lv. 1607. Ben Jonson.
[From Epistle to Volpone (cf. ch. xxiii).]
Hence is it, that I now render my selfe gratefull, and am studious to iustifie the bounty of your act: To which, though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an age wherein Poëtry and the Professors of it heare so ill on all sides, there will a reason bee look’d for in the subject. It is certaine, nor can it with any forehead be oppos’d, that the too-much licence of Poëtasters in this time hath much deform’d their Mistresse; that euery day their manifold and manifest ignorance doth stick vnnaturall reproches vpon her. But for their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest iniustice, either to let the learned suffer, or so diuine a skill (which indeed should not be attempted with vncleane hands) to fall vnder the least contempt. For if men will impartially, and not à-squint, looke toward the offices and function of a Poët, they will easily conclude to themselues the impossibility of any mans being the good Poët, without first being a good Man. He that is sayd to be able to informe yong-men to all good disciplines, inflame growne-men to all great vertues, keepe old men in their best and supreme state, or as they decline to child-hood, recouer them to their first strength; that comes forth the Interpreter and Arbiter of Nature, a Teacher of things diuine no lesse than humane, a Master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the busines of Mankind. This, I take him, is no subject for Pride and Ignorance to exercise their railing rhetorique vpon. But it will here be hastily answer’d, that the Writers of these dayes are other things; that not onely their manners, but their natures, are inuerted, and nothing remaining with them of the dignity of Poët, but the abused name, which euery Scribe vsurpes; that now, especially in Dramatick, or (as they terme it) Stage-Poëtry, nothing but Ribaldry, Profanation, Blasphemy, al Licence of offence to God, and Man, is practisd. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sory I dare not: because in some mens abortiue Features (and would they had neuer boasted the light) it is ouer-true. But that all are embarqu’d in this bold aduenture for Hell, is a most vncharitable thought, and vtterd, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most cleare conscience, affirme, that I haue euer trembled to thinke toward the least Prophanenesse; haue loathed the vse of such foule and vn-washd Baudr’y, as is now made the foode of the Scene.