Hor. Cæsar speaks after common men in this, But knowledge is the nectar, that keeps sweet He that detracts, or envies virtuous merit, Is still the covetous and the ignorant spirit. Caes. Thanks, Horace, for thy free and wholesome sharpness, Which pleaseth Cæsar more than servile fawns. A flatter'd prince soon turns the prince of fools. Say then, loved Horace, thy true thought of Virgil. By many revolutions of discourse, (In his bright reason's influence) refined From all the tartarous moods of common men ; Of a right heavenly body; most severe In fashion and collection of himself; And then as clear and confident as Jove. Gal. And yet so chaste and tender is his ear, That he thinks may become the honour'd name That all the lasting fruits of his full merit Tib. But to approve his works of sovereign worth, Cas. You mean he might repeat part of his works, As fit for any conference he can use ? Tib. True, royal Cæsar. Caes. Worthily observed: And a most worthy virtue in his works. Hor. His learning savours not the school-like gloss, Of all the worth and first effects of arts. Caes. This one consent, in all your dooms of him, And mutual loves of all your several merits, Argues a truth of merit in you all. VIRGIL enters. See here comes Virgil; we will rise and greet him : Vir. Worthless they are of Cæsar's gracious eyes, Be satisfied with any other service, I would not shew them, Cas. Virgil is too modest; Or seeks, in vain, to make our longings more. Shew them, sweet Virgil. Vir. Then, in such due fear As fits presenters of great works to Cæsar, I humbly shew them. Cos. Let us now behold A human soul made visible in life; Prophane one accent with an untuned tongue : Virtue, without presumption, place may take Should, with decorum, transcend Cæsar's chair. Poor virtue raised, high birth and wealth set under, Cos. Horace hath (but more strictly) spoke our thoughts. Is, in particular ends, exempt from sense: And therefore reason (which in right should be Shall show we are a man, distinct by it From those, whom custom rapteth in her press. Cæs. Gentlemen of our chamber, guard the doors, VIRGIL reads part of his fourth Æneid. Vir. Meanwhile, the skies 'gan thunder, etc. [Act v., Sc. 1.] This Roman Play seems written to confute those enemies of Ben. Jonson in his own days and ours, who have said that he made a pedantical use of his learning. He has here revived the whole court of Augustus, by a learned spell. We are admitted to the society of the illustrious dead. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, converse in our own tongue more finely and poetically than they expressed themselves in their native Latin.-Nothing can be imagined more elegant, refined, and courtlike than the scenes between this Lewis the Fourteenth of Antiquity and his Literati. The whole essence and secret of that kind of intercourse is contained therein. The economical liberality by which greatness, seeming to wave some part of its prerogative, takes care to lose none of the essentials; the prudential liberties of an inferior which flatter by commanded boldness and soothe with complimental sincerity. THE SAD SHEPHERD; OR A TALE OF ROBIN HOOD [PUBLISHED 1641]. BY BEN JONSON Alken, an old Shepherd, instructs Robin Hood's Men how to find a Witch, and how she is to be hunted. ROBIN HOOD. TUCK. LITTLE JOHN. SCARLET. Tuck. Hear you how ALKEN. CLARION. Poor Tom, the cook, is taken! all his joints Cla. This is an argument Both of her malice, and her power, we see. Rob. Advise how, Sage shepherd; we shall put it straight in practice. Is sure a creature of melancholy, And will be found, or sitting in her fourm, Cla. You speak, Alken, as if you knew the sport of witch-hunting, Or starting of a hag. Rob. Go, Sirs, about it; Take George here with you, he can help to find her. Scar. Let's advise upon't, like huntsmen. SCATHLOCK Geo. An we can spy her once, she is our own. Scath. First think which way she fourmeth, on what wind: Or north, or south. Geo. For, as the shepherd said, A witch is a kind of hare. Scath. And marks the weather, As the hare does. John. Where shall we hope to find her? Alk. Know you the witch's dell? Scar. No more than I do know the walks of hell Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground, She is about; with caterpillars' kells, To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow! Geo. I thought, a witch's banks Had enclosed nothing but the merry pranks Of some old woman. Scar. Yes, her malice more. Scath. As it would quickly appear, had we the store Of his collects. Geo. Ay, this good learned man Can speak her right. Scar. He knows her shifts and haunts. Alk. And all her wiles and turns. The venom'd plants Wherewith she kills! where the sad mandrake grows, Whose groans are deathful! the dead numbing night-shade! The stupefying hemlock! adder's-tongue, |