who have been termed by Johnson the metaphysical poets.-See Johnson's Life of Cowley. His satires have been "translated into numbers" by Pope. FROM SATIRE IV. A thing more strange, than, on Nile's slime, the sun A thing which would have posed Adam to name. * His clothes were strange though coarse, and black though bare; Velvet, but 'twas now-so much ground was seen- See it plain rash a while, then nought at all. The thing hath travelled, and, faith, speaks all tongues; He speaks one language. If strange meats displease, Me to bear this. Yet I must be content With his tongue, in his tongue called compliment. * * He names me, and comes to me; I whisper-" God, Said, that I thought Calepine's Dictionary. 5 Nay, but of men, most sweet Sir."-Beza, then Some Jesuits, and two reverend men Of our two academies, I named. Here He stopped me, and said,-" Nay, your apostles were Yet a poor gentleman all these may pass By travel." Then, as if he would have sold His tongue, he praised it, and such wonders told, That I was fain to say,-" If you had lived, Sir, Time enough to have been interpreter To Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower had stood." He adds, "If of court life you knew the good, This passage is an imitation of Horace, Sat. I. 9. Taffeta or Taffata, a thin silk; alleged etymology tapes, Lat. rash; Fr. ras; applied to cloth without the pile; scraped; threadbare.-See Raschit and Rasour.-Jamieson, Scot. Dict. 3 So called from their occupation of selling quack medicines. The Polyglot Dictionary of Ambrosius Calepinus of seven languages. The reformer Theodore Beza. The Panurge of Rabelais' " Gargantua and Pantagruel." You would leave loneness." I said, "Not alone To teach by painting drunkards,2 doth not last He, like a high stretched lute-string, squeak'd—“ Oh, Sir, Said I, "the man that keeps the abbey-tombs, Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk, From king to king, and all their kin can walk. Your ears shall hear nought but kings; your eyes meet He smack'd and cried,-" He's base, mechanic, coarse, Are not your Frenchmen neat? Mine ?5-as you see, I have but one, Sir-look, he follows me. Are they not neatly clothed? I of this mind am. Your only wearing is your grogaram."6 "Not so, Sir. I have more." Under this pitch He would not fly.7 To fit my sullenness, He to another key his style doth dress;8 And asks-" What news?"-I tell him of new plays. 10 Of trivial household trash he knows. He knows When the queen frowned or smiled; and he knows what He knows who loves whom, and who by poison Hastes to an office's reversion: He knows who hath sold his land, and now doth beg A licence of old iron, boots, shoes, and egg Shells to transport.11 Shortly boys shall not play At span-counter or blow-point, 12 but shall pay Alluding to a saying of Africanus noticed often by Cicero, e. g. De Repub. v. 17. The Spartans compelled their slaves to intoxicate themselves, to inspire their youth with horror of the vice of drunkenness. 3 Pietro Aretino, the celebrated lampooner, and the illustrator by sonnets of the profligate drawings of Giulio Romano-See Encyclop. Brit. A street in the vicinity of the abbey. 5 My French valet. "Grogram (Fr. gros, grain), stuff made of silk and mohair."-Reid. Wearing or wear used for dress: " Motley's the only wear."-Shakesp. As you like it. my nightly wearing, good Emilia."-Id. Othello. An expression borrowed from falconry. 8 For address. One of the similes characteristic of the metaphysical" poets. 10 Chroniclers of the period. 11 Export. "Give me 12 Span-counter, a game in which counters were used, as marbles are in Hit-or-span. Blow-point, blowing an arrow through a trunk or tube at certain numbers, by way of lottery. Strut's Sports. Toll to some courtier.1 And wiser than all us, Thus He with home-meats cloys me. I belch, spue, spit, He thrusts on more. * He, like a privileged spy whom nothing can He saith-"Our wars thrive ill, because delayed; As the last day; and that great officers Do with the pirates share and Dunkirkers."3 * 4 I, more amazed than Circe's prisoners, when To suck me in for hearing him. * Of mercy now was come. But the hour He tries to bring Me to pay a fine, to 'scape his torturing, And says," Sir, can you spare me"-I said, "Willingly." HYMN TO CHRIST. "At the Author's last going into Germany." In what torn ship soever I embark, That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark; Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood. Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, They never will despise. A great abuse of the reigns of Elizabeth and James was the granting of licences or monopolies to favourites. 2 Spies formed an important portion of the machinery of Elizabeth's government.-See the narrative of the "Babington Conspiracy," in Hume and Robert on. Dunkirk was a nest of smugglers and privateers. Sec Odyssey, x. 136. The Guildhall Gog and Magog.-See Hone on Mysteries and Religious Shows, pp. 262-275. An English edition of—“ Sic me servavit Apollo."-Hor. Unnecessary, after which. I sacrifice this island unto thee, And all, whom I love here, and who love me; Where none but thee, th' eternal root THE WILL. Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe, Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore, My constancy I to the planets give; My truth to them who at the court do live; To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness; Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me My faith I give to Roman Catholics; And courtship to an university; My modesty I give to soldiers bare; My patience let gamesters share. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity. I give my reputation to those Which were my friends; mine industry to foes; To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness; My sickness to physicians, or excess; To nature all that I in rhyme have writ; Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore. 1 The vow of a Capuchin monk prevents him from possessing money. M To him, for whom the passing bell next tolls, Thou, Love, by making me love one, Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me BEN JONSON. BENJAMIN, or, according to his own abbreviation of signature, Ben Jonson, was born in Westminster. His family is said to have been originally from Annandale. Losing his father before his birth, the benevolence of a friend placed him at Westminster School, where he attracted the notice of the celebrated Camden, at that period second master in that establishment. An exhibition, which the same friend's kindness subsequently procured for him at Cambridge, being inadequate to his support, he was compelled, after a short residence in the university, to return to his friends, and to adopt his stepfather's trade of a bricklayer. Discontented with his position in life, he joined as a volunteer the English army in Flanders. After the service of a single campaign, he returned to London, and determined to devote himself to dramatic authorship. During an imprisonment at this period, in consequence of a duel in which he had killed his antagonist, he became a convert to the Roman Catholic religion, which he professed for a number of years afterwards. On his relcase he resumed his efforts to procure a subsistence from a connection with the theatres. Slender as were his resources and prospects, at the age of twenty he married; and pursued with indomitable perseverance, under great disadvantages, those studies which ultimately rendered him one of the most learned men of his time. Although his talents procured him notice and distinction, his circumstances continued still straitened. Gifford disproves satisfactorily the frequently alleged generous patronage of Jonson, in his necessity, by Shakespeare, and, equally satisfactorily, the alleged ingratitude and malignity of Jonson. His early efforts, as was the custom of the time, were made in joint works with Marston, Decker, and others. His first acknowledged piece that has descended to us is "Every Man in his Humour." Its success, if not materially improving his finances, prodigiously in |