Able to talk of Euclid, and correct

Both him and Archimede; damn Archytas,
The noblest engineer that ever was:
Control Ctesibius, overbearing us

With mistook names, out of Vitruvius;
Drawn Aristotle on us, and thence shown
How much Architectonice is your own;
Whether the building of the stage, or scene,
Or making of the properties it mean,
Vizors, or antics; or it comprehend
Something your sir-ship doth not yet intend.
By all your titles, and whole style at once,
Of tireman, mountebank, and Justice Jones,
I do salute you are you fitted yet?

37

Will any of these express your place, or wit? Or are you so ambitious 'bove your peers, You'd be an Assinigo by your ears?

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?

Inigo Jones, which immediately follow, were first printed by Whalley from copies in the possession of Vertue. — B. That some part of this may have proceeded from Jonson, I am not prepared to question; but it has assuredly been much corrupted or interpolated. The fifth line could not be written by our poet, who was much too good a judge of accent to give this for a verse.-G.

87 A contemptuous title, as if Jones had taken a tirewoman's part.

Your trappings will not change you, change

your mind;

No velvet suit you wear will alter kind.
A wooden dagger is a dagger of wood,
Nor gold, nor ivory haft can make it good.
What is the cause you pomp it so, I ask?
And all men echo, you have made a masque.
I chime that too, and I have met with those
That do cry up the machine, and the shows;
The majesty of Juno in the clouds,

And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds;
The ascent of lady Fame, which none could spy,
Not they that sided her, dame Poetry,
Dame History, dame Architecture too,

And goody Sculpture, brought with much ado
To hold her up: O shows, shows, mighty shows!
The eloquence of masques! what need of prose
Or verse, or prose, t' express immortal you?
You are the spectacles of state, 'tis true,
Court-hieroglyphics, and all arts afford,
In the mere perspective of an inch-board;
You ask no more than certain politic eyes,
Eyes that can pierce into the mysteries
Of many colors, read them, and reveal
Mythology, there painted on slit deal.
Or to make boards to speak! there is a task!
Painting and carpentry are the soul of masque.
Pack with your peddling poetry to the stage,
This is the money-got, mechanic age.
To plant the music where no ear can reach,

Attire the persons, as no thought can teach
Sense, what they are; which by a specious, fine
Term of [you] Architects, is called Design;
But in the practised truth, destruction is
Of any art, besides what he calls his.
Whither, O whither will this tireman grow?
His name is Σχηνοποιος, we all know,
The maker of the properties; in sum,
The scene, the engine; but he now is come
To be the music-master; tabler too;
He is, or would be, the main Dominus Do-
All of the work, and so shall still for Ben,
Be Inigo, the whistle, and his men.

He's warm on his feet, now, he says; and can
Swim without cork: why, thank the good Queen
Anne.38

I am too fat to envy, he too lean

To be worth envy; henceforth I do mean

To pity him, as smiling at his feat

39

Of lantern-lerry, with fuliginous heat
Whirling his whimsies, by a subtilty

Sucked from the veins of shop-philosophy.
What would he do now, giving his mind that

way,

In presentation of some puppet-play,

Should but the king his justice-hood employ,

38 Consort to James I., who appointed Jones to be her architect. W.

39 A term either coined or applied by Jonson to Inigo Jones. It seems to mean some trick of producing artificial light.

NARES.

In setting forth of such a solemn toy?
How would he firk, like Adam Overdo,40
Up and about; dive into cellars too,
Disguised, and thence drag forth Enormity,
Discover Vice, commit Absurdity;

Under the moral, show he had a pate
Moulded or stroked up to survey a state!
O wise surveyor, wiser architect,
But wisest Inigo; who can reflect

On the new priming of thy old sign-posts,
Reviving with fresh colors the pale ghosts
Of thy dead standards; or with marvel see
Thy twice conceived, thrice paid for imagery,
And not fall down before it, and confess
Almighty Architecture, who no less

A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board,
Vermilion, lake or crimson can afford
Expression for; with that unbounded line,
Aimed at in thy omnipotent design!

What poesy e'er was painted on a wall,

That might compare with thee? what story shall

Of all the worthies, hope t' outlast thy own,

So the materials be of Purbeck stone?

Live long the feasting room! and ere thou burn Again, thy architect to ashes turn;

Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament, can, With all remonstrance," make an honest man.

40 A character in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair.

41 Jones, by some arbitrary proceedings, had subjected

TO A FRIEND.

AN EPIGRAM OF INIGO JONES.

Sir Inigo doth fear it, as I hear,

And labors to seem worthy of this fear,
That I should write upon him some sharp

verse,

Able to eat into his bones, and pierce

The marrow. Wretch! I quit thee of thy pain,

Thou'rt too ambitious, and dost fear in vain:
The Libyan lion hunts no butterflies;

He makes the camel and dull ass his prize.

If thou be so desirous to be read,

Seek out some hungry painter, that, for bread,
With rotten chalk or coal, upon the wall,
Will well design thee to be viewed of all
That sit upon the common draught or strand;
Thy forehead is too narrow for my brand.

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.-W. 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.-G.