Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/131

 BEN JONSON 115 — A play of his, upon which he was accused, The Divell is ane Ass; according to 'Comedia Vetus,' in England the Divel was brought in either with one Vice or other : the play done, the Divel carried away the Vice, he brings in the Divel so overcome with the wickedness of this age that thought himself ane Ass. Parergous is discoursed of the Duke of Drounland [Act ii., Sc. i] : the King desired him to conceal it. — He hath commented and translated Horace Art of Poesie : it is in Dialogue wayes ; by Criticus he understandeth Dr. Done. — He had ane intention to have made a play like Plautus Amphitrio, but left it of, for that he could never find two so like others [each other] that he could persuade the spectators they were one. — He said to Prince Charles of Inigo Jones, that when he wanted words to express the greatest villaine in the world, he would call him ane Inigo. Jones having accused him for naming him, behind his back, A foole : he denied it ; but, says he, I said. He was ane arrant knave, and I avouch it. — Of all his Playes he never gained two hundreth pounds. — His Impressa was a compass with one foot in center, the other broken, the word, Deesf quod diiceret orbem. — He said to me, that I was too good and simple, and that oft a man's modestie made a fool of his witt. — His armes were three spindles or rhombi ; his own word about them, Percunct- abor or Perscrutator. His Epitaph, by a companion written, is — ' Here lyes Benjamin Johnson dead, And hath no more wit than [a] goose in his head : That as he was wont, so doth he still, Live by his wit, and evermore will.'