Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/119

 BEN JONSON 103 " How well, fair crown of your fair sex, might he That but the twilight of your sprite did see, And noted for what flesh such souls were framed, Know you to be a Sidney, though unnamed ! And being named, how little doth that name Need any Muse's praise to give it fame ; Which is itself the imprese of the great, And glory of them all, but to repeat ! " To her husband, Sir Robert Wroth, the third piece in the " Forest " is addressed. From the quarto of 161 2 Gifford retrieved a pregnant advertisement to the reader : " If thou beest more, thou art an Understander, and then I trust thee. . . . But how out of purpose and place do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers ; who, if they come in robustu- ously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows : when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. [This sentence is reproduced in his " Discoveries," in the section Censura de Foetisi I deny not that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good and great — but very seldom ; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent,