With those that come; whose grace may make that

seem

Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
The entertainment perfect, not the cates.
Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better sallad
Ushering the mutton; with a short legg'd hen,
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,
Limons, and wine for sauce: to these, a coney
Is not to be despair'd of for our money;

And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come :
Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some
May yet be there; and godwit if we can;
Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe'er, my man
Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,

Livy, or of some better book to us,

probably written two and thirty years before! All this Mr. Jones must have found stated in the very paper from which he copied the epigram; and all this he chose to conceal from an itch become quite epidemic among the low scribblers of his caste, to insult the memory of Jonson. The assertion that this great poet was the bitter enemy of Ford, is an echo of the profligate falsehood of Weber, who is not afraid to declare, that it is proved by indisputable documents! whereas the only memorial of any passage whatever between Ford and Jonson, now known to exist, is a very friendly elegy by the former, "ON THE DEATH OF the best of ENGLISH POETS, BEN JONSON." It is mortifying to contend with such a case of asses;" -but they must not be suffered to kick at the ashes of Jonson with impunity.

9

Howsoe'er my man

66

Shall read a piece of Virgil, &c.] Richard Brome, his servant, whom he had apparently instructed in Latin, whose talents justify his master's pains, and whose good qualities warrant his affection. Jonson had Juvenal in view here:

Nostra dabunt alios hodie convivia ludos;

Conditor Iliados cantabitur, atque Maronis

Altisoni dubiam facientia carmina palmam. Sat. 11.

Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat;
And I'll profess no verses to repeat:

To this if aught appear, which I not know of,
That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.
Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be;
But that which most doth take my muse and me,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,

Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine:1
Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted,
Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.
Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring,
Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing.
Of this we will sup free, but moderately,
And we will have no Pooly', or Parrot by;
Nor shall our cups make any guilty' men:
But at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met. No simple word,
That shall be utter'd at our mirthful board,
Shall make us sad next morning; or affright
The liberty, that we'll enjoy to-night.

1 Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine.] The Mermaid, a tavern in Bread-street, at that time frequented by our author, and his poetical friends Beaumont and Fletcher, and the reigning wits of the age. WHAL.

This is from Horace's Invitation to Virgil:

Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum

Qui nunc Sulpiciis accubet horreis,

Spes donare novas largus, &c.

But the plan of the whole is from a little poem of Martial, lib. x. epig. 48, of which it has many incidental imitations, particularly of the concluding lines:

De Nomentana vinum sine face lagena,
Quæ bis Frontino consule plena fuit.
Accedent sine felle joci, nec mane timenda
Libertas, et nil quod tacuisse velis:

De Prasino conviva meus, Venetoque loquatur;
Nec facient quenquam pocula nostra reum.

CII.

TO WILLIAM EARL OF PEMBROKE.

DO but name thee, Pembroke, and I find
It is an epigram on all mankind;

Against the bad, but of, and to the good:
Both which are ask'd, to have thee understood.
Nor could the age have miss'd thee, in this strife
Of vice and virtue, wherein all great life
Almost is exercised; and scarce one knows,
To which, yet, of the sides himself he owes.
They follow virtue for reward to-day;
To-morrow vice,. if she give better pay :
And are so good, and bad, just at a price,
As nothing else discerns the virtue' or vice.
But thou, whose noblêsse keeps one stature still,
And one true posture, though besieged with ill
Of what ambition, faction, pride can raise ;
Whose life, even they that envy it, must praise;
That art so reverenced, as thy coming in,
But in the view, doth interrupt their sin;

Thou must draw more: and they that hope to see
The commonwealth still safe, must study thee.

Know

CIII.

TO MARY LADY WROTH.3

OW well, fair crown of your fair sex, might he
That but the twilight of your sprite did see,
And noted for what flesh such souls were fram'd,
you to be a Sidney, though unnam'd?

2 But thou whose noblêsse, &c.,] i. e. nobleness, nobility. A word which we have very improvidently suffered to become obsolete. 3 To Mary lady Wroth.] She was a woman of genius, and wrote

And being nam'd, how little doth that name
Need any muse's praise to give it fame?
Which is itself the imprese of the great,
And glory of them all, but to repeat !
Forgive me then, if mine but say you are
A Sidney; but in that extend as far
As loudest praisers, who perhaps would find
For every part a character assign'd:

My praise is plain, and wheresoe'er profest,
Becomes none more than you, who need it least.

CIV.

TO SUSAN COUNTESS OF MONTGOMERY.4

ERE they that nam'd you, prophets? did they

see,

Even in the dew of grace,

grace, what you would be?

Or did our times require it, to behold

A new Susanna, equal to that old?

Or, because some scarce think that story true,
To make those faithful did the Fates send you,

a romance called Urania, printed in folio, 1621; she was wife to sir Robert Wroth, of Durance, in the county of Middlesex, and daughter to Robert earl of Leicester, a younger brother of sir Philip Sidney. WHAL.

4 To Susan countess of Montgomery.] Wife to Philip earl of Montgomery, and grand-daughter to William lord Burleigh. WHAL.

This accomplished and excellent woman, who appeared in most of Jonson's Masques at court, has been more than once noticed. She was a lady of strict piety and virtue, and wrote a little treatise called Eusebia, expressing briefly the Soul's praying robes, 1620.

It is much to the credit, or the good fortune of " that memorable simpleton," as Walpole calls him, Philip Herbert, to have married in succession two wives of such distinguished worth. His second, as the reader knows, was the high-born and high-spirited daughter of George earl of Cumberland, widow of Richard Sackville earl of Dorset.

And to your scene lent no less dignity
Of birth, of match, of form, of chastity?
Or, more than born for the comparison
Of former age, or glory of our own,
Were you advanced, past those times, to be
The light and mark unto posterity?

Judge they that can here I have raised to show,
A picture, which the world for yours must know,
And like it too; if they look equally :
If not, 'tis fit for you, some should envy.

CV.

TO MARY LADY WROTH.

ADAM, had all antiquity been lost,

?

All history seal'd up, and fables crost, That we had left us, nor by time, nor place, Least mention of a Nymph, a Muse, a Grace, But even their names were to be made anew, Who could not but create them all from you He, that but saw you wear the wheaten hat, Would call you more than Ceres, if not that; And drest in shepherd's tire, who would not say You were the bright Enone, Flora, or May? If dancing, all would cry, the Idalian queen Were leading forth the Graces on the green; And armed to the chase, so bare her bow Diana' alone, so hit, and hunted so.

There's none so dull, that for your style would

ask,

That saw you put on Pallas' plumed cask;
Or, keeping your due state, that would not cry,
There Juno sat, and yet no peacock by:
So are you nature's index, and restore,

In yourself, all treasure lost of the age before.