For 'tis but truth, thou taught'st the ruder age To speak by grammar, and reform'dst the stage: Thy comic sock induc'd such purged sense, A Lucrece might have heard without offence. Amongst those soaring wits that did dilate Our English, and advance it to the rate 30 And value it now holds, thyself was one Help'd lift it up to such proportion; That thus refin'd and rob'd, it shall not spare With the full Greek or Latin to compare. For what tongue ever durst, but ours, translate Great Tully's eloquence, or Homer's state? Both which in their unblemish'd lustre shine, From Chapman's pen, and from thy _Catiline_. All I would ask for thee, in recompense Of thy successful toil and time's expense, 40 Is only this poor boon; that those who can Perhaps read French, or talk Italian, Or do the lofty Spaniard affect, To show their skill in foreign dialect, Prove not themselves so unnaturally wise, They therefore should their mother-tongue despise (As if her poets, both for style and wit, Not equall'd, or not pass'd, their best that writ), Until by studying Jonson they have known The height and strength and plenty of their own. 50 Thus in what low earth or neglected room Soe'er thou sleep'st, thy book shall be thy tomb. Thou wilt go down a happy corse, bestrew'd With thine own flowers; and feel thyself renew'd, Whilst thy immortal, never-with'ring bays Shall yearly flourish in thy readers' praise. And when more spreading titles are forgot, Or spite of all their lead and cere-cloth rot, Thou wrapp'd and shrin'd in thine own sheets wilt lie, A relic fam'd by all posterity. 60 [_Ben. Jonson._] In orig., as so often, 'Jo_h_nson'. A contribution to _Jonsonus Virbius_, which, printed nearly twenty years before these _Poems_, has one slight variant = 'that' for 'who' in l. 7.] [Line: 5 scythe] Orig. 'sithe', which some great ones (including even the other Johnson) will have to be the proper spelling, and which is certainly usual in Middle English. But 'scythe' is consecrated by the only Sainte Ampoule of orthography--usage; 'sithe' also means 'a path' and 'a sigh', and may be mistaken for 'since', while 'scythe' is unmistakable. And for my part, if I may not have 'scythe' I stickle for 'sigðe'--the undoubted original.] [Line: 38 It was a little dangerous, in Ben's lifetime, to praise others in company with him. But King here corroborates Drummond's _Conversations_, in which Ben is made to speak well of Chapman on several occasions, and (more particularly) to declare his _Iliad_, or part of it, 'well done'.]