The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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  • Letter 3, to Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury (1605)

Letter 3, to Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury (1605)

 Letter 3, to Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury

(See also Introduction: Letters from Prison by Jonson and Chapman)

To the most nobly-virtuous and thrice-honoured  Earl of Salisbury


 Most truly honourable,

It hath still been the tyranny of my fortune so to oppress my endeavours that,

before I can show myself grateful in the least for  former benefits, I am enforced to

 provoke your bounties for more. May it not seem grievous to your lordship that 5

now my innocence calls upon you, next  the deity, to her defence. God himself

 is not averted at just men’s cries; and you, that approach that divine goodness,

and supply it here on earth in your place and honours, cannot employ your aids

more worthily than to the common succour of honesty and virtue, how humbly

soever it be placed. I am here, my most honoured lord, unexamined or unheard, 10

committed to a vile prison; and, with me, a gentleman, whose name may perhaps

have come to your lordship: one Master George Chapman, a  learned and honest

man. The cause – would I could name some worthier, though I wish we had

known none  worthy our imprisonment –  is a ( the word irks me, that our fortune

hath  necessitated us to  so despised a course) a play, my lord; whereof we hope 15

there is no man can justly complain that hath the virtue  to think but favourably

of himself, if our judge bring an  equal ear; marry, if with prejudice we be made

guilty, afore our time, we must embrace the  asinine virtue, patience.

 My noble lord, they deal not charitably  who are too  witty in another man’s

works, and utter sometimes their own malicious meanings under our words. I 20

protest to Your Honour, and call  God to testimony – since my  first error, which

yet is punished in me more with my shame than it  was with my bondage – I have

so  attempered my style that I have given no cause to any good man of grief; and

if to any ill,  by touching at  any general vice, it hath always been with a regard,

and sparing of  particular persons. I may be otherwise reported, but if all that be 25

accused should be presently guilty, there are few men would stand in the state of

innocence.

I beseech your  most honourable lordship, suffer not other men’s errors or

faults past  to be my crimes, but let me be examined, both by all my works past

and this present,  and not trust to  rumour, but my books (for  she is an unjust 30

deliverer both of great and small actions) whether I have  ever, in  anything I have

 written, private or public, given offence to a  nation, to any public order or state,

or any person of honour or authority, but have  equally laboured to keep their

dignity, as mine own person, safe.  If others have transgressed, let not me be

 entitled to their follies. But lest in being too diligent for my excuse I may incur 35

the suspicion of being guilty, I become a most humble suitor to your lordship

 that with the honourable  Lord Chamberlain (to whom I have in like manner

petitioned) you will be pleased to be the grateful means of our coming to answer;

or if in your wisdoms it shall be thought unnecessary that  your lordship will be

the most honoured cause of our liberty, where freeing us from one prison you 40

shall remove us to another: which is eternally to bind us and our muses to the

 thankful honouring of you and yours to posterity; as your own virtues have, by

 many descents of ancestors, ennobled you to time.

 Your Honour’s most devoted,

in heart as words, 45

Ben Jonson

Letter 3 Copy-text: Cecil Papers, Hatfield (HMC Salisbury, 17.605–6), endorsed ‘1605 Ben Jonson to my Lord’. Folger MS.V.a.321, fol. 90v (‘Folger’), is an earlier draft of the same letter. [Editor: Ian Donaldson]
1 Earl of Salisbury Robert Cecil (1563–1612) was knighted and elevated to the Privy Council by Elizabeth in 1591. Having helped to secure James’s succession to the throne, he rapidly became the most powerful and trusted of the new king’s advisers, working closely at times with Suffolk and Northampton: the ‘trinity of knaves’, as James affectionately termed them (Akrigg, 1984, 257). By 1605 Salisbury had been ‘thrice-honoured’ (line 1) by James, who had created him Baron Cecil in 1603, Viscount Cranborne in 1604, and first Earl of Salisbury on 4 May 1605. Later in 1605 Salisbury was to lead the commission investigating the Gunpowder Plot, and to call on Jonson’s services in securing information about the conspiracy (Life of Ben Jonson, Electronic Edition, Life Records, 29; Letter 9 and headnote). Jonson subsequently wrote several entertainments for Salisbury, including Theobalds (1607) and Britain’s Burse (1609), and addressed a number of epigrams to him (Epigr. 43, 63, 64). Relations between the two men may not always have been easy (as Epigr. 66 and Informations 243 and 274 seem to imply). See Sutton (2000).
2 Most truly honourable,] My honorable lord./ Folger
4 former benefits Cecil had been one of the Privy Councillors who sat in judgement on Dogs in 1597; Jonson implies he had been instrumental in securing his release on that occasion.
5 provoke your bounties seek your favours. See OED, Provoke I.†1.
6 the deity] a Deitie Folger
7 is not averted at does not turn away from. Cf. 2 Chronicles, 30.9: ‘for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye convert unto him’ (Geneva Bible).
12 learned and honest] honest, and learned Folger
14 worthy our] worthy of our Folger
14 is a (the] is (the Folger
14–15 the word . . . play Jonson generally preferred to call his own dramatic works ‘poems’, not ‘plays’. In relation to this ill-fated piece, the work of several hands, he grudgingly concedes that ‘play’ may for once be the appropriate term. He uses the word again in Letter 5.8.
15 necessitated] enforst Folger
15 so despised a] such a despisde Folger
16–17 to think . . . himself Echoing Martial’s preface to Bk 1 of his Epigrams: ‘Spero me secutum in libellis meis tale temperamentum ut de illis queri non possit quisquis de se bene senserit’ (‘I trust that I have followed in my little books such a mean that none who thinks well of himself can complain of them’). Cf. Bart. Fair, Ind. 62–3 (‘provided they have either the wit or the honesty to think well of themselves’), and Poet., Apol. Dial. 131–2 (‘Had they but had the wit or conscience / To think well of themselves’).
17 equal just, impartial (Lat. aequus; OED, †5).
18 asinine virtue The ass being traditionally associated with patience: cf. Poet. 5.3.82–3n.; R2, 5.4.93.
19–20 My noble . . . words Again remembering Martial’s preface to his Epigrams, Bk 1: ‘absit a iocorum nostrorum simplicitate malignus intepres nec epigrammata mea scribat: inprobe facit qui in alieno libro ingeniosus est’ (‘May the frankness of my jests find no malicious interpreter, and no such man rewrite my epigrams: it is a shameless business when anyone exercises his ingenuity on another man’s book’).
19 who] that Folger
19 witty crafty, cunning (OED, 2†b).
21 God to] God for Folger
21 first error i.e. in relation to Dogs.
22 was] was then Folger
23 attempered moderated, controlled.
24–5 by touching . . . persons Jonson characteristically insists that his satire is general and not aimed at individuals (cf. Volp. Epistle, 49–53, Epigr. Dedn. 12–21), following classical precedent: cf. Juvenal, Sat. 1. 147ff., Martial, 10.33.10.
24 any general] his Folger
25 particular persons] his person Folger
28 most honourable] om. Folger
29 to be] to be made Folger
30–1 and not . . . actions] om. Folger
30 rumour The repeated use of this word throughout the correspondence (cf. Letter 4.10, Letter 5.11–12), suggests either that the offending work has not yet been published, or that allegations have been made about some piece of improvisation by actors or other stage business that cannot easily be substantiated.
30 she Fama (= rumour) is a feminine noun in Lat., and is personified as a female creature in, e.g., Aeneid, 4.173–97, where she spreads false gossip about Dido and Aeneas. Jonson’s reference to ‘great and small actions’ deftly places his own, apparently trivial, case alongside such well-known classical moments.
31–2 ever . . . given] euer hetherto giuen Folger
31–2 anything . . . written It is possible that the offence given by Dogs, like that arising from Eastward Ho!, was attributable in part to the behaviour of the actors. Jonson stresses the innocence of what he himself has actually written. The poised comment, ‘If others have transgressed’ (34), could refer to the actors, or to Jonson’s co-authors, or even conceivably to his accusers.
32 written . . . any] written to a Nation, to a Folger
32 nation group or community (not necessarily an entire country).
33 equally] om. Folger
34–5 If . . . follies,] om. Folger
35 entitled to made responsible for.
37–8 that . . . answer] that you will be the meanes wth the ho: Earle of Suffolke, we may come to our answere Folger
37 Lord Chamberlain Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk; see Letter 2, headnote.
39 Your Lordship] you Folger
42 thankful] gratefull Folger
43 many . . . ancestors Jonson means that the family has ennobled itself by cultivating virtue over many generations (cf. ‘’Tis virtue alone is true nobility’, Und. 84.8.12, and Letter 2.19 and n.), though his adroit phrase might be thought to imply that the family also possessed an ancient title. This was not the case. Though Elizabeth had elevated Robert Cecil’s father, William (her Lord Treasurer) to the peerage as Lord Burghley, the family background was humble: William’s grandfather David was the younger son of a poor Welsh squire.
44–6 ] om. Folger