To make a child, now swadled, to proceede
Man, and then shoote vp, in one beard, and weede,
Past threescore yeeres: or, with three rustie swords,
And helpe of some few foot-and-halfe-foote words,
Fight ouer Yorke, and Lancasters long iarres: And in the tyring-house bring wounds, to scarres. He rather prayes, you will be pleas'd to see One such, to day, as other playes should be. Where neither Chorus wafts you ore the seas; Nor creaking throne comes downe, the boyes to please; Nor nimble squibbe is seene, to make afear'd The gentlewomen; nor roul'd bullet heard To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drumme Rumbles, to tell you when the storme doth come; But deedes, and language, such as men doe vse: And persons, such as Comœdie would chuse, When she would shew an Image of the times, And sport with humane follies, not with crimes. Except, we make 'hem such, by louing still Our popular errors, when we know th'are ill. I meane such errors as you'll all confesse By laughing at them, they deserue no lesse: Which when you heartily doe, there's hope left, then, You, that haue so grac'd monsters, may like men.
lv. 1607. Ben Jonson. [From Epistle to Volpone (cf. ch. xxiii).] Hence is it, that I now render my selfe gratefull, and am studious to iustifie the bounty of your act: To which, though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an age wherein Poëtry and the Professors of it heare so ill on all sides, there will a reason bee look'd for in the subject. It is certaine, nor can it with any forehead be oppos'd, that the too-much licence of Poëtasters in this time hath much deform'd their Mistresse; that euery day their manifold and manifest ignorance doth stick vnnaturall reproches vpon her. But for their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest iniustice, either to let the learned suffer, or so diuine a skill (which indeed should not be attempted with vncleane hands) to fall vnder the least contempt. For if men will impartially, and not à-squint, looke toward the offices and function of a Poët, they will easily conclude to themselues the impossibility of any mans being the good Poët, without first being a good Man. He that is sayd to be able to informe yong-men to all good disciplines, inflame growne-men to all great vertues, keepe old men in their best and supreme state, or as they decline to child-hood, recouer them to their first strength; that comes forth the Interpreter and Arbiter of Nature, a Teacher of things diuine no lesse than humane, a Master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the busines of Man-kind. This, I take him, is no subject for Pride
