Page:The Works of Ben Jonson - Gifford - Volume 8.djvu/160

 .] From the folio of 1616. The Collection is there called Book I. from which it may be collected, that Jonson intended, at the period of its appearance, to make a further selection. It is to be lamented, on many accounts, that he subsequently changed bis purpose. The character of the illustrious nobleman, to whom this manly and high-spirited dedication is addressed, must be looked for in the history of the times.

It may be necessary to admonish the reader not to take up these poems with the general expectation of finding them terminate in a point of wit. This, indeed, is the modern construction of the word; but this was never Jonson's: by Epigram he meant nothing more than a short poem, chiefly restricted to onone [sic] idea, and equally adapted to the delineation and expression of every passion incident to human life. The work is, in short, an Anthology, and may occasionally remind those who are studious of antiquity, of the collections which pass under that name.