A FUNERAL ELEGY, In Memory of the Rare, Famous, and Admired Poet, Mr. BENJAMIN JONSON deceased.  
Who died the sixteenth day of August last, 1637, and lieth interred in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter at Westminster.  SPES ADDIT ALAS.  printer's or publisher's device 
London Printed by E. P. for Henry Gosson, and are to be sold at his Shop on London-Bridge. 1637.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, WORSHIPFUL AND Others, that are understanding Readers and Impartial Censurers.  
RIght Honoured, Worshipful and knowing men,  
I do not here confine my Dedication,  
To any one man, but my toiling pen  
Writes to great Britain, and the Irish Nation,  
Know that the subject of My verse is Ben,  
And what he was, his works do make relation.  
Alive his lines abroad by Fame were spread,  
For which he is beloved now he is dead.  
Dead, no, he lives, he will, and shall survive,  
For Death hath taken but his shell or Rhyn'de,  
His better parts are still with us alive,  
His Pith or Kernel he hath left behind,   

The Epistle Dedicatory.  
As Ovid saith, Sword, fire, cannot deprive,  
Age, Death or Time, can put him out of mind,  
He was beloved, and for his love I crave,  
His Elegy may your acceptance have  
You that are men of worth, I speak to you,  
Not to the partial and prejudicated:  
Nor to the ribble rabble senseless crew,  
The Hydra monster inconsiderate,  
Who scarce know P from G, or black from blue,  
I neither do respect, their love or hate,  
For him deceased, and for your loves I penned it,  
And to your good protections I commend it.   

To my Friend JOHN TAYLOR, the Author of this following Elegy.  
IOhn, though (in verse) I do but seldom write,  
Yet love provokes me that I must requite  
Thy honest gratitude thou hast expressed,  
Although in Ben I had no interest;  
He was to me, nor I of him scarce known,  
Yet for the love (kind Friend) thou here hast shown,  
This Paradox of JONSON may be read,  
He is not living, nor he is not dead.  
EDWARD BRIAN.   

O living dead man if man may be so,  
Death could but take thy body, thy works show,  
What slender wounds the Fates to virtue give,  
When they conspire her death, alas she'll live  
Beyond the reach of Fate, Ben Jonson's dead,  
Yet lives with him, by whom his works are read;  
How many would desire thy Fate to have,  
If they might live as thou dost in the grave,  
I that durst never Poetize before,  
Dare write these of thee though I writ no more.  
WILLIAM YEO.   

A Funeral Elegy.  
Been is deceased, and (by his loss) I fear  
A dearth will follow, good wit will be dear,  
What, is the Muse's treasury exhausted?  
Is Tempe's well, or Aganippe wasted,  
Or hath the Thespian springs no liquor left,  
Is Helicon of moisture quite bereft?  
Hath Phoebus (this hot Summer) drawn all dry,  
Is it so low an ebb in poetry?  
That all the wit that is professed by men,  
(Unfit to bear the Inkhorn after Ben)  
Are Barren now, now are their muses dumb,  
Or what stupidity doth them benumb,  
That no one hath the wit, the Art, the Skill,  
The opportunity, or the good will  
To write his Elegy, who once was such,  
That of his worth they cannot write too much?  
But sure there's many wits of high account,  
That able are, but have no mind to mount  
So high a pitch as his high worth requires,  
Whose lofty strains were of immortal fires.  
Their good wits may (ill) underdoe his fame,  
Their best wits cannot  the same.  
Then since the Muses, and Thessalian mountains  
Are barren, and the poor Pegasean fountains  
Are dry, yet noble Thames so fare excels  
Those Mounts, and Founts, and rare supposed Wells,  
That I her Poet, am emboldened here,  
To be Ben jonsons' artless Chanticleer.  
But as the purest gold unto the eye,  
Shines brightest, when course metal standeth nigh,  
So he (by me that am his foil or shade)  
Is more illustrated and brighter made.  
Miner vae's statue did most fair appear,  
When fowl Medusa's Image, did stand near.  
He was our Homer, Maro, and our Naso,  
Our Persius, Lucan, Petrarch, and our Tasso,  
He was to us for state or recreation,  
As those, or any Poet to his nation.  
His plays were labours, of Herculean peril,  
Which every wit applauded (but the Sterile)  
His works were plays to please a learned ear,  
And intricate to understand and Bear:  
His Masques expressed his judgement was not weak,  
In making Hills, rocks, stones and rivers speak,  
And like old Orpheus, risen from his trance,  
He oftentimes made Trees and Beasts to dance.  
His works were Art, his art was Sense and brain,  
His brain was his revenue, and his gain  
Was as a Poets should be, words and wind,  
Some good, some bad, as Censure was inclined.  
Many have read him, praised him and dispraised him,  
And (in their humours) cast him down or raised him,  
When some that in their judgements were too hot,  
Although they read him, understood him not,  
And sure 'twas more than he was bound to do,  
To find them wit and understanding too,  
Yet was he not self-willed, opinionate,  
Nor did he wiseman's censures underrate,  
But always with discretion would submit  
To better judgements, but when Monsieur Wit,  
(Shallow in Brain, more shallow in conceit)  
Arts Zany, and a Poets counterfeit,  
When such as those did screw their jaws awry,  
And mangle his inventions Scurvily,  
His scorn and slight contempt, was all their shares,  
Disdaining still to set his wit to theirs,  
Esteeming Sottish ignorance and pride  
Not worth his anger, he would such deride.  
Indeed his writings were so fare exceeding,  
That they were not for every common reading,  
Yet he wrote English, but 'twas fare refined,  
Beyond the apprehension of each Hind,  
He could not be (by ignorance) discerned,  
For whoso read Ben jonson, must be learned:  
His Cynthia's Revels, and his Poetaster  
(Pieces of Art) declares him his Art's Master:  
His Roman Catiline's conspiracy  
Describes much Learning Wit, and Industry.  
Rome's great Sejanus shows the pomp and Port  
Of Rome, the Senate, and Tiberius Court.  
His Fox, his Alchemist, his Silent-Woman,  
Are things uncapable to wit that's common:  
His plays of men's strange humours out, and in,  
Approved good applaudity did win,  
His Beggar's bush was written so acute,  
It angered envy, and struck Malice mute;  
These (in despite of mischievous detraction)  
Were his, and bravely were explained in action,  
By such experienced practised knowing men,  
Whose parallels will never act again.  
(For action is the body of good wit,  
And good invention is the Soul of it.  
His play of Barthol. Fair gave much delight  
To all, but such as understood not right,  
His Loadstone or Magnetic Lady failed him,  
For which detraction round about assailed him,  
Forgetting all he had wrote well before,  
Spreading abroad his errors much the more.  
Had each one in his own particular  
Known themselves men, and to be apt to err;  
They in their wit's possession, or reversion,  
Had never cast on him a bad Aspersion.  
But such men's muses have the Laske, I think,  
And must be casting Gall, or squirting Ink,  
Till Woodcocks have no Bills, nor Gudgeons gils,  
These hot Pendragonists will dart their quills  
As sharp as Bristles, shot from Porcupines,  
They shoot their venomous invective lines.  
These lines are intricate perhaps to some.  
But best of judgement know from whence they come.  
His Epigrams were witty, quick and acquaint,  
Which Vice or Virtue did in Colours paint,  
Wherein the bad were nipped, the good were praised;  
The Gull described, the fool and wise imblazed.  
A lying rumour up and down doth run,  
Reporting that he was a Bricklayers Son,  
Which if 'twere true were no disgrace or scorn,  
For famous Virgil in a ditch was borne,  
And many men of mean obscure degree,  
Have risen to the height of Sovereignty.  
But leaving those to prove report a liar,  
A reverend Preacher was Ben jonsons' Sire,  
Who finding his innated inclination  
To learned studies, gave him education,  
Being well initiated with his father,  
That he the rules of grammar 'gan to gather,  
He (in paternal love) most carefully,  
Sent him up to the university,  
Where nature mixed with art so fluent wrought  
That he learned faster than his tutor taught,  
And by his own industry he did gain  
More than his study ever could attain,  
For why, 'tis nature only makes a Poet,  
And he's a natural that will not know it.  
His Father left this mortal pilgrimage,  
And died when Ben was 17 years of age,  
And then 'twas noted, though his years were green,  
His wit was grave, like one of twice seventeen.  
His ingenuity was solid, Steady,  
Not rash, or flash, Dogmatic or heady.  
Thus in his Prime time, when his wit was prime,  
His mother chanced to match the second time,  
She changed her copy with more haste than speed,  
And married with a Bricklayer indeed.  
Then did his Father in law, (as most men) deem  
Of Learning in a beggarly esteem,  
That Arts, and Sciences were poor and bare,  
That Greek and Latin were despised ware.  
He therefore did command his Stepson Ben,  
From learned studies to come home again,  
Whom he would strait instruct in such a way,  
To work and live and thrive another day.  
Then was he forced to leave the Academic,  
And lay by Learning (that unvalued gem)  
Behold a Metamorphosis most strange,  
His Books were turned to Bricks, a sudden change,  
The like was never seen since the creation,  
Papers transformed to Stones, (a hard translation)  
He from his decent Scholars suit Nonsuited,  
His habit all with lime and sand polluted,  
His writing pen a Trowel, and his reading  
Was joining Brickbatts close, and mortar spreading.  
Thus was he made a Bricklayer 'gainst his will,  
And was exact in Geometric skill.  
Whereby he well knew Architectures grounds,  
In pedestals, in Angles, Squares, or Rounds,  
In Altitude, in Longitude, in Latitude,  
In Pulchritude, in Amplitude, and Magnitude,  
Yet though he to that trade was hard confined,  
He had more lofty study in his mind,  
Urania, Clio, sweet Terpsichore,  
Thalia, Calliope, Melpomene,  
Euterpe, and Erate, Polyhymnie,  
The thought of these o're-toped the highest Chimney,  
That e'er was built of Lime, or Brick, or Stone,  
These were the Sacred Nine he built upon;  
And they embraced his love, infused his brains,  
With heavenly raptures and transcendent strains,  
That by their influences, learned Ben,  
Laid by the Trowel, Bricks turned Books again.  
Since to the glory of great Britain's Isle,  
He those forenamed works did well compile,  
In mitable, pithy, so profound,  
That through all Christendom he is renowned.  
I may compare him to a candle right,  
That wastes himself in giving others light,  
The world blame not to dote, the cause of it  
Is, when she lost him, than she lost her wit.  
But though his corpse within his grave be penned,  
His works are his immortal Monument,  
They shall out wear Tombs made of Brass or Marble  
Till time shall end, his Muse shall sweetly warble.  
Alive, he was Arts Master in discourse,  
And Dead, his Writings are as much in force.  
there's some will prate, and talk more than they know,  
That the producements of his brain was slow.  
Such men of weighty writings do misdeem,  
'tis only number, highly they esteem,  
But let those know his lines were so compacted,  
Of much maturity of Wit extracted,  
So full of lofty and deep sounding sense,  
(Th'extraction of Apollo's quintessence)  
So grave, so learned, so acute, so pure,  
That though they termed him slow, he still was sure.  
He served two Kings, with good integrity,  
From whose free grace and liberality,  
He had a Royal pension, and true pay,  
Which still he spent before the quarter day.  
For he was no elose fisted usurer,  
No Mammon's man, no base extortioner,  
He loved not gold and silver, and almost,  
It loved him so, that still no love was lost,  
A Cup of Sack he loved, (or Aristippus)  
Which was to him as good as Aganippus,  
He had a Poet's kingdom in his mind,  
But in that Kingdom he could never find,  
One after that could yield him any crop,  
(For all his land was on Parnasus Top.)  
And sure that mountain is so barren now,  
That scarce a Bunch of Turnips there doth grow,  
Maecenas died, and few heirs behind,  
And Poets (like Chameleons) live by wind.  
And noble Ben, whilst thou on earth didst live,  
Thou my poor muse encouragement didst give,  
For which in humble duty to express,  
The manifesting of my thankfulness,  
In love to thee and to thy memory,  
I consecrate this poor penned Elegy,  
If ought be well writ here, 'tis not my muse,  
But 'tis thy Genius, that did me infuse,  
Whereby blind ignorance may know and see,  
He cannot want a Muse that writes of thee,  
Thou liv'dst hear sixty five years (〈…〉)  
Beloved, and well approved, in good men's praise,  
And at thy death, thy Faith such hold did lay,  
Upon thy Saviour which shall ne'er decay.  
Thy life was laudable, thy death was fair,  
Thy dust to dust, with honour did repair,  
To Westminster's Cathedral, where it lies,  
Till (wakened by the dreadful Trump) it rise,  
And repossess thy blessed immortal spirit,  
Where both (united) glory may inherit.  
Till then shall thy Effigies (carved in stone)  
Stand with learned Camden, and with Causabon,  
Where Chaucer (England's Homer) is interred,  
Where Spencer (our Arch-Poet) is preferred,  
And where the fare famed Draytons' bones do rest,  
There thy memorial hath a place possessed.   

Postscript.  
SOme few years since I made a foolish vow,  
That whilst Ben jonson I ved I would not row.  
Which Idle oath, I slothfully did keep,  
But now old Ben is in a lasting sleep,  
My vow is quit, and if I live once more,  
I'll dash and dabble with my scull or Care.  
For though it be a work, I'll boldly say,  
That (for the most part) 'tis a game or play,  
And whosoever plays, is sure to win  
More certain, than Gleek, Maw, or Inn and Inn.  
More gainful sweat, than can be won at Tennis,  
Or by a painted Courtesan of Venice.  
'Twill keep me pot-free, or I surely think,  
I more shall mind my meat, and less my drink.  
Thus when the weather's fair, I (now and then)  
Am well disposed to fall to work again.  
JOHN TAYLOR.