Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/146

 For weight, point, and vigour, it would hardly be possible to overpraise it.

In the admirable note on such 'foolish lovers' as 'wish the same to their friends as their enemies would,' merely that they might have occasion to display the constancy of their regard, there is a palpable and preposterous misprint, which reduces to nonsense a remarkably fine passage; 'They make a causeway to their courtesy by injury; as if it were not honester to do nothing than to seek a way to do good by a mischief.' For the obviously right word 'courtesy' the unspeakable editors read 'country'; which let him explain who can.

The two notes on injuries and benefits are observable for their wholesome admixture of common sense with magnanimity.

Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only suffer them not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an injury after a courtesy takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that writes other verses upon my verses takes not away the first letters, but hides them.

Surely no sentence more high-minded and generous than that was ever written: nor one more sensible and dignified than this:—

The doing of courtesies aright is the mixing of the