But these, nature could not have formed them better to
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
The writer must lie
and the gentle reader rests happy to hear the worthiest works
misinterpreted, the clearest actions obscured, the innocentest life
traduced: and in such a licence of lying, a field so fruitful of
slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his laughter? Hence comes
the epidemical infection; for how can they escape the contagion of the
writings, whom the virulency of the calumnies hath not staved off from
reading?
_Sed seculi morbus_. --Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader than an
unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than to see a person of
an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But
it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old,
begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the
sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still!
but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere
frenzy.
_Alastoris malitia_. --This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearched or
unassailed by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguish writings
(for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while), what hath he done
more than a troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; had a
fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone? But
they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers.
_Mali Choragi fuere_. --It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel
a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though the nakedness would
show deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers.
Some love any strumpet, be she never so shop-like or meretricious, in
good clothes.
But these, nature could not have formed them better to
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
_Hear-say news_. --That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassador from
the Great Mogul, who could both write and read, and was every day allowed
twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and
almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he had a Spanish boy to his
interpreter, and his chief negociation was to confer or practise with
Archy, the principal fool of state, about stealing hence Windsor Castle
and carrying it away on his back if he can.
_Lingua sapientis_, _potius quam loquentis_. --A wise tongue should not be
licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governed with
certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and it was
excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of
teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the
rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of
our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed in
the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound
with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a
security, as while they are speaking, for the most part they confess to
speak they know not what.
Of the two (if either were to be wished) I would rather have a plain
downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so
furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words,
without any subject of sentence or science mixed?
_Optanda_. --_Thersites Homeri_. --Whom the disease of talking still once
possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not
discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened
unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath
praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is
like Homer's _Thersites_.
?
and the gentle reader rests happy to hear the worthiest works
misinterpreted, the clearest actions obscured, the innocentest life
traduced: and in such a licence of lying, a field so fruitful of
slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his laughter? Hence comes
the epidemical infection; for how can they escape the contagion of the
writings, whom the virulency of the calumnies hath not staved off from
reading?
_Sed seculi morbus_. --Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader than an
unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than to see a person of
an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But
it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old,
begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the
sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still!
but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere
frenzy.
_Alastoris malitia_. --This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearched or
unassailed by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguish writings
(for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while), what hath he done
more than a troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; had a
fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone? But
they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers.
_Mali Choragi fuere_. --It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel
a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though the nakedness would
show deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers.
Some love any strumpet, be she never so shop-like or meretricious, in
good clothes.
But these, nature could not have formed them better to
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
_Hear-say news_. --That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassador from
the Great Mogul, who could both write and read, and was every day allowed
twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and
almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he had a Spanish boy to his
interpreter, and his chief negociation was to confer or practise with
Archy, the principal fool of state, about stealing hence Windsor Castle
and carrying it away on his back if he can.
_Lingua sapientis_, _potius quam loquentis_. --A wise tongue should not be
licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governed with
certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and it was
excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of
teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the
rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of
our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed in
the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound
with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a
security, as while they are speaking, for the most part they confess to
speak they know not what.
Of the two (if either were to be wished) I would rather have a plain
downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so
furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words,
without any subject of sentence or science mixed?
_Optanda_. --_Thersites Homeri_. --Whom the disease of talking still once
possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not
discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened
unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath
praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is
like Homer's _Thersites_.
?
