AN EXPOSTULATION1

WITH INIGO JONES.

ASTER Surveyor, you that first began
From thirty pounds in pipkins, to the

man

You are from them leap'd forth an architect,

Able to talk of Euclid, and correct

Both him and Archimede; damn Archytas,
The noblest inginer that ever was:
Control Ctesibius, overbearing us

With mistook names,2 out of Vitruvius;
Drawn Aristotle on us, and thence shewn
How much Architectonice is your own:
Whether the building of the stage, or scene,
Or making of the properties it mean,

1 An Expostulation.] That some part of this may have proceeded from Jonson I am not prepared to question; but it has assuredly been much corrupted or interpolated. The fifth line could not be written by our poet, who was much too good a judge of accent to give this for a verse.

2 With mistook names, &c.] A Mr. Webb, related to Jones, published some account of him, in imitation, as it seems to me, of sir Thomas Urquhart's Life of the Admirable Crichton. In this ridiculous rhapsody we are told, that "Mr. Jones was not only proclaimed by public acclamation the Vitruvius of England, but of all Christendom; that his abilities in all human sciences, surpassed most of his age; that he was a perfect master of the mathematics, and had some insight into the two learned languages," &c. &c. The fact is, that he knew scarcely any thing of either. He was a good scene painter, a better machinist, and an incomparable architect. I give Jonson full credit for what he says of his antagonist's mistakes.

Vizors, or antics; or it comprehend
Something your sur-ship doth not yet intend.
By all your titles, and whole style at once,
Of tireman, mountebank, and justice Jones,
I do salute you are you fitted yet?
Will any of these express your place, or wit?
Or are you so ambitious 'bove your peers,
You'd be an Assinigo by your ears?

Why much good do't you; be what part you will,
You'll be, as Langley said, "an Inigo still."
What makes your wretchedness to bray so loud
In town and court? are you grown rich, and proud?
Your trappings will not change you, change your

mind;

No velvet suit you wear will alter kind.
A wooden dagger is a dagger of wood,
Nor gold, nor ivory haft can make it good.
What is the cause you pomp it so, I ask?
And all men echo, you have made a masque.
I chime that too, and I have met with those
That do cry up the machine, and the shows;
The majesty of Juno in the clouds,

And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds ;
The ascent of lady Fame, which none could spy,
Not they that sided her, dame Poetry,3
Dame History, dame Architecture too,
And goody Sculpture, brought with much ado
To hold her up: O shows, shows, mighty shows!
The eloquence of masques! what need of prose,
Or verse, or prose, t'express immortal you?
You are the spectacles of state, 'tis true,

3 Th' ascent of lady Fame, which none could spy,

Not they that sided her, dame Poetry.] This alludes to the scenery and decorations of Chloridia. As these were the Surveyor's province, it is possible those here referred to were so injudiciously contrived or ordered, as to occasion the sarcasms of our poet. WHAL.

Court-hieroglyphics, and all arts afford,
In the mere perspective of an inch-board;
You ask no more than certain politic eyes,
Eyes, that can pierce into the mysteries
Of many colours, read them, and reveal
Mythology, there painted on slit deal.

Or to make boards to speak! there is a task!
Painting and carpentry are the soul of masque.
Pack with your pedling poetry to the stage,
This is the money-got, mechanic age.
To plant the music where no ear can reach,
Attire the persons, as no thought can teach
Sense, what they are; which by a specious, fine
Term of [you] architects, is call'd Design;
But in the practised truth, destruction is
Of any art, beside what he calls his.
Whither, O whither will this tireman grow ?
His name is ExnvоTоios, we all know,
The maker of the properties, in sum,
The scene, the engine; but he now is come
To be the music-master; tabler too;

He is, or would be, the main Dominus Do-
All of the work, and so shall still for Ben,

4

Be Inigo, the whistle, and his men.

He's warm on his feet, now he says; and can
Swim without cork: why, thank the good queen
Anne.5

I am too fat to envy, he too lean

4 He is, or would be, the main Dominus Do

All of the work.] This is no forced description of Inigo's manner. In the Declaration of the Commons, already noticed, in behalf of the parishioners of St. Gregory, they complain that "the said Inigo Jones would not undertake the work (of re-edifying the church) unless he might be, as he termed it, sole monarch, or might have the principality thereof," &c. What follows is still more

offensive.

5 Why, thank the good queen Anne.] Consort to James I., who appointed Inigo Jones her architect. WHAL.

To be worth envy; henceforth I do mean
To pity him, as smiling at his feat
Of lantern-lerry, with fuliginous heat
Whirling his whimsies, by a subtilty
Suck'd from the veins of shop-philosophy.
What would he do now, giving his mind that way,
In presentation of some puppet-play,
Shou'd but the king his justice-hood employ,
In setting forth of such a solemn toy?
How wou'd he firk, like Adam Overdo,
Up and about; dive into cellars too,
Disguised, and thence drag forth Enormity,
Discover Vice, commit Absurdity:
Under the moral, shew he had a pate
Moulded or strok'd up to survey a state!
O wise surveyor, wiser architect,
But wisest Inigo; who can reflect

On the new priming of thy old sign-posts,
Reviving with fresh colours the pale ghosts
Of thy dead standards; or with marvel see
Thy twice conceived, thrice paid for imagery;
And not fall down before it, and confess
Almighty Architecture, who no less

A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board,
Vermillion, lake, or crimson can afford
Expression for; with that unbounded line,
Aim'd at in thy omnipotent design!
What poesy e'er was painted on a wall,

6 How wou'd he firk, like Adam Overdo,

Up and about, &c.] This line is of some importance, inasmuch as it quite destroys the established opinion that Lantern Leatherhead was meant for Inigo Jones. "Old Ben," as Mr. Malone truly observes, "generally spoke out," and he was, here, sufficiently angry to identify him with that character, to which not only his allusion to Bartholomew Fair, but his mention of a puppet play, directly led and we may confidently assure ourselves that he would have done it, had, what he is so often charged with, been ever in his contemplation.

:

That might compare with thee? what story shall,
Of all the worthies, hope t' outlast thy own,
So the materials be of Purbeck stone?

Live long the feasting-room! and ere thou burn
Again, thy architect to ashes turn;

Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament, can
With all remonstrance, make an honest man."

TO A FRIEND.

An Epigram of INIGO JONES.

IR Inigo doth fear it, as I hear,

And labours to seem worthy of this fear;
That I should write upon him some sharp

verse,

7 Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament, can

With all remonstrance, make an honest man.] Jones, by some arbitrary proceedings, had subjected himself to the censures of parliament; and this seems to refer to the affair between him and the parishioners of St. Gregory in London. In order to execute his design of repairing St. Paul's cathedral, he demolished part of the church of St. Gregory adjoining to it; upon which the parishioners presented a Remonstrance to the parliament against him: but that affair did not come to an issue, till some time after the writing of this satire. WHAL.

The question is, when it began. The Remonstrance was not even presented to Parliament till three years after Jonson's death, and could scarcely have been in contemplation at the date of this satire, 1635. There are many difficulties in the way of those who make Jonson the author of the whole of this piece.

8 Sir Inigo doth fear it, &c.] This is undoubtedly Jonson's, and this seems to shew that nothing had been hitherto written against Jones. The learned writers of the Biographia Britannica, in their zeal to criminate Jonson, strangely mistake the sense of the ninth line,

"If thou art so desirous to be read,"

"which," they say, "alludes to some attempt of the architect in the poetical way," whereas, it merely means, if you are so desirous to be noticed, hope not for it from me; but, &c.