Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

1 To find equivelant divide by 2.20

2 Drum., 1711 Folio, p. 154

3 Conv, section 16 (pp. 35, 36, infra)

The Conversations? For over ninety years Drummond’s notes of his conversations with Ben Jonson remained neglected among the numerous manuscripts at Hawthornden. In the year 1711 appeared “The Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden. Consisting of those which were formerly printed and those which were designed for the press. Now Published from the Author’s Original Copies. Edinburgh, Printed by James Watson in Craig’s Closs.” This folio edition, which contains much new material, was edited by the grammarian Thomas Ruddiman, and has prefixed to it a Life of William Drummond of Hawthornden by the non-juring Bishop John Sage. Both of these men, Sage and Ruddiman, were redoubtable Jacobites, and as Drummond at this time enjoyed a larger reputation for his political than for his poetical effusions, it is to be conjectured that an ulterior motive lay behind the publication of this folio edition. Be that as it may, on pp. 224, 225, and 226 of this book is printed “Heads of a Conversation betwixt the Famous Poet Ben Johnson, and William Drummond of Hawthornden, January 1619.” The editors of the Drummond Folio must have considered this an attractive item in their book, for it is twice alluded to in the introductory matter.

Jonson was always fond of applying to his contemporaries’ criticisms taken or adapted from the classics. The most famous instances of this are the passages about Bacon and Shakespeare in Discoveries. These criticisms are really adaptations of the elder Seneca’s remarks about Cassius Severus and Haterius. This trick of modernizing ancient authors became such a habit with Jonson that he did it even in his table-talk. There are four examples of it in the Conversations, all taken from Quintilian. The intentions of Jonson’s conversations as given by Drummond are as follows:

That he had one intention to perfect an Epic Poem entitled Heroologia, of the Worthies of his Country, rowsed by Fame, and was to rededicate it to his Country, it is all in Couplets, for he detested all other Rhymes. Jonson had said he had written a discourse of Poesie both against Campion and Daniel, especially this last, where he proves couplets to be the bravest sort of verses.

He recommended to my reading Quintilian (who he said) would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he had lived with me) and Horace, Plinius 2dus Epistles, Tacitus, Juvenall, Martiall; whose Epigram Vitam he had translated.

His Censure of the English poets was this, that Sidney did not keep a Decorum in making every one speak as well as himself.

Spencer’s stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter, the meaning of which Allegory he had delivered in papers to Sir Walter Raleigh.

Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no children; but no poet.

That Michael Drayton’s Polyabion (if [he] had performed what he promised to write the deeds of all the worthies) had been excellent: His long verses pleased him not.

That Silvester’s translation of Du Bartas was not well done and that he wrote his verses before it err he understood to confer. Nor that of Fairfax his.

That the translations of Homer and Virgil in long Alexandrines were but prose.

That John Harington’s Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst. That when Sir John Harrington desired him to tell the truth of his Epigrams, he answered him, that he loved not the truth, for they were Narrations and not Epigrams.

That Warner, since the King’s coming to England, had marred all his Albions England.

That Donne’s Anniversary was profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Donne, if it had been written of the Virgin Marie it had been something; to which he answered, that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was. That Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging.

That next himself only Fletcher and Chapman could make a Masque.

That Shakespeare wanted Art. 4 [This is probably the most notorious sentence in the Conversations. Yet in Jonson’s sense of the word “Art” the contention is fair, and he compensates for this criticism by saying in the lines he prefixed to the First Folio: “Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.” Laing’s remark that this passage is very improperly connected with Jonson’s subsequent observation in regard to The Winter’s Tale is not quite just. The editors of the 1711 folio of Drummond’s Works were quite within their rights in grouping together all the remarks about Shakespeare, as they did this in the case of most other writers, e.g. Donne, of whom five scattered criticisms in Sibbald’s version are gathered together in the Folio. The editors were merely acting after their kind].

That Sharpham, Day, Dicker, were all rogues and that Minshew was one.

That Abram Francis in his English hexameters was a fool.

His judgement of stranger poets was that he thought not Bartas a poet but a verser, because he wrote not fiction.

He cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to Sonnets which he said were like that Tirrants bed, where some who were too short were racked, others too long cut short.

That Guarini, in his Pastor Fido, kept not decorum, in making shepherds speak as well as himself could.

That Lucan, taken in parts, was good divided, read all together merited not the name of a poet.

That Bonefonius Vigilium Veneris was excellent.

That he told Cardinal de Perron, at his being in France, anno 1613, who shew him his translations of Virgil, that they were naught.

That the best pieces of Ronsard were his Odes. All this was to no purpose for he neither doeth understand French nor Italians.

He read his translation of that Ode of Horace and admired it. Of one Epigram of Petronius concluding it was better to lie still and kiss then.

To me he read the preface of his Arte of Poesie, upon Horace Arte of Poesie, where he had one Apologie of a play of his, St Bartholomew’s Fair, by Criticus is understood Donne. There is one Epigram of Sir Edward Herbert’s before it, the [this] he said he had done in my Lord Aubanies house ten years since Anno 1604.

The most common place of his repetition was a dialogue pastoral between a shepherd and shepherdess about singing, and another Feraboscos Pauane with his letter, that Epigram of Gout, my Lady Bedford’s book, his verses of drinking, “Drink to me but with thine eyes;” “Swell me a Bowl”, etc.

He read a satire of a Lady come from the Bath; Verses on the Pucelle of the Court, Mistress Boulstred, whose Epitaph Donne made; a Satire, telling there was no abuses to write a satire of and [in] which he repeated all the abuses in England and the world. He insisted in that of Martial’s Vitam.

His censure of my verses was that they were all good, especially my Epitaph of the Prince, save that they smelled too much of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the time; for a child says he may write after the fashion of the Greeks and Latin verses in running; yet that he wished, to please the King, no that piece of Forth Feasting had been his own.

He esteemed John Donne the first poet in the world, in some things: his verses of the Lost Chain he had by heart; and that passage of the calm, that dust and feathers do not stir, all was so quiet. He affirmed Donne to have written all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five years old.

Sir Henry Wotton’s verses of a happy life, he had by heart, and a piece of Chapman’s translation of the Iliad, which he thinketh well done.

That Donne said to him he wrote that Epitaph on Prince Henry, look to me, to match Sir Ed. Herbert in obscureness.

He had by heart some verses of Spenser’s Calendar, about wine, between Colin and Percy.

The conceit of Donne’s Transformation was, that he sought the soul of that apple which Eva pulled, and thereafter made it the soul of a bitch, then of a she wolf, and so of a woman: his general purpose was to have brought in all the bodies of the Heretics from the soul of Cain, and at last left it in the body of Calvin: Of this he never wrote but one sheet, and now, since he was made Doctor, repented highly, and seeked to destroy all his poems.

That Petronius, Plinius Secundus, Tacitus, spoke best Latin; that Quintilian’s books were not only to be read, but altogether digested. Juvenal, Perse, Horace, Martial, for delight and so was Pindar. For health, Hippocrates.

Of their nation, Hooker’s Ecclesiastical History (whose children are now beggars), for church matters.

Selden’s Titles of Honour for Antiquities here and one book of the Gods of the Gentiles, whose names are in the Scripture of Seldens.

Tacitus, he said, wrote the secrets of the Council and Senate, as Suetonius did those of the Cabinet and Court.

For a Heroic poem, he said, there was no such ground as King Arthur’s fiction and that S. P. Sidney had one intention to have transformed all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthur.

His acquaintance and behaviour with poets living with him. Daniel was at jealousies with him. Drayton feared him, and he esteemed not of him. That Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses. That Sir John Roe loved him; and when they two were ushered by my Lord Suffolk from a Mask, Roe wrote a moral epistle to him, which began, “That next to plays, the Court and the State were the best. God threateneth Kings, Kings Lords, and Lords do us.” He beat Marston, and took his pistol from him. Sir W. Alexander was not half kind unto him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton. That Sir R. Aiton loved him dearly. Nid Field was his scholar, and he had read to him the Satires of Horace, and some Epigrams of Martial. That Markam (who added his English Arcadia) no was not of the number of the faithful poets, and but a base fellow. That such were Day and Middleton. That Chapman and Fletcher were loved of him. Overbury was first his friend, and then turned his mortal enemy. Particulars of the actions of other poets, and apothegms.

That the Irish having robbed Spenser’s goods, and burnt his house and a little child new born, he and his wife escaped, and after, he died for lack of bread in King Street, and refused twenty pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, and said, he was sorry he had no time to spend them. That in that paper Sir Walter Raleigh had of the Allegories of his Faerie Queene, by the Blating Beast the Puritans were understood, by the false Duessa the Queen of Scots.

That Southwell was hanged yet so he had written that piece of his, the Burning Babe, he would have been content to destroy many of his.

Francis Beaumont died ere he was thirty years of age.

Sir John Roe was one infinite spender, and used to say when he had no more to spend he could die. He died in his arms of the pest, and he furnished his charges, £20 which was given him back.

That Drayton was challenged for entitling one book Mortimuriados.

That Sir John Davies played in one Epigram on Drayton, who in a Sonnet concluded his Mistress might been the Tenth Worthy; and said, he used a phrase like Dametas in Arcadia, who said, for wit his mistress might be a giant.

Donne’s Grandfather, on the mother side, was Heywood the Epigrammatist. That Donne himself, for not being understood, would perish.

That Sir Walter Raleigh esteemed more of fame than conscience.

The best wits of England were employed for making of his Historic Ben himself had written a piece to him of the Punic war, which he altered and set in his book.

S.W. had written the life of Queen Elizabeth, of which there is copies extant. 5

Sir P. Sidney had translated some of the Psalms, which went abroad under the name of the Countess of Pembroke.

Marston wrote his Father-in-law’s preachings, and his Father-in-law his Comedies.

Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men, saying they had suffered Shipwreck in Bohemia, where there is no sea near by some hundred miles. 6

Daniel wrote Civil Wars, and yet hath not one battle in all his book.

The Countess of Rutland was nothing inferior to her father, S. P. Sidney, in Poesie. Sir Thomas Overbury was in love with her, and caused Ben to read his Wife to her, which he, with one excellent grace, did, and praised the Author. That the morn thereafter he discorded with Overbury, who would have him intend a suit that was unlawful. The lines my Lady kept in remembrance, “He comes to near who comes to be denied.” Beaumont wrote that Elegy on the death of the Countess of Rutland, and in effect her husband wanted the half of his in his travels.

Owen is a poor pedantic schoolmaster, sweeping his living from the posteriors of little children, and hath no thing good in him, his Epigrams being bare narrations.

Chapman hath translated Musaus in his verses, like his Homer.

Flesher and Beaumont, ten years since, hath written the Faithfull Shepherdess, a Tragicomedy, well done.

Dyer died unmarried.

S. P. Sidney was no pleasant man in countenance, his face being spoiled with pimples, and of high blood, and long: that my Lord Lisle now Earl of Leicester his eldest son resembleth him.

Of his [Jonson’s] own life, education, birth, actions. His Grandfather came from Carlisle, and he thought from Annandale to it, he served King Henry VIII., and was a Gentleman. His father lost all his estate under Queen Mary, having been cast in prison and forfeited, at last turned minister so he was a minister’s son. He himself was posthumous born, a month after his father’s decease, brought up poorly, put to school by a friend (his master Camden), after taken from it, and put to one other craft (I think was to be a wright or bricklayer), which he could not endure, then went he to the Low Countries, but returning soon he betook himself to his wonted studies. In his service in the Low Countries, he had, in the face of both the camps, killed one enemy and taken opima spolia from him, and since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary, which had hurt him in the arm, and whose sword was ten inches longer than his; for the which he was imprisoned, and almost at the gallows then took he his religion by trust, of a priest who visited him in prison. Thereafter he was twelve years a Papist. He was Master of Arts in both the Universities, by their favour not his study.

He married a wife who was a shrew yet honest, five years he had not bedded with her, but remained with my Lord Aulbanie. 7 In the time of his close imprisonment, under Queen Elizabeth, his judges could get nothing of him to all their demands but “I” and “No.” They placed two damn villains to catch advantage of him, with him, but he was advertised by his keeper, of the spies he hath one epigram. When the King came in England, at that turn the pest was in London, he being in the country at Sir Robert Cotton’s house with old Camden, he saw in a vision his eldest son (then a child and at London) appear unto him with the mark of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if it had been cut with a sword, at which amazed he prayed unto God, and in the morning he came to Camden’s chamber to tell him, who persuaded him it was but one apprehension of his fantasy at which he should not be dejected; in the meantime comes there letters from his wife of the death of that boy in the plague. He appeared to him (he said) of a manly shape, and of that growth that he thinks he shall be at the resurrection.

He was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King for writing something against the Scots in a play Eastward Hoe, and voluntarily imprisoned himself with Chapman and Marston, who had written it amongst them. The report was that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses. After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends; there was Camden, Selden, and others; at the midst of the feast his old mother drank to him, and showed him a paper which she had (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prison among his drink, which was full of lusty strong poison, and that she was no churl, she told, she minded first to have drunk of it herself.

He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were that Marston represented him in the stage. In his youth given to venery. He thought the use of a maid nothing in comparison to the wantoness of a wife, and would never have one other mistress. He said two accidents strange befell him: one, that a man made his own wife to court him, whom he enjoyed two years he knew of it, and one day finding them by chance, was passingly delighted with it; one other, lay diverse times with a woman, who showed him all that he wished, except the last act, which she would never agree unto.

Sir Walter Raleigh sent him Governor with his son, Anno 1613, to France. This youth being knavishly inclined, among other pastimes (as the setting of the favour of damsels on a cod-piece), caused him to be drunken, and dead drunk, so that he knew not where he was, thereafter laid him on a cart, which he made to be drawn by pioneers through the streets, at every corner showing his Governor stretched out, and telling them, that was a more lively image of the crucifix then any they had: at which sport young Raleigh’s mother delighted much (saying, his father young was so inclined), though the father abhorred it.