On My First Son<\/b><\/p>\n
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
\nMy sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
\nSeven years wert thou leant to me, and I thee pay,
\nExacted by thy fate, on the just day.
\nO. I could lose all father now. For why
\nWill man lament the state he should envy?
\nTo have so soon ‘scaped world’s, and flesh’s, rage,
\nAnd if no other misery, yet age?
\nRest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
\nBen Jonson, his best piece of poetry.
\nFor whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
\nAs what he loves may never like too much.<\/p>\n
\n
“Ben Jonson – another man described as ‘the first poet laureate’ – compares with any poet of his age and the next. He’s the most versatile writer in the history of English poetry.” — Michael Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”<\/i><\/p>\n
\n“Ben Jonson had one eie lower than t’other, and bigger, like Clun the Player; perhaps he begott Clun.” — John Aubrey<\/i><\/p>\n
“It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said on the other hand that Shakespeare had none at all; and because Shakespeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakespeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed everything.” — Alexander Pope, “Preface to the Works of Shakespeare” (1725)<\/i><\/p>\n
“one of the singers who could not sing.” — Swinburne<\/i><\/p>\n
“I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.” — John Dryden<\/i><\/p>\n
“Language must show a man. Speak that I may see thee.” — Ben Jonson<\/i><\/p>\n
“I never tasted English more to my liking, nor more smart, and put to the height of use in poetry, than in the vital, judicious, and most practicable language of Benjamin Jonson’s poems.” — Edmund Bolton<\/i><\/p>\n
“I have seen his studyeing chaire, which was of strawe, such as olde woemen used.” — John Aubrey<\/i><\/p>\n
“[Jonson] is a poet not quite in the court and thus not secure in patronage, though not yet wedded to Grub Street, its disciplines and treacheries. The world of such a man is unstable, and part of Jonson’s greatness is to have survived in it and to have made it survive in his verse. Jonson makes us guests at great houses and lets us hear the age’s mannerly speech and savor its hospitality. We hear his songs, too; and we meet, through his eyes, friends and foes as real as any in poetry. He was among the first great poets to take an active interest in publishing, to seek fortune and solace from the printing of his own work in book form. He is the grandfather, or godfather, of Grub Street. — Michael Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”<\/i><\/p>\n
” ‘Twas an ingeniose remarque of my Lady Hoskins, that B.J. never writes of Love, or if he does, does it not naturally.” — John Aubrey<\/i><\/p>\n
“In the plays the proximity of Shakespeare does Jonson most harm, though he writes plays so different from his frien’s that they seem distinct in kind and period. Part of that difference is Jonson’s poetic balance, deliberate artistry: he knows what he wants to say and has the means of saying it, no more or less. He reaches a conclusion and stops; no discovery leads him beyond his destination. He speaks for his age, while Shakespeare speaks for himself. Jonson’s art is normative, Shakespeare’s radical and exploratory. In Jonson there’s structure and gauged variegation, in Shakespeare movement and wamrth. Coleridge disliked the “rankness” of Jonson’s realism and found no “goodness of heart”. He condemned the “absurd rant and ventriloquism” in the tragedy Sejanus<\/i>, staged by Shakespeare’s company at the Globe. At times Jonson’s words, unlike Shakespeare’s tend to separate out and stand single, rather than coalesce, as though he had attended to each individual word. His mind is busy near the surface.” — Michael Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”<\/i><\/p>\n
To the memory of my beloved,
\nThe Author
\nMR. W I L L I A M S H A K E S P E A R E :
\nA N D
\nwhat he hath left us.<\/p>\n
To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
\nAm I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame;
\nWhile I confesse thy writings to be such,
\nAs neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
\n‘Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these wayes
\nWere not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
\nFor seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
\nWhich, when it sounds at best, but eccho’s right;
\nOr blinde Affection, which doth ne’re advance
\nThe truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
\nOr crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
\nAnd thine to ruine, where it seem’d to raise.
\nThese are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
\nShould praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?
\nBut thou art proofe against them, and indeed
\nAbove th’ ill fortune of them, or the need.
\nI, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age !
\nThe applause ! delight ! the wonder of our Stage !
\nMy Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
\nChaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
\nA little further, to make thee a roome :
\nThou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
\nAnd art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
\nAnd we have wits to read, and praise to give.
\nThat I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses ;
\nI meane with great, but disproportion’d Muses :
\nFor, if I thought my judgement were of yeeres,
\nI should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
\nAnd tell, how farre thou dist our Lily out-shine,
\nOr sporting Kid or Marlowes mighty line.
\nAnd though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke,
\nFrom thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
\nFor names; but call forth thund’ring \u00c6schilus,
\nEuripides, and Sophocles to us,
\nPaccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
\nTo life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread,
\nAnd shake a stage : Or, when thy sockes were on,
\nLeave thee alone, for the comparison
\nOf all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome
\nSent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
\nTriumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
\nTo whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
\nHe was not of an age, but for all time !
\nAnd all the Muses still were in their prime,
\nWhen like Apollo he came forth to warme
\nOur eares, or like a Mercury to charme !
\nNature her selfe was proud of his designes,
\nAnd joy’d to weare the dressing of his lines !
\nWhich were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
\nAs, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
\nThe merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
\nNeat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
\nBut antiquated, and deserted lye
\nAs they were not of Natures family.
\nYet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
\nMy gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part;
\nFor though the Poets matter, Nature be,
\nHis Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
\nWho casts to write a living line, must sweat,
\n(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
\nUpon the Muses anvile : turne the same,
\n(And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
\nOr for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
\nFor a good Poet’s made, as well as borne.
\nAnd such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
\nLives in his issue, even so, the race
\nOf Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines
\nIn his well toned, and true-filed lines :
\nIn each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
\nAs brandish’t at the eyes of Ignorance.
\nSweet swan of Avon! what a fight it were
\nTo see thee in our waters yet appeare,
\nAnd make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,
\nThat so did take Eliza, and our James !
\nBut stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
\nAdvanc’d, and made a Constellation there !
\nShine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,
\nOr influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
\nWhich, since thy flight fro’ hence, hath mourn’d like night,
\nAnd despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.
\n— Ben Jonson, preface in First Folio of Shakespeare’s works, 1623<\/i><\/p>\n
“I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand. ” — Ben Jonson<\/i><\/p>\n
“Many times [Shakespeare] fell into those things could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, “Caesar, thou dost me wrong,” he replied “Caesar did never wrong, but with just cause,” and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.” — Ben Jonson<\/i><\/p>\n
“He is a great lover and praiser of himself ; a contemner and scorner of others ; given rather to lose a friend than a jest ; . . . he is passionately kind and angry ; careless either to gain or keep ; vindictive, but, if he be well answered, at himself . . . ; oppressed with fantasy, which hath ever mastered his reason.” — William Drummond of Hawthornden<\/i><\/p>\n
“What Jonson has done here is not merely a fine speech. It is the careful, precise filling in of a strong and simple outline, and at no point does it overflow the outline; it is far more careful and precise in its obedience to this outline than are many of the speeches in Tamburlaine. The outline is not Sulla, for Sulla has nothing to do with it, but “Sylla’s ghost.” The words may not be suitable to an historical Sulla, or to anybody in history, but they are a perfect expression for “Sylla’s ghost.” You cannot say they are rhetorical “because people do not talk like that,” you cannot call them “verbiage”; they do not exhibit prolixity or redundancy or the other vices in the rhetoric books; there is a definite artistic emotion which demands expression at that length. The words themselves are mostly simple words, the syntax is natural, the language austere rather than adorned. Turning then to the induction of The Poetaster<\/i>, we find another success of the same kind\u0097<\/p>\n Light, I salute thee, but with wounded nerves…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Men may not talk in that way, but the spirit of envy does, and in the words of Jonson envy is a real and living person. It is not human life that informs envy and Sylla’s ghost, but it is energy of which human life is only another variety.” — T.S. Eliot<\/i><\/p>\n “He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only to observe what was open to, and likely to impress, the senses.\u0094 — Coleridge<\/i><\/p>\n “O rare Ben Johnson.” — Jonson’s epitaph in Westminster Abbey<\/i><\/p>\n More on Ben Jonson here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other National Poetry month posts<\/b><\/p>\n Herman Melville<\/a><\/p>\n William Butler Yeats<\/a><\/p>\n P.G. Wodehouse<\/a><\/p>\n Christopher Smart<\/a><\/p>\n John Milton<\/a><\/p>\n Shel Silverstein<\/a><\/p>\n Gerard Manley Hopkins<\/a><\/p>\n Michael Blumenthal<\/a><\/p>\n Emily Bronte<\/a><\/p>\n Thomas Hardy<\/a><\/p>\n Edward Lear<\/a><\/p>\n W.H. Auden<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On My First Son Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. Seven years wert thou leant to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the … Continue reading