visit earth,
Plague, famine, fire, could not reach _unto_,
The sword, nor surfeits, let thy fury do.

Here are both the former faults: for, besides that the preposition
_unto_ is placed last in the verse, and at the half period, and is
redundant, there is the former synchysis in the words "the sword, nor
surfeits" which in construction ought to have been placed before the
other.

Catiline says of Cethegus, that for his sake he would

_Go on upon_ the gods, kiss lightning, wrest
The engine from the Cyclops, and _give fire
At face of a full cloud_, and stand _his ire_.

To "go on upon," is only to go on twice[4]. To "give fire at face of a
full cloud," was not understood in his own time; "and stand _his
ire_," besides the antiquated word _ire_, there is the article _his_,
which makes false construction: and giving fire at the face of a
cloud, is a perfect image of shooting, however it came to be known in
those days to Catiline.

--Others there are,
Whom envy to the state draws and pulls on,
For contumelies received; and such are sure _ones_.

_Ones_, in the plural number: but that is frequent with him; for he
says, not long after,

Caesar and Crassus, if they be ill men,
Are mighty _ones_.
Such men, _they_ do not succour more the cause, &c.

_They_ redundant.

Though heaven should speak with all _his_ wrath at once,
We should stand upright and _unfeared_.

_His_ is ill syntax with _heaven_; and by _unfeared_ he means
_unafraid_: Words of a quite contrary signification.

"The ports are open." He perpetually uses ports for gates; which is an
affected error in him, to introduce Latin by the loss of the English
idiom; as, in the translation of Tully's speeches, he usually does.

Well-placing of words, for the sweetness of pronunciation was not
known till Mr Waller introduced it; and, therefore, it is not to be
wondered if Ben Jonson has many such lines as these:

"But being bred up in his father's needy fortunes; brought up in's
sister's prostitution," &c.

But meanness of expression one would think not to be his error in a
tragedy, which ought to be more high and sounding than any other kind
of poetry; and yet, amongst others in "Catiline," I find these four
lines together:

So Asia, thou art cruelly even
With us, for all the blows thee given;
When we, whose virtues conquered thee,
Thus by thy vices ruined be.

_Be_ there is false English for _are_; though the rhym