Ben 1573-1637 Jonson

JONSON, BEN (1573-1637), English dramatist, was born, probably in Westminster, in the beginning of the year 1573 (or possibly, if he reckoned by the unadopted modern calendar, 1572). By the poet's account his grandfather had been a gentleman who "came from" Carlisle, and originally, the grandson thought, from Annandale. His arms, "three spindles of rhombi," are the family device of the Johnstones of Annandale. Ben Jonson said that he was born a month after the death of his father, who, after suffering in estate and person under Queen Mary, had in the end "turned minister." Two years after the birth of her son the widow married again; her second husband was a master bricklayer, living in Hartshorn lane, near Charing Cross, who sent his stepson to a private school in St. Martin's lane. Jonson was then sent to West minster school at the expense, it is said, of William Camden. His gratitude for an education to which in truth he owed an al most inestimable debt concentrated itself upon the "most rever end head" of his benefactor, then second and afterwards head master of the famous school, and the firm friend of his pupil in later life. He was put to his stepfather's trade immediately on leaving school, and the most learned of Elizabethan dramatists appears to have missed the university. Both Aubrey and Fuller, however, say that he went to Cambridge, but there is no record of his presence in the registers. He soon had enough of brick laying. Either before or after his marriage—more probably be fore, as Sir Francis Vere's three English regiments were not re moved from the Low Countries till 1592—he spent some time in that country soldiering.

Ben Jonson married not later than 1592. The registers of St. Martin's church state that his eldest daughter Maria died in Nov. 1593 when she was, Jonson tells us (epigram 22), only six months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (epigram 45). (A younger Benjamin died in 1635.) His wife Jonson characterized to Drummond as "a shrew, but honest"; and for a period (undated) of five years he preferred to live without her, enjoying the hospitality of Lord Albany (after wards duke of Lennox). Long burnings of oil among his books, and long spells of recreation at the 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 children whom his wife bore to him he com memorated in touching little tributes of verse; nor in speaking of his lost eldest daughter did he forget "her mother's tears." On July 28, 1597, there is an entry in Philip Henslowe's diary of a loan of i4 to "Bengemen Johnson player" and another of 3s. 6d. "received of Bengemenes Johnsones share." Henslowe ad

vanced 20S. on Dec. 3, 1597, for a play to be completed before Christmas. This was the day on which the theatres were suppressed on account of the performance of the Isle of Dags. A privy coun cil minute of Oct. 8, 1597, records the "warrant for the releasing of Benjamin Johnson" on Oct. 3. Jonson therefore appears to have suffered for his part in this play the "bondage" for his "first error" of which he speaks in a letter to Salisbury in 1605. He is recorded to have borrowed 5s. from Henslowe on Jan. 5, 1598. His rela tion with Henslowe and the lord admiral's company was inter mittent, and was, as we shall see, broken by a serious quarrel.

Early Comedies.

According to Aubrey, whose statement must be taken for what it is 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—day; but, in any case, it was not long before he found his place in the organism of his company. In 1598 Jonson was men tioned by Meres in his Palladis Tarnia as one of "the best for tragedy," without any reference to a connection on his part with the other branch of the drama. Whether this was a criticism based on material evidence or an unconscious slip, Ben Jonson in the same year 1598 (at some date before Sept. 20) produced one of the most famous of English comedies, Every Man in his Humour, which was first acted—probably in the earlier part of September—by the lord chamberlain's company at the Curtain. Shakespeare was one of the actors in this first production of Jonson's comedy, and it is in the character of Old Knowell in this very play that, according to a bold but ingenious guess, he is represented in the half-length portrait of him in the folio of 1623, beneath which were printed Jonson's lines concerning the picture. Every Man in his Humour was published in 1601; the critical prologue first appears in the folio of 1616, and there are other divergences. After the Restoration the play was revived in 1751 by Garrick (who acted Kitely) with alterations, and long con tinued to be known on the stage. The Case is Altered, acted by the children of the Blackfriars, which contains a satirical attack upon the pageant poet, Anthony Munday, has been generally assigned to the end of 1598, but E. K. Chambers gives reasons (Elizabethan Stage, iii. 357) suggesting the date as 1597. This comedy, which was not included in the folio editions, is one of intrigue rather than of character; it contains obvious reminis cences of Shylock and his daughter.