But it is not their plots which I meant principally to tax; I was speaking of their sense and language; and I dare almost challenge any man to shew me a page together which is correct in both. As for Ben Jonson, I am loth to name him, because he is a most judicious writer; yet he very often falls into these errors: and I once more beg the reader's pardon for accusing him of them. Only let him consider, that I live in an age where my least faults are severely censured; and that I have no way left to extenuate my failings, but by showing as great in those whom we admire: _Caedimus, inque vicem praebemus crura sagittis._ I cast my eyes but by chance on Catiline; and in the three or four last pages, found enough to conclude that Jonson writ not correctly. --Let the long-hid seeds Of treason, in thee, now shoot forth in deeds Ranker than horror. In reading some bombast speeches of Macbeth, which are not to be understood, he used to say that it was horror; and I am much afraid that this is so. Thy parricide late on thy only son, After his mother, to make empty way For thy last wicked nuptials, worse than they That blaze that act of thy incestuous life, Which gained thee at once a daughter and a wife. The sense is here extremely perplexed; and I doubt the word _they_ is false grammar. --And be free Not heaven itself from thy impiety. A synchysis, or ill-placing of words, of which Tully so much complains in oratory. The waves and dens of beasts could not receive The bodies that those souls were frighted _from_. The preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with him, and which I have but lately observed in my own writings. What all the several ills that visit earth, Plague, famine, fire, could not reach _unto_, The sword, nor surfeits, let thy fury do. Here are both the former faults: for, besides that the preposition _unto_ is placed last in the verse, and at the half period, and is redundant, there is the former synchysis in the words "the sword, nor surfeits" which in construction ought to have been placed before the other. Catiline says of Cethegus, that for his sake he would _Go on upon_ the gods, kiss lightning, wrest The engine from the Cyclops, and _give fire At face of a full cloud_, and stand _his ire_. To "go on upon," is only to go on twice[4]. To "give fire at face of a full cloud," was not understood in his own time; "and stand _his ire_," besides the antiquated word _ire_, there is the article _his_, which makes false construction: and giving fire at the face of a cloud, is a perfect image of shooting, however it came to be known in those days to Catiline. --Others there are, Whom envy to the state draws and pulls on, For contumelies received; and such are sure _ones_. _Ones_, in the plural number: but that is frequent with him; for he says, not long after,