
 
 83 6. Tasten. Tasted. 
 
 83 7. Presently. Cf. 7 31, 18 27, 73 3. 
 
 83 12. To the tumbril again. The allusion is to Horace {^Ars 
 Poetica, 275, et seqq.), which Jonson translates thus : 
 
 Thespis is said to be the first found out 
 The tragedy, and carried it about, 
 Till then unknown, in carts, wherein did ride 
 Those that did sing and act : their faces dyed 
 With lees of wine. 
 
 On this Donaldson writes : " The wagon of Thespis, of which Horace 
 writes, must have arisen from some confusion between the eXeo's, or 
 stage for the actor, and the wagon of Susarion " ( Theatre of the Greeks, 
 ed. Bohn, p. 66). 
 
 83 18. To the resolving. In modern English, for the resolution of 
 this. 
 
 83 29. Action hath his largeness. Cf. 20 7, 44 16, 47 .35, 76 1, 85 5. 
 
 84 11. What we understand by the zvhole. Cf. Aristotle's Poetica., 
 7. What follows is little more than a free translation of Aristotle's 
 passage. Jonson has, however, expanded and added to the illustrations. 
 
 84 IG. A lion is a perfect creature. Cf. Aristotle (ibid.), who uses 
 this illustration in the abstract, speaking of " a very large animal." 
 He follows with mention of an animal ten thousand stadia in length, 
 which Jonson makes concrete with the illustration of Tityus. 
 
 84 17. Though it ; i.e. its magnitude. 
 
 84 18. Rhinocerote. This form is not given by Nares or Halliwell. 
 Its formation, however, from the oblique cases of pivoKepios, is perfectly 
 obvious. 
 
 84 26. Tityus. A giant, killed by Apollo, and cast into Tartarus. 
 See Odyssey, 11. 576, and JEneid, 6. 595. 
 
 85 5. His utmost bound. See 83 29, and references there. 
 
 85 15. That it exceed not the compass of one day. Jonson's treat- 
 
 I 
 
NOTES. 161 
 
 ment of the unities is consistent with his theories as far as the circum- 
 stances of his age would permit. Several of his plays, The Alchemist 
 and The Silent Woman especially, are triumphs over the difficulties 
 of time and place. See Sir Philip Sidney's strictures on the popular 
 stage of his earlier day, and Professor Cook's notes thereon (^Defense 
 of Poesie, ed. Cook, pp. 47-52). 
 
 85 35. The action of one man to be one, Cf. Aristotle, Poetica, 8. 
 
 86 10. J/oco he fought zvith Achilles : Iliad, 20. 404-409. 
 86 14. Error. In the Latin sense, wandering. 
 
 86 li). The philosopher. Aristotle. 
 
 86 20. All the actions of Theseus . . . labors of Hercules. Cf. 
 Poetica, 8 : " Hence all those poets appear to have erred who have 
 written the Heracleid and llieseid., and such like poems. P'or they 
 suppose that because Hercules was one person, it was fit that the fable 
 should be one. Homer, however, as he excelled in other things, ap- 
 pears likewise to have seen clearly, whether from art or from nature, 
 for in composing the Odyssey, he has not related everything which 
 happened to Ulysses, etc. ; . . . but he composed the Odyssey, as 
 also his Iliad, upon one action." 
 
 8622. Hoarse Codrus. Cf. Juvenal, Satires, i. 2 and 3. 203: 
 " Codrus was possibly merely a fictitious name under which the Roman 
 poets were w^ont to ridicule the poetasters of their age." 
 
 86 31. Sophocles, his Ajax. Of this play Professor Mahaffysays: 
 "The Ajax . . . stands, perhaps, more remote than any of Sophocles's 
 works from modern notions. . . . There is no finer psychological pic- 
 ture than the awakening of Ajax from his rage, his deep despair, his 
 firm resolve to endure life no longer, his harsh treatment of Tecmessa, 
 and yet his deep love for her and his child " (^History of Greek Litera- 
 tiire, i. p. 306). 
 
 87 17. Combat of Ajax with Hector {Iliad, 7. 204, et seqq.). 
 
 87 19. After a reading of these later passages of the Discoveries, 
 we may well agree with Professor A. W. Ward in his statement : 
 " [Jonson's] veneration for Aristotle was no mere lip-service. He 
 understood the definitions and rules of the Poetics better than those 
 who were forever mumbling their dry bones in later periods of our 
 dramatic literature" {Engl. Dram. Lit., i. p. 596). 
 
 87 22. Et, quit per salebras, etc. (Martial, Epigrams, ii. 90). It 
 will be noted that aside from the adaptation to the context, by which 
 et is read for sed, the first word, Jonson has omitted two lines between 
 the first and his second, and inverted the second and third. The whole 
 passage translated reads thus: "You approve of no verses that run 
 
162 NOTES. 
 
 with a smooth cadence, but of those only that vault, as it were, over 
 Lills and crags; you read with ecstasy such words as terrai frugiferai 
 (the fruit-producing earth), as well as all that Actius and Pacuvius 
 have sputtered forth." Actius and Pacuvius were early and popular 
 Roman playwrights. It is to be remarked that this final note, as Mr. 
 Swinburne says, "seems tumbled in without reference to the context," 
 and that the first line of this epigram of Martial is a favorite of the 
 author, as he has quoted it twice before in the Discoveries. Cf. 24 2G 
 and 62 4. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 {Foii'o) indicates a marginal reference, dependent alone on the authority of the 
 edition of 1641. 
 
 Abas 74 5. 
 Abel 36 32. 
 Abraham 36 33. 
 Achilles 861, 11,32. 
 Actius 87 23. 
 y*:gidius 9 8. 
 .^lius, Lucius, see Stilo. 
 ^neas 74 4, 86 9. 
 African us 60 35. 
 Aglaophon 51 2. 
 Ajax 86 31, 87 17, 18. 
 Alastor, 12 31. 
 Alcseus 77 28. 
 Alcestis 77 l, 2, 4. 
 Alcibiades 80 5. 
 
 Alexander 6 33, 41 21, 51 5, 63 20. 
 Alps 61 1. 
 
 Anacreon quoted 75 28. 
 Analogia, de, Caesar 31 20. 
 Andabate 35 8. 
 Andrea del Sarto, see Sarto. 
 Angelo, Michael, 51 7. 
 Antipodes 20 15. 
 Apelles 79 11. 
 
 Apuleius quoted 15 11 {folio). 
 Arbiter, see Petronius. 
 Archilochus 77 27. 
 Archy (Archibald Armstrong) 13 18. 
 Aristophanes 80 13, 82 25. 
 Aristotle 66 18, 22, 78 20, 21, 80 l, 8; 
 quoted 73 31, 74 31, 75 3i, 82 2, 12. 
 Athens 14 31, 58 19. 
 Augustus 23 23, 37 14, 81 19. 
 
 Avernus 9 3. 
 
 Bacon, Sir Francis, 
 66 10, 11 ; quoted 
 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 30 29 
 Bedlam 14 3. 
 Buonarotti, see Angelo. 
 
 30 7, 31 5, 2L%\ 
 31 13, 66 12, iT^y 
 
 Cffisar, see Augustus. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 23 26, 27, 31 19; 
 
 quoted 60 9, 63 29. 
 Caligula 37 11. 
 Camuena 79 21. 
 Castor 74 9. 
 
 Cato Grammaticus 81 1, 2. 
 Cestius 22 2, 63 19. 
 Chaloner, Sir Thomas, 30 27. 
 Chaucer 57 19, 61 30. 
 Chimaera 50 28. 
 Chcerilus 81 5. 
 Cicero 22 3, 29 G, 30 22, 31 21, 67 21, 
 
 71 31 , 78 8 ; quoted 60 9, 34, 67 22, 
 
 75 2, 78 9. 
 Cinna 74 11. 
 Clito 50 35. 
 Codrus 86 22. 
 Correggio 51 8. 
 Courtier, The, 71 31. 
 Cyclades 63 24. 
 Cyrus 34 7. 
 
 Danai 74 6. 
 Demaratus 14 22. 
 
 163 
 
164 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Demosthenes 80 2. 
 Donne, Dr. John, 57 18. 
 
 Egerton, Sir Thomas, 31 2. 
 Egypt 58 22. 
 EHzabeth, Queen, 30 30. 
 EHot, Sir Thomas, 30 27. 
 Ennius 57 28. 
 Enoch 36 32. 
 Epaminondas 14 20. 
 Erasmus quoted 41 IG, 21, 42 18. 
 Essex, Earl of, 30 34. 
 Eupompus 50 14. 
 
 Euripides 76 34, 77 2, 5, 80 13, 14; 
 quoted 4 15, 20 5, and 40 7 {folio) . 
 
 Fabianus 62 22. 
 Fidenie 37 16. 
 
 Bishop of Winchester, 
 juoted 14 13, 14, 
 
 Gardiner 
 30 27. 
 Gellius, Aulus, 
 
 79 20, 25. 
 Glaucia 60 35. 
 Govver, John, 57 18. 
 Great Mogul 13 13. 
 
 Haterius 23 23. 
 
 Heath, John, 22 8. 
 
 Hector 87 17. 
 
 Heinsius quoted 81 i passim. 
 
 Hehcon 76 3, 78 2. 
 
 Hercules 32 28 86 i. 
 
 Herodotus quoted 34 7. 
 
 Hesiod quoted 14 15. 
 
 Hierome, St., 72 21. 
 
 Homer 14 19, 39 28, 57 28, 77 27, 
 
 82 10, 86 6, 16, 87 18; quoted 
 
 14 12, 19 33, 33 19. 
 Hooker, Richard, 30 31. 
 Horace 50 31, 74 12, 77 22, 27, 78 20, 
 
 80 30, 81 4, 23, 27; quoted 31 27, 
 48 14, 77 21. 
 
 lamhlichus quoted 15 11. 
 
 Italy 58 20. 
 
 James I. 33 23. 
 Jerome, St., see Hierome. 
 Julio, see Romano. 
 Julius, see Caesar, see Scaliger. 
 Jupiter 33 20. 
 
 Juvenal 86 21; quoted 12 12, 15 13, 
 43 4, 86 22. ' 
 
 Laberius 81 6. 
 
 Lewis XL of France 43 10. 
 
 Lily, William, 80 23 (fo/io). 
 
 Lipsius, Justus, quoted 76 7. 
 
 Livy 57 17; quoted 72 28 {folio). 
 
 Lucilius 81 1. 
 
 Lucretius 61 29, 74 13; quoted 74 14. 
 
 Lycurgus 33 32. 
 
 Lysander 33 33. 
 
 Lysippus 79 10. 
 
 Machiavelh, Nicholas, 38 23, 39 8; 
 
 quoted 37 35, 38 l, 20, 39 7. 
 Martial quoted 21 27, 24 26, 62 4, 
 
 74 9, 11, 87 22. 
 Megabyzum 14 29 {folio). 
 Menander 81 25. 
 Mercury 60 1. 
 Montaigne 25 21. 
 More, Sir Thomas, 30 26. 
 
 Ncevius quoted 79 21. 
 Newgate 9 21. 
 Noah 36 33. 
 
 Northamptonshire 60 30. 
 Novum Organum 31 22. 
 
 Oratore, Cicero de, 71 31. 
 
 Orpheus 33 19. 
 
 Ovid 76 4; quoted 76 5. 
 
 Pacuvius 87 23. 
 Palladium 39 28. 
 Parnassus 76 3, 78 l. 
 Parrhasius 49 30, 50 10, 35, 51 3. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 165 
 
 Paterculus quoted 4 21. 
 
 Pegasus 76 3. 
 
 Pericles 80 3. 
 
 Persius quoted 1 9, 72 27, 76 20. " 
 
 Petronius Arbiter quoted 36 22, 
 
 76 12 i^folio^. 
 Philip of Macedon, 51 4. 
 Pindar, see Spintharus. 
 Plato 29 8, 58 18, 82 10; quoted 
 
 75 30. 
 Plautus 57 35, 79 25, 26, 81 7, 11, 28, 
 
 82 20; quoted 15 23, 25, 31. 
 Pliny 50 1; quoted 50 8, 14, 51 1. 
 Plutarch quoted 6 »4, 13 25, 14 19, 
 
 20, 22, 29, 49 3, 80 3. ' 
 Polygnotus 51 1. 
 Pseudo- Plutarch quoted 15 11. 
 Pythagoras 15 11, 58 20. 
 
 Quintilian 57 29, 63 32, 70 13, 81 4; 
 quoted 14 13, 23 32 seqq., 53 1- 
 66 9, passim ; see notes, 76 20, 
 79 25. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 30 34. 
 Raphael di Urbino 51 7. 
 Regulus 50 2. 
 Romano, Julio, 51 9. 
 Rome 30 23, 79 23. 
 
 Sallust 29 6, 57 17; quoted 14 14. 
 
 St. Albans, see Bacon. 
 
 St. Jerome, see Jerome. 
 
 St. Nicholas, see Machiavelli. 
 
 Sandys, Sir Edwin, 31 1. 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del, 51 9. 
 
 Saville, Sir Henry, 31 1. 
 
 Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 80 19 
 
 (fo/io), 81 5. 
 Scaliger, Julius Ccesar, 76 30, 80 19 
 
 (/o/io), 81 G. 
 Schortenhein, Comes de, 9 20 
 
 (/o/io). 
 Sebastian of Venice 51 8. 
 Sejanus 40 21. 
 
 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 62 22, 
 70 21; emoted 20 15, 75 27. 
 
 Seneca, ^arcus Annx-us, 18 10; 
 quotedi8 8 seqq., 23 22, 28 17 
 st'(j(j., 29 4-30 22 passim, 31 5, 
 63 21. 
 
 Shakespeare 23 9; quoted 23 27. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 30 31. 
 
 Simonides quoted 49 3. 
 
 Simylus quoted 78 11. 
 
 Smith, Sir Thomas, 30 27. 
 
 Socrates 29 8, 50 34, 82 34. 
 
 Sophocles 80 1, 86 31, 87 19. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 22 15, 57 20. 
 
 Spintharus 14 21, 
 
 StatiuS 77 2G. 
 
 Stilo, L. ^lius, 79 24. 
 
 Stobaeus, Johannes, 78 12. 
 
 Suetonius 62 22 ; quoted 37 H, 
 81 2, 19. 
 
 Surrey, Earl of, 30 20. 
 
 Sylla 33 33. 
 
 Tacitus 62 22. 
 
 Tamerlane 27 4. 
 
 Tamer Cham 27 4. 
 
 Taylor, John, the Water Poet, 22 9, 
 
 14. 
 Terence 58 2, 81 23; quoted 43 5. 
 Terminus 40 12. 
 Theocritus quoted 44 28. 
 Thersites 14 12. 
 Theseus 86 1, 20. 
 Theseid 86 23. 
 Tiberius 37 15. 
 Titian 51 8. 
 Tityus 84 20. 
 Troy 86 14. 
 Tully, see Cicero. 
 
 Ulysses 14 19, 86 2, IG, 87 i. 
 Urbino, see Raphael. 
 
 Valerius Maximus quoted 76 33. 
 Varro, Marcus 79 27. 
 
166 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Varus 37 14. 
 
 Venus 86 12. 
 
 Verulam, see Bacon. 
 
 Virgil 29 5, 57 27, 28, 61 27, 63 22, 
 
 76 29, 77 26, 86 6, 8; quoted 9 3, 
 
 63 23, 74 6. 
 Vitruvius quoted 50 27. 
 Vives, Ludovico, quoted 60 7. 
 
 Warwickshire 60 30. 
 Windsor Castle 13 19. 
 W' yatt. Sir Thomas, 30 26. 
 
 Xenophon quoted 50 34. 
 
 Zeno 14 29, 34. 
 
 Zeuxis 14 29 {folio), 49 30, 51 2. 
 
 TON 
 
 ^ELIB^ 
 
 Of THe 
 
 
 A 
 
 22 
 
 33 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO ^^ 1 98 Main Stacks 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. 
 
 Renewls and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Alir^ OHlOOf 
 
 MR Z 1 2002 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY CA 94720-6000 
 
GENERAL LIBBABY. U.C.BERKELEY 
 
 BD003tlSn