Note 31 — THE MASQUE OF “TIME VINDICATED”[28]
Reading edition
It might be well here to quote the original words. Chronomastix, addressing Fame, delivers himself as follows:
“It is for you I revel so in rhyme, Dear Mistress, not for hope I have, the Time Will grow the better by it; to serve Fame Is all my end, and get myself a name.”
To which Fame answers:
“Away, I know thee not, wretched impostor, Creature of glory, mountebank of wit, Self-loving braggart, Fame doth sound no trumpet To such vain empty fools: ’tis Infamy Thou serv’st, and follow’st, scorn of all the Muses! Go revel with thine ignorant admirers, Let worthy names alone.”
Whereupon Chronomastix makes an appeal to his “ignorant admirers”:
“O you, the Curious, Breathe you to see a passage so injurious, Done with despight, and carried with such tumour ’Gainst me, that am so much the friend of rumour? I would say, Fame? Who with the lash of my immortal pen Have scourg’d all sorts of vices and of men. Am I rewarded thus? have I, I say, From Envy’s self-torn praise and bays away, With which my glorious front, and word at large, Triumphs in print at my admirers’ charge?
Whereat “Ears,” one of “The Curious,” exclaims:
Rare! how he talks in verse, just as he writes! [Ed.]