TO THE MOST LEARNED, AND MY HONOURED FRIEND,
Master Camden, CLARENTIAUX.
SIR, There are, no doubt, a supercilious race in the world, who will esteem all
office done you in this kind an injury, so solemn a vice it is with them to use the
authority of their ignorance to the crying down of poetry, or
the professors; but my gratitude must not leave to correct their error, since I am none
of those that can suffer the benefits conferred upon my youth to perish with my age. It
is a frail memory that remembers but present things; and, had the favour of the times
so conspired with my disposition as it could have brought forth other, or better, you
had had the same proportion and number of the fruits, the first. Now, I pray you to
accept this: such, wherein neither the confession of my manners shall make you blush;
nor of my studies, repent you to have been the instructor. And, for the profession of
my thankfulness, I am sure it will, with good men, find either praise, or excuse.
Your true lover,
BEN. JONSON.
