Tis strange to see the humors of these daies:
How first the Satyre bites at imperfectios:
The Epigrammist in his quips displaies

A wicked course in shadowes of corrections:
The Humorist hee strictly makes collections

Of loth'd behauiours both in youthe and age: And makes them plaie their parts upon a stage. An other Madcappe in a merry fit,

For lacke of witte did cast his cappe at sinne:
And for his labour was well tould of it,
For too much playing on that merry pinne:
For that all fishes are not of one finne:

And they that are of cholerick complections,
Loue not too plain to reade their imperfections.
Now comes another with a new founde vaine:
And onely falls to reprehensions:

Who in a kind of scoffing chiding straine,
Bringes out I knowe not what in his inuentions:
But I will ghesse the best of his intencions:

Hee would that all were well, and so would I:
Fooles shuld not too much shew their foolery.

And would to God it had ben so in deed,
The Satyres teeth had neuer bitten so:
The Epigrammist had not had a seede
Of wicked weedes, among his herbes to sowe,
Nor one mans humor did not others showe,

Nor Madcap had not showen his madness such,
And that the whipper had not ierkt so much.

No, poets, no: I write to yee in loue,

Let not the world haue cause to laugh at us:
Let us our mindes from such ill meanes remoue,
As makes good spirits for to fall out thus:

Let us our causes with more care discusse:

Not bite, nor claw, nor scoffe, nor check, nor chide:

But eche mend one, and ware the fall of pride.

But, if you could, you should doe better much,

To bend your studie to a better end,

And neither one nor other seeme to tuch:

But in such sorte, as may beseeme a friend:
And doe no more your spirits idly spend

With ierking, biting, skoffing and such humors
As fill the world too full of wicked rumors.

Let all good wits, if any good there be;

Leaue trussing, and untrussing of their points,
And heare thus much (although not learne) of me;
The spirits, that the Oyle of Grace annoyntes,

Will keepe their senses in those sacred ioynts,

That each true-learned, Christian-harted brother
Will be unwilling to offend another.

[No Whippinge, Nor Trippinge: But a Kinde Friendly Snippinge, ed.
Charles Edmonds, in the Isham Reprints, 1895.]

Anonymous, 1601.

Beniamin Iohnson.

Iudicio]. The wittiest fellow of a Bricklayer in England. Ing[enioso]. A meere Empyrick, one that getts what he hath by obseruation, and makes onely nature priuy to what he indites, so slow an Inuentor that he were better betake himselfe to his old trade of Bricklaying, a bould whorson, as confident now in making a booke, as he was in times past in laying of a brick. (P. 87.)

*

Kemp. Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ouid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpina & Iuppiter. Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Ionson too. O that Ben Ionson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giuing the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit. (P. 138.)

[The Returne from Pernassus, Part II, ed. W. D. Macray, 1886. The play, though probably written in 1601, was apparently not acted until 1602. It was printed in 1606.]

Title-page, 1602.

Poetaster or The Arraignment: As it hath beene sundry times privately acted in the Blacke Friers, by the children of her Maiesties Chappell. Composed, by Ben. Iohnson. . . . London, printed for M[athew] L[ownes], . . . 1602.

...

Philip Henslowe, 1602.

Lent unto bengemy Johnsone at the
a poyntment of E Alleyn & wm birde
the 22 of June 1602 in earneste of axli
Boocke called Richard crockbacke & for

new adicyons for Jeronymo the some of

[Henslowe's Diary, ed. W. W. Greg, 1904, p. 168. This is the second payment to Jonson for additions to The Spanish Tragedy.]

Phantastes].

Anonymous, 1602.

That fellow in the bays, methinks I should have known him; O, 'tis Comedus, 'tis so; but he has become nowadays something humorous, and too-too satirical up and down, like his great grandfather Aristophanes.

[Lingua, 1607; Hazlitt's ed. of Dodsley's Old English Plays, 1874, ix, 416. The passage quoted seems to be directed at Jonson, whose satirical comedies offended many contemporary writers.]

John Manningham, 1603.

12 Feb. 1602.

Ben Johnson, the poet, nowe lives upon one Townesend, and scornes the world. (Tho: Overbury.)

[Diary of John Manningham, ed. J. C. Bruce, Camden Society, 1868, p. 130.]

William Camden, 1603.

These may suffice for some Poeticall descriptions of our ancient Poets; if I would come to our time, what a world could I present to you out of Sir Philipp Sidney, Ed. Spencer, Samuel Daniel, Hugo Holland, Ben. Johnson, Th. Campion, Mich. Drayton, George Chapman, Iohn Marston, William Shakespeare, and other most pregnant witts of these our times, whom succeeding ages may justly admire.

[Remaines concerning Britaine, 1605. Poems, p. 8.]

John Donne, 1603.

To Ben Jonson, 9 Novembris, 1603.

If great men wrong me, I will spare myself;
If mean I will spare them. " I know the pelf
Which is ill-got the owner doth upbraid;
It may corrupt a judge, make me afraid,
And a jury; but 'twill revenge in this,
That, though himself be judge, he guilty is.
What care I though of weakness men tax me?
I had rather sufferer than doer be.
That I did trust it was my nature's praise,
For breach of word I knew but as a phrase.

That judgment is, that surely can comprise

The world in precepts, most happy and most wise. What though? Though less, yet some of both have we, Who have learn'd it by use and misery.

Poor I, whom every petty cross doth trouble,

Who apprehend each hurt that's done me, double,
Am of this, though it should sink me, careless;
It would but force me to a stricter goodness.
They have great gain of me, who gain do win,
If such gain be not loss, from every sin.
The standing of great men's lives would afford
A pretty sum, if God would sell His word.

He cannot; they can theirs, and break them too;
How unlike they are that they're liken'd to.
Yet I conclude, they are amidst my evils;

If good, like Gods; the naught are so like devils. [Poems of John Donne, ed. 1635.]

Henry Chettle, 1603.

Death now hath seiz'd her in his icy arms,
That sometime was the sun of our delight;

And, pitiless of any after harms,

Hath veil'd her glory in the cloud of night:
Nor doth one poet seek her name to raise,
That living, hourly, striv'd to sing her praise.

He that so well could sing the fatal strife
Between the royal Roses, white and read,
That prais'd so oft Eliza in her life,

His muse seems now to die, as she is dead:

Thou sweetest song-man of all English swains,
Awake for shame! honour ensues thy pains.

But thou alone deserv'dst not to be blam'd:
He that sung forty years her life and birth,
And is by English Albions so much fam'd,
For sweet mixt lays of majesty and mirth,

Doth of her loss take now but little keep;
Or else I guess he cannot sing, but weep.

Neither doth Coryn, full of worth and wit,

That finish'd dead Musæus' gracious song,
With grace as great, and words, and verse as fit,
Chide meagre death for doing virtue wrong:

He doth not seek with songs to deck her hearse,
Nor make her name live in his lively verse.

Nor does our English Horace, whose steel pen
Can draw characters which will never die,
Tell her bright glories unto list'ning men,
Of her he seems to have no memory:

His muse another path desires to tread,
True satyrs scourge the living, leave the dead.

[England's Mourning Garment; worn here by plain Shepherds, in Memory of their sacred Mistress, Elizabeth; Queen of Virtue, while she lived; and Theme of Sorrow, being dead. 1603; reprinted in The Harleian Miscellany, 1809, iii, 534. In the last stanza Chettle alludes to Jonson. During the course of the poem he has occasion to refer to many contemporary poets.]

Anonymous, 1603.

You Poets all, brave Shakspeare, Johnson, Greene,
Bestow your time to write for Englands Queene.
Lament, lament, lament you English Peeres,

Lament your losse possest so many yeeres.