will take poetry literal; since in commendations, it rather shows what men should be, than what they are. If this were not, it would appear uncomely. But we all know, hyperboles in poetry do bear a decency, nay, a grace along with them. The greatest danger that I find in it is, that it wantons the blood and imagination, as carrying a man in too high a delight. To prevent these, let the wise poet strive to be modest in his lines. First, that he dash not the gods; next, that he injure not chastity nor corrupt the ear with lasciviousness. When these

are declined, I think a grave poem the deepest kind of writing. It wings the soul up higher than the slacked pace of prose. Flashes that do follow the cup, I fear me, are too sprightly to be solid; they run smartly upon the loose for a distance or two, but then being foul, they give in and tire. I confess I love the sober Muse and fasting; from the other, matter cannot come so clear but that it will be misted with the fumes of wine. Long poetry some cannot be friends withal; and indeed, it palls upon the reading. The wittiest poets have been all short and changing soon their subject, as Horace, Martial, Juvenal, Seneca and the two comedians. Poetry should be rather like a Coranto, short and nimbly-lofty, than a dull lesson of a day long. Nor can it be but deadish, if distended; for when it is right, it centers conceit and takes but the spirit of things, and therefore foolish poesy is of all writing the most ridiculous. When a goose dances and a fool versifies, there is sport alike. He is twice an ass, that is a rhyming one. He is something the less unwise, that is unwise but in prose. If the subject be history or contexted fable, then I hold it better put in prose or blanks; for ordinary discourse never shows so well in metre as in the strain it may seem to be spoken in; the commendation is, to do it to the life, nor is this any other than poetry in prose. Surely,

though the world think not so, he is happy to himself that can play the poet. He shall vent his passions by his pen, and ease his heart of their weight; and he shall often raise himself a joy in his raptures, which no man can perceive but he. Sure Ovid found a pleasure in it, even when he wrote his Tristia. It gently delivers the mind of distempers and works the thoughts to a sweetness in their searching conceit. I would not love it for a profession, and I would not want it for a recreation.— I can make myself harmless, nay, amending mirth with it, while I should, perhaps, be trying of a worser pastime. And this I believe in it further, unless conversation corrupts his easiness, it lifts a man to nobleness, and is never in any rightly, but it makes him of a royal and capacious soul.

4

BEN JONSON

Practically all these excerpts from the Discoveries are translations or adaptations from the writings of the two Senecas and Quintilian.

[MEMORY]1

MEMORY, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail; it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca, the father, the rhetorician, confesseth 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. Yet I can repeat whole books that I have read, and 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 weakens the strongest abilities, it may perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made better 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 oftentimes loses; 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 itself when I am quiet. 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 1 Cf. SENECA THE ELDER, Controversia, I, Proem, § 2.

in such as have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their own vexation.

[ROOTED VICE]

1

Nullum vitium sine patrocinio 1

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 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 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 were ambitious of living backward; and at last arrive at that, as they would love nothing but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; 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? When they can put me in security that they are more than 1 SENECA, Epistles, 122 and 112.

offended, that they hate it, then I'll hearken to them, and perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill together.

[TRUE WIT]

De vere Argutis 1

I Do hear them say often some men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, (should we) 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 and natural language seem 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 embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but in wresting and writhing 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.

[ON CERTAIN POETS]

Censura de poetis

NOTHING in our age, I have observed, is more preposterous than the running judgments 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 in; he 1 QUINTILIAN, II, 5, § 11.