The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

Jonson a better playwright than epigram-writer - 1615

Literary Record 20

[From R. C., The Times Whistle ]

An epigram entitled Scribimus indocti doctique epigrammata passim   in a collection made by R. C., Gent and titled The Times Whistle, or a newe Daunce of Seven Satires, whereunto are annexed divers other poems comprising things naturall, morall, and theologicall , preserved in a manuscript in Canterbury Cathedral Library (Literary Manuscript D10). J.M. Couper, in the introduction to his edition of the manuscript (1871, x-xiii) suggests a date of 1615 for the collection . The present poem apparently refers to a printed version of Jonson's epigrams ('his booke', line 3), and to the dedication to them which appears in the 1616 folio (if the 'Cato' of line 9 is an allusion to Jonson's boast in his dedication of the Epigrams in the Folio that their 'Theater' is so far from scurrility that 'CATO, if he liv'd, might enter without scandall'). This would suggest that the writer had seen the 1616 volume, though it is possible there was an earlier separate printed version or MS of the epigrams (discussed in Colin Burrow's introduction to the Epigrams and Textual Essay). The reference to a pamphlet suggests such a publication, rather than the imposing folio of 1616.

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Johnson, they say, 's turnd Epigrammatist
Soe think not I, believe it they that list.
Peruse his booke, thou shalt not find a dram
Of witt, befitting a true Epigram.
Perhaps some scraps of play-bookes thou maist see,
Collected heer & there confusedlie,
Which piece his broken stuffe, if thou but note,
Just like soe many patches on a cote.
And yet his intret Cato stads [sic] before,
Even at the portall of his pamphlets dore,
As who should say, this booke is fit for none,
But Catoes, learned men to looke upon:
Or else, let Cato censure if he will,
My booke deserves the best of judgement skill.
When every gull may see his booke's untwitten,
And Epigrams as bad as ere were written.
Johnson this worke thy other doth distaine,
And makes the world imagine that thy vein
Is not true bred, but of some bastard race,
Then write no more, or write with better grace,
Turne thee to plaies & therin write thy fill,
Leave Epigrams to artists of more skill.

(fol. 91r)

Skilled or unskilled, we scribble poetry, all alike ( Horace, Epistles 2.1.117)