She builds in gold, and to the stars,
As if she threaten'd heav'n with wars;
And seeks for hell in quarries deep,
Giving the fiends, that there do keep,
A hope of day. Her women wear
The spoils of nations in an ear,
Changed for the treasure of a shell;
And in their loose attires do swell,

More light than sails, when all winds play:

Yet are the men more loose than they
More kemb'd, and bath'd, and rubb'd, and trimm'd,
More sleek, more soft, and slacker limb'd;

As prostitute; so much, that kind
May seek itself there, and not find.
They eat on beds of silk and gold,
At ivory tables, or wood sold
Dearer than it; and leaving plate,
Do drink in stone of higher rate.
They hunt all grounds, and draw all seas,
Fowl every brook and bush, to please
Their wanton taste; and in request
Have new and rare things, not the best.
Hence comes that wild and vast expense,
That hath enforced Rome's virtue thence,
Which simple poverty first made:
And now ambition doth invade
Her state, with eating avarice,
Riot, and every other vice.
Decrees are bought, and laws are sold,
Honours, and offices, for gold;
The people's voices, and the free
Tongues in the senate, bribed be:
Such ruin of her manners Rome
Doth suffer now, as she's become
(Without the gods it soon gainsay)
Both her own spoiler, and own prey.
So, Asia, art thou cru'lly even
With us, for all the blows thee given;
When we, whose virtue conquer'd thee,
Thus, by thy vices, ruin'd be.

FROM THE FIRST ACT

OF

Volpone; or, The For.

THE DEDICATION

OF

VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX.

TO THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST EQUAL SISTERS,
THE TWO FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES,

FOR THEIR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE SHEWN TO HIS POEM IN THE PRESENTATION;

BEN JONSON,

THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGER,

DEDICATES BOTH IT AND HIMSELF.

NEVER, most equal Sisters, had any man a wit so presently excellent, as that it could raise itself; but there must come both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers it. If this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily prove it, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these accidents; and, having acquired them, to preserve that part of reputation most tenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is also defended. Hence is it, that I now render myself grateful, and am studious to justify the bounty of your act; to which, though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an age wherein poetry and the professors of it hear so ill on all sides, there will a reason be looked for in the subject. It is certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, that the too much license of poetasters in this time, hath much deformed their mistress; that, every day, their manifold and manifest ignorance doth stick unnatural reproaches upon her: but for their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest injustice, either to let the learned suffer, or so divine a skill (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean hands) to fall under the least contempt. For, if men will impartially, and not asquint,

look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being the good poet, without first being a good man. He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength; that comes forth the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human, a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business of mankind: this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ignorance to exercise their railing rhetoric upon. But it will here be hastily answered, that the writers of these days are other things; that not only their manners, but their natures, are inverted, and nothing remaining with them of the dignity of poet, but the abused name, which every scribe usurps; that now, especially in dramatic, or, as they term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sorry I dare not, because in some men's abortive features (and would they had never boasted the light) it is over true: but that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell, is a most uncharitable thought, and, uttered, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene: and, howsoever I cannot escape from some, the imputation of sharpness, but that they will say, I have taken a pride, or lust, to be bitter, and not my youngest infant but hath come into the world with all his teeth; I would ask of these supercilious politics, what nation, society, or general order or state, I have provoked? What public person? Whether I have not in all these preserved their dignity, as mine own person, safe? My works are read, allowed, (I speak of those that are intirely mine), look into them, what broad reproofs have I used? where have I been particular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease? But it is not rumour can make men guilty, much less entitle me to other men's crimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ or carried, but may be made obnoxious to construction; marry, whilst I bear mine innocence about me, I fear it not. Application is now grown a trade with many; and