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BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES
"Pacchiarotto, and other Poems." Thus the second stanza is remarkably re-echoed in the following:—
"Don't nettles make a broth
Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick?
Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste.
My Thirty-four Port—no need to waste
On a tongue that's fur and a palate—paste!
A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick
I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth,
Henceforward with nettle-broth!"
Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick?
Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste.
My Thirty-four Port—no need to waste
On a tongue that's fur and a palate—paste!
A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick
I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth,
Henceforward with nettle-broth!"
This scornful defiance brought several of the minor poets and critics into the field against him; while Randolph, Cleveland, and others who were proud to be called his sons, came to his defence, and some of the best scholars of the time took pleasure in translating the ode into Latin verse. Perhaps the most temperate and fair of the pieces called forth on this occasion was that by T. Carew, of which a specimen may be given:—
"'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand
Hath fixed upon the sotted age a brand
To their swoln pride, and empty scribbling due;
It can nor judge, nor write: and yet 'tis true,
Thy comic muse from the exalted line
Touched by the Alchemist, doth since decline
From that her zenith, and fortels a red
And blushing evening, when she goes to bed;
Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light,
With which all stars shall gild the following night."
Hath fixed upon the sotted age a brand
To their swoln pride, and empty scribbling due;
It can nor judge, nor write: and yet 'tis true,
Thy comic muse from the exalted line
Touched by the Alchemist, doth since decline
From that her zenith, and fortels a red
And blushing evening, when she goes to bed;
Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light,
With which all stars shall gild the following night."
The court seems to have neglected Jonson soon after the death of James, as there is no masque by him for the three years between 1626 and 1630; and to this he alluded in the Epilogue to the "New Inn,"
