The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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  • To My Detractor J[ohn] E[liot] (1632)

To My Detractor J[ohn] E[liot] (1632)

 To My Detractor J[ohn] E[liot]

My verses were commended, thou  dar’st say,

And they were very good; yet thou think’st nay.

For thou objectest (as  thou hast been told)

Th’envied return of forty pound in gold.

Fool, do  not  rate my  rhymes;  I’ve found thy vice 5

Is to make cheap the lord, the lines, the price.

But  bawl thou on; I pity thee, poor cur.

That  thou hast lost thy noise, thy foam, thy  stir,

To be known what thou art,  a  blatant beast,

 By barking against me.  Thou look’st at least 10

I now would write on thee? No, wretch; thy name

 Shall not work out unto it such a fame.

 Thou art not worth it. Who will care to know

If such a  tyke as thou e’er wert, or no?

A mongrel cur? Thou shouldst stink forth and die 15

Nameless,  and noisome as thy infamy!

No man will tarry by thee, as he goes

To ask thy name, if he have half  his nose,

But fly thee like the  pest! Walk not the street

Out in the  dog-days, lest the  killer meet 20

Thy  noddle with his club, and dashing forth

Thy dirty brains, men  smell thy  want of worth.

To My Detractor First printed in Benson. For the exchange in c. 1631 that provoked this retort, see Und. 77 headnote. Eliot also objected to Jonson’s petition for his tierce of wine; see Und. 68 headnote. It is not known which of the half a dozen or so John Eliots who matriculated at Oxford and Cambridge in the relevant period is the object of this attack. His epigram ‘humbly presented to his Majesty upon release of a prisoner that was committed for making libellous verses’ (Eliot, Poems, 23) indicates that he was once imprisoned for libel. He claims friendship with Endymion Porter, William Davenant, and Zouch Townley, and enjoyed the patronage of the second, and probably also the first, Marchioness of Winchester, as well as Viscount Tunbridge. Despite attacking Jonson, Eliot freely imitated his poems: a piece composed as a New Year’s gift to the Marchioness of Winchester (Eliot, Poems, 5–6) imitates both Forest 12 and Und. 77, and subsequent poems frequently imitate Jonson’s Epigrams. [Editor: Colin Burrow]
1 dar’st] JnB 501; didst BensonQ, Benson12mo.; dost JnB 502
3 thou hast] JnB 501; I haue JnB 502
5 not] JnB 501 (inserted in a later hand)
5 rate set the fine for (OED, v.2 †1a); with a pun on v.2 ‘chide, reprehend’.
5 rhymes] JnB 501; lines JnB 502
5 I’ve] JnB 501 (I’haue); I haue BensonQ, Benson12mo.
7 bawl] JnB 501; bark BensonQ, Benson12mo. subst.
8 thou hast lost] JnB 501; thou shouldst lose BensonQ, Benson12mo.; shouldest loose JnB 502
8 stir blundering tumult.
9 a] JnB 501; thou BensonQ, Benson12mo.; yee JnB 502
9 blatant beast An allegorical representation of slander and detraction in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Book 6. The name is probably a hybrid derivation from Latin blatero (to babble in vain) and Greek βλάπτω (damage, hurt). Cf. Informations, 178, where Jonson associates the Blatant Beast with puritanism.
10 By . . . look’st] JnB 501; But writing against me, thou thinkst BensonQ, Benson12mo., JnB 502 subst.
10 Thou look’st You hope.
12 Shall not] JnB 501; Cannot BensonQ, Benson12mo., JnB 502
13–16 not in BensonQ, Benson12mo.
14 tyke cur.
16 and] JnB 501; any JnB 502
18 his] JnB 501; a BensonQ, Benson12mo.
19 pest plague.
20 dog-days Late July to mid-Aug., the hottest part of the year, during the heliacal rising of Sirius, the dog star, and during which dogs were thought to be likely to run mad.
20 killer Presumably ‘dog-killer’. A dog whipper was certainly employed to drive dogs out of St Paul’s.
21 noddle head. (Contemptuous.)
22 smell] JnB 501; see BensonQ, Benson12mo., JnB 502
22 want of] JnB 501; little JnB 502