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JONSON

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 507 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JONSON  , See also:

BEN' (1573-1637), See also:English dramatist, was See also:born, probably in See also:Westminster, in the beginning of the See also:year 1573 (or possibly, if he reckoned by the unadopted See also:modern See also:calendar, 1572; see Castelain, p . 4, See also:note 1) . By the poet's See also:account his grandfather had been a See also:gentleman who "came from" See also:Carlisle, and originally, the See also:grandson thought, from Annandale . His arms, " three spindles or rhombi," are the See also:family See also:device of the Johnstones of Annandale, a _fact which confirms his assertion of Border descent . Ben Jonson further related that he was born a See also:month after the See also:death of his See also:father, who, after suffering in See also:estate and See also:person under See also:Queen See also:Mary, had in the end " turned See also:minister." Two years after the See also:birth of her son the widow married again; she may be supposed to have loved him in a passionate way See also:peculiar to herself, since on one occasion we find her revealing an almost ferocious determination to See also:save his See also:honour at the cost of both his See also:life and her own . Jonson's stepfather was a See also:master bricklayer, living in See also:Hartshorn See also:Lane, near Charing See also:Cross, who provided his stepson with the See also:foundations of a See also:good See also:education . After attending a private school in St See also:Martin's Lane, the boy was sent to Westminster School at the expense, it is said, of See also:William See also:Camden . Jonson's gratitude for an education to which in truth he owed an almost inestimable See also:debt concentrated itself upon the " most See also:reverend See also:head " of his benefactor, then second and afterwards head master of the famous school, and the See also:firm friend of his See also:pupil in later life . After reaching the highest See also:form at Westminster, Jonson is stated, but on unsatisfactory See also:evidence, to have proceeded to See also:Cambridge—according to See also:Fuller, to St See also:John's See also:College . (For reasons in support of the tradition that he was a member of St John's College, see J . B . Mullinger, the See also:Eagle, No. See also:xxv.) He says, however, himself that he studied at neither university, but was put to a See also:trade immediately on leaving school .

He soon had enough of the trade, which was no doubt his father's bricklaying, for See also:

Henslowe in See also:writing to See also:Edward Alleyne of his affair with See also:Gabriel See also:Spenser calls him " bergemen [sic] Jonson, bricklayer." Either before or after his See also:marriage—more probably before, as See also:Sir See also:Francis See also:Vere's three English regiments were not removed from the See also:Low Countries till 1592—he spent some See also:time in that See also:country soldiering, much to his own subsequent See also:satisfaction when the days of self-conscious retrospect arrived, but to no further purpose beyond that of seeing something of the See also:world . Ben Jonson married not later than 1592 . The registers of St Martin's See also:Church See also:state that his eldest daughter Maria died in See also:November 1593 when she was, Jonson tells us (See also:epigram 22), only six months old . His eldest son See also:Benjamin died of the See also:plague 1 His See also:Christian name of Benjamin was usually abbreviated by himself and his contemporaries; and thus, in accordance with his famous See also:epitaph, it will always continue to be abbreviated.ten years later (epigram 45) . (A younger Benjamin died in 1635.) His wife Jonson characterized to See also:Drummond as "a See also:shrew, but honest "; and for a See also:period (undated) of five years he preferred to live without her, enjoying the hospitality of See also:Lord Aubigny (afterwards See also:duke of See also:Lennox) . See also:Long burnings of oil among his books, and long spells of recreation at the See also:tavern, such as Jonson loved, are not the most favoured accompaniments of family life . But Jonson was no stranger to the tenderest of affections: two at least of the several See also:children whom his wife See also:bore to him he commemorated in touching little tributes of See also:verse; nor in speaking of his lost eldest daughter did he forget " her See also:mother's tears." By the See also:middle of 1597 we come across further documentary evidence of him at See also:home in See also:London in the shape of an entry in See also:Philip Henslowe's See also:diary (See also:July 28) of 3S . 6d . " received of Bengemenes Johnsones See also:share." He was therefore by this time— when See also:Shakespeare, his See also:senior by nearly nine years, was already in prosperous circumstances and good esteem— at least a See also:regular member of the acting profession, with a fixed engagement in the lord See also:admiral's See also:company, then performing under Henslowe's management at the See also:Rose . Perhaps he had previously acted at the See also:Curtain (a former See also:house of the lord admiral's men), and " taken mad Jeronimo's See also:part " on a See also:play-See also:wagon in the high-way . This latter See also:appearance, if it ever took See also:place, would, as was pointed out by See also:Gifford, probably have been in See also:Thomas See also:Kyd's See also:Spanish Tragedy, since in The First Part of Jeronimo Jonson would have had, most inappropriately, to dwell on the " smallness " of his " bulk." He was at a subsequent date (1601) employed by Henslowe to write up The Spanish Tragedy, and this fact may have given rise to See also:Wood's See also:story of his performance as a stroller (see, however, Fleay, The English See also:Drama, ii . 29, 30) .

Jonson's additions, which were not the first changes made in the, play, are usually supposed to be those printed with The Spanish Tragedy in the edition of 1602; See also:

Charles See also:Lamb's doubts on the subject, which were shared by See also:Coleridge, seem an instance of that subjective See also:kind of See also:criticism which it is unsafe to follow when the See also:external evidence to the contrary is so strong . According to See also:Aubrey, whose statement must be taken for what it is See also:worth, " Jonson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor." His physique was certainly not well adapted to the histrionic conditions of his—perhaps of any—See also:day; but, in any See also:case, it was not long before he found his place in the organism of his company . In 1597, as we know from Henslowe, Jonson undertook to write a play for the lord admiral's men; and in the following year he was mentioned by See also:Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of " the best for tragedy," without any reference to a connexion on his part with the other See also:branch of the drama . Whether this was a criticism based on material evidence or an unconscious slip, Ben Jonson in the same year 1598 produced one of the most famous of English comedies, Every See also:Man in his See also:Humour, which was first acted—probably in the earlier part of See also:September—by the lord See also:chamberlain's company at the Curtain . Shakespeare was one of the actors in Jonson's See also:comedy, and it is in the See also:character of Old Knowell in this very play that, according to a bold but ingenious guess, he is represented in the See also:half-length portrait of him in the See also:folio of 1623, beneath which were printed Jonson's lines concerning the picture . Every Man in his Humour was published in 16o1; the See also:critical See also:prologue first appears in the folio of 1616, and there are other divergences (see Castelain, appendix A) . After the Restoration the play was revived in 1751 by See also:Garrick (who acted Kitely) with alterations, and long continued to be known on the See also:stage . It was followed in the same year by The Case is Altered, acted by the children of the queen's See also:revels, which contains a satirical. attack upon the See also:pageant poet, See also:Anthony See also:Munday . This comedy, which was not included in the folio See also:editions, is one of intrigue rather than of character; it contains obvious reminiscences of Shylock and his daughter . The earlier of these two comedies was indisputably successful . Before the year 1598 was out, however, Jonson found himself in See also:prison and in danger of the gallows . In a See also:duel, fought on the 22nd of September in Hogsden See also:Fields, he had killed an actor of Henslowe's company named Gabriel Spenser .

The See also:

quarrel with Henslowe consequent on this event may account for the produc- Either on its performance or on its appearing in See also:print in 16o5 tion of Every Man in his Humour by the See also:rival company . In prison Jonson was visited by a See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:priest, and the result (certainly See also:strange, if Jonson's parentage is considered) was his See also:conversion to the Church of See also:Rome, to which he adhered for twelve years . Jonson was afterwards a diligent student of divinity; but, though his mind was religious, it is not probable that its natural See also:bias much inclined it to dwell upon See also:creeds and their controversies . He pleaded guilty to the See also:charge brought against him, as the rolls of See also:Middlesex sessions show; but, after a See also:short imprisonment, he was released by benefit of See also:clergy, forfeiting his " goods and chattels," and being branded on his See also:left thumb . The affair does not seem to have affected his reputation; in 1599 he is found back again at See also:work for Henslowe, receiving together with See also:Dekker, See also:Chettle and " another gentleman," See also:earnest-See also:money for a tragedy (undiscovered) called See also:Robert II., See also:King of Scots . In the same year he brought out through the lord chamberlain's company (possibly already at the Globe, then newly built or See also:building) the elaborate comedy of Every Man out of his Humour (See also:quarto 1600; fol . 1616)—a play subsequently presented before Queen See also:Elizabeth . The See also:sunshine of See also:court favour, rarely diffused during her reign in rays otherwise than figuratively See also:golden, was not to bring any material comfort to the most learned of her dramatists, before there was laid upon her the inevitable See also:hand of which his courtly See also:epilogue had besought death to forget the use . Indeed, of his Cynthia's Revels, performed by the See also:chapel children in 1600 and printed with the first See also:title of The See also:Fountain of Self-Love in 16o1, though it was no doubt primarily designed as a compliment to the queen, the most marked result had been to offend two playwrights of note—Dekker, with whom he had formerly worked in company, and who had a healthy if rough grip of his own; and See also:Marston, who was perhaps less dangerous by his strength than by his versatility . According to Jonson, his quarrel with Marston had begun by the latter attacking his morals, and in the course of it they came to blows, and might have come to worse . In Cynthia's Revels, Dekker is generally held to be satirized as See also:Hedon, and Marston as Anaides (Fleay, however, thinks Anaides is Dekker, and Hedon See also:Daniel), while the character of Crites most assuredly has some features of Jonson himself . Learning the intention of the two writers whom he had satirized, or at all events of Dekker, to wreak See also:literary vengeance upon him, he anticipated them in The Poetaster (16or), again played by the children of the queen's chapel at the Blackfriars and printed in 1602; Marston and Dekker are here ridiculed respectively as the aristocratic Crispinus and the vulgar See also:Demetrius .

The play was completed fifteen See also:

weeks after its See also:plot was first conceived . It is not certain to what the proceedings against author and play before the lord See also:chief See also:justice, referred to in the See also:dedication of the edition of 1616, had reference, or when they were instituted . Fleay's supposition that the " purge," said in the Returne from See also:Parnassus (Pt . II. See also:act 1v. sc. iii.) to have been administered by Shakespeare to Jonson in return for See also:Horace's " pill to the poets " in this piece, consisted of See also:Troilus and Cressida is supremely ingenious, but cannot be examined here . As for Dekker, he retaliated on The Poetaster by the Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1602) . Some more last words were indeed attempted on Jonson's part, but in the A pologetic See also:Dialogue added to The Poetaster in the edition of 1616, though excluded from that of 16o2, he says he intends to turn his See also:attention to tragedy . This intention he apparently carried out immediately, for in 16o2 he received Do from Henslowe for a play, entitled See also:Richard Crookbacke, now lost—unfortunately so, for purposes of comparison in particular, even if it was only, as Fleay conjectures, " an alteration of See also:Marlowe's play." According to a statement by See also:Overbury, See also:early in 1603, " Ben See also:Johnson, the poet, now lives upon one Townesend," supposed to have been the poet and masque-writer See also:Aurelian See also:Townshend. at one time steward to the 1st See also:earl of See also:Salisbury, " and scornes the world." To his other early See also:patron, Lord Aubigny, Jonson dedicated the first of his two extant tragedies, See also:Sejanus, produced by the king's servants at the Globe See also:late in r6o3, Shakespeare once more taking a part in the performance . Jonson was called before the privy See also:council by the Earl of See also:Northampton . But it is open to question whether this was the occasion on which, according to Jonson's statement to Drummond, Northampton " accused him both of popery and See also:treason " (see Castelain, Appendix C) . Though, for one See also:reason or another, unsuccessful at first, the endurance of its reputation is attested by its performance, in a See also:German version by an Englishman, John See also:Michael Girish, at the court of the grandson of See also:James I. at See also:Heidelberg . When the reign of James I. opened in See also:England and an adulatory See also:loyalty seemed See also:intent on showing that it had not exhausted itself at the feet of Gloriana, Jonson's well-stored See also:brain and ready See also:pen had their share in devising and executing ingenious See also:variations on the theme " Welcome—since we cannot do without thee!" With extraordinary promptitude his See also:genius,which, far from being " ponderous " in its operations, was singularly See also:swift and flexible in adapting itself to the demands made upon it, met the new See also:taste for masques and entertainments—new of course in degree rather than in kind—introduced with the new reign and fostered by both the king and his See also:consort . The pageant which on the 7th of May 1603 bade the king welcome to a See also:capital dissolved in joy was partly of Jonson's, partly of Dekker's, devising; and he was able to deepen and diversify the impression by the See also:composition of masques presented to James I. when entertained at houses of the See also:nobility .

The Satyr (1603) was produced on one of these occasions, Queen See also:

Anne's sojourn at Althorpe, the seat of Sir Robert See also:Spencer, afterwards Lord Althorpe, who seems to have previously bestowed some patronage upon him . The See also:Penates followed on May-day 1604 at the house of Sir William See also:Cornwallis at See also:Highgate, and the queen herself with her ladies played his Masque of Blackness at See also:Whitehall in 1605 . He was soon occasionally employed by the court itself—already in 16o6 in See also:conjunction with Inigo See also:Jones, as responsible for the " See also:painting and See also:carpentry "—and thus speedily showed himself master in a See also:species of composition for which, more than any other English poet before See also:Milton, he secured an enduring place in the See also:national poetic literature . Personally, no doubt, he derived considerable material benefit from the new See also:fashion—more especially if his statement to Drummond was anything like correct, that out of his plays (which may be presumed to mean his See also:original plays) he had never gained a couple of See also:hundred pounds . Good humour seems to have come back with good See also:fortune . See also:Joint employment in The King's Entertainment (1604) had reconciled him with Dekker; and with Marston also, who in 1604 dedicated to him his Malcontent, he was again on pleasant terms . When, therefore, in 1604 Marston and See also:Chapman (who, Jonson told Drummond, was loved of him, and whom he had probably honoured as " See also:Virgil " in The Poetaster, and who-has, though on doubtful grounds, been supposed to have collaborated in the original Sejanus) produced the excellent comedy of Eastward Ho, it appears to have contained some contributions by Jonson . At all events, when the authors were arrested on account of one or more passages in the play which were deemed insulting to the Scots, he " voluntarily imprisoned himself " with them . They were soon released, and a banquet at his expense, attended by Camden and See also:Selden, terminated the incident . If Jonson is to be believed, there had been a See also:report that the prisoners were to have their ears and noses cut, and, with reference apparently to this peril, " at the midst of the feast his old mother drank to him, and showed him a See also:paper which she had' intended (if the See also:sentence had taken See also:execution) to have mixed in the prison among his drink, which was full of lusty strong See also:poison; and that she was no See also:churl, she told him, she minded first to have drunk of it her-self." Strange to say, in 1605 Jonson and Chapman, though the former, as he averred, had so "attempered " his See also:style as to have " given no cause to any good man of grief," were again in prison on account of " a play "; but they appear to have been once more speedily set See also:free, in consequence of a very manly and dignified See also:letter addressed by Jonson to the Earl of Salisbury . As to the relations between Chapman and Jonson, illustrated by newly discovered letters, see See also:Bertram See also:Dobell in the See also:Athenaeum No . 3831 (See also:March 30, 1go1), and the comments of Castelain .

He thinks that the play in question, in which both Chapman and Jonson took part, was Sir Gyles Goosecappe, and that the last imprisonment of the two poets was shortly after the See also:

discovery of the See also:Gunpowder Plot . In the mysterious See also:history of the See also:Gun-See also:powder Plot Jonson certainly had some obscure part . On the 7th of November, very soon after the discovery of the See also:conspiracy, the council appears to have sent for him and to have asked him, as a loyal Roman Catholic, to use his good offices in inducing the priests to do something required by the council—one hardly likes to conjecture it to have been some tampering with the secrets of See also:confession . In any case, the negotiations See also:fell through, because the priests declined to come forth out of their hiding-places to be negotiated with—greatly to the wrath of Ben Jonson, who declares in a letter to Lord Salisbury that " they are all so enweaved in it that it will make 500 gentlemen less of the See also:religion within this See also:week, if they carry their understanding about them." Jonson himself, however, did not declare his separation from the Church of Rome for five years longer, however much it might have been to his See also:advantage to do so . His See also:powers as a dramatist were at their height during the earlier half of the reign of James I.; and by the year 1616 he had produced nearly all the plays which are worthy of his genius . They include the tragedy of See also:Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only a doubtful success, and the comedies of Volpone, or the See also:Fox (acted 16o5 and printed in 1607 with a dedication " from my house in the Blackfriars "), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609; entered in the Stationers' See also:Register 161o), the Alchemist(i6io; printed in 161o), See also:Bartholomew See also:Fair and The See also:Devil is an See also:Ass (acted respectively in 1614 and 1616) . During the same period he produced several masques, usually in connexion with Inigo Jones, with whom, however, he seems to have quarrelled already in this reign, though it is very doubtful whether the architect is really intended to be ridiculed in Bartholomew Fair under the character of Lanthorn See also:Leatherhead . Littlewit, according to Fleay, is Daniel . Among the most attractive of his masques maybe mentioned the Masque of Blackness (16o6), the Masque of Beauty (16o8), and the Masque of Queens (1609), described by See also:Swinburne as " the most splendid of all masques " and as " one of the typically splendid monuments or trophies of English literature." In 1616 a modest See also:pension of See also:ioo marks a year was conferred upon him; and possibly this sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to the publication of the first See also:volume of the folio collected edition of his See also:works (1616), though there are indications that he had contemplated its See also:production, an exceptional task for a playwright of his times to take in hand, as early as 1612 . He had other patrons more bountiful than the See also:Crown, and for a brief space of time (in 1613) had travelled to See also:France as See also:governor (without apparently much moral authority) to the eldest son of Sir See also:Walter See also:Raleigh, then a state prisoner in the See also:Tower, for whose society Jonson may have gained a liking at the Mermaid Tavern in Cheapside, but for whose See also:personal character he, like so many of his contemporaries, seems to have had but small esteem . By the year 1616 Jonson seems to have made up his mind to cease writing for the stage, where neither his success nor his profits had equalled his merits and expectations . He continued to produce masques and entertainments when called upon; but he was attracted by many other literary pursuits, and had already accomplished enough to furnish plentiful materials for retrospective discourse over See also:pipe or See also:cup .

He was already entitled to lord it at the Mermaid, where his See also:

quick antagonist in earlier wit-combats (if Fuller's famous description be See also:authentic) no longer appeared even on a visit from his comfortable See also:retreat at See also:Stratford . That on the other hand Ben carried his wicked See also:town habits into See also:Warwickshire, and there, together with See also:Drayton, made Shakespeare drink so hard with them as to bring upon him-self the fatal See also:fever which ended his days, is a See also:scandal with which we may fairly refuse to load Jonson's memory . That he had a share in the preparing for the