If it
be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good
phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then
be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow?
be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good
phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then
be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow?
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
Wherein, howsoever we do many things, yet are we (in a sort)
still fresh to what we begin; we are recreated with change, as the
stomach is with meats. But some will say this variety breeds confusion,
and makes, that either we lose all, or hold no more than the last. Why
do we not then persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help
it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to
bee-hives, rear sheep, and all other cattle at once? It is easier to do
many things and continue, than to do one thing long.
_Praecept. element_. --It is not the passing through these learnings that
hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them. To descend to those
extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is able to break a
wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery and vainness, to be
_elementarii senes_. Yet even letters are, as it were, the bank of
words, and restore themselves to an author as the pawns of language: but
talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are
two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks; and out of the
observation, knowledge, and the use of things, many writers perplex their
readers and hearers with mere nonsense. Their writings need sunshine.
Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary. A barbarous
phrase has often made me out of love with a good sense, and doubtful
writing hath wracked me beyond my patience. The reason why a poet is
said that he ought to have all knowledges is, that he should not be
ignorant of the most, especially of those he will handle. And indeed,
when the attaining of them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing
to despair; for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly.
If a man should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, his
work would find no end.
_De orationis dignitate_. '? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . --_Metaphora_. Speech is the
only benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above other
creatures. It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, who is
the president of language, is called _deorum hominumque interpres_.
{110a} In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul. The
sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all words are
dead. Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledge of human life
and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greeks called
'? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . Words are the people's, yet there is a choice of them
to be made; for _verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae_. {111a} They
are to be chosen according to the persons we make speak, or the things we
speak of. Some are of the camp, some of the council-board, some of the
shop, some of the sheepcote, some of the pulpit, some of the Bar, &c.
And herein is seen their elegance and propriety, when we use them fitly
and draw them forth to their just strength and nature by way of
translation or metaphor. But in this translation we must only serve
necessity (_nam temere nihil transfertur a prudenti_) {111b} or
commodity, which is a kind of necessity: that is, when we either
absolutely want a word to express by, and that is necessity; or when we
have not so fit a word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by
it, and escape obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which
helps significance. Metaphors far-fetched hinder to be understood; and
affected, lose their grace. Or when the person fetcheth his translations
from a wrong place as if a privy councillor should at the table take his
metaphor from a dicing-house, or ordinary, or a vintner's vault; or a
justice of peace draw his similitudes from the mathematics, or a divine
from a bawdy house, or taverns; or a gentleman of Northamptonshire,
Warwickshire, or the Midland, should fetch all the illustrations to his
country neighbours from shipping, and tell them of the main-sheet and the
bowline. Metaphors are thus many times deformed, as in him that said,
_Castratam morte Africani rempublicam_; and another, _Stercus curiae
Glauciam_, and _Cana nive conspuit Alpes_. All attempts that are new in
this kind, are dangerous, and somewhat hard, before they be softened with
use. A man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for
if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the
scorn is assured. Yet we must adventure; for things at first hard and
rough are by use made tender and gentle. It is an honest error that is
committed, following great chiefs.
_Consuetudo_. --_Perspicuitas_,
_Venustas_. --_Authoritas_. --_Virgil_. --_Lucretius_. --_Chaucerism_. --
_Paronomasia_. --Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the
public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent
with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and
utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and
nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. Words borrowed of
antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their
delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their
intermission do win themselves a kind of grace like newness. But the
eldest of the present, and newness of the past language, is the best.
For what was the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but the
ancient custom? Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar
custom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language than life,
if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar: but that I
call custom of speech, which is the consent of the learned; as custom of
life, which is the consent of the good. Virgil was most loving of
antiquity; yet how rarely doth he insert _aquai_ and _pictai_! Lucretius
is scabrous and rough in these; he seeks them: as some do Chaucerisms
with us, which were better expunged and banished. Some words are to be
culled out for ornament and colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses
or make garlands; but they are better when they grow to our style; as in
a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the
variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify. Marry, we must not play
or riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling or
ill-sounding words! _Quae per salebras_, _altaque saxa cadunt_. {114a}
It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the
bitterest confections are grateful to some palates. Our composition must
be more accurate in the beginning and end than in the midst, and in the
end more than in the beginning; for through the midst the stream bears
us. And this is attained by custom, more than care of diligence. We
must express readily and fully, not profusely. There is difference
between a liberal and prodigal hand. As it is a great point of art, when
our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it
in and contract it, is of no less praise, when the argument doth ask it.
Either of them hath their fitness in the place. A good man always
profits by his endeavour, by his help, yea, when he is absent; nay, when
he is dead, by his example and memory. So good authors in their style: a
strict and succinct style is that where you can take away nothing without
loss, and that loss to be manifest.
_De Stylo_. --_Tracitus_. --_The Laconic_. --_Suetonius_. --_Seneca and
Fabianus_. --The brief style is that which expresseth much in little; the
concise style, which expresseth not enough, but leaves somewhat to be
understood; the abrupt style, which hath many breaches, and doth not seem
to end, but fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a
sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knitting and connection;
as in stones well squared, which will rise strong a great way without
mortar.
_Periodi_. --_Obscuritas offundit tenebras_. --_Superlatio_. --Periods are
beautiful when they are not too long; for so they have their strength
too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the care that our words
and sense be clear, so if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or
reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than
for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor
mind. But a man cannot put a word so in sense but something about it
will illustrate it, if the writer understand himself; for order helps
much to perspicuity, as confusion hurts. (_Rectitudo lucem adfert_;
_obliquitas et circumductio offuscat_. {116a}) We should therefore speak
what we can the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too
short may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in.
Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle; the
obscurity is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and is passed
by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should be like a skein of
silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, not ravelled and
perplexed; then all is a knot, a heap. There are words that do as much
raise a style as others can depress it. Superlation and over-muchness
amplifies; it may be above faith, but never above a mean. It was
ridiculous in Cestius, when he said of Alexander:
"Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quod terras relinquas. " {117a}
But propitiously from Virgil:
"Credas innare revulsas
Cycladas. " {117b}
He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so. Although it be somewhat
incredible, that is excused before it be spoken. But there are
hyperboles which will become one language, that will by no means admit
another. As _Eos esse_ P. R. _exercitus_, _qui caelum possint
perrumpere_, {118a} who would say with us, but a madman? Therefore we
must consider in every tongue what is used, what received. Quintilian
warns us, that in no kind of translation, or metaphor, or allegory, we
make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch the original of our
metaphor from sea and billows, we end not in flames and ashes: it is a
most foul inconsequence. Neither must we draw out our allegory too long,
lest either we make ourselves obscure, or fall into affectation, which is
childish. But why do men depart at all from the right and natural ways
of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it
fitter, to speak that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered
plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes
for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn
either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of
the fields. And all this is called ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? or figured language.
_Oratio imago animi_. --Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see
thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is
the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form
or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as
we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in
the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.
_Structura et statura_, _sublimis_, _humilis_, _pumila_. --Some men are
tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are
chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution
plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are
little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the words poor and
flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.
_Mediocris plana et placida_. --The middle are of a just stature. There
the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without
swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.
_Vitiosa oratio_, _vasta_--_tumens_--_enormis_--_affectata_--_abjecta_. --The
vicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular: when it
contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; as it
affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And
according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names: for
that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast
and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things; so that which was
even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and
humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great
councillor of State in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobbyhorse
cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet
gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things,
by which we find the degrees.
_Figura_. --The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in
language--that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of
short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and firm,
which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and
weighed.
_Cutis sive cortex_. _Compositio_. --The third is the skin and coat, which
rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; whenas
it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your
finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid,
rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped: after these, the flesh, blood, and
bones come in question.
_Carnosa_--_adipata_--_redundans_. --We say it is a fleshy style, when there
is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than
enough, it grows fat and corpulent: _arvina orationis_, full of suet and
tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their
sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--_oratio uncta_, _et bene
pasta_. But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are
faulty and vicious:--_Redundat sanguine_, _quia multo plus dicit_, _quam
necesse est_. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the
words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is
juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor,
starved, scarce covering the bone, and shows like stones in a sack.
_Jejuna_, _macilenta_, _strigosa_. --_Ossea_, _et nervosa_. --Some men, to
avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill
blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again, that
have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and
sinewy; _Ossa habent_, _et nervos_.
_Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin.
intemper_. --_Dictator_. --_Aristoteles_. --It was well noted by the late Lord
St. Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning;
vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness
of truth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of
learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish.
Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the
schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives
by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and
suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself,
or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but
if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why
are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish
or deface; we may improve, but not augment. By discrediting falsehood,
truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and
perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the
separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity,
call former times into question; but make no parties with the present,
nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit
with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of
the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or
superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concatenation of truth;
stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then
make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished
and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of
sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes
and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument,
life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is _monte potiri_, to get
the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.
_De optimo scriptore_. --_Cicero_. --Now that I have informed you in the
knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a little farther, in
the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by practice. The
conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the tongue is the
interpreter of those pictures. The order of God's creatures in
themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent: then he who
could apprehend the consequence of things in their truth, and utter his
apprehensions as truly, were the best writer or speaker. Therefore
Cicero said much, when he said, _Dicere recte nemo potest_, _nisi qui
prudenter intelligit_. {124a} The shame of speaking unskilfully were
small if the tongue only thereby were disgraced; but as the image of a
king in his seal ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the wax, or
the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it representeth, so
disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth,
as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so
negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune,
whose words do jar; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is
preposterous; nor his elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks
itself into fragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a
mighty prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless
ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent
conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should be
disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the
speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it
discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance.
If it
be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good
phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then
be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow? how shall you look for
wit from him whose leisure and head, assisted with the examination of his
eyes, yield you no life or sharpness in his writing?
_De stylo epistolari_. --_Inventio_. --In writing there is to be regarded the
invention and the fashion. For the invention, that ariseth upon your
business, whereof there can be no rules of more certainty, or precepts of
better direction given, than conjecture can lay down from the several
occasions of men's particular lives and vocations: but sometimes men make
baseness of kindness: As "I could not satisfy myself till I had
discharged my remembrance, and charged my letters with commendation to
you;" or, "My business is no other than to testify my love to you, and to
put you in mind of my willingness to do you all kind offices;" or, "Sir,
have you leisure to descend to the remembering of that assurance you have
long possessed in your servant, and upon your next opportunity make him
happy with some commands from you? " or the like; that go a-begging for
some meaning, and labour to be delivered of the great burden of nothing.
When you have invented, and that your business be matter, and not bare
form, or mere ceremony, but some earnest, then are you to proceed to the
ordering of it, and digesting the parts, which is had out of two
circumstances. One is the understanding of the persons to whom you are
to write; the other is the coherence of your sentence; for men's capacity
to weigh what will be apprehended with greatest attention or leisure;
what next regarded and longed for especially, and what last will leave
satisfaction, and (as it were) the sweetest memorial and belief of all
that is passed in his understanding whom you write to. For the
consequence of sentences, you must be sure that every clause do give the
cue one to the other, and be bespoken ere it come. So much for invention
and order.
_Modus_. --1. _Brevitas_. --Now for fashion: it consists in four things,
which are qualities of your style. The first is brevity; for they must
not be treatises or discourses (your letters) except it be to learned
men. And even among them there is a kind of thrift and saving of words.
Therefore you are to examine the clearest passages of your understanding,
and through them to convey the sweetest and most significant words you
can devise, that you may the easier teach them the readiest way to
another man's apprehension, and open their meaning fully, roundly, and
distinctly, so as the reader may not think a second view cast away upon
your letter. And though respect be a part following this, yet now here,
and still I must remember it, if you write to a man, whose estate and
sense, as senses, you are familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a
task to his brain) venture on a knot. But if to your superior, you are
bound to measure him in three farther points: first, with interest in
him; secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure to
peruse them. For your interest or favour with him, you are to be the
shorter or longer, more familiar or submiss, as he will afford you time.
For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller of those reaches and
glances of wit or learning, as he is able to entertain them. For his
leisure, you are commanded to the greater briefness, as his place is of
greater discharges and cares. But with your betters, you are not to put
riddles of wit, by being too scarce of words; not to cause the trouble of
making breviates by writing too riotous and wastingly. Brevity is
attained in matter by avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations,
parentheses, superfluous circuit of figures and digressions: in the
composition, by omitting conjunctions [_not only_, _but also_; _both the
one and the other_, _whereby it cometh to pass_] and such like idle
particles, that have no great business in a serious letter but breaking
of sentences, as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnessary
baits.
_Quintilian_. --But, as Quintilian saith, there is a briefness of the parts
sometimes that makes the whole long: "As I came to the stairs, I took a
pair of oars, they launched out, rowed apace, I landed at the court gate,
I paid my fare, went up to the presence, asked for my lord, I was
admitted. " All this is but, "I went to the court and spake with my
lord. " This is the fault of some Latin writers within these last hundred
years of my reading, and perhaps Seneca may be appeached of it; I accuse
him not.
2. _Perspicuitas_. --The next property of epistolary style is perspicuity,
and is oftentimes by affectation of some wit ill angled for, or
ostentation of some hidden terms of art. Few words they darken speech,
and so do too many; as well too much light hurteth the eyes, as too
little; and a long bill of chancery confounds the understanding as much
as the shortest note; therefore, let not your letters be penned like
English statutes, and this is obtained. These vices are eschewed by
pondering your business well and distinctly concerning yourself, which is
much furthered by uttering your thoughts, and letting them as well come
forth to the light and judgment of your own outward senses as to the
censure of other men's ears; for that is the reason why many good
scholars speak but fumblingly; like a rich man, that for want of
particular note and difference can bring you no certain ware readily out
of his shop. Hence it is that talkative shallow men do often content the
hearers more than the wise. But this may find a speedier redress in
writing, where all comes under the last examination of the eyes. First,
mind it well, then pen it, then examine it, then amend it, and you may be
in the better hope of doing reasonably well. Under this virtue may come
plainness, which is not to be curious in the order as to answer a letter,
as if you were to answer to interrogatories. As to the first, first; and
to the second, secondly, &c. but both in method to use (as ladies do in
their attire) a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom;
though with some men you are not to jest, or practise tricks; yet the
delivery of the most important things may be carried with such a grace,
as that it may yield a pleasure to the conceit of the reader. There must
be store, though no excess of terms; as if you are to name store,
sometimes you may call it choice, sometimes plenty, sometimes
copiousness, or variety; but ever so, that the word which comes in lieu
have not such difference of meaning as that it may put the sense of the
first in hazard to be mistaken. You are not to cast a ring for the
perfumed terms of the time, as _accommodation_, _complement_, _spirit_
&c. , but use them properly in their place, as others.
3. _Vigor_--There followeth life and quickness, which is the strength and
sinews, as it were, of your penning by pretty sayings, similitudes, and
conceits; allusions from known history, or other common-place, such as
are in the _Courtier_, and the second book of Cicero _De Oratore_.
4. _Discretio_. --The last is, respect to discern what fits yourself, him
to whom you write, and that which you handle, which is a quality fit to
conclude the rest, because it doth include all. And that must proceed
from ripeness of judgment, which, as one truly saith, is gotten by four
means, God, nature, diligence, and conversation. Serve the first well,
and the rest will serve you.
_De Poetica_. --We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a
diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many peccant
humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy
of men's judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing
eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and
disgraces are many it hath received through men's study of depravation or
calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by
lessening the professor's estimation, and making the age afraid of their
liberty; and the age is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all
writings aspersions.
That is the state word, the phrase of court (placentia college), which
some call Parasites place, the Inn of Ignorance.
_D. Hieronymus_. --Whilst I name no persons, but deride follies, why should
any man confess or betray himself why doth not that of S. Hierome come
into their mind, _Ubi generalis est de vitiis disputatio_, _ibi nullius
esse personae injuriam_? {133a} Is it such an inexpiable crime in poets
to tax vices generally, and no offence in them, who, by their exception
confess they have committed them particularly? Are we fallen into those
times that we must not--
"Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero. " {133b}
_Remedii votum semper verius erat_, _quam spes_. {133c}--_Sexus faemin_. --If
men may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but when it offends
not, why do physicians cure with sharp medicines, or corrosives? is not
the same equally lawful in the cure of the mind that is in the cure of
the body? Some vices, you will say, are so foul that it is better they
should be done than spoken. But they that take offence where no name,
character, or signature doth blazon them seem to me like affected as
women, who if they hear anything ill spoken of the ill of their sex, are
presently moved, as if the contumely respected their particular; and on
the contrary, when they hear good of good women, conclude that it belongs
to them all. If I see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a
betrayer of myself presently? No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it; if
honest, I'll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw
there noted without a title. A man that is on the mending hand will
either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease. And the wise
and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselves that is
written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to be such; and the ill
to leave to be such. The person offended hath no reason to be offended
with the writer, but with himself; and so to declare that properly to
belong to him which was so spoken of all men, as it could be no man's
several, but his that would wilfully and desperately claim it. It
sufficeth I know what kind of persons I displease, men bred in the
declining and decay of virtue, betrothed to their own vices; that have
abandoned or prostituted their good names; hungry and ambitious of
infamy, invested in all deformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of
a hidden and concealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all
evil.
_What is a Poet_?
_Poeta_. --A poet is that which by the Greeks is called ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? , a maker, or a feigner: his art, an art of imitation or feigning;
expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony,
according to Aristotle; from the word ? ? ? ? ? ? , which signifies to make or
feign. Hence he is called a poet, not he which writeth in measure only,
but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes things like the truth.
For the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and soul of any
poetical work or poem.
_What mean_, _you by a Poem_?
_Poema_. --A poem is not alone any work or composition of the poet's in
many or few verses; but even one verse alone sometimes makes a perfect
poem. As when AEneas hangs up and consecrates the arms of Abas with this
inscription:--
"AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma. " {136a}
And calls it a poem or carmen. Such are those in Martial:--
"Omnia, Castor, emis: sic fiet, ut omnia vendas. " {136b}
And--
"Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. " {136c}
_Horatius_. --_Lucretius_. --So were Horace's odes called Carmina, his lyric
songs. And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:--
"Quod in primo quoque carmine claret. " {136d}
_Epicum_. --_Dramaticum_. --_Lyricum_. --_Elegiacum_. --_Epigrammat_. --And
anciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or whatever sentence was
expressed, were it much or little, it was called an Epic, Dramatic,
Lyric, Elegiac, or Epigrammatic poem.
_But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy_?
_Poesis_. --_Artium regina_. --_Poet.
differentiae_. --_Grammatic_. --_Logic_. --_Rhetoric_. --_Ethica_. --A poem, as I
have told you, is the work of the poet; the end and fruit of his labour
and study. Poesy is his skill or craft of making; the very fiction
itself, the reason or form of the work. And these three voices differ,
as the thing done, the doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the
feigning, and the feigner; so the poem, the poesy, and the poet. Now the
poesy is the habit or the art; nay, rather the queen of arts, which had
her original from heaven, received thence from the Hebrews, and had in
prime estimation with the Greeks transmitted to the Latins and all
nations that professed civility. The study of it (if we will trust
Aristotle) offers to mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well
and happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society. If we will
believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, delights our age,
adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity, entertains us at home,
keeps us company abroad, travels with us, watches, divides the times of
our earnest and sports, shares in our country recesses and recreations;
insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her the absolute
mistress of manners and nearest of kin to virtue. And whereas they
entitle philosophy to be a rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the
contrary, styled poesy a dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and
guides us by the hand to action with a ravishing delight and incredible
sweetness. But before we handle the kinds of poems, with their special
differences, or make court to the art itself, as a mistress, I would lead
you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect information what he is or
should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study, and so bring
him down through the disciplines of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the
ethics, adding somewhat out of all, peculiar to himself, and worthy of
your admittance or reception.
1.
_Ingenium_. --_Seneca_. --_Plato_. --_Aristotle_. --_Helicon_. --_Pegasus_. --
_Parnassus_. --_Ovid_. --First, we require in our poet or maker (for that
title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness of
natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and
precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the
treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, _Aliquando secundum
Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse_; by which he understands the poetical
rapture. And according to that of Plato, _Frustra poeticas fores sui
compos pulsavit_. And of Aristotle, _Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura
dementiae fuit_. _Nec potest grande aliquid_, _et supra caeteros loqui_,
_nisi mota mens_. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine instinct, when
it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a
mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither
before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their
Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast,
"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo
Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit. " {139a}
_Lipsius_. --_Petron. in. Fragm_. --And Lipsius to affirm, _Scio_, _poetam
neminem praestantem fuisse_, _sine parte quadam uberiore divinae aurae_.
And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mind not
mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us. Every beggarly
corporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; but _Solus
rex_, _aut poeta_, _non quotannis nascitur_. To this perfection of
nature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.
2. _Exercitatio_. --_Virgil_. --_Scaliger_. --_Valer.
Maximus_. --_Euripides_. --_Alcestis_. --If his wit will not arrive suddenly at
the dignity of the ancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel,
or be over hastily angry; offer to turn it away from study in a humour,
but come to it again upon better cogitation; try another time with
labour. If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor
scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge
and file again; torn it anew. There is no statute law of the kingdom
bids you be a poet against your will or the first quarter; if it comes in
a year or two, it is well. The common rhymers pour forth verses, such as
they are, _ex tempore_; but there never comes from them one sense worth
the life of a day. A rhymer and a poet are two things. It is said of
the incomparable Virgil that he brought forth his verses like a bear, and
after formed them with licking. Scaliger the father writes it of him,
that he made a quantity of verses in the morning, which afore night he
reduced to a less number. But that which Valerius Maximus hath left
recorded of Euripides, the tragic poet, his answer to Alcestis, another
poet, is as memorable as modest; who, when it was told to Alcestis that
Euripides had in three days brought forth but three verses, and those
with some difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he could with ease
have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundly replied, "Like
enough; but here is the difference: thy verses will not last these three
days, mine will to all time. " Which was as much as to tell him he could
not write a verse. I have met many of these rattles that made a noise
and buzzed. They had their hum, and no more. Indeed, things wrote with
labour deserve to be so read, and will last their age.
3.
_Imitatio_. --_Horatius_. --_Virgil_. --_Statius_. --_Homer_. --_Horat_. --_Archil_. --
_Alcaeus_, &c. --The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, to
be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own
use. To make choice of one excellent man above the rest, and so to
follow him till he grow very he, or so like him as the copy may be
mistaken for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what it
takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds with an appetite, and
hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn all into nourishment. Not to
imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to
draw forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn
all into honey, work it into one relish and savour; make our imitation
sweet; observe how the best writers have imitated, and follow them. How
Virgil and Statius have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how
Alcaeus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest.
4. _Lectio_. --_Parnassus_. --_Helicon_. --_Arscoron_.
still fresh to what we begin; we are recreated with change, as the
stomach is with meats. But some will say this variety breeds confusion,
and makes, that either we lose all, or hold no more than the last. Why
do we not then persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help
it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to
bee-hives, rear sheep, and all other cattle at once? It is easier to do
many things and continue, than to do one thing long.
_Praecept. element_. --It is not the passing through these learnings that
hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them. To descend to those
extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is able to break a
wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery and vainness, to be
_elementarii senes_. Yet even letters are, as it were, the bank of
words, and restore themselves to an author as the pawns of language: but
talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are
two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks; and out of the
observation, knowledge, and the use of things, many writers perplex their
readers and hearers with mere nonsense. Their writings need sunshine.
Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary. A barbarous
phrase has often made me out of love with a good sense, and doubtful
writing hath wracked me beyond my patience. The reason why a poet is
said that he ought to have all knowledges is, that he should not be
ignorant of the most, especially of those he will handle. And indeed,
when the attaining of them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing
to despair; for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly.
If a man should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, his
work would find no end.
_De orationis dignitate_. '? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . --_Metaphora_. Speech is the
only benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above other
creatures. It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, who is
the president of language, is called _deorum hominumque interpres_.
{110a} In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul. The
sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all words are
dead. Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledge of human life
and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greeks called
'? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . Words are the people's, yet there is a choice of them
to be made; for _verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae_. {111a} They
are to be chosen according to the persons we make speak, or the things we
speak of. Some are of the camp, some of the council-board, some of the
shop, some of the sheepcote, some of the pulpit, some of the Bar, &c.
And herein is seen their elegance and propriety, when we use them fitly
and draw them forth to their just strength and nature by way of
translation or metaphor. But in this translation we must only serve
necessity (_nam temere nihil transfertur a prudenti_) {111b} or
commodity, which is a kind of necessity: that is, when we either
absolutely want a word to express by, and that is necessity; or when we
have not so fit a word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by
it, and escape obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which
helps significance. Metaphors far-fetched hinder to be understood; and
affected, lose their grace. Or when the person fetcheth his translations
from a wrong place as if a privy councillor should at the table take his
metaphor from a dicing-house, or ordinary, or a vintner's vault; or a
justice of peace draw his similitudes from the mathematics, or a divine
from a bawdy house, or taverns; or a gentleman of Northamptonshire,
Warwickshire, or the Midland, should fetch all the illustrations to his
country neighbours from shipping, and tell them of the main-sheet and the
bowline. Metaphors are thus many times deformed, as in him that said,
_Castratam morte Africani rempublicam_; and another, _Stercus curiae
Glauciam_, and _Cana nive conspuit Alpes_. All attempts that are new in
this kind, are dangerous, and somewhat hard, before they be softened with
use. A man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for
if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the
scorn is assured. Yet we must adventure; for things at first hard and
rough are by use made tender and gentle. It is an honest error that is
committed, following great chiefs.
_Consuetudo_. --_Perspicuitas_,
_Venustas_. --_Authoritas_. --_Virgil_. --_Lucretius_. --_Chaucerism_. --
_Paronomasia_. --Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the
public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent
with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and
utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and
nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. Words borrowed of
antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their
delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their
intermission do win themselves a kind of grace like newness. But the
eldest of the present, and newness of the past language, is the best.
For what was the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but the
ancient custom? Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar
custom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language than life,
if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar: but that I
call custom of speech, which is the consent of the learned; as custom of
life, which is the consent of the good. Virgil was most loving of
antiquity; yet how rarely doth he insert _aquai_ and _pictai_! Lucretius
is scabrous and rough in these; he seeks them: as some do Chaucerisms
with us, which were better expunged and banished. Some words are to be
culled out for ornament and colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses
or make garlands; but they are better when they grow to our style; as in
a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the
variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify. Marry, we must not play
or riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling or
ill-sounding words! _Quae per salebras_, _altaque saxa cadunt_. {114a}
It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the
bitterest confections are grateful to some palates. Our composition must
be more accurate in the beginning and end than in the midst, and in the
end more than in the beginning; for through the midst the stream bears
us. And this is attained by custom, more than care of diligence. We
must express readily and fully, not profusely. There is difference
between a liberal and prodigal hand. As it is a great point of art, when
our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it
in and contract it, is of no less praise, when the argument doth ask it.
Either of them hath their fitness in the place. A good man always
profits by his endeavour, by his help, yea, when he is absent; nay, when
he is dead, by his example and memory. So good authors in their style: a
strict and succinct style is that where you can take away nothing without
loss, and that loss to be manifest.
_De Stylo_. --_Tracitus_. --_The Laconic_. --_Suetonius_. --_Seneca and
Fabianus_. --The brief style is that which expresseth much in little; the
concise style, which expresseth not enough, but leaves somewhat to be
understood; the abrupt style, which hath many breaches, and doth not seem
to end, but fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a
sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knitting and connection;
as in stones well squared, which will rise strong a great way without
mortar.
_Periodi_. --_Obscuritas offundit tenebras_. --_Superlatio_. --Periods are
beautiful when they are not too long; for so they have their strength
too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the care that our words
and sense be clear, so if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or
reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than
for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor
mind. But a man cannot put a word so in sense but something about it
will illustrate it, if the writer understand himself; for order helps
much to perspicuity, as confusion hurts. (_Rectitudo lucem adfert_;
_obliquitas et circumductio offuscat_. {116a}) We should therefore speak
what we can the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too
short may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in.
Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle; the
obscurity is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and is passed
by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should be like a skein of
silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, not ravelled and
perplexed; then all is a knot, a heap. There are words that do as much
raise a style as others can depress it. Superlation and over-muchness
amplifies; it may be above faith, but never above a mean. It was
ridiculous in Cestius, when he said of Alexander:
"Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quod terras relinquas. " {117a}
But propitiously from Virgil:
"Credas innare revulsas
Cycladas. " {117b}
He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so. Although it be somewhat
incredible, that is excused before it be spoken. But there are
hyperboles which will become one language, that will by no means admit
another. As _Eos esse_ P. R. _exercitus_, _qui caelum possint
perrumpere_, {118a} who would say with us, but a madman? Therefore we
must consider in every tongue what is used, what received. Quintilian
warns us, that in no kind of translation, or metaphor, or allegory, we
make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch the original of our
metaphor from sea and billows, we end not in flames and ashes: it is a
most foul inconsequence. Neither must we draw out our allegory too long,
lest either we make ourselves obscure, or fall into affectation, which is
childish. But why do men depart at all from the right and natural ways
of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it
fitter, to speak that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered
plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes
for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn
either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of
the fields. And all this is called ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? or figured language.
_Oratio imago animi_. --Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see
thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is
the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form
or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as
we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in
the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.
_Structura et statura_, _sublimis_, _humilis_, _pumila_. --Some men are
tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are
chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution
plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are
little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the words poor and
flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.
_Mediocris plana et placida_. --The middle are of a just stature. There
the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without
swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.
_Vitiosa oratio_, _vasta_--_tumens_--_enormis_--_affectata_--_abjecta_. --The
vicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular: when it
contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; as it
affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And
according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names: for
that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast
and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things; so that which was
even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and
humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great
councillor of State in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobbyhorse
cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet
gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things,
by which we find the degrees.
_Figura_. --The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in
language--that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of
short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and firm,
which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and
weighed.
_Cutis sive cortex_. _Compositio_. --The third is the skin and coat, which
rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; whenas
it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your
finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid,
rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped: after these, the flesh, blood, and
bones come in question.
_Carnosa_--_adipata_--_redundans_. --We say it is a fleshy style, when there
is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than
enough, it grows fat and corpulent: _arvina orationis_, full of suet and
tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their
sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--_oratio uncta_, _et bene
pasta_. But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are
faulty and vicious:--_Redundat sanguine_, _quia multo plus dicit_, _quam
necesse est_. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the
words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is
juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor,
starved, scarce covering the bone, and shows like stones in a sack.
_Jejuna_, _macilenta_, _strigosa_. --_Ossea_, _et nervosa_. --Some men, to
avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill
blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again, that
have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and
sinewy; _Ossa habent_, _et nervos_.
_Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin.
intemper_. --_Dictator_. --_Aristoteles_. --It was well noted by the late Lord
St. Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning;
vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness
of truth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of
learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish.
Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the
schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives
by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and
suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself,
or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but
if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why
are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish
or deface; we may improve, but not augment. By discrediting falsehood,
truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and
perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the
separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity,
call former times into question; but make no parties with the present,
nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit
with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of
the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or
superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concatenation of truth;
stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then
make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished
and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of
sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes
and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument,
life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is _monte potiri_, to get
the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.
_De optimo scriptore_. --_Cicero_. --Now that I have informed you in the
knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a little farther, in
the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by practice. The
conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the tongue is the
interpreter of those pictures. The order of God's creatures in
themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent: then he who
could apprehend the consequence of things in their truth, and utter his
apprehensions as truly, were the best writer or speaker. Therefore
Cicero said much, when he said, _Dicere recte nemo potest_, _nisi qui
prudenter intelligit_. {124a} The shame of speaking unskilfully were
small if the tongue only thereby were disgraced; but as the image of a
king in his seal ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the wax, or
the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it representeth, so
disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth,
as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so
negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune,
whose words do jar; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is
preposterous; nor his elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks
itself into fragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a
mighty prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless
ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent
conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should be
disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the
speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it
discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance.
If it
be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good
phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then
be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow? how shall you look for
wit from him whose leisure and head, assisted with the examination of his
eyes, yield you no life or sharpness in his writing?
_De stylo epistolari_. --_Inventio_. --In writing there is to be regarded the
invention and the fashion. For the invention, that ariseth upon your
business, whereof there can be no rules of more certainty, or precepts of
better direction given, than conjecture can lay down from the several
occasions of men's particular lives and vocations: but sometimes men make
baseness of kindness: As "I could not satisfy myself till I had
discharged my remembrance, and charged my letters with commendation to
you;" or, "My business is no other than to testify my love to you, and to
put you in mind of my willingness to do you all kind offices;" or, "Sir,
have you leisure to descend to the remembering of that assurance you have
long possessed in your servant, and upon your next opportunity make him
happy with some commands from you? " or the like; that go a-begging for
some meaning, and labour to be delivered of the great burden of nothing.
When you have invented, and that your business be matter, and not bare
form, or mere ceremony, but some earnest, then are you to proceed to the
ordering of it, and digesting the parts, which is had out of two
circumstances. One is the understanding of the persons to whom you are
to write; the other is the coherence of your sentence; for men's capacity
to weigh what will be apprehended with greatest attention or leisure;
what next regarded and longed for especially, and what last will leave
satisfaction, and (as it were) the sweetest memorial and belief of all
that is passed in his understanding whom you write to. For the
consequence of sentences, you must be sure that every clause do give the
cue one to the other, and be bespoken ere it come. So much for invention
and order.
_Modus_. --1. _Brevitas_. --Now for fashion: it consists in four things,
which are qualities of your style. The first is brevity; for they must
not be treatises or discourses (your letters) except it be to learned
men. And even among them there is a kind of thrift and saving of words.
Therefore you are to examine the clearest passages of your understanding,
and through them to convey the sweetest and most significant words you
can devise, that you may the easier teach them the readiest way to
another man's apprehension, and open their meaning fully, roundly, and
distinctly, so as the reader may not think a second view cast away upon
your letter. And though respect be a part following this, yet now here,
and still I must remember it, if you write to a man, whose estate and
sense, as senses, you are familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a
task to his brain) venture on a knot. But if to your superior, you are
bound to measure him in three farther points: first, with interest in
him; secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure to
peruse them. For your interest or favour with him, you are to be the
shorter or longer, more familiar or submiss, as he will afford you time.
For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller of those reaches and
glances of wit or learning, as he is able to entertain them. For his
leisure, you are commanded to the greater briefness, as his place is of
greater discharges and cares. But with your betters, you are not to put
riddles of wit, by being too scarce of words; not to cause the trouble of
making breviates by writing too riotous and wastingly. Brevity is
attained in matter by avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations,
parentheses, superfluous circuit of figures and digressions: in the
composition, by omitting conjunctions [_not only_, _but also_; _both the
one and the other_, _whereby it cometh to pass_] and such like idle
particles, that have no great business in a serious letter but breaking
of sentences, as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnessary
baits.
_Quintilian_. --But, as Quintilian saith, there is a briefness of the parts
sometimes that makes the whole long: "As I came to the stairs, I took a
pair of oars, they launched out, rowed apace, I landed at the court gate,
I paid my fare, went up to the presence, asked for my lord, I was
admitted. " All this is but, "I went to the court and spake with my
lord. " This is the fault of some Latin writers within these last hundred
years of my reading, and perhaps Seneca may be appeached of it; I accuse
him not.
2. _Perspicuitas_. --The next property of epistolary style is perspicuity,
and is oftentimes by affectation of some wit ill angled for, or
ostentation of some hidden terms of art. Few words they darken speech,
and so do too many; as well too much light hurteth the eyes, as too
little; and a long bill of chancery confounds the understanding as much
as the shortest note; therefore, let not your letters be penned like
English statutes, and this is obtained. These vices are eschewed by
pondering your business well and distinctly concerning yourself, which is
much furthered by uttering your thoughts, and letting them as well come
forth to the light and judgment of your own outward senses as to the
censure of other men's ears; for that is the reason why many good
scholars speak but fumblingly; like a rich man, that for want of
particular note and difference can bring you no certain ware readily out
of his shop. Hence it is that talkative shallow men do often content the
hearers more than the wise. But this may find a speedier redress in
writing, where all comes under the last examination of the eyes. First,
mind it well, then pen it, then examine it, then amend it, and you may be
in the better hope of doing reasonably well. Under this virtue may come
plainness, which is not to be curious in the order as to answer a letter,
as if you were to answer to interrogatories. As to the first, first; and
to the second, secondly, &c. but both in method to use (as ladies do in
their attire) a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom;
though with some men you are not to jest, or practise tricks; yet the
delivery of the most important things may be carried with such a grace,
as that it may yield a pleasure to the conceit of the reader. There must
be store, though no excess of terms; as if you are to name store,
sometimes you may call it choice, sometimes plenty, sometimes
copiousness, or variety; but ever so, that the word which comes in lieu
have not such difference of meaning as that it may put the sense of the
first in hazard to be mistaken. You are not to cast a ring for the
perfumed terms of the time, as _accommodation_, _complement_, _spirit_
&c. , but use them properly in their place, as others.
3. _Vigor_--There followeth life and quickness, which is the strength and
sinews, as it were, of your penning by pretty sayings, similitudes, and
conceits; allusions from known history, or other common-place, such as
are in the _Courtier_, and the second book of Cicero _De Oratore_.
4. _Discretio_. --The last is, respect to discern what fits yourself, him
to whom you write, and that which you handle, which is a quality fit to
conclude the rest, because it doth include all. And that must proceed
from ripeness of judgment, which, as one truly saith, is gotten by four
means, God, nature, diligence, and conversation. Serve the first well,
and the rest will serve you.
_De Poetica_. --We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a
diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many peccant
humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy
of men's judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing
eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and
disgraces are many it hath received through men's study of depravation or
calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by
lessening the professor's estimation, and making the age afraid of their
liberty; and the age is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all
writings aspersions.
That is the state word, the phrase of court (placentia college), which
some call Parasites place, the Inn of Ignorance.
_D. Hieronymus_. --Whilst I name no persons, but deride follies, why should
any man confess or betray himself why doth not that of S. Hierome come
into their mind, _Ubi generalis est de vitiis disputatio_, _ibi nullius
esse personae injuriam_? {133a} Is it such an inexpiable crime in poets
to tax vices generally, and no offence in them, who, by their exception
confess they have committed them particularly? Are we fallen into those
times that we must not--
"Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero. " {133b}
_Remedii votum semper verius erat_, _quam spes_. {133c}--_Sexus faemin_. --If
men may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but when it offends
not, why do physicians cure with sharp medicines, or corrosives? is not
the same equally lawful in the cure of the mind that is in the cure of
the body? Some vices, you will say, are so foul that it is better they
should be done than spoken. But they that take offence where no name,
character, or signature doth blazon them seem to me like affected as
women, who if they hear anything ill spoken of the ill of their sex, are
presently moved, as if the contumely respected their particular; and on
the contrary, when they hear good of good women, conclude that it belongs
to them all. If I see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a
betrayer of myself presently? No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it; if
honest, I'll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw
there noted without a title. A man that is on the mending hand will
either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease. And the wise
and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselves that is
written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to be such; and the ill
to leave to be such. The person offended hath no reason to be offended
with the writer, but with himself; and so to declare that properly to
belong to him which was so spoken of all men, as it could be no man's
several, but his that would wilfully and desperately claim it. It
sufficeth I know what kind of persons I displease, men bred in the
declining and decay of virtue, betrothed to their own vices; that have
abandoned or prostituted their good names; hungry and ambitious of
infamy, invested in all deformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of
a hidden and concealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all
evil.
_What is a Poet_?
_Poeta_. --A poet is that which by the Greeks is called ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? , a maker, or a feigner: his art, an art of imitation or feigning;
expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony,
according to Aristotle; from the word ? ? ? ? ? ? , which signifies to make or
feign. Hence he is called a poet, not he which writeth in measure only,
but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes things like the truth.
For the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and soul of any
poetical work or poem.
_What mean_, _you by a Poem_?
_Poema_. --A poem is not alone any work or composition of the poet's in
many or few verses; but even one verse alone sometimes makes a perfect
poem. As when AEneas hangs up and consecrates the arms of Abas with this
inscription:--
"AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma. " {136a}
And calls it a poem or carmen. Such are those in Martial:--
"Omnia, Castor, emis: sic fiet, ut omnia vendas. " {136b}
And--
"Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. " {136c}
_Horatius_. --_Lucretius_. --So were Horace's odes called Carmina, his lyric
songs. And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:--
"Quod in primo quoque carmine claret. " {136d}
_Epicum_. --_Dramaticum_. --_Lyricum_. --_Elegiacum_. --_Epigrammat_. --And
anciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or whatever sentence was
expressed, were it much or little, it was called an Epic, Dramatic,
Lyric, Elegiac, or Epigrammatic poem.
_But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy_?
_Poesis_. --_Artium regina_. --_Poet.
differentiae_. --_Grammatic_. --_Logic_. --_Rhetoric_. --_Ethica_. --A poem, as I
have told you, is the work of the poet; the end and fruit of his labour
and study. Poesy is his skill or craft of making; the very fiction
itself, the reason or form of the work. And these three voices differ,
as the thing done, the doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the
feigning, and the feigner; so the poem, the poesy, and the poet. Now the
poesy is the habit or the art; nay, rather the queen of arts, which had
her original from heaven, received thence from the Hebrews, and had in
prime estimation with the Greeks transmitted to the Latins and all
nations that professed civility. The study of it (if we will trust
Aristotle) offers to mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well
and happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society. If we will
believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, delights our age,
adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity, entertains us at home,
keeps us company abroad, travels with us, watches, divides the times of
our earnest and sports, shares in our country recesses and recreations;
insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her the absolute
mistress of manners and nearest of kin to virtue. And whereas they
entitle philosophy to be a rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the
contrary, styled poesy a dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and
guides us by the hand to action with a ravishing delight and incredible
sweetness. But before we handle the kinds of poems, with their special
differences, or make court to the art itself, as a mistress, I would lead
you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect information what he is or
should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study, and so bring
him down through the disciplines of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the
ethics, adding somewhat out of all, peculiar to himself, and worthy of
your admittance or reception.
1.
_Ingenium_. --_Seneca_. --_Plato_. --_Aristotle_. --_Helicon_. --_Pegasus_. --
_Parnassus_. --_Ovid_. --First, we require in our poet or maker (for that
title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness of
natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and
precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the
treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, _Aliquando secundum
Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse_; by which he understands the poetical
rapture. And according to that of Plato, _Frustra poeticas fores sui
compos pulsavit_. And of Aristotle, _Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura
dementiae fuit_. _Nec potest grande aliquid_, _et supra caeteros loqui_,
_nisi mota mens_. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine instinct, when
it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a
mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither
before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their
Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast,
"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo
Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit. " {139a}
_Lipsius_. --_Petron. in. Fragm_. --And Lipsius to affirm, _Scio_, _poetam
neminem praestantem fuisse_, _sine parte quadam uberiore divinae aurae_.
And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mind not
mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us. Every beggarly
corporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; but _Solus
rex_, _aut poeta_, _non quotannis nascitur_. To this perfection of
nature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.
2. _Exercitatio_. --_Virgil_. --_Scaliger_. --_Valer.
Maximus_. --_Euripides_. --_Alcestis_. --If his wit will not arrive suddenly at
the dignity of the ancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel,
or be over hastily angry; offer to turn it away from study in a humour,
but come to it again upon better cogitation; try another time with
labour. If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor
scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge
and file again; torn it anew. There is no statute law of the kingdom
bids you be a poet against your will or the first quarter; if it comes in
a year or two, it is well. The common rhymers pour forth verses, such as
they are, _ex tempore_; but there never comes from them one sense worth
the life of a day. A rhymer and a poet are two things. It is said of
the incomparable Virgil that he brought forth his verses like a bear, and
after formed them with licking. Scaliger the father writes it of him,
that he made a quantity of verses in the morning, which afore night he
reduced to a less number. But that which Valerius Maximus hath left
recorded of Euripides, the tragic poet, his answer to Alcestis, another
poet, is as memorable as modest; who, when it was told to Alcestis that
Euripides had in three days brought forth but three verses, and those
with some difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he could with ease
have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundly replied, "Like
enough; but here is the difference: thy verses will not last these three
days, mine will to all time. " Which was as much as to tell him he could
not write a verse. I have met many of these rattles that made a noise
and buzzed. They had their hum, and no more. Indeed, things wrote with
labour deserve to be so read, and will last their age.
3.
_Imitatio_. --_Horatius_. --_Virgil_. --_Statius_. --_Homer_. --_Horat_. --_Archil_. --
_Alcaeus_, &c. --The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, to
be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own
use. To make choice of one excellent man above the rest, and so to
follow him till he grow very he, or so like him as the copy may be
mistaken for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what it
takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds with an appetite, and
hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn all into nourishment. Not to
imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to
draw forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn
all into honey, work it into one relish and savour; make our imitation
sweet; observe how the best writers have imitated, and follow them. How
Virgil and Statius have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how
Alcaeus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest.
4. _Lectio_. --_Parnassus_. --_Helicon_. --_Arscoron_.
