Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/144

 anything right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for Truth, and 'tis enough.

The haughty vindication of 'arts that respect the mind' as 'nobler than those that serve the body, though we less can be without them' (the latter), is at once amusingly and admirably Jonsonian. Admitting the ignoble fact that without such 'arts' as 'tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c.,' 'we could scarce sustain life a day,' a proposition which it certainly would seem difficult to dispute, he proceeds in the loftiest tone of professional philosophy: 'But these were the works of every hand; the other of the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits, that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour: opere pascitur.'

This conscientious and self-conscious pride of intellect finds even a nobler and more memorable expression in the admirable words which instruct or which remind us of the truth that 'it is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by the wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.' A sentence worthy to be set beside the fittest motto for all loyal men—'Æqua laus est a laudatis