SS NOBLE BY VIRTUE THAN BLOOD

ESME LORD AUBIGNY

My LORD,-If ever any ruin were so great as to survive, I think this
be one I send you, The Fall of Sejanus. It is a poem, that, if I
well remember, in your lordship's sight, suffered no less violence
from our people here, than the subject of it did from the rage of
the people of Rome; but with a different fate, as, I hope, merit:
for this hath outlived their malice, and begot itself a greater
favour than he lost, the love of good men. Amongst whom, if I make
your lordship the first it thanks, it is not without a just,
confession of the bond your benefits have, and ever shall hold upon
me,

Your lordship's most faithful honourer. BEN JONSON.

TO THE READERS

THE following and voluntary labours of my friends, prefixed to my
book, have relieved me in much whereat, without them, I should
necessarily have touched. Now I will only use three or four short
and needful notes, and so rest.

First, if it be objected, that what I publish is no true poem, in
the strict laws of time, I confess it: as also in the want of a
proper chorus; whose habit and moods are such and so difficult, as
not any, whom I have seen, since the ancients, no, not they who
have most presently affected laws, have yet come in the way of. Nor
is it needful, or almost possible in these our times, and to such
auditors as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state
and splendour of dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular
delight. But of this I shall take more seasonable cause to speak,
in my observations upon Horace his Art of Poetry, which, with the
text translated, I intend shortly to publish. In the mean time, if
in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of
elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence, I have discharged the
other offices of a tragic writer, let not the absence of these
forms be imputed to me, wherein I shall give you occasion
hereafter, and without my boast, to think I could better prescribe,
than omit the due use for want of a convenient knowledge.

The next is, lest in some nice nostril the quotations might savour
affected, I do let you know, that I abhor nothing more; and I have
only done it to shew my integrity in the story, and save myself in
those common torturers that bring all wit to the rack; whose noses
are ever like swine, spoiling and rooting up the Muses' gardens;
and their whole bodies like moles, as bl