with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;
Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.
***
BEN JONSON'S PLAYS
VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX
BY
BEN JONSON
TO THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST EQUAL SISTERS,
THE TWO FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES,
FOR THEIR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE SHEWN TO HIS POEM IN THE
PRESENTATION,
BEN JONSON,
THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGER,
DEDICATES BOTH IT AND HIMSELF.
Never, most equal Sisters, had any man a wit so presently
excellent, as that it could raise itself; but there must come
both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers to it. If
this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily
prove it, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these
accidents; and, having acquired them, to preserve that part of
reputation most tenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is
also defended. Hence is it, that I now render myself grateful,
and am studious to justify the bounty of your act; to which,
though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an
age wherein poetry and the professors of it hear so ill on all
sides, there will a reason be looked for in the subject.
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