Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/243

BEN JONSON 227 This is the second foohsh justice we have had con- demning tobacco. The censure of some people is the best praise they can give, and the weed is truly honoured when denounced by the devil himself, who is the Father of Lies, and by a lawyer whose name is Eitherside, and who is so poor at that, as our cousins have it, that he is solemnly taken in by a very gull counterfeiting demoniac possession. The Induction to the "Staple of News" (1625, set 52) introduces us to the poet in person, "rolling him- self up and down like a tun." There is no allusion to tobacco worth remarking in this comedy, but one of Gifford's notes has both a nicotian and a Jonsonian interest. Several of the characters, including ladies, dine together in the renowned Apollo of the Devil Tavern, "at brave Dick Wadloe's," the convivial throne-room or royal banqueting-hall of rare old Ben and his courtly club, he being perpetual Chairman or President. Gifford observes : " From the manner in which Marmion (an enthusiastic admirer of Jonson) speaks of his entertainment there, it may be safely concluded that an admission to it was a favour of no ordinary kind." He then quotes the following brave passage from Marmion's "Fine Companion," re- marking that " the boon Delphic god " was our poet himself : — " Careless. I am full Of oracles, I am come from Apollo Emilia. From Apollo ! Careless. From the heaven Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god Drinks sack and keeps his Bacchanalia, And has his incense, and his altars smoking, And speaks in sparkling prophecies ; thence I come,