The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (11 page)

An Invective Against Enemies of Poetry

With the enemies of Poetry, I care not if I have a bout; and those are they that term our best writers but babbling ballad-makers, holding them fantastical fools that have wit, but cannot tell how to use it. I myself have been so censured among some dull-headed divines; who deem it no more cunning to write an exquisite poem, than to preach pure Calvin, or distill the juice of a commentary in a quarter sermon.
*
¹⁸⁴
Prove it when you will, you slow-spirited saturnists,
¹⁸⁶
that have nothing but the pilferies of your pen to polish an exhortation withal; no eloquence but tautologies,
to tie the ears of your auditory unto you; no invention but here is to be noted, ‘I stole this note out of Beza
¹⁸⁷
or Marlorat';
¹⁸⁸
no wit to move, no passion to urge, but only an ordinary form of preaching, blown up by use of often hearing and speaking; and you shall find there goes more exquisite pains and purity of wit to the writing of one such rare poem as
Rosamond
¹⁸⁹
than to a hundred of your dunstical
¹⁹⁰
sermons.
*

Should we (as you) borrow all out of others, and gather nothing of ourselves, our names should be baffled on every bookseller's stall, and not a chandler's mustard-pot but would wipe his mouth with our waste paper.
¹⁹¹
‘New herrings, new', we must cry, every time we make ourselves public, or else we shall be christened with a hundred new titles of idiotism. Nor is poetry an art whereof there is no use in a man's whole life, but to describe discontented thoughts and youthful desires; for there is no study, but it doth illustrate and beautify. How admirably shine those divines above the common mediocrity, that have tasted the sweet springs of Parnassus?

Encomium H. Smithi
¹⁹²

Silver-tongued Smith, whose well-tuned style hath made thy death the general tears of the Muses, quaintly couldst thou devise heavenly ditties to Apollo's lute, and teach stately verse to trip it as smoothly as if Ovid and thou had
but one soul. Hence alone did it proceed, that thou wert such a plausible pulpit man, that before thou enteredst into the rough ways of theology, thou refinedst, preparedst, and purifidest thy mind with sweet poetry. If a simple man's censure may be admitted to speak in such an open theatre of opinions, I never saw abundant reading better mixed with delight, or sentences, which no man can challenge of profane affectation, sounding more melodious to the ear or piercing more deep to the heart.

The Fruits of Poetry

To them that demand what fruits the poets of our time bring forth or wherein they are able to prove themselves necessary to the state, thus I answer. First and foremost, they have cleansed our language from barbarism and made the vulgar sort here in London, which is the fountain whose rivers flow round about England, to aspire to a richer purity of speech than is communicated with the commonalty of any nation under heaven. The virtuous by their praises they encourage to be more virtuous, to vicious men they are as infernal hags, to haunt their ghosts with eternal infamy after death. The soldier, in hope to have his high deeds celebrated by their pens, despiseth a whole army of perils, and acteth wonders exceeding all human conjecture. Those that care neither for God nor the devil by their quills are kept in awe.
Multi famam
, saith one,
pauci conscientiam verentur
.
*
¹⁹³
Let God see what he will, they would be loath to have the shame of the world. What age will not praise immortal Sir Philip Sidney, whom noble Salustius,
¹⁹⁴
that thrice singular French poet, hath famoused together with Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and merry Sir Thomas More, for the chief pillars of our English speech.
Not so much but Chaucer's Host, Bailey in Southwark, and his Wife of Bath he keeps such a stir with in his
Canterbury Tales
, shall be talked of whilst the bath is used or there be ever a bad house in Southwark.

The Dispraise of Lay Chronigraphers

Gentles, it is not your lay chronigraphers,
¹⁹⁵
that write of nothing but mayors and sheriffs, and the dear year, and the great frost, that can endow your names with never-dated glory, for they want the wings of choice words to fly to heaven, which we have. They cannot sweeten a discourse, or wrest admiration from men reading, as we can, reporting the meanest accident. Poetry is the honey of all flowers, the quintessence of all sciences, the marrow of wit, and the very phrase of angels. How much better is it, then, to have an elegant lawyer to plead one's cause, than a stutting
¹⁹⁶
townsman, that loseth himself in his tale, and doth nothing but make legs; so much it is better for a nobleman, or gentleman, to have his honour's story related, and his deeds emblazoned, by a poet than a citizen.

Alas, poor Latinless authors, they are so simple they know not what they do. They no sooner spy a new ballad, and his name to it that compiled it, but they put him in for one of the learned men of our time. I marvel how the master-less
¹⁹⁷
men that set up their bills in Paul's for services, and such as paste up their papers on every post for arithmetic and writing schools, scape eternity amongst them. I believe both they and the Knight Marshal's men,
¹⁹⁸
that nail up mandates at the Court gate for annoying the palace with filth or making water, if they set their names to the writing, will shortly make up the number of the learned men of our time, and be as famous as the rest. For my part, I do challenge
no praise of learning to myself, yet have I worn a gown in the university, and so hath
caret tempus non habet moribus
;
¹⁹⁹
but this I dare presume, that, if any Maecenas bind me to him by his bounty, or extend some round liberality to me worth the speaking of, I will do him as much honour as any poet of my beardless years shall in England. Not that I am so confident what I can do, but that I attribute so much to my thankful mind above others, which, I am persuaded, would enable me to work miracles.

On the contrary side, if I be evil entreated, or sent away with a flea in mine ear, let him look that I will rail on him soundly; not for an hour or a day, whiles the injury is fresh in my memory, but in some elaborate polished poem, which I will leave to the world when I am dead, to be a living image to all ages of his beggarly parsimony and ignoble illiberality. And let him not, whatsoever he be, measure the weight of my words by this book, where I write
Quicquid in buccam venerit
,
²⁰⁰
as fast as my hand can trot; but I have terms; if I be vexed, laid in steep in
aquafortis
²⁰¹
and gunpowder, that shall rattle through the skies and make an earthquake in a peasant's ears.

Put case, since I am not yet out of the theme of Wrath, that some tired jade belonging to the press, whom I never wronged in my life, hath named me expressly in print
*
(as I will not do him), and accused me of want of learning, upbraiding me for reviving, in an epistle of mine,
²⁰²
the reverent memory of Sir Thomas More, Sir John Cheke,
²⁰³
Doctor Watson,
²⁰⁴
Doctor Haddon,
²⁰⁵
Doctor Carr,
²⁰⁶
Master Ascham,
²⁰⁷
as if they were no meat but for his mastership's mouth, or none but some such as the son of a ropemaker
²⁰⁸
were worthy to mention them. To shew how I can rail, thus would I begin to rail on him.

‘Thou that hadst thy hood turned over thy ears,
²⁰⁹
when thou wert a bachelor, for abusing of Aristotle, and setting him up on the school gates painted with ass's ears on his head: is it any discredit for me, thou great baboon, thou pigmy braggart, thou pamphleteer of nothing but pæans,
*
to be censured by thee, that hast scorned the Prince of Philosophers? Thou, that in thy Dialogues soldst honey for a halfpenny, and the choicest writers extant for cues
²¹⁰
apiece, that camest to the Logic Schools when thou wert a freshman and writst phrases; off with thy gown and untruss, for I mean to lash thee mightily. Thou hast a brother, hast thou not, student in almanacs?
²¹¹
Go to, I'll stand to it, he fathered one of thy bastards (a book I mean) which, being of thy begetting, was set forth under his name.

‘Gentlemen, I am sure you have heard of a ridiculous ass that many years since sold lies by the great, and wrote an absurd
Astrological Discourse
²¹²
of the terrible conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter; wherein, as if he had lately cast the heavens' water or been at the anatomizing of the sky's
entrails in Surgeon's Hall, he prophesieth of such strange wonders to ensue from stars' distemperature and the unusual adultery of planets, as none but he that is bawd to those celestial bodies could ever descry. What expectation there was of it both in town and country, the amazement of those times may testify; and the rather because he pawned his credit
*
upon it, in these express terms: “If these things fall not out in every point as I have wrote, let me for ever hereafter lose the credit of my astronomy.”

‘Well, so it happened, that he happened not to be a man of his word. His astronomy broke his day with his creditors, and Saturn and Jupiter proved honester men than all the world took them for; whereupon the poor prognosticator was ready to run himself through with his Jacob's staff,
²¹³
and cast himself headlong from the top of a globe (as a mountain) and break his neck. The whole university hissed at him; Tarlton at the theatre made jests of him; and Elderton
²¹⁴
consumed his ale-crammed nose to nothing in bear-baiting him with whole bundles of ballads. Would you, in likely reason, guess it were possible for any shame-swollen toad to have the spit-proof face to live out this disgrace? It is, dear brethren,
Vivit, imo vivit
;
²¹⁵
and, which is more, he is a vicar.
²¹⁶

‘Poor slave, I pity thee that thou hadst no more grace but to come in my way. Why, could not you have sat quiet at home and writ catechisms, but you must be comparing me to
Martin
,
²¹⁷
and exclaim against me for reckoning up the high scholars of worthy memory?
Jupiter ingeniis præbet sua numina vatum
, saith Ovid,
seque celebrari quolibet
ore sinit
.
²¹⁸
Which if it be so, I hope I am
Aliquis
,
²¹⁹
and those men,
quos honoris causa nominavi
,
²²⁰
are not greater than gods. Methinks I see thee stand quivering and quaking, and even now lift up thy hands to heaven, as thanking God my choler is somewhat assuaged; but thou art deceived, for however I let fall my style a little, to talk in reason with thee that hast none, I do not mean to let thee scape so.

‘Thou hast wronged one for my sake, whom for the name I must love, T.N.,
²²¹
the master-butler of Pembroke Hall, a far better scholar than thyself (in my judgment) and one that sheweth more discretion and government in setting up a size of bread, than thou in all thy whole book. Why man, think no scorn of him, for he hath held thee up a hundred times, whiles the Dean hath given thee correction, and thou hast capped and kneed him, when thou wert hungry, for a chipping.
²²²
But that's nothing, for hadst thou never been beholding to him nor holden up by him, he hath a beard that is a better gentleman than all thy whole body, and a grave countenance, like Cato, able to make thee run out of thy wits for fear, if he look sternly upon thee.

‘I have read over thy sheepish discourse of the Lamb of God and his enemies, and entreated my patience to be good to thee whilst I read. But for all that I could do with myself (as I am sure I may do as much as another man) I could not refrain, but bequeath it to the privy, leaf by leaf as I read it, it was so ugly, dorbellical,
²²³
and lumpish. Monstrous,
monstrous, and palpable, not to be spoken of in a Christian congregation; thou has scummed over the schoolmen, and of the froth of their folly made a dish of divinity brewess,
²²⁴
which the dogs will not eat. If the printer have any great dealings with thee, he were best to get a privilege betimes,
Ad imprimendum solum
,
²²⁵
forbidding all other to sell waste paper but himself, or else he will be in a woeful taking. The Lamb of God
*
make thee a wiser bell-wether than thou art, for else I doubt thou wilt be driven to leave all, and fall to thy father's occupation, which is, to go and make a rope to hang thyself.
Neque enim lex æquior ulla est, quam necis artifices arte perire sua
.
²²⁶
And so I leave thee till a better opportunity, to be tormented world without end of our poets and writers about London, whom thou has called piperly make-plays and make-bates; not doubting but he also, whom thou termest “the vain Paphatchet”,
²²⁷
will have a flurt
²²⁸
at thee one day; all jointly driving thee to this issue, that thou shalt be constrained to go to the chief beam of thy benefice, and there beginning a lamentable speech with
cur scripsi, cur perii
,
²²⁹
end with
pravum prava decent, iuvat inconcessa voluptas
,
²³⁰
and so with a trice, truss up thy life in the string of thy sancebell.
²³¹
“So be it,” pray Pen, Ink, and Paper, on their knees, that they may not be troubled with thee any more.'

Redeo ad vos, mei auditores
,
²³²
have I not an indifferent pretty vein in spur-galling an ass? If you knew how extemporal
it were at this instant, and with what haste it is writ, you would say so. But I would not have you think that all this that is set down here is in good earnest, for then you go by St Giles, the wrong way to Westminster;
²³³
but only to shew how for a need I could rail, if I were thoroughly fired. So ho, Honiger Hammon,
²³⁴
where are you all this while, I cannot be acquainted with you? Tell me, what do you think of the case? Am I subject to the sin of Wrath I write against, or no, in whetting my pen on this block? I know you would fain have it so, but it shall not choose but be otherwise for this once. Come on, let us turn over a new leaf, and hear what Gluttony can say for herself, for Wrath hath spit his poison, and full platters do well after extreme purging.