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P. 155. I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that, in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line.] What a man like Ben Jonson says of a man like Shakspeare is of such great importance that the utmost accuracy is to be desired. Am I wrong in thinking it worthy of note that "never blotted out a line" should be "never blotted out line"?

P. 157. Women's poets they are called, as you have women's tailors.] So in the News from the New World in the Moon: "Your woman's poet must flow and stroke the ear, and, as one of them said of himself sweetly,

"Must write a verse as smooth and calm as cream,

In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream."

See vol. vii. p. 341, and Gifford's note.

P. 158. What they have discredited and impugned in one week, they have before or after extolled the same in another.] Here the meaning is altogether destroyed by the stupid change of “in one work to" in one week!"

P. 158. False venditation of their own naturals.] In Cooper's Thesaurus, 1587, we have "Vendidatio, a glorious or bragging setting foorth."

P. 159. Because they speak all they can they are thought to have the greater copy.] Copy is here used for copiousness of ideas and knowledge.

P. 159. The Tamer-lanes and Tamer-chams of the late age.] This of course refers to Marlowe's famous plays, in which, in spite of all their "bumbard phrases," Jonson was not backward to recognize the "mighty lines" of a genuine master.

P. 160. With what sweetness he strokes them.] There is no doubt that Gifford was right in saying that to stroke, in the sense of to flatter, was a favourite word of Jonson's. See vol. vi. p. 78, and note.

P. 161. In her indagations oft-times new scents put her by.] Gifford carefully slurs over all these peculiar words. Cooper's Thesaurus, 1587, has "Indagatio, a diligent searchynge, or seekynge out."

P. 161. An extreme madness to bind or wrest that which ought to be right.] "Bind" is nonsense. The folio has "bend."

P. 162. Socrates is neither worthy of the patron, nor the person defended.] Jonson wrote more characteristically, "Socrates is

neither worthy or the patron or the person defended."

P. 163. For no imitator ever grew up to his author.] Here the folio reads: "For never no imitator ever grew up to his author," and so I believe Jonson wrote.

P. 163. Dominus Verulamius. "No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily."] This passage is continually quoted, but I have not observed that any one explains what is meant by more pressly. It cannot here mean weightily, as that is the term which immediately follows in the eulogy, yet this is the sense in which it appears to have been used by Chapman : "Hesiodus surnamed Ascræus, was one of the most ancient Greek Poets, and is one of the purest and pressest writers." In the folio, the only authority for the text, it is printed presly. Can this be prestly-readily? Or does it mean compressedly or compactly? In Cynthia's Revels, vol. ii. p. 319, Jonson uses the word prest for ready: "I am prest for the encounter."

P. 164. The Earl of Essex, noble and high.] It may appear strange to find the Earl of Essex occupying so high a place among the masters of composition in so great an age; but it ceases to be so when one reads "that Epistle or preface befor the translation of the last part of Tacitus, which is A. B." (See vol. ix. p. 397.) Jonson's authority is not to be gainsaid, but I should otherwise have guessed that A. B. stood for Antony Bacon, and that the pen was the pen of his brother Francis.

P. 166. We should find more evils belonging to us than happen to us.] Why belonging was substituted for the belong of the folio I am unable to guess.

P. 170. I have considered our whole life is like a play.] "All the world's a stage."

P. 171. They were not famous for any public calamity.] Jonson wrote, "They were not famous by any public calamity."

P. 176. Though the prince himself be of a most prompt inclination to all virtue.] It was no improvement to interpolate a before "most prompt."

P. 176. A prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to sheer, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their fells.] Nothing can be more definite than Jonson's use of the word fell in this place, but elsewhere, it may be remembered, he is not so clear (see vol. vi. p. 244). When the Philological Society in their great and most promising scheme for a dictionary, parcelled out the English language among the right number of self-devoted scholars, the letter F fell to the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright. Being well aware that whatever he undertook would be done, as Carlyle says, with

knuckles white, I thought I could not do better than apply to him about the true history of this word Fell. By return of post I received the full and scholarly answer which I knew would come eventually, but which another man would not have sent under a month! From this I learn that his earliest extract is of A.D. 940, when it meant the skin of a beast with or without its covering of hair or wool; that he first finds it used in contradistinction to fleece in 1520; in contradistinction to hide in 1296; and in contradistinction to wool in 1502. "The word gave me a deal of trouble, and is still very unsatisfactory."

P. 176. Neither to seek war in peace, nor peace in war.] Pax quæritur bello, a few years after this, was adopted by Oliver Cromwell as the motto for his medals.

P. 177. Which are the only two attributes make kings a-kin to God.] Jonson wrote "akin to gods."

P. 177. Heredes ex asse.] This was the old Roman phrase for "full heirs of the whole."

P. 179. Too late (being entered so fair) to seek starting-holes.] Jonson wrote, "Too late (being entered so far)."

P. 181. Bleaching their hands at midnight; gumming and bridling their beards.] Mr. Dyce quotes this passage as satisfactorily clearing up a puzzling expression in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, vol. i. p. 300:

"Art thou the dainty darling of the king?

Art thou the Hylas to our Hercules?

Do the lords bow, and the regarded scarlets

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Kiss their gummed golls, and say, 'We are your servants." Now golls are hands, fists, paws, and it will be observed that the process of gumming, which is perfectly intelligible when applied to beards, as in Jonson, is not the least so when applied to golls. Can "gummed" in this case be a misprint for "gemm'd ?" I suspect it is.

P. 183. It enjoys the pleasure of sinning, in beholding others' sin, as in dining, drinking, drabbing, &c.] The ridiculous misprint of dining for dicing makes rare nonsense of this passage!

P. 183. Spied by his master coming forth of Black Lucy's.] Archdeacon Nares, quoting this passage, says: "It is much to be regretted that we have no further account of this disreputable lady." (Glossary, p. 532.)

P. 185. Occupy, nature, and the like.] Jonson himself plays

upon the double meaning of the word occupy, see ante, vol. viii. p. 220:

"Groine, come of age, his state sold out of hand

For's whore: Groine doth still occupy his land."

It was employed in the widest senses of the word use. In the Nomenclator, 1585, we find, "Inke, made of soote, such as printers occupie;" and in Bishop Jewell, vol. ii. p. 858 (Parker Soc.), "But if the [hundred pounds] stock be put to occupying, something will grow to the relief of the orphan, and yet his stock remain whole."

Nature is also used by Jonson in Every Man out of His Humour, vol. ii. p. 87.

P. 188. To enquire after domestic simulties.] This is another hateful latinism. Cooper's Thesaurus, 1587, defines "Simultas, privie grudge."

P. 188. It pleased your lordship of late.] There can be no doubt that "your lordship" in this place means the Earl of Newcastle. In the next page, seven lines from bottom, when Jonson says, "Your lordship, I fear, hardly hears," he means listens with a deaf ear to.

P. 191. We force back our arms, to make our loose the stronger.] This passage ought to have shown Gifford the strange blunder he had made in Every Man out of His Humour, vol. ii. p. 118.

P. 191. For all that we invent doth please us in conception of birth.] I fail to perceive a meaning here. The folio has, "in the conception or birth."

P. 193. Therefore these things are no more written to a dull disposition than rules of husbandry to a soil.] The folio makes sense of this passage by reading, "to a barren soil."

P. 198. The eldest of the present, and newness of the past language, is the best.] There can be no doubt, I should say, that the word newness is palpably a misprint for newest.

There is otherwise

no meaning in the passage. In p. 196, l. 15, wracked should certainly be racked; and in p. 197, l. 16, I am inclined to think obsceneness is a misprint for obscureness. Jonson's thought in the passage at the head of this note has been adopted by Pope :

"In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;

Alike fantastic if too new or old :

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

Essay on Criticism, 1. 333.

P. 199. Marry we must not play or riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies.] Paronomasies are puns, or clinches; although a slightly different meaning seems assigned to it in Poetaster, vol. ii. p. 411. It is certainly, however, the sense in which Dryden understood it: "Tis not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis (the delight of an illjudging audience in a play of rhyme), nor the jingle of a more poor paronomasia." Annus Mirabilis ("Globe" ed. p. 40).

P. 201. Who would say with us, but a madman?] The folio has, "Who would say this with us but a madman ?”

P. 202. All well-torned, composed, elegant, and accurate.] See the lines on Shakspeare, and note, vol. viii. p. 320.

P. 202. Vast and tumorous.] Giles Fletcher also uses this disagreeable word:

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Making his child the toothless serpent chace,

Or with his little hands her tum'rous gorge embrace."

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(Ed. Grosart, p. 176.)

P. 203. We say it is a fleshy style, when there is much periphrasis and circuit of words.] This passage reminds me of a letter from Edmund Burke to Sir Philip Francis, which I have always been surprised has not been made a trump card in the Junius controversy. "It was with unmixed pleasure that I heard Mr. Fox the other day do justice to my friend, by owning the information he had, and the wisdom he might have gained, had he had such a flapper at his elbow in his most high and palmy days. I have sucked many brains in my time (he said), and seldom found more to reward me.' 'Ay, sir (I replied), multum in parvo: his style has no gummy flesh about it.'"

P. 207. You are bound to measure him in three farther points: first, with interest in him; secondly, his capacity in your letters.] The folio makes sense of this by reading, "first, your interest in him."

P. 211. Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero"] Gifford himself translates this line: "Grate the tender ear with harsh truth."

P. 212. What is a Poet?] This seems as proper a place as any for quoting what Dryden says about these Discoveries in his Essay on Dramatic Poesy (Works, Scott ed. vol. xv. p. 354): "If I would compare Jonson with Shakspeare I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare was the Homer, or father, of our dramatic poets: Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love

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