The chapel empties, and thou mayst be gone Now, sun, and post away the rest of day: These two, now holy church hath made them one, Do long to make themselves so' another way: There is a feast behind, To them of kind, Which their glad parents taught One to the other, long ere these to light were brought. Haste, haste, officious sun, and send them night Some hours before it should, that these may know All that their fathers and their mothers might And keep their fames Alive, which else would die; For fame keeps virtue up, and it posterity. The ignoble never lived, they were awhile Their names are not recorded on the file Of life, that fall so; Christians know their birth Alone, and such a race, We pray may grace, Your fruitful spreading vine, But dare not ask our wish in language Fescennine. Yet, as we may, we will,—with chaste desires, Of love between you and your lovely-head! That when you both are old, You find no cold There; but renewed, say, After the last child born, This is our wedding-day. Till you behold a race to fill your hall, A Richard, and a Hierome, by their names Upon a Thomas, or a Francis call; A Kate, a Frank, to honour their grand-dames, And 'tween their grandsires' thighs, Like pretty spies, Peep forth a gem; to see How each one plays his part, of the large pedigree! And never may there want one of the stem, To be a watchful servant for this state; But like an arm of eminence 'mongst them, Extend a reaching virtue early and late! Whilst the main tree still found Upright and sound, By this sun's noonsted's made So great; his body now alone projects the shade. Will last till day; Night and the sheets will show The longing couple all that elder lovers know. XCIV. THE HUMBLE PETITION OF POOR BEN; TO THE BEST OF MONARCHS, MASTERS, MEN, KING CHARLES. Doth most humbly show it, To your majesty, your poet : And that this so accepted sum, Please your majesty to make Those your father's marks, your pounds: Let their spite, which now abounds, :* 4 Those your father's marks, your pounds.] The petition succeeded; the reader has, annexed to our poet's life, a copy of the Then go on, and do its worst ; XCV. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD TREASURER OF ENGLAND. AN EPIGRAM. 5 F to my mind, great lord, I had a state," The old Greek hands in picture, or in stone. Catch'd with these arts, wherein the judge is wise warrant creating him poet laureat, with a salary of £100 per annum. WHAL. The warrant is dated March 1630, the Petition must therefore be referred to the beginning of that year. 5 If to my mind, great lord, I had a state.] The learned reader may compare this with the 8th ode of the fourth book of Horace, as it seems to be copied from it. Our poet, as we find by some verses wrote by no well-wisher to him, received forty pounds for this Epigram. Let the reader judge which was greatest, the generosity of the treasurer, or the genius and address of Jonson. WHAL. Whalley has strange notions of copying. Jonson has taken a hint from the opening of the Ode to Censorinus, and that is all. The verses to which Whalley alludes are in the 4to. and 12mo. But you, I know, my lord, and know you can editions, 1640, in which this Epigram also appears; in Eliot's Poems, they are thus prefixed. "To Ben Jonson, upon his verses to the earl of Portland, "Your verses are commended, and 'tis true, His lordship, not Ben Jonson, made them good." p. 27. This poor simpleton, who appears to have earned a wretched subsistence by harassing the charitable with doggrel petitions for meat and clothes, was answered (according to his folly) by some one in Jonson's name; for the lines, though published in the small edition. so often quoted, were not written by him. TO MY DETRACTOR. "My verses were commended, thou dost say, Fool, do not rate my rhymes; I have found thy vice But bark thou on; I pity thee, poor cur, That thou shouldst lose thy noise, thy foam, thy stur, But writing against me, thou thinkst at least I now would write on thee; no, wretch, thy name No man will tarry by thee, as he goes, To ask thy name, if he have half a nose, But flee thee like the pest. Walk not the street Out in the dog-days, lest the killer meet Thy noddle with his club, and dashing forth Thy dirty brains, men see thy want of worth." p. 119. The question proposed by Whalley for the exercise of the reader's judgment seems very unnecessary. Forty pounds was a very considerable present in those days, and whether bestowed on want or worth, or both, argues a liberal and a noble spirit. The "Epigram was probably written in 1632. |