Come leave this sawcy way
Of baiting those that pay
Dear for the sight of your declining wit:
'Tis known it is not fit
That a sale poet, just contempt once thrown,
Should cry up thus his own.
I wonder by what dower,
Or patent, you had power
From all to rape a judgment. Let't suffice,
Had you been modest, y'ad been granted wise.
'Tis known you can do well,
And that you do excell
As a translator; but when things require
A genius, and fire,
Not kindled heretofore by other pains,
As oft y'ave wanted brains
And art to strike the white,
As you have levell'd right:
Yet if men vouch not things apocryphal,
You bellow, rave, and spatter round your gall.
Jug, Pierce, Peek, Fly,[104] and all
Your jests so nominal,
Are things so far beneath an able brain,
As they do throw a stain
Thro' all th' unlikely plot, and do displease
As deep as PERICLES.
Where yet there is not laid
Before a chamber-maid
Discourse so weigh'd,[105] as might have serv'd of old
For schools, when they of love and valour told.
Why rage, then? when the show
Should judgment be, and know-[106]
ledge, there are plush who scorn to drudge
For stages, yet can judge
Not only poet's looser lines, but wits,
And all their perquisits;
A gift as rich as high
Is noble poesie:
Yet, tho' in sport it be for Kings to play,
'Tis next mechanicks' when it works for pay.
Alcæus lute had none,
Nor loose Anacreon
E'er taught so bold assuming of the bays
When they deserv'd no praise.
To rail men into approbation
Is new to your's alone:
And prospers not: for known,
Fame is as coy, as you
Can be disdainful; and who dares to prove
A rape on her shall gather scorn--not love.
Leave then this humour vain,
And this more humourous strain,
Where self-conceit, and choler of the blood,
Eclipse what else is good:
Then, if you please those raptures high to touch,
Whereof you boast so much:
And but forbear your crown
Till the world puts it on:
No doubt, from all you may amazement draw,
Since braver theme no Phoebus ever saw.
To console dejected Ben for this just reprimand, Randolph, of the
adopted poetical sons of Jonson, addressed him with all that warmth of
grateful affection which a man of genius should have felt on the
occasion.
AN ANSWER TO MR. BEN JONSON'S ODE, TO PERSUADE HIM NOT TO LEAVE THE
STAGE.