Or, mounted on a stool, thy face doth hit CXXX. TO ALPHONSO FERRABOSCO, ON HIS BOOK. 8 O urge, my loved Alphonso, that bold fame tame, Which music had; or speak her own effects, 8 To Alphonso Ferrabosco, on his book.] This person, descended of Italian parents, was born at Greenwich in Kent: he was much admired, both at home and abroad, for his excellent compositions, and fancies, as they were then called, in music; he was principally employed in setting the songs to music in our poet's masques. WHAL. Jonson appears to have had an extraordinary regard and affection for this excellent composer. He delights to mention him upon all occasions; and in the Masque of Hymen, hurried away by his feelings, he interrupts the strain of applause in which he was describing Alphonso's exertions, with a genuine burst of tenderness, "Virtuous friend! take well this abrupt testimony: It cannot be flattery in me, who never did it to great ones; and less than love and truth it is not where it is done out of knowledge!" The learned reader will observe that Jonson had in view Horace's admirable description of the office of the ancient Chorus, in the opening of this epigram. To say indeed, she were the soul of heaven, CXXXI. TO THE SAME.9 HEN we do give, Alphonso, to the light, own way: The learn'd have no more privilege than the lay. Even those for whom they do this, know they err : 9 TO THE SAME.] The "Book" from which the composer probably expected a large harvest of praise seems to have met with some ungentle critic, and Jonson writes this sensible and manly epigram to his friend, to qualify the excess of his disappointment and mortification. I know not the person meant, unless it be Morley, who is mentioned as dissatisfied with some of his compositions by Peacham :-but I will give the passage: "Alphonso Ferrabosco the father, while he lived, for judgment and depth of skill, as also his son now living, was inferior to none. What he did was most elaborate and profound, and pleasing in aire; though master Thomas Morley censureth him otherwise. That of his, I saw my ladie weeping, and the Nightingale, upon which dittie master Bird and he in a friendly emulation exercised their invention, cannot be bettered for sweetnesse of aire, or depth of judgment." Compleat Gent. 1622. And would (being ask'd the truth) ashamed say, F to admire were to commend, my praise But as it is, (the child of ignorance, To Mr. Joshua Silvester.] His translation of the French poem of Du Bartas on the Creation, was esteemed to be well done; but he had little genius or invention of his own. In a censure of the poets, ascribed to Drayton, we have his character given in the following verses : "And Silvester, who, from the French more weak, Made Bartas of his six days labour speak In natural English: who, had he there stay'd, His own invention to have been so poor, Who still wrote less, in striving to write more." WHAL. This epigram was written some years before the folio 1616 appeared, being prefixed to the 4to. edition of Silvester's Du Bartas, which came out in 1605. Jonson declares his ignorance of French, so that his praise must be confined to the poetical merits of the translator, who was pretty generally supposed to have gone beyond his original. When Jonson became acquainted with the French language, and was able to compare the two works, he then discovered, as he told Drummond, that Silvester had not been sufficiently faithful: this censure, however, must be understood with a reference to his own ideas of translation, and we know what they were, from the majority of his professed versions. Ritson appears to have strangely misunderstood the passage in Drummond. He says, it was Ben Jonson's opinion, "that Silvester's translation of Du Bartas was not well done, and that he wrote his verses before he understood to confer." Bibliographica Poetica, How can I speak of thy great pains, but err? N CXXXIII. ON THE FAMOUS VOYAGE.2 O more let Greece her bolder fables tell p. 356. But the HE refers to Jonson not to Silvester, whose knowledge of French was never questioned. The translation is now little known: an unlucky quotation of Dryden, Nor, with Du Bartas, "bridle up the floods' And "periwig with wool the baldpate woods," serves as an apology for consigning it to ridicule and neglect ; Silvester wanted taste rather than poetry, and he has many shining passages. Goffe, who had a marvellous love for uncouth and extravagant phraseology, has imitated the line above, with noble emulation, in his Courageous Turke: "Who set the world on flame? How now, ye heavens, Grow you so proud as to put on curl'd lockes, And clothe yourselves in periwigs of fire!" 2 Of this "Voyage," undertaken, as I have already observed, in a mad frolic, and celebrated in no very sane one, I shall only say that more humour and poetry are wasted on it than it deserves. As a picture of a populous part of London, it is not without some interest, and might admit of a few remarks; but I dislike the sub We have a Shelton, and a Heyden got,3 Cocytus, Phlegethon, ours have proved in one; Their wherry had no sail too; ours had ne'er one : THE VOYAGE ITSELF. SING the brave adventure of two wights, To have been styled of king Arthur's table. ject, and shall therefore leave the reader, who will not follow my example, and pass lightly over it, to the annotations of Whalley. 3 We have a Shelton and a Heyden got.] The names of the persons who embarked in this enterprize. The first, I suppose, is sir Ralph Shelton, to whom the 119th epigram is addressed. The latter is probably sir Christopher Heyden, to whom Davis, in his Scourge of Folly, p. 191, addresses an epigram. WHAL. Yet Jonson says, in the opening of the Voyage, that the "latter" was a squire. |