Discoveries and Some Poems | Page 2

its best work in the earlier years of the reign of James I. His Volpone, the Silent Woman, and the Alchemist first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works of Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter part of James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with distaste from the public stage. When Charles I. became king, Ben Jonson was weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned to the stage for a short time through necessity, but found his best friends in the best of the young poets of the day. These looked up to him as their father and their guide. Their own best efforts seemed best to them when they had won Ben Jonson's praise. They valued above all passing honours man could give the words, "My son," in the old poet's greeting, which, as they said, "sealed them of the tribe of Ben."
H. M.

SYLVA

Rerum et sententiarum quasi "[Greek text] dicta a multiplici materia et varietate in iis contenta. Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam arborum nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula temere congesta erant, Sylvas appellabant antiqui: Timber-trees.

TIMBER; OR, DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER, AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS, OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR NOTION OF THE TIMES.
Tecum habita, ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex {11} PERS. Sat. 4.

Fortuna.--Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts it and will make it.
Casus.--Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
Consilia.--No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take no others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
Fama.--A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by another's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent.
Negotia.--In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all. And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and raise sedition against the understanding.
Amor patriae.--There is a necessity all men should love their country: he that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his heart is there.
Ingenia.--Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no attempting them.
Applausus.--We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past; thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.
Opinio.--Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing; settled in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to obtain the tincture of reason. We labour with it more than truth. There is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of our thinking.
Impostura.--Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their gut and their groin in their inner closets.
Jactura vitae.--What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark corner.
Hypocrita.--Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus, quem opinio propriae perspicaciae, qua sibi videtur, cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus errores quosdam animadvertisse,