By all your titles, and whole style at once, Will any of these express your place, or wit? Why much good do't you; be what part you will, You'll be, as Langley said, "an Inigo still." What makes your wretchedness to bray so loud In town and court? are you grown rich, and proud? Your trappings will not change you, change your mind; No velvet suit you wear will alter kind. And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds; 3 Th' ascent of lady Fame, which none could spy, Not they that sided her, dame Poetry.] This alludes to the scenery and decorations of Chloridia. As these were the Surveyor's province, it is possible those here referred to were so injudiciously contrived or ordered, as to occasion the sarcasms of our poet. WHAL. Court-hieroglyphics, and all arts afford, Or to make boards to speak! there is a task! To plant the music where no ear can reach, He's warm on his feet, now he says; and can 4 He is, or would be the main Dominus Do All of the work.] This is no forced description of Inigo's manner. In the Declaration of the Commons, already noticed, in behalf of the parishioners of St. Gregory, they complain that "the said Inigo Jones would not undertake the work (of reedifying the church) unless he might be, as he termed it, sole monarch, or might have the principality thereof," &c. What follows is still more offensive. 5 Why, thank the good queen Anne.] appointed Inigo Jones her architect. Consort to James I. who way, I am too fat to envy, he too lean On the new priming of thy old sign-posts, A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board, • How wou'd he firk, like Adam Overdo, Up and about, &c.] This line is of some importance, in as inuch as it quite destroys the established opinion that Lantern Leatherhead was meant for Inigo Jones. "Old Ben," as Mr. Malone truly observes, "generally spoke out," and he was, here, sufficiently angry to identify him with that character, to which not only his allusion to Bartholomew Fair, but his mention of a puppet play, directly led and we may confidently assure ourselves that he would have done it, had, what he is so often charged with, been ever in his contemplation. i What poesy e'er was painted on a wall, So the materials be of Purbeck stone? Live long the feasting-room! and ere thou burn Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament, can TO A FRIEND. An Epigram of Inigo Jones. Sir Inigo doth fear it, as I hear,' 7 Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament, can With all remonstrance, make an honest man.] Jones, by some arbitrary proceedings, had subjected himself to the censures of parliament; and this seems to refer to the affair between him and the parishioners of St. Gregory in London. In order to execute his design of repairing St. Paul's cathedral, he demolished part of the church of St. Gregory adjoining to it; upon which the parishioners presented a Remonstrance to the parliament against him: but that affair did not come to an issue, till some time after the writing of this satire. WHAL. The question is, when it began. The Remonstrance was not even presented to Parliament till three years after Jonson's death, and could scarcely have been in contemplation at the date of this satire, 1635. There are many difficulties in the way of those who make Jonson the author of the whole of this piece. 1 Sir Inigo doth fear it, &c.] This is undoubtedly Jonson's, and this seems to shew that nothing had been hitherto written against Jones. The learned writers of the Biographia Britan nica, in their zeal to criminate Jonson, strangely mistake the sense of the ninth line, "If thou art so desirous to be read," "which," they say, alludes to some attempt of the architect in the poetical way," whereas, it merely means, if you are so desirous to be noticed, hope not for it from me; but, &c. That I should write upon him some sharp verse, The marrow. Wretch! I quit thee of thy pain, Seek out some hungry painter, that, for bread, TO INIGO MARQUIS WOULD-BE. A Corollary. But 'cause thou hear'st the mighty king of Spain Hath made his Inigo marquis, would'st thou fain Our Charles should make thee such? 'twill not become All kings to do the self-same deeds with some: A noble honest soul: what's this to thee? meets. He some Colussus, to bestride the seas, 2 Thou paint a lane, &c.] i. e. just wide enough to allow of the meeting of Tom Thumb and Jeffrey Hudson. |