[continued from previous message]
against men they love not: and hold their deare Mountebanke, or
Jester, in farre better condition, then all the studie, or studiers of
humanitie? For such, I would rather know them by their visards, still,
then they should publish their faces, at their perill, in my Theater,
where CATO, if he liv'd, might enter without scandall.
Your Lo: most faithfull honorer,
Ben. Jonson
**********************************************
Look with our understanding and not our senses - Jonson
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a SIGHT it were
To SEE thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did TAKE Eliza, and our James!
**********************************************
In the pen of a Puritan, ‘Grotesco’ denoted ‘fantastic’ and suggested supersitious, ignorant, pedantic, and priestly, all attributes of the King’s university men. On the Royalist side, ‘Grottesco’ (a motley creature) was used
metaphorically for the Puritan state. (...) Cleveland’s use of Grottesco’ had distinct affiliations with the sphere of art adn farce literature where pibald and motley garments were worn by the clowns and Jack Puddings of the piece. D’Avenant’s
and Browne’s uses of ‘groteque’ show that the word was still closely associated with fantastical pictorial phenomena, and while Hall’s metaphor betrays no direct kinship with the arts, he seems to have derived it from Browne and extended it to
the popular character of farce and legend, Will o’ the Wisp”, the English Harlequin.
**********************************
Cynthia’s Revels
Crites: What ridiculous Circumstance might I devise
now, to bestow this reciprocal brace of Butter-flies one
upon another?
Amorphus/Oxford. Since I trode on this side the Alpes, I was not
so frozen in my Invention. Let me see: to accost him
with some choice remnant of Spanish, or Italian? that
would indifferently express my languages now: mar-
ry then, if he should fall out to be ignorant, it were
both hard and harsh. How else? step into some ra-
gioni del stato, and so make my induction? that were
above him too; and out of his Element, I fear. Feign
to have seen him in Venice or Padua? or some face neer
his in similitude? 'tis too pointed, and open. No, it
must be a more quaint, and collateral device. As —
stay: to frame some encomiastick Speech upon this our
Metropolis, or the wise Magistrates thereof, in which
politick number, 'tis odds, but his Father fill'd up a
Room? descend into a particular admiration of their
Justice, for the due measuring of Coals, burning of
Cans, and such like? as also Religion, in pulling
down a superstitious Cross, and advancing a Venus, or
Priapus, in place of it? ha? 'twill do well. Or to talk
of some Hospital, whose Walls record his Father a
Benefactor? or of so many Buckets bestow'd on his
Parish-church, in his life time, with his name at length
(for want of Arms) trickt upon them? Any of these?
Or to praise the cleanness of the Street, wherein he
dwelt? or the provident painting of his Posts against he
should have been Prætor? Or (leaving his Parent) come
to some special Ornament about himself, as his Rapier,
or some other of his Accoutrements? I have it: Thanks,
gracious Minerva..
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)