Nothing is
fashionable
till it
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman.
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
That we cannot is
pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I
known that would not have their vices hid? nay, and, to be noted, live
like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set
in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torch-light;
would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they
would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of
living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing
but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform
these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say
they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they
desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with
their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again
quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living
like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are
more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and
perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill
together.
_De vere argutis_. --I do hear them say often some men are not witty,
because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more
foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore
be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin,
lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now
nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have
least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the
more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no
face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but
in wresting and writhing our own tongue!
Nothing is fashionable till it
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected
and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, and
night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it
is so curious.
_Censura de poetis_. --Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more
preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we
shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings
which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he
would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for
miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine
and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their
good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the
other's death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:--
"--Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia. --" {44a}
Et paulo post,
"Non possunt . . . multae . . . liturae
. . .
pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I
known that would not have their vices hid? nay, and, to be noted, live
like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set
in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torch-light;
would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they
would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of
living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing
but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform
these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say
they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they
desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with
their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again
quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living
like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are
more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and
perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill
together.
_De vere argutis_. --I do hear them say often some men are not witty,
because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more
foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore
be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin,
lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now
nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have
least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the
more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no
face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but
in wresting and writhing our own tongue!
Nothing is fashionable till it
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected
and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, and
night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it
is so curious.
_Censura de poetis_. --Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more
preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we
shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings
which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he
would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for
miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine
and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their
good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the
other's death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:--
"--Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia. --" {44a}
Et paulo post,
"Non possunt . . . multae . . . liturae
. . .
