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is one of the most decisive circumstances to prove his forgery.

Nescia mens hominum fati, sortisque futuræ !
Turno tempus erit, magno cum optaverit emptum
Intactum Pallanta, et cum spolia ista, diemque
Oderit.-

Pallas te, hoc vulnere, Pallas

Immolat, et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.

Ben Jonson was in his own time frequently called the judicious Ben, the learned Ben, the immortal Ben, but had not, I believe, at the time this pamphlet is supposed to have been published, obtained the appellation of Old Ben. However, as this title was given him some years afterwards by Sir John Suckling, in his Session of the Poets, which appears to have been written in August, 1637, about the time of Jonson's death, (See Strafford's Lett. vol. ii. p. 114,) which celebrated poem, as well as the language of the present day, probably suggested the combination of Old Ben to Mr. Macklin, I shall lay no stress upon this objection. But the other part of the title of this pamphlet " Young John's Melancholy Lover," is very material in the present disquisition.-John Ford, in the Dedication to his Lover's Melancholy, says, that was the first play which he had printed; from which the letter-writer concluded that he must then have been a young man. In this particular, however, he was egregiously mistaken; for John Ford, who was the second son of Thomas Ford, Esq. was born at Ilsington in Devonshire, and baptized there April 17, 1586*. When he was not yet seventeen, he became a member of the Middle Temple, November 16, 1602, as I learn from the Register of that Society; and consequently in the year 1631, when this pamphlet is supposed to have been published, he had no title to the appellation of young John, being forty-five years old. And though The Lover's Melancholy was the first play that he published, he had produced the Masque of The Sun's Darling on the stage five years before, namely, in March, 1623-4; had exhibited one or more plays before that time; and so early as in the year 1606 had published a poem entitled Fame's Memorial, of which

* For this information I am indebted to the Reverend Mr. Palk, Vicar of Ilsington.

I have his original presentation-copy in MS. in my collection. These are facts, of the greater part of which no writer of that time, conversant with dramatick history, could have been ignorant. Here certainly I might safely close the evidence; for Ben Jonson was born on the 11th of June, 1574*, and consequently in 1631 was in his

According to the best accounts. The precise year however of this poet's birth has not been ascertained. Fuller tells us, that "with all his industry he could not find him in his cradle, but that he could fetch him from his long coats;-when a little child, he lived in Hartshorne-lane near Charing-Cross." I in vain examined the Register of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and St. Martin's in the Fields, for the time of his baptism. There is a lacuna in the latter register from February to Dec. 1574. Ben Jonson therefore was probably born in that year, and he has himself told us that he was born on the 11th of June. This agrees with the account given by Anthony Wood, who says, that before his death in August 1637, he had completed his sixty-third year. I found in the Register of St. Martin's, that a Mrs. Margaret Jonson was married in November 1575 to Mr. Thomas Fowler. He was perhaps the poet's step-father, who is said to have been a bricklayer.

The greater part of the history of this poet's life is involved in much confusion. Most of the facts which have been transmitted concerning him, were originally told by Anthony Wood; and there is scarcely any part of his narrative in which some error may not be traced. Thus we are told, that soon after his father's death his mother married a bricklayer; that she took her son from Westminster-school, and made him work at his step-father's trade. He helped, says Fuller, at the building of the new structure in Lincoln's-Inn, where having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket: and this book Mr. Gildon has found out to be Horace. In this situation, according to Wood, being pitied by his old master, Camden, he was recommended to Sir Walter Raleigh as a tutor to his son; and after attending him on his adventures, they parted, on his return, not, as I think, says Wood, in cold blood. He then, we are told, was admitted into St. John's College in Cambridge, and after a short stay there, went to London, and became an actor in the Curtain playhouse: and soon afterwards, "having improved his fancy by keeping scholastick company, he betook himself to writing plays." Lastly, we are told by the same writer, on the death of Daniel [in October 1619] "he succeeded him as poet-laureat, as Daniel succeeded Spenser."

If Jonson ever worked with his step-father at his trade in Lincoln's-Inn, it must have been either in 1588, or 1593, in

fifty-seventh year; a period of life at which, though not in the hey-day of the blood, he could with no great pro

each of which years, as I learn from Dugdale's Origines Ju ridiciales, some new buildings were erected by that society. He could not have been taken from thence to accompany young Raleigh on his travels, who was not born till 1594, nor even went abroad except with his father in 1617 to Guiana, where he lost his life. The poet might indeed about the year 1610 or 1611 have been private tutor to him; and it is probable that their connexion was about that time, as Jonson mentions that he furnished Sir Walter Raleigh with a portion of his History of the World, on which Sir Walter must have been then employed; but if the tutor and the pupil then parted in ill humour, it was rather too late for Jonson to enter into St. John's College, at the age of thirty-four or thirty-five years.

That at some period he was tutor to young Raleigh, is ascer tained by the following anecdote, preserved in one of Oldys's Manuscripts:

“Mr. Camden recommended him to Sir Walter Raleigh, who trusted him with the care and education of his eldest son Walter, a gay spark, who could not brook Ben's rigorous treatment, but perceiving one foible in his disposition, made use of that to throw off the yoke of his government: and this was an unlucky habit Ben had contracted, through his love of jovial company, of being overtaken with liquor, which Sir Walter did of all vices most abominate, and hath most exclaimed against. One day, when Ben had taken a plentiful dose, and was fallen into a sound sleep, young Raleigh got a great basket, and a couple of men, who lay'd Ben in it, and then with a pole carried him between their shoulders to Sir Walter, telling him, their young master had sent home his tutor."- "This, (adds Mr. Oldys,) I have from a MS.memorandum-book written in the time of the civil wars by Mr. Oldisworth, who was secretary, I think, to Philip earl of Pembroke."

The truth probably is, that he was admitted into St. John's college as a sizar in 1588, at which time he was fourteen years old, (the usual time then of going to the University,) and after staying there a few weeks was obliged from poverty to return to his father's trade; with whom he might have been employed on the buildings in Lincoln's Inn in 1593, when he was nineteen. Not being able to endure his situation, he went, as he himself told Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, to the Low countries, where he served a campaign, and distinguished himself in the field. On his return, perhaps in 1594, being now used to a life of adventure, he probably began his theatrical career, as a strolling player, and after having "rambled for some time by a

priety be called Old, unless by way of opposition to a very young man. But no such difference of age subsisted

play-waggon in the country," repaired to London, and endeavoured at the Curtain to obtain a livelihood as an actor, till, as Decker informs us, "not being able to set a good face upon't, he could not get a service among the mimicks."

Between that year and 1598, when Every Man in his Humour was acted, he probably produced those unsuccessful pieces which Wood mentions. It is remarkable that Meres in that year enumerates Jonson among the writers of tragedy, though no tragedy of his writing, of so early a date, is now extant: a fact which none of his biographers have noticed.

Some particulars relative to this poet, which I have lately learned, will serve to disprove another of the facts mentioned by Wood; namely, that "he succeeded Daniel as poet-laureat, [in October, 1619,] as Daniel did Spenser." I do not believe that any such office as poet-laureat existed in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently Spenser never could have possessed it; nor has any proof whatsoever been produced of Daniel's having ever enjoyed that office.

Spenser, we are told by Camden, died in great poverty in 1598, and such has been the prevailing opinion ever since; but a fact which I have lately discovered, and which has not been noticed by any writer of that great poet's life, renders Camden's assertion very disputable. Spenser, I find, in February, 1590-1, obtained from Queen Elizabeth an annuity or pension of fifty pounds a year, during his life; which, the value of money and the modes of life being jointly considered, may be estimated as equal to two hundred pounds a year at this day. We see, therefore, that the incense lavished on his parsimonious mistress in the Faery Queen, which was published in the preceding year,* did not pass unrewarded, as all our biographical writers have supposed. The first notice I obtained of this grant, was from a short abstract of it in the Signet-office, and with a view to ascertain whether he was described as poet-laureat, I afterwards examined the patent itself, (Patent Roll, 33 Eliz. P. 3.) but no office or official duty is there mentioned. After the usual and formal preamble, pro diversis causis et considerationibus, &c. the words are, "damus et concedimus dilecto subdito nostro, Edmundo Spenser, &c.

King James by letters patent dated February 3, 1615-16, granted to Ben Jonson an annuity or yearly pension of one hundred marks during his life," in consideration of the good and

*The Faery Queen was entered on the Stationers' books by W. Ponsonby, in December, 1589.

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between these two poets. If a man of fifty-seven is to be accounted old, the man of forty-five is not young.

acceptable service heretofore done, and hereafter to be done, by the said B. J." Then, therefore, and not in 1619, undoubtedly it was that he was made poet-laureat, if ever he was so constituted; but not one word is there in the grant, which I examined in the chapel of the Rolls, touching that office: unless it may be supposed to be comprehended in the words which I have just quoted. On the 23d of April, 1630, King Charles by letters patent, reciting the former grant, and that it had been surrendered, was pleased, " in consideration (says the patent) of the good and acceptable service done unto us and our said father by the said B. J. and especially to encourage him to proceed in those services of his wit and pen, which we have enjoined unto him, and which we expect from him, to augment his annuity of one hundred marks, to one hundred pounds per ann. during his life, payable from Christmas, 1629, and the first payment to commence at Lady-day, 1630." Charles at the same time granted him a tierce of Canary Spanish wine yearly during his life, out of his Majesty's cellars at Whitehall: of which there is no mention in the former grant. From hence, and from the present of one hundred pounds sent to Jonson by the King in 1629, we may see how extremely improbable the story is, which has been recorded on I know not what authority, and which Dr. Smollet was idle enough to insert in his History; that Ben in that year being reduced to great distress, and living in an obscure alley, petitioned his Majesty to assist him in his poverty and sickness; and on receiving ten guineas, said to the messenger who brought him the donation, " his majesty has sent me ten guineas, because I am poor and live in an alley; go and tell him that his soul lives in an alley."

None of his biographers appear to have known, that Ben Jonson obtained from King James a reversionary grant of the office of Master of the Revels. His Majesty by letters patent dated October 5, in the nineteenth year of his reign, (1621,) granted him, by the name and addition of "our beloved servant Benjamin Jonson, gentleman," the said office, to be held and enjoyed by him and his assigns, during his life, from and after the death of Sir George Buck and Sir John Astley, or as soon as the office should become vacant by resignation, forfeiture, or surrender: but Jonson never derived any advantage from this grant, because Sir John Astley survived him. It should seem from a passage in the Satiromastix of his antagonist Decker, printed in 1602, that Ben had made some attempt to obtain a reversionary grant of this place before the death of Queen Elizabeth: for Sir Vaughan in that piece says to Horace [i. e. Jonson,] "I have some cos

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