Able to talk of Euclid, and correct Both him and Archimede; damn Archytas, With mistook names, out of Vitruvius; 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. And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds; And goody Sculpture, brought with much ado Attire the persons, as no thought can teach He's warm on his feet, now, he says; and can 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 Sucked from the veins of shop-philosophy. 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? Under the moral, show he had a pate On the new priming of thy old sign-posts, A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board, 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, 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: 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, 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. |