From Mabbe, The Rogue, 'On the Author ...' | The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson

[From James Mabbe’s The Rogue, 1622 ]

Who tracks this author’s or translator’s pen

Shall find that either hath read books and men:

To say but one, were single. Then it chimes,

When the old words do strike on the new times,

As in this Spanish Proteus; who, though writ 5

But in one tongue, was formed with the world’s wit,

And hath the noblest mark of a good book,

That an ill man dares not securely look

Upon it, but will loathe or let it pass,

As a deformèd face doth a true glass. 10

Such books deserve translators of like coat

As was the genius wherewith they were wrote;

And this hath met that one, that may be styled

More than the foster-father of this child;

For though Spain gave him his first air and vogue, 15

He would be called, henceforth, the English Rogue,

But that he’s too well suited, in a cloth

Finer than was his Spanish, if my oath

Will be received in court; if not, would I

Had clothed him so. Here’s all I can supply 20

To your desert, who’ve done it, friend. And this

Fair emulation and no envy is,

When you behold me wish myself the man

That would have done that which you only can.