Discoveries and Some Poems | Page 9

old."
Nullum vitium sine patrocinio.--It is strange there should be no vice
without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse we will say,
we love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We
cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it because we will
defend it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of it. 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 . . . una litura potest."
Cestius--Cicero--Heath--Taylor--Spenser.--Yet their vices have not hurt
them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved
for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best
men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was
preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him
without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot
imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer;
at least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despite of the
players; Heath's epigrams and the Sculler's poems have their applause.
There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst
pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or speak
better, but that they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt,
sed hi corruptius judicant. Nay, if it were put to the question of the
water-rhymer's works, against Spenser's, I doubt not but they would
find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a
prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that which
is naught.