Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/253

BEN JONSON 237 treat the devil were he to invite him to a dinner, were a pig, a poll of ling with mustard, and a pipe of tobacco for digesture." I wonder with what the devil has treated him since inviting him to dinner ! Well, the indignation of Diva Nicotina confounded Jonson in these acts of servile hypocrisy, so alien from his stout, honest character — the first lines are doggrel, and the others mere patter, both destitute alike of wit and humour; and the metaphor with which the herb of herbs and its censer are associ- ated, is so coarse that I dare not reproduce the verses in these our dainty days. A righteous retribution, O Ben! In the rich Epigram loi, "Inviting a Friend to Supper," from which I have already quoted in Section vii., we have the following lines : — " But that which most doth take my Muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine. Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine : Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring. Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing." Brave old Ben ! we know you here again ! Every man has the right to have his own particular idol, and to exalt it in hyperbole by depreciating the most precious things or most noble natures in comparison therewith. Wherefore, we quarrel not with this extreme devotion to Canary, nor with the supremacy claimed for it. Rather we welcome our glorious convivialist of the Mermaid Tavern, our boon Delphic god of the Apollo room, seeing how rightly he ranks our rich Indian vapour with nectar and the Thespian