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. It is
certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, that the too
much license of poetasters in this time, hath much deformed
their mistress; that, every day, their manifold and manifest
ignorance doth stick unnatural reproaches upon her: but for
their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest injustice,
either to let the learned suffer, or so divine a skill (which
indeed should not be attempted with unclean hands) to fall
under the least contempt. For, if men will impartially, and
not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet,
they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of
any man's being the good poet, without first being a good man.
He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good