the old man whose head was covered with snows. From this spirited apology for himself, I shall give some passages. Hobbes thus replied to Dr. Wallis, who affected to consider the old man as a fit object for commiseration. "You would make him contemptible, and move Mr. Boyle to pity him. This is a way of railing too much beaten to be thought witty: besides, 'tis no argument of your contempt to spend upon him so many angry lines, as would have furnished you with a dozen of sermons. If you had in good earnest despised him, you would have let him alone, as he does Dr. Ward, Mr. Baxter, Pike, and others, that have reviled him as you do. As for his reputation beyond the seas, it fades not yet; and because perhaps you have no means to know it, I will cite you a passage of an epistle written by a learned Frenchman to an eminent person in France, in a volume of epistles." Hobbes quotes the passage at length, in which his name appears joined with Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Gassendi. In reply to Wallis' sarcastic suggestion, that an idle person should collect together Hobbes's arrogant and supercilious speeches applauding himself, under one title, Hobbius de se, he says, "During the late trouble, who made both Oliver and the people mad but the preachers of your principles? But besides the wickedness, see the folly of. it. You thought to make them mad, but just to such a degree as should serve your own turn; that is to say, mad, and yet just as wise as yourselves. Were you not very imprudent to think to govern madness?”—P. 15. "The king was hunted as a partridge in the mountains, and though the hounds have been hanged, yet the hunters were as guilty as they, and deserved no less punishment. And the decypherers (Wallis had decyphered the royal letters) and all that blew the horn, are to be reckoned among the hunters. Perhaps you would not have had the prey killed, but rather have kept it tame. And yet who can tell? I have read of few kings deprived of their power by their own subjects that have lived any long time after it, for reasons that every man is able to conjecture." He closes with a very odd image of the most cynical contempt :— These were the pitched battles; but many skirmishes occasionally took place. Hobbes was even driven to a ruse de guerre. When he found his mathematical character in the utmost peril, there appeared a pamphlet, entitled, "Mr. Hobbes has been always far from provoking any man, though, when he is provoked, you find his pen as sharp as yours. All you have said is error and railing; that is, stinking wind, such as a jade lets fly when he is too hard girt "Let your idle person do it; Mr. Hobbes shall upon a full belly. I have done. I have conacknowledge them under his hand, and be com-sidered you now, but will not again, whatsoever mended for it, and you scorned. A certain preferment any of your friends shall procure you." Roman senator having propounded something in the assembly of the people, which they, misliking, made a noise at, boldly bad them hold their peace, and told them he knew better what was good for the commonwealth than all they; and his words are transmitted to us as an argument of his virtue; so much do truth and vanity alter the complexion of self-praise. You can have very little skill in morality, that cannot see the justice of commending a man's self, as well as of anything else, in his own defence; and it was want of prudence in you to constrain him to a thing that would so much displease you. "When you make his age a reproach to him, and show no cause that might impair the faculties of his mind, but only age, I admire how you saw not that you reproached all old men in the world as much as him, and warranted all young men, at a certain time which they themselves shall define, to call you fool! Your dislike of old age you have also otherwise sufficiently signified, in venturing so fairly as you have done to escape it. But that is no great matter to one that hath so many marks upon him of much greater reproaches. By Mr. Hobbes's calculation, that derives prudence from experience, and experience from age, you are a very young man; but, by your own reckoning, you are older already than Methuselah." "Lux Mathematica, &c., or, Mathematical Light struck out from the clashings between Dr. John Wallis, Professor of Geometry in the celebrated University of Oxford (celeberrima Academia), and Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury; augmented with many and shining rays of the Author, R. R. 1672." Here the victories of Hobbes are trumpeted forth; but the fact is, that R. R. should have been T. H. It was Hobbes's own composition! R. R. stood for Roseti Repertor, that is, the Finder of the Rosary, one of the titles of Hobbes's mathematical discoveries. Wallis asserts, that this R. R. may still serve; for it may answer his own book, Roseti Refutator, or, the Refuter of the Rosary. Poor Hobbes gave up the contest reluctantly; if, indeed, the controversy may not be said to have lasted all his life. He acknowledges he was writing to no purpose; and that the medicine was obliged to yield to the disease. "Sed nil profeci, magnis authoribus Error Fultus erat, cessit sic Medicina malo." He seems to have gone down to the grave, in ledges that philology had never entered into his spite of all the reasonings of the geometricians on this side of it, with a firm conviction, that its superficies had both depth and thickness*. Such were the fruits of a great genius, entering into a province out of his own territories; and, though a most energetic reasoner, so little skilful in these new studies, that he could never know when he was confuted and refuted†. * The strange conclusions some mathematicians have deduced from their principles concerning the real quantity of matter, and the reality of space, have been noticed by Pope, in the Dunciad : "Mad Mathesis alone was unconfined, + When all animosities had ceased, after the death of Hobbes, I find Dr. Wallis, in a very temperate letter to Tenison, exposing the errors of Hobbes in mathematical studies; Wallis acknow pursuits,-in this he had never designed to oppose his superior genius; but it was Hobbes who had too often turned his mathematical into a philological controversy. Wallis has made a just observation on the nature of mathematical truths:"Hobbes's argumentations are destructive in one part of what is said in another. This is more convincingly evident, and more unpardonable, in mathematics than in other discourses, which are things capable of cogent demonstration, and so evident, that though a good mathematician may be subject to commit an error, yet one who understands but little of it, cannot but see a fault when it is showed him." Wallis was an eminent genius in scientific pursuits. His art of decyphering letters was carried to amazing perfection; and among other phenomena he discovered, was that of teaching a young man, born deaf and dumb, to speak plainly. He humorously observes, in one of his letters :-“ [ am now employed upon another work, as hard almost as to make Mr. Hobbes understand mathematics. It is, to teach a person dumb and deaf to speak, and to understand a language." BEN JONSON appears to have carried his military spirit into the literary republic-his gross convivialities, with anecdotes of the prevalent taste, in that age, for drinking-bouts-his "Poetaster" a sort of Dunciad, besides a personal attack on the frequenters of the theatres, with anecdotes-his Apologetical Dialogue, which was not allowed to be repeated-characters of DECKER and of MARSTON-DECKER'S Satiromastix, a parody on Jonson's Poetaster-BEN exhibited under the character of Horace Junior"-specimens of that literary satire; its dignified remonstrance, and the honourable applause bestowed on the great bard-some foibles in the literary habits of Ben, alluded to by DECKER-JONSON's noble reply to his detractors and rivals. THIS quarrel is a splendid instance how genius of the first order, lavishing its satirical powers on a number of contemporaries, may discover, among the crowd, some individual who may return with a right aim the weapon he has himself used, and who will not want for encouragement to attack the common assailant: the greater genius is thus mortified by a victory conceded to the inferior, which he himself had taught the meaner one to obtain over him. JONSON, in his earliest productions, "Every Man in his Humour" and " Every Man out of his Humour," usurped that dictatorship, in the Literary Republic, which he so sturdily and invariably maintained, though long and hardily disputed. No bard has more courageously foretold, that posterity would be interested in his labours; and often with very dignified feelings, he casts this declaration into the teeth of his adversaries: but a bitter contempt for his brothers and his contemporaries was not less vehement, than his affections for those who crowded under his wing. To his "sons' "" and his admirers he was warmly attached; and no poet has left behind him, in MS., so many testimonies of personal fondness, in the inscriptions and addresses, in the copies of his works, which he presented to friends: of these, I have seen more than one, fervent and impressive. invincible, of which the frequent excess degenerated into ferocity; and by some traditional tales, this ferocity was still inflamed by large potations: for Drummond informs us, "Drink was the element in which he lived." Old Ben had given, The gross convivialities of the times, from the age of Elizabeth, were remarkable for several circumstances. Hard-drinking was a foreign vice, imported by our military men on their return from the Netherlands: and the practice, of whose prevalence Camden complains, was even brought to a kind of science. They had a dialect peculiar to their orgies. See Curiosities of Literature, p. 278, 11th edition. Jonson's inclinations were too well suited to the prevalent taste, and he gave as largely into it as any of his contemporaries. Tavern-habits were then those of our poets and actors. Ben's "Humours," at "the Mermaid," and at a later period, his "Leges Convivales" at "the Apollo," the club-room of "the Devil," were doubtless one great cause of a small personal unhappiness, of which he complains, and which had a very unlucky effect, in rendering a mistress so obdurate, who "through her eyes had stopt her ears." This was, as his own verse tells us, "His mountain-belly and his rocky face." DRUMMOND of Hawthornden, who perhaps He weighed near twenty stone, according to his carelessly and imperfectly minuted down the heads own avowal-an Elephant-Cupid! One of his of their literary conference on the chief authors" Sons," at the "Devil," seems to think that his of the age, exposes the severity of criticism which "Catiline" could not fail to be a miracle, by a Ben exercised on some spirits as noble as his own. certain sort of inspiration which Ben used on the The genius of Jonson was rough, hardy, and occasion. on two occasions, some remarkable proofs of his personal intrepidity. When a soldier, in the face of both armies, he had fought single-handed with "With strenuous sinewy words that Catiline swells, I reckon it not among men-miracles. Jonson, in the Bacchic phraseology of the day, was a Canary-bird." "He would (says Aubrey) many times exceed in drink; Canary was his beloved liquor; then he would tumble home to bed; and, when he had thoroughly perspired, then to study." Tradition, too, has sent down to us several tavern-tales of “Rare Ben." A good-humoured one has been preserved of the first interview between Bishop Corbet, when a young man, and our great bard. It occurred at a tavern, where Corbet was sitting alone. Ben, who had probably just drank up to the pitch of good fellowship, desired the waiter to take to the gentleman "a quart of raw wine; and tell him," he added, "I sacrifice my service to him."-" Friend," replied Corbet, "I thank him for his love; but tell him, from me, that he is mistaken; for sacrifices are always burned."-This pleasant allusion to the mulled wine of the time, by the young wit, could not fail to win the affection of the master-wit himself. Harl. MSS. 6395. Ben is not viewed so advantageously, in an unlucky fit of ebriety recorded by Oldys, in his MS. Notes on Langbaine; but his authority is not to me of a suspicious nature: he had drawn it from a MS. collection of Oldisworth's, who appears to have been a curious collector of the history of his times. He was secretary to that strange character, Philip, Earl of Pembroke. It was the custom of those times to form collections of little traditional stories and other good things; we have had lately given to us by the Camden Society, an amusing one, from the L'Estrange family, and the MS. already quoted is one of them. There could be no bad motive in recording a tale, quite innocent in itself; and which is further confirmed by Isaac Walton, who, without alluding to the tale, notices that Jonson parted from Sir Walter Raleigh and his son "not in cold blood." Mr. Gifford, in a MS. note on this work, does not credit this story, it not being accordant with dates. Such stories may not accord with dates or persons, and yet may be founded on some substantial fact. I know of no injury to Ben's poetical character, in showing that he was, like other men, quite incapable of taking care of himself, when he was his antagonist, had slain him, and carried off his arms as trophies. Another time he killed his man in a duel. Jonson appears to have carried the same military spirit into the Literary Republic. Such a genius would become more tyrannical by success, and naturally provoked opposition, from the proneness of mankind to mortify usurped greatness, when they can securely do it. The man who hissed the poet's play, had no idea that he might himself become one of the dramatic personages. Ben then produced his "Poetaster," which has been called the Dunciad of those times; but it is a Dunciad without notes. The personages themselves are now only known by their general resemblance to nature; with the exception of two characters, those of Crispinus and Demetrius*. sunk in the heavy sleep of drunkenness. It was an age when kings, as our James I. and his majesty of Denmark, were as often laid under the table as their subjects. My motive for preserving the story is the incident respecting carrying men in baskets: it was evidently a custom, which perhaps may have suggested the memorable adventure of Falstaff. It was a convenient mode of conveyance for those who were incapable of taking care of themselves before the invention of hackney coaches, which was of later date, in Charles the First's reign. Camden recommended Jonson to Sir Walter Raleigh, as a tutor to his son, whose gay humours not brooking the severe studies of Jonson, took advantage of his foible, to degrade him in the eyes of his father, who, it seems, was remarkable for his abstinence from wine: though, if another tale be true, he was no common sinner in "the true Virginia." Young Raleigh contrived to give Ben a surfeit, which threw the poet into a deep slumber; and then the pupil maliciously procured a buckbasket, and a couple of men, who carried our Ben to Sir Walter, with a message, that "their young master had sent home his tutor." There is nothing improbable in the story; for the circumstance of carrying drunken men in baskets was a usual practice. In the. Harleian MS. quoted above, I find more than one instance; I will give one. An alderman, carried in a porter's basket, at his own door, is thrown out of it in a qualmish state. The man, to frighten away the passengers, and enable the grave citizen to creep in unobserved, exclaims, That the man had the falling sickness ! * These were Marston and Decker, but as is usual with these sort of caricatures, the originals sometimes mistook their likenesses. They were both town-wits, and cronies, of much the same stamp; by a careful perusal of their works, the editor of Jonson has decided that Marston was In "The Poetaster," Ben, with flames too long smothered, burst over the heads of all rivals and detractors. His enemies seem to have been among Crispinus. With him Jonson had once lived on the most friendly terms: afterwards, the great poet quarrelled with both, or they with him. Dryden, in the preface to his "Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco," in his quarrel with Settle, which has been sufficiently narrated by Dr. Johnson, felt, when poised against this miserable rival, who had been merely set up by a party, to mortify the superior genius, as Jonson had felt when pitched against Crispinus. It is thus that literary history is so interesting to authors. How often, in recording the fates of others, it reflects their own! "I knew indeed (says Dryden) that to write against him was to do him too great an honour; but I considered Ben Jonson had done it before to Decker, our author's predecessor, whom he chastised in his Poetaster, under the character of Crispinus." Langbaine tells us, the subject of the Satiromastix of Decker, which I am to notice, was " the witty Ben Jonson;" and with this agree all the notices I have hitherto met with, respecting "the Horace Junior" of Decker's Satiromastix. Mr. Gilchrist has published two curious pamphlets on Jonson; and in the last, p. 56, he has shown that Decker was "the poetape of Jonson," and that he avenged himself under the character of Crispinus, in his Satiromastix: to which may be added, that the Fannius, in the same satirical comedy, is probably his friend Marston. all classes; personages recognised on the scene as soon as viewed; poetical, military, legal, and histrionic. It raised a host in arms.-Jonson wrote an apologetical epilogue, breathing a firm spirit, worthy of himself: but its dignity was too haughty to be endured by contemporaries, whom genius must soothe by equality. This apologetical dialogue was never allowed to be repeated; now we may do it with pleasure. Writings, like pictures, require a particular light, and distance, to be correctly judged and inspected, without any personal inconvenience. One of the dramatic personages in this epilogue inquires: "I never saw the play breed all this tumult. And he proceeds to tell us, that to obviate this accusation, he had placed his scenes in the age of Augustus. "To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest I hoped at last they would sit down and blush." But instead of their "sitting down and blushing," we find Jonson allowed himself great liberty in personal satire, by which, doubtless, he rung an alarum to a waspish host; he lampooned Inigo Jones, the great machinist and architect. The lampoons are printed in Jonson's works; and I have in MS. an answer by Inigo Jones in verse, so pitiful that I have not printed it. That he condescended to bring obscure individuals on the stage, appears, by his character of Carlo Buffoon, in "Every Man out of his Humour." He calls this " second untruss," and was censured for having drawn it from personal revenge. The Aubrey papers, recently published, have given us the where every day the originals were standing by character of this Carlo Buffoon, one Charles a "That they fly buzzing round about my nostrils; Chester, a bold impertinent fellow; and they life. Yet even our poet himself does not deny could never be at quiet for him; a perpetual talker, their truth, while he excuses himself. In the and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time, at a tavern, Sir Walter Raleigh beats him, and seals up his mouth; i. e. his upper and nether beard, with hard wax." P. 514. Such a character was no unfitting object for dramatic satire. Mr. Gilchrist's pamphlets defended Jonson from the frequent accusations raised against him for the freedom of his muse, in such portraits after the dedication of "The Fox" to the two Universities, he boldly asks, "Where have I been particular? Where personal?-Except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, buffoon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be taxed." The mere list he here furnishes us with, would serve to crowd one of the " twopenny audiences" in the small theatres of that day. |