Discoveries and Some Poems

Discoveries and Some Poems

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Title: Discoveries and Some Poems
Author: Ben Jonson
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5134] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 10, 2002]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK,
DISCOVERIES ***

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected], from the
1892 Cassell & Company edition.

DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER AND SOME
POEMS

Contents: Introduction by Henry Morley Sylva Timber, or
Discoveries ... Some Poems To William Camden On My First
Daughter On My First Son To Francis Beaumont Of Life and Death
Inviting a Friend to Supper Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy Epitaph on
Elizabeth L. H. Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke To the Memory
of my Beloved Master William Shakespeare To Celia The Triumph of
Charis In the Person of Womankind Ode Praeludium Epode An Elegy

INTRODUCTION

Ben Jonson's "Discoveries" are, as he says in the few Latin words
prefixed to them, "A wood--Sylva--of things and thoughts, in Greek
"[Greek text]" [which has for its first meaning material, but is also
applied peculiarly to kinds of wood, and to a wood], "from the
multiplicity and variety of the material contained in it. For, as we are
commonly used to call the infinite mixed multitude of growing trees a
wood, so the ancients gave the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to
books of theirs in which small works of various and diverse matter
were promiscuously brought together."
In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most
vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature.
The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his
"Underwoods."

Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district that
produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religious
persecution in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's reign,
and died a month before the poet's birth in 1573. Ben Jonson, therefore,
was about nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived
Shakespeare about twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to
Shakespeare Ben Jonson was, in his own different way, the man of
most mark in the story of the English drama. His mother, left poor,
married again. Her second husband was a bricklayer, or small builder,
and they lived for a time near Charing Cross in Hartshorn Lane. Ben
Jonson was taught at the parish school of St. Martin's till he was
discovered by William Camden, the historian. Camden was then
second master in Westminster School. He procured for young Ben an
admission into his school, and there laid firm foundations for that
scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by private study until
his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit.
Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time in
his step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the Low
Countries. He came home again, and joined the players. Before the end
of Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in which he
showed a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to rights, together
with that high sense of the poet's calling which put lasting force into his
work. He poured contempt on those who frittered life away. He urged
on the poetasters and the mincing courtiers, who set their hearts on
top-knots and affected movements of their lips and legs:-
"That these vain joys in which their wills consume Such powers of wit
and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be
converted on works fitting men; And for the practice of a forced look,
An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true