Ben Jonson

Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on.

Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on.

Cut
Men's throats with whisperings.

Cut
Men's throats with whisperings.

If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick.

If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick.

So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue,
And loud withal, that would not wag, not scarce
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So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue,
And loud withal, that would not wag, not scarce
Lie still without a fee.

This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had read more

This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life:
Oh, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass;
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.