For, as we are commonly used to call the
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together.
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
?
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter, by Ben
Jonson, Edited by Henry Morley
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www. gutenberg. org
Title: Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter
and Some Poems
Author: Ben Jonson
Editor: Henry Morley
Release Date: August 14, 2014 [eBook #5134]
[This file was first posted on May 10, 2002]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND
MATTER***
Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf. org
CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
* * * * *
DISCOVERIES
_MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER_
AND
SOME POEMS
BY
BEN JOHNSON.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1892.
INTRODUCTION
BEN JONSON'S "Discoveries" are, as he says in the few Latin words
prefixed to them, "A wood--Sylva--of things and thoughts, in Greek '? ? ? '"
[which has for its first meaning material, but is also applied peculiarly
to kinds of wood, and to a wood], "from the multiplicity and variety of
the material contained in it. For, as we are commonly used to call the
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together. "
In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most
vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature.
The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his "Underwoods. "
Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district that
produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religious persecution
in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's reign, and died a
month before the poet's birth in 1573. Ben Jonson, therefore, was about
nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived Shakespeare about
twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson
was, in his own different way, the man of most mark in the story of the
English drama. His mother, left poor, married again. Her second husband
was a bricklayer, or small builder, and they lived for a time near
Charing Cross in Hartshorn Lane. Ben Jonson was taught at the parish
school of St. Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the
historian. Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He
procured for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm
foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by
private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit.
Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time in his
step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the Low Countries.
He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end of
Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he showed
a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together with
that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged on
the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:--
"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men;
And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power. "
Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years of
the reign of James I. His _Volpone_, the _Silent Woman_, and the
_Alchemist_ first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of
Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of
James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste
from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was
weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a
short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of
the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and
their guide. Their own best efforts seemed best to them when they had
won Ben Jonson's praise. They valued above all passing honours man could
give the words, "My son," in the old poet's greeting, which, as they
said, "sealed them of the tribe of Ben. "
H. M.
SYLVA
_Rerum et sententiarum quasi ? ? ? dicta a multiplici materia et varietate
in iis contenta_. _Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam arborum
nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros
suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula temere congesta erant_,
Sylvas _appellabant antiqui_: Timber-trees.
TIMBER;
OR,
DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
NOTION OF THE TIMES.
_Tecum habita_, _ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex_ {11}
PERS. Sat. 4.
_Fortuna_. --Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived
not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer
side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things
she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she
might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance
between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not
met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can
happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens
to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts
it and will make it.
_Casus_. --Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a
beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to
obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
_Consilia_. --No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel
sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take no
others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own
counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught
by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
_Fama_. --A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by
another's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well
themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his
evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent.
_Negotia_. --In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all.
And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and
thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and
raise sedition against the understanding.
_Amor patriae_. --There is a necessity all men should love their country: he
that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his
heart is there.
_Ingenia_. --Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than
make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no
attempting them.
_Applausus_. --We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than
those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past;
thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.
_Opinio_. --Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing; settled
in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to
obtain the tincture of reason. We labour with it more than truth. There
is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill
fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of
our thinking.
_Impostura_. --Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but
least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they
set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their
gut and their groin in their inner closets.
_Jactura vitae_. --What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little
winter-love in a dark corner.
Hypocrita. --_Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus_, _quem opinio propriae
perspicaciae_, _qua sibi videtur_, _cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus
errores quosdam animadvertisse_, _de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro
furore percitus_, _phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus_, _sic ratus
obedientiam praestare Deo_. {14}
_Mutua auxilia_. --Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty
needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of
offices between the prince and whom his favour breeds, that they may help
to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of
his liberality, his favour; and from whom doth he hear discipline more
willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his
own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?
_Cognit. univers_. --In being able to counsel others, a man must be
furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
nature--that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all
argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature
of man: there is the variety of things which are as the elements and
letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present
occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in
particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use
all arguments.
_Consiliarii adjunct_. _Probitas_, _Sapientia_. --The two chief things
that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty and
the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two will persuade when
the same counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of no
efficacy or working.
_Vita recta_. --Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And
therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which cannot be
but by living well. A good life is a main argument.
_Obsequentia_. --_Humanitas_. --_Solicitudo_. --Next a good life, to beget love
in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in
ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to
their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his
sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing
care and solicitude. And not to counsel rashly, or on the sudden, but
with advice and meditation. (_Dat nox consilium_. {17a}) For many
foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be
extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect;
especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted,
lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be
marked by new persons and men of experience in affairs.
_Modestia_. --_Parrhesia_. --And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
himself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery or empire.
Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were already furnished
with the parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For in
other things they will more easily suffer themselves to be taught or
reprehended: they will not willingly contend, but hear, with Alexander,
the answer the musician gave him: _Absit_, _o rex_, _ut tu melius haec
scias_, _quam ego_. {17b}
_Perspicuitas_. --_Elegantia_. --A man should so deliver himself to the
nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair and
good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded; redeem arts
from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and overgrown with
thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where they may take the eye
and be taken by the hand.
_Natura non effaeta_. --I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that
she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the
same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still.
Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.
_Non nimium credendum antiquitati_. --I know nothing can conduce more to
letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to rest in
their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the
plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be away; such as are
envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scurrilous scoffing. For
to all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience, which
if we will use and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true
they opened the gates, and made the way that went before us, but as
guides, not commanders: _Non domini nostri_, _sed duces fuere_. {19a}
Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several. _Patet omnibus veritas_;
_nondum est occupata_. _Multum ex illa_, _etiam futuris relicta est_.
{19b}
_Dissentire licet_, _sed cum ratione_. --If in some things I dissent from
others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up at and
admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness.
For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not
think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity
what they also could add and find out.
_Non mihi credendum sed veritati_. --If I err, pardon me: _Nulla ars simul
et inventa est et absoluta_. {19c} I do not desire to be equal to those
that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much
faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author
nor fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if
I have anything right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it
conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or
fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and 'tis
enough.
_Scientiae liberales_. --Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler
than those that serve the body, though we less can be without them, as
tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c. , without which we could scarce
sustain life a day. But these were the works of every hand; the other of
the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits,
that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour:
_Opere pascitur_.
_Non vulgi sunt_. --There is a more secret cause, and the power of liberal
studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out by profane wits.
It is not every man's way to hit. There are men, I confess, that set the
carat and value upon things as they love them; but science is not every
man's mistress. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place,
and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
_Honesta ambitio_. --If divers men seek fame or honour by divers ways, so
both be honest, neither is to be blamed; but they that seek immortality
are not only worthy of love, but of praise.
_Maritus improbus_. --He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a family to
go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the
fiddlers of such a town, than go home.
_Afflictio pia magistra_. --Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time
to pray: prosperity never.
_Deploratis facilis descensus Averni_. --_The devil take all_. --Many might
go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture
their industry the right way; but "The devil take all! " quoth he that was
choked in the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.
_AEgidius cursu superat_. --A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a
post out of the way.
_Prodigo nummi nauci_. --Bags of money to a prodigal person are the same
that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.
_Munda et sordida_. --A woman, the more curious she is about her face is
commonly the more careless about her house.
_Debitum deploratum_. --Of this spilt water there is a little to be
gathered up: it is a desperate debt.
_Latro sesquipedalis_. --The thief {22} that had a longing at the gallows
to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.
And like the German lord, when he went out of Newgate into the cart, took
order to have his arms set up in his last herborough: said was he taken
and committed upon suspicion of treason, no witness appearing against
him; but the judges entertained him most civilly, discoursed with him,
offered him the courtesy of the rack; but he confessed, &c.
_Calumniae fructus_. --I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so
endeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer
guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
_Impertinens_. --A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from,
gallop down any steep lull to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature
itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent; one that
touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry
into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spoke to him of garlic,
he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging,
as if they went by one and the same destiny.
_Bellum scribentium_. --What a sight it is to see writers committed
together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas,
hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and their altars; and
angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under
their asses' skins.
There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries.
_Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quam fortuna_, _sum usus_. {23}
"Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. " {24a}
_Differentia inter doctos et sciolos_. --Wits made out their several
expeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great and
profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition
of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the
skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid
literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a
scholar, a welt or so; but it is no more.
_Impostorum fucus_.
For, as we are commonly used to call the
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together. "
In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most
vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature.
The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his "Underwoods. "
Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district that
produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religious persecution
in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's reign, and died a
month before the poet's birth in 1573. Ben Jonson, therefore, was about
nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived Shakespeare about
twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson
was, in his own different way, the man of most mark in the story of the
English drama. His mother, left poor, married again. Her second husband
was a bricklayer, or small builder, and they lived for a time near
Charing Cross in Hartshorn Lane. Ben Jonson was taught at the parish
school of St. Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the
historian. Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He
procured for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm
foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by
private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit.
Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time in his
step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the Low Countries.
He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end of
Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he showed
a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together with
that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged on
the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:--
"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men;
And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power. "
Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years of
the reign of James I. His _Volpone_, the _Silent Woman_, and the
_Alchemist_ first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of
Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of
James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste
from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was
weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a
short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of
the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and
their guide. Their own best efforts seemed best to them when they had
won Ben Jonson's praise. They valued above all passing honours man could
give the words, "My son," in the old poet's greeting, which, as they
said, "sealed them of the tribe of Ben. "
H. M.
SYLVA
_Rerum et sententiarum quasi ? ? ? dicta a multiplici materia et varietate
in iis contenta_. _Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam arborum
nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros
suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula temere congesta erant_,
Sylvas _appellabant antiqui_: Timber-trees.
TIMBER;
OR,
DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
NOTION OF THE TIMES.
_Tecum habita_, _ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex_ {11}
PERS. Sat. 4.
_Fortuna_. --Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived
not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer
side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things
she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she
might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance
between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not
met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can
happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens
to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts
it and will make it.
_Casus_. --Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a
beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to
obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
_Consilia_. --No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel
sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take no
others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own
counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught
by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
_Fama_. --A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by
another's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well
themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his
evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent.
_Negotia_. --In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all.
And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and
thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and
raise sedition against the understanding.
_Amor patriae_. --There is a necessity all men should love their country: he
that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his
heart is there.
_Ingenia_. --Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than
make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no
attempting them.
_Applausus_. --We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than
those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past;
thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.
_Opinio_. --Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing; settled
in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to
obtain the tincture of reason. We labour with it more than truth. There
is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill
fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of
our thinking.
_Impostura_. --Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but
least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they
set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their
gut and their groin in their inner closets.
_Jactura vitae_. --What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little
winter-love in a dark corner.
Hypocrita. --_Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus_, _quem opinio propriae
perspicaciae_, _qua sibi videtur_, _cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus
errores quosdam animadvertisse_, _de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro
furore percitus_, _phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus_, _sic ratus
obedientiam praestare Deo_. {14}
_Mutua auxilia_. --Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty
needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of
offices between the prince and whom his favour breeds, that they may help
to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of
his liberality, his favour; and from whom doth he hear discipline more
willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his
own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?
_Cognit. univers_. --In being able to counsel others, a man must be
furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
nature--that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all
argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature
of man: there is the variety of things which are as the elements and
letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present
occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in
particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use
all arguments.
_Consiliarii adjunct_. _Probitas_, _Sapientia_. --The two chief things
that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty and
the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two will persuade when
the same counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of no
efficacy or working.
_Vita recta_. --Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And
therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which cannot be
but by living well. A good life is a main argument.
_Obsequentia_. --_Humanitas_. --_Solicitudo_. --Next a good life, to beget love
in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in
ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to
their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his
sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing
care and solicitude. And not to counsel rashly, or on the sudden, but
with advice and meditation. (_Dat nox consilium_. {17a}) For many
foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be
extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect;
especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted,
lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be
marked by new persons and men of experience in affairs.
_Modestia_. --_Parrhesia_. --And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
himself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery or empire.
Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were already furnished
with the parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For in
other things they will more easily suffer themselves to be taught or
reprehended: they will not willingly contend, but hear, with Alexander,
the answer the musician gave him: _Absit_, _o rex_, _ut tu melius haec
scias_, _quam ego_. {17b}
_Perspicuitas_. --_Elegantia_. --A man should so deliver himself to the
nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair and
good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded; redeem arts
from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and overgrown with
thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where they may take the eye
and be taken by the hand.
_Natura non effaeta_. --I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that
she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the
same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still.
Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.
_Non nimium credendum antiquitati_. --I know nothing can conduce more to
letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to rest in
their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the
plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be away; such as are
envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scurrilous scoffing. For
to all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience, which
if we will use and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true
they opened the gates, and made the way that went before us, but as
guides, not commanders: _Non domini nostri_, _sed duces fuere_. {19a}
Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several. _Patet omnibus veritas_;
_nondum est occupata_. _Multum ex illa_, _etiam futuris relicta est_.
{19b}
_Dissentire licet_, _sed cum ratione_. --If in some things I dissent from
others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up at and
admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness.
For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not
think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity
what they also could add and find out.
_Non mihi credendum sed veritati_. --If I err, pardon me: _Nulla ars simul
et inventa est et absoluta_. {19c} I do not desire to be equal to those
that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much
faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author
nor fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if
I have anything right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it
conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or
fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and 'tis
enough.
_Scientiae liberales_. --Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler
than those that serve the body, though we less can be without them, as
tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c. , without which we could scarce
sustain life a day. But these were the works of every hand; the other of
the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits,
that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour:
_Opere pascitur_.
_Non vulgi sunt_. --There is a more secret cause, and the power of liberal
studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out by profane wits.
It is not every man's way to hit. There are men, I confess, that set the
carat and value upon things as they love them; but science is not every
man's mistress. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place,
and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
_Honesta ambitio_. --If divers men seek fame or honour by divers ways, so
both be honest, neither is to be blamed; but they that seek immortality
are not only worthy of love, but of praise.
_Maritus improbus_. --He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a family to
go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the
fiddlers of such a town, than go home.
_Afflictio pia magistra_. --Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time
to pray: prosperity never.
_Deploratis facilis descensus Averni_. --_The devil take all_. --Many might
go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture
their industry the right way; but "The devil take all! " quoth he that was
choked in the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.
_AEgidius cursu superat_. --A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a
post out of the way.
_Prodigo nummi nauci_. --Bags of money to a prodigal person are the same
that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.
_Munda et sordida_. --A woman, the more curious she is about her face is
commonly the more careless about her house.
_Debitum deploratum_. --Of this spilt water there is a little to be
gathered up: it is a desperate debt.
_Latro sesquipedalis_. --The thief {22} that had a longing at the gallows
to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.
And like the German lord, when he went out of Newgate into the cart, took
order to have his arms set up in his last herborough: said was he taken
and committed upon suspicion of treason, no witness appearing against
him; but the judges entertained him most civilly, discoursed with him,
offered him the courtesy of the rack; but he confessed, &c.
_Calumniae fructus_. --I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so
endeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer
guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
_Impertinens_. --A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from,
gallop down any steep lull to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature
itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent; one that
touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry
into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spoke to him of garlic,
he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging,
as if they went by one and the same destiny.
_Bellum scribentium_. --What a sight it is to see writers committed
together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas,
hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and their altars; and
angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under
their asses' skins.
There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries.
_Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quam fortuna_, _sum usus_. {23}
"Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. " {24a}
_Differentia inter doctos et sciolos_. --Wits made out their several
expeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great and
profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition
of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the
skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid
literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a
scholar, a welt or so; but it is no more.
_Impostorum fucus_. --Imposture is a specious thing, yet never worse than
when it feigns to be best, and to none discovered sooner than the
simplest. For truth and goodness are plain and open; but imposture is
ever ashamed of the light.
_Icunculorum motio_. --A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in the dark;
for draw the curtain, _et sordet gesticulatio_. {24b}
_Principes et administri_. --There is a great difference in the
understanding of some princes, as in the quality of their ministers about
them. Some would dress their masters in gold, pearl, and all true jewels
of majesty; others furnish them with feathers, bells, and ribands, and
are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. But they are ever good men
that must make good the times; if the men be naught, the times will be
such. _Finis exspectandus est in unoquoque hominum_; _animali ad
mutationem promptissmo_. {25a}
_Scitum Hispanicum_. --It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, _Artes
inter haeredes non dividi_. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers'
lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a
triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie
themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her
bounds; but Impudence knows none.
Jonson, Edited by Henry Morley
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www. gutenberg. org
Title: Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter
and Some Poems
Author: Ben Jonson
Editor: Henry Morley
Release Date: August 14, 2014 [eBook #5134]
[This file was first posted on May 10, 2002]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND
MATTER***
Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf. org
CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
* * * * *
DISCOVERIES
_MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER_
AND
SOME POEMS
BY
BEN JOHNSON.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1892.
INTRODUCTION
BEN JONSON'S "Discoveries" are, as he says in the few Latin words
prefixed to them, "A wood--Sylva--of things and thoughts, in Greek '? ? ? '"
[which has for its first meaning material, but is also applied peculiarly
to kinds of wood, and to a wood], "from the multiplicity and variety of
the material contained in it. For, as we are commonly used to call the
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together. "
In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most
vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature.
The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his "Underwoods. "
Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district that
produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religious persecution
in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's reign, and died a
month before the poet's birth in 1573. Ben Jonson, therefore, was about
nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived Shakespeare about
twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson
was, in his own different way, the man of most mark in the story of the
English drama. His mother, left poor, married again. Her second husband
was a bricklayer, or small builder, and they lived for a time near
Charing Cross in Hartshorn Lane. Ben Jonson was taught at the parish
school of St. Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the
historian. Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He
procured for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm
foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by
private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit.
Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time in his
step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the Low Countries.
He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end of
Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he showed
a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together with
that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged on
the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:--
"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men;
And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power. "
Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years of
the reign of James I. His _Volpone_, the _Silent Woman_, and the
_Alchemist_ first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of
Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of
James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste
from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was
weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a
short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of
the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and
their guide. Their own best efforts seemed best to them when they had
won Ben Jonson's praise. They valued above all passing honours man could
give the words, "My son," in the old poet's greeting, which, as they
said, "sealed them of the tribe of Ben. "
H. M.
SYLVA
_Rerum et sententiarum quasi ? ? ? dicta a multiplici materia et varietate
in iis contenta_. _Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam arborum
nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros
suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula temere congesta erant_,
Sylvas _appellabant antiqui_: Timber-trees.
TIMBER;
OR,
DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
NOTION OF THE TIMES.
_Tecum habita_, _ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex_ {11}
PERS. Sat. 4.
_Fortuna_. --Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived
not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer
side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things
she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she
might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance
between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not
met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can
happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens
to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts
it and will make it.
_Casus_. --Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a
beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to
obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
_Consilia_. --No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel
sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take no
others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own
counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught
by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
_Fama_. --A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by
another's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well
themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his
evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent.
_Negotia_. --In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all.
And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and
thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and
raise sedition against the understanding.
_Amor patriae_. --There is a necessity all men should love their country: he
that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his
heart is there.
_Ingenia_. --Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than
make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no
attempting them.
_Applausus_. --We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than
those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past;
thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.
_Opinio_. --Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing; settled
in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to
obtain the tincture of reason. We labour with it more than truth. There
is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill
fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of
our thinking.
_Impostura_. --Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but
least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they
set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their
gut and their groin in their inner closets.
_Jactura vitae_. --What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little
winter-love in a dark corner.
Hypocrita. --_Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus_, _quem opinio propriae
perspicaciae_, _qua sibi videtur_, _cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus
errores quosdam animadvertisse_, _de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro
furore percitus_, _phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus_, _sic ratus
obedientiam praestare Deo_. {14}
_Mutua auxilia_. --Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty
needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of
offices between the prince and whom his favour breeds, that they may help
to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of
his liberality, his favour; and from whom doth he hear discipline more
willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his
own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?
_Cognit. univers_. --In being able to counsel others, a man must be
furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
nature--that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all
argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature
of man: there is the variety of things which are as the elements and
letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present
occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in
particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use
all arguments.
_Consiliarii adjunct_. _Probitas_, _Sapientia_. --The two chief things
that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty and
the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two will persuade when
the same counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of no
efficacy or working.
_Vita recta_. --Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And
therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which cannot be
but by living well. A good life is a main argument.
_Obsequentia_. --_Humanitas_. --_Solicitudo_. --Next a good life, to beget love
in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in
ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to
their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his
sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing
care and solicitude. And not to counsel rashly, or on the sudden, but
with advice and meditation. (_Dat nox consilium_. {17a}) For many
foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be
extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect;
especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted,
lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be
marked by new persons and men of experience in affairs.
_Modestia_. --_Parrhesia_. --And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
himself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery or empire.
Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were already furnished
with the parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For in
other things they will more easily suffer themselves to be taught or
reprehended: they will not willingly contend, but hear, with Alexander,
the answer the musician gave him: _Absit_, _o rex_, _ut tu melius haec
scias_, _quam ego_. {17b}
_Perspicuitas_. --_Elegantia_. --A man should so deliver himself to the
nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair and
good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded; redeem arts
from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and overgrown with
thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where they may take the eye
and be taken by the hand.
_Natura non effaeta_. --I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that
she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the
same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still.
Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.
_Non nimium credendum antiquitati_. --I know nothing can conduce more to
letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to rest in
their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the
plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be away; such as are
envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scurrilous scoffing. For
to all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience, which
if we will use and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true
they opened the gates, and made the way that went before us, but as
guides, not commanders: _Non domini nostri_, _sed duces fuere_. {19a}
Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several. _Patet omnibus veritas_;
_nondum est occupata_. _Multum ex illa_, _etiam futuris relicta est_.
{19b}
_Dissentire licet_, _sed cum ratione_. --If in some things I dissent from
others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up at and
admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness.
For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not
think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity
what they also could add and find out.
_Non mihi credendum sed veritati_. --If I err, pardon me: _Nulla ars simul
et inventa est et absoluta_. {19c} I do not desire to be equal to those
that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much
faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author
nor fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if
I have anything right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it
conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or
fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and 'tis
enough.
_Scientiae liberales_. --Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler
than those that serve the body, though we less can be without them, as
tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c. , without which we could scarce
sustain life a day. But these were the works of every hand; the other of
the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits,
that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour:
_Opere pascitur_.
_Non vulgi sunt_. --There is a more secret cause, and the power of liberal
studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out by profane wits.
It is not every man's way to hit. There are men, I confess, that set the
carat and value upon things as they love them; but science is not every
man's mistress. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place,
and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
_Honesta ambitio_. --If divers men seek fame or honour by divers ways, so
both be honest, neither is to be blamed; but they that seek immortality
are not only worthy of love, but of praise.
_Maritus improbus_. --He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a family to
go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the
fiddlers of such a town, than go home.
_Afflictio pia magistra_. --Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time
to pray: prosperity never.
_Deploratis facilis descensus Averni_. --_The devil take all_. --Many might
go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture
their industry the right way; but "The devil take all! " quoth he that was
choked in the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.
_AEgidius cursu superat_. --A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a
post out of the way.
_Prodigo nummi nauci_. --Bags of money to a prodigal person are the same
that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.
_Munda et sordida_. --A woman, the more curious she is about her face is
commonly the more careless about her house.
_Debitum deploratum_. --Of this spilt water there is a little to be
gathered up: it is a desperate debt.
_Latro sesquipedalis_. --The thief {22} that had a longing at the gallows
to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.
And like the German lord, when he went out of Newgate into the cart, took
order to have his arms set up in his last herborough: said was he taken
and committed upon suspicion of treason, no witness appearing against
him; but the judges entertained him most civilly, discoursed with him,
offered him the courtesy of the rack; but he confessed, &c.
_Calumniae fructus_. --I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so
endeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer
guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
_Impertinens_. --A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from,
gallop down any steep lull to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature
itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent; one that
touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry
into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spoke to him of garlic,
he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging,
as if they went by one and the same destiny.
_Bellum scribentium_. --What a sight it is to see writers committed
together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas,
hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and their altars; and
angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under
their asses' skins.
There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries.
_Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quam fortuna_, _sum usus_. {23}
"Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. " {24a}
_Differentia inter doctos et sciolos_. --Wits made out their several
expeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great and
profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition
of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the
skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid
literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a
scholar, a welt or so; but it is no more.
_Impostorum fucus_.
For, as we are commonly used to call the
infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a wood, so the ancients gave
the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to books of theirs in which small works of
various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought together. "
In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most
vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature.
The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his "Underwoods. "
Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district that
produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religious persecution
in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's reign, and died a
month before the poet's birth in 1573. Ben Jonson, therefore, was about
nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived Shakespeare about
twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson
was, in his own different way, the man of most mark in the story of the
English drama. His mother, left poor, married again. Her second husband
was a bricklayer, or small builder, and they lived for a time near
Charing Cross in Hartshorn Lane. Ben Jonson was taught at the parish
school of St. Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the
historian. Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He
procured for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm
foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by
private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit.
Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time in his
step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the Low Countries.
He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end of
Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he showed
a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together with
that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged on
the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:--
"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
To raise their beings to eternity,
May be converted on works fitting men;
And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
Study the native frame of a true heart,
An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
And spirit that may conform them actually
To God's high figures, which they have in power. "
Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years of
the reign of James I. His _Volpone_, the _Silent Woman_, and the
_Alchemist_ first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of
Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of
James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste
from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was
weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a
short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of
the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and
their guide. Their own best efforts seemed best to them when they had
won Ben Jonson's praise. They valued above all passing honours man could
give the words, "My son," in the old poet's greeting, which, as they
said, "sealed them of the tribe of Ben. "
H. M.
SYLVA
_Rerum et sententiarum quasi ? ? ? dicta a multiplici materia et varietate
in iis contenta_. _Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam arborum
nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros
suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula temere congesta erant_,
Sylvas _appellabant antiqui_: Timber-trees.
TIMBER;
OR,
DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
NOTION OF THE TIMES.
_Tecum habita_, _ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex_ {11}
PERS. Sat. 4.
_Fortuna_. --Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived
not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer
side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things
she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she
might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance
between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not
met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can
happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens
to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts
it and will make it.
_Casus_. --Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a
beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to
obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
_Consilia_. --No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel
sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take no
others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own
counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught
by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
_Fama_. --A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by
another's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well
themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his
evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent.
_Negotia_. --In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all.
And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and
thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and
raise sedition against the understanding.
_Amor patriae_. --There is a necessity all men should love their country: he
that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his
heart is there.
_Ingenia_. --Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than
make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no
attempting them.
_Applausus_. --We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than
those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past;
thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.
_Opinio_. --Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing; settled
in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to
obtain the tincture of reason. We labour with it more than truth. There
is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill
fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of
our thinking.
_Impostura_. --Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but
least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they
set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their
gut and their groin in their inner closets.
_Jactura vitae_. --What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little
winter-love in a dark corner.
Hypocrita. --_Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus_, _quem opinio propriae
perspicaciae_, _qua sibi videtur_, _cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus
errores quosdam animadvertisse_, _de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro
furore percitus_, _phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus_, _sic ratus
obedientiam praestare Deo_. {14}
_Mutua auxilia_. --Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty
needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of
offices between the prince and whom his favour breeds, that they may help
to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of
his liberality, his favour; and from whom doth he hear discipline more
willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his
own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?
_Cognit. univers_. --In being able to counsel others, a man must be
furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
nature--that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all
argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature
of man: there is the variety of things which are as the elements and
letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present
occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in
particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use
all arguments.
_Consiliarii adjunct_. _Probitas_, _Sapientia_. --The two chief things
that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty and
the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two will persuade when
the same counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of no
efficacy or working.
_Vita recta_. --Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And
therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which cannot be
but by living well. A good life is a main argument.
_Obsequentia_. --_Humanitas_. --_Solicitudo_. --Next a good life, to beget love
in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in
ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to
their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his
sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing
care and solicitude. And not to counsel rashly, or on the sudden, but
with advice and meditation. (_Dat nox consilium_. {17a}) For many
foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be
extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect;
especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted,
lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be
marked by new persons and men of experience in affairs.
_Modestia_. --_Parrhesia_. --And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
himself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery or empire.
Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were already furnished
with the parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For in
other things they will more easily suffer themselves to be taught or
reprehended: they will not willingly contend, but hear, with Alexander,
the answer the musician gave him: _Absit_, _o rex_, _ut tu melius haec
scias_, _quam ego_. {17b}
_Perspicuitas_. --_Elegantia_. --A man should so deliver himself to the
nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair and
good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded; redeem arts
from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and overgrown with
thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where they may take the eye
and be taken by the hand.
_Natura non effaeta_. --I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that
she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the
same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still.
Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.
_Non nimium credendum antiquitati_. --I know nothing can conduce more to
letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to rest in
their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the
plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be away; such as are
envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scurrilous scoffing. For
to all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience, which
if we will use and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true
they opened the gates, and made the way that went before us, but as
guides, not commanders: _Non domini nostri_, _sed duces fuere_. {19a}
Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several. _Patet omnibus veritas_;
_nondum est occupata_. _Multum ex illa_, _etiam futuris relicta est_.
{19b}
_Dissentire licet_, _sed cum ratione_. --If in some things I dissent from
others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up at and
admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness.
For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not
think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity
what they also could add and find out.
_Non mihi credendum sed veritati_. --If I err, pardon me: _Nulla ars simul
et inventa est et absoluta_. {19c} I do not desire to be equal to those
that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much
faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author
nor fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if
I have anything right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it
conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or
fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and 'tis
enough.
_Scientiae liberales_. --Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler
than those that serve the body, though we less can be without them, as
tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c. , without which we could scarce
sustain life a day. But these were the works of every hand; the other of
the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits,
that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour:
_Opere pascitur_.
_Non vulgi sunt_. --There is a more secret cause, and the power of liberal
studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out by profane wits.
It is not every man's way to hit. There are men, I confess, that set the
carat and value upon things as they love them; but science is not every
man's mistress. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place,
and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
_Honesta ambitio_. --If divers men seek fame or honour by divers ways, so
both be honest, neither is to be blamed; but they that seek immortality
are not only worthy of love, but of praise.
_Maritus improbus_. --He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a family to
go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the
fiddlers of such a town, than go home.
_Afflictio pia magistra_. --Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time
to pray: prosperity never.
_Deploratis facilis descensus Averni_. --_The devil take all_. --Many might
go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture
their industry the right way; but "The devil take all! " quoth he that was
choked in the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.
_AEgidius cursu superat_. --A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a
post out of the way.
_Prodigo nummi nauci_. --Bags of money to a prodigal person are the same
that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.
_Munda et sordida_. --A woman, the more curious she is about her face is
commonly the more careless about her house.
_Debitum deploratum_. --Of this spilt water there is a little to be
gathered up: it is a desperate debt.
_Latro sesquipedalis_. --The thief {22} that had a longing at the gallows
to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.
And like the German lord, when he went out of Newgate into the cart, took
order to have his arms set up in his last herborough: said was he taken
and committed upon suspicion of treason, no witness appearing against
him; but the judges entertained him most civilly, discoursed with him,
offered him the courtesy of the rack; but he confessed, &c.
_Calumniae fructus_. --I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so
endeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer
guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
_Impertinens_. --A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from,
gallop down any steep lull to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature
itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent; one that
touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry
into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spoke to him of garlic,
he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging,
as if they went by one and the same destiny.
_Bellum scribentium_. --What a sight it is to see writers committed
together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas,
hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and their altars; and
angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under
their asses' skins.
There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries.
_Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quam fortuna_, _sum usus_. {23}
"Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. " {24a}
_Differentia inter doctos et sciolos_. --Wits made out their several
expeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great and
profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition
of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the
skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid
literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a
scholar, a welt or so; but it is no more.
_Impostorum fucus_. --Imposture is a specious thing, yet never worse than
when it feigns to be best, and to none discovered sooner than the
simplest. For truth and goodness are plain and open; but imposture is
ever ashamed of the light.
_Icunculorum motio_. --A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in the dark;
for draw the curtain, _et sordet gesticulatio_. {24b}
_Principes et administri_. --There is a great difference in the
understanding of some princes, as in the quality of their ministers about
them. Some would dress their masters in gold, pearl, and all true jewels
of majesty; others furnish them with feathers, bells, and ribands, and
are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. But they are ever good men
that must make good the times; if the men be naught, the times will be
such. _Finis exspectandus est in unoquoque hominum_; _animali ad
mutationem promptissmo_. {25a}
_Scitum Hispanicum_. --It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, _Artes
inter haeredes non dividi_. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers'
lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a
triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie
themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her
bounds; but Impudence knows none.
