Letter 17, to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle
Another letter
My noble and most honoured Lord,
I myself, being no substance, am fain to trouble you with shadows; or what is less,
an apologue, or fable in a dream. I, being strucken with the palsy in the year 1628,
had by Sir Thomas Badger some few months since a fox sent me for a present;
which creature, by handling, I endeavoured to make tame, as well for the abating 5
of my disease as the delight I took in speculation of his nature. It happened this
present year 1631, and this very week, being the week ushering Christmas, and
this Tuesday morning in a dream (and morning dreams are truest) to have one of
my servants come up to my bedside and tell me, ‘Master, master, the fox speaks.’
Whereat, methought, I started; and troubled, went down into the yard to witness 10
the wonder. There I found my Reynard, in his tenement, the tub I had hired for
him, cynically expressing his own lot, to be condemned to the house of a poet,
where nothing was to be seen but the bare walls, and not anything heard but
the noise of a saw, dividing billets all the week long, more to keep the family in
exercise than to comfort any person there with fire, save the paralytic master; and 15
went on in this way, as the fox seemed the better fabler of the two. I, his master,
began to give him good words, and stroke him; but Reynard, barking, told me
those would not do, I must give him meat. I, angry, called him stinking vermin.
He replied, ‘Look into your cellar, which is your larder, too; you’ll find a worse
vermin there.’ When presently, calling for a light, methought I went down and 20
found all the floor turned up, as if a colony of moles had been there, or an army of
saltpetre men. Whereupon I sent presently into Tuttle Street for the King’s most
excellent mole-catcher to relieve me, and hunt them. But he when he came and
viewed the place, and had well marked the earth turned up, took a handful, smelt
to it, and said: ‘Master, it is not in my power to destroy this vermin; the King, or 25
some good man of a noble nature must help you. This kind of mole is called a
want, which will destroy you and your family, if you prevent not the working of
it in time; and therefore, God keep you and send you health.’
The interpretation both of the fable and dream is that I, waking, do find want
the worst and most working vermin in a house; and therefore, My noble Lord 30
and (next the King) my best patron, I am necessitated to tell it you. I am not so
impudent to borrow any sum of Your Lordship, for I have no faculty to pay; but
my needs are such, and so urging, as I do beg what your bounty can give me, in
the name of good letters, and the bond of an ever-grateful and acknowledging
servant 35
To your honour,
B. Jonson