thrown, to hear that he has been imposed upon by the grossest fabrications, and, (however mortifying the discovery may prove,) that many of those who have practised on his integrity and surprised his judgment, are weak at once and worthless, with few pretensions to talents, and none to honesty.

BENJAMIN or, (as the name is usually abbreviated by himself,) BEN JONSON,' was born in the early part of the year 1574. His grand

2

JONSON.] The attacks on our author begin at a pretty early period. He knew his own name, it seems, and persisted in writing it correctly, though "some of his best friends" misspelt it! This is produced, in the " Biographia Britannica," as "an instance of that affectation which so strongly marks the poet's character." But this perseverance in the right was a family failing, for his mother (as it appears), wrote it in the same manner. His "singularity" in this respect, (these writers think,) "would have been discovered, had he been more communicative-but it is observable, that though his descent was very far from being a discredit to him, yet we never find him once mentioning his family upon any occasion." From critics so disposed, Jonson must have had unusual good fortune to escape with justice. The fact, however, is that he is once found mentioning his family. He talked of it to Drummond, and had it pleased that worthy gentleman to be less sparing of his malice, and somewhat more liberal of his information, we might have obtained enough on this head, to satisfy the most ardent curiosity.

2 The year 1574.] The writers of the Bio. Brit. are

father was a man of some family and fortune, originally settled at Annandale, in Scotland, from which place he removed to Carlisle, and was subsequently taken into the service of Henry VIII. His father, who was probably about the court, suffered a long imprisonment under queen Mary, and was finally deprived of his estate. If religion was the cause, as is

somewhat embarrassed here, by a line in the Poem left in Scotland, in which Jonson says that he had then

"Told seven and forty years."

Now, this, say they, as the poet was there in 1619, fixes his birth to the year 1572, and makes him two years older than is commonly supposed. But these critics should have looked into Drummond, instead of reasoning upon a fact which is not to be found there. In Drummond the line stands,

"Told six and forty years;"

and the date subjoined is January 1619-20. Jonson was then in his forty-sixth year: in short, there seems no plea for questioning the received opinion. The second folio is of various dates, and of little authority. That Jonson was born on the eleventh of June, which is also affirmed by those writers, is taken on the credit of another blunder in this volume, where, in the verses on sir Kenelm Digby," my birth day, is printed for "his birth day," &c. In the 12mo. edit. 1640, both the lines stand as here given.

This is our author's own account; it is therefore worse than folly to repeat from book to book, after Aubrey, that "Ben Jonson was a Warwickshire man." Mr. Malone says, that "a collection of poems by Ben Jonson, jun. (the son of our author) was published in 1672, with some

universally supposed, persecution only served to increase his zeal; for he entered, some time afterwards, into holy orders, and became, as Antony Wood informs us," a grave minister of the gospel."

Jonson was a posthumous child, and "made his first entry (the Oxford Antiquary says,) on the stage of this vain world, about a month after his father's death, within the city of Westminster." Fuller observes, that though he could not, with all his inquiry, find him in his cradle, he could fetch him from his long coats.

lines addressed to all the ancient family of the Lucys, in which the writer describes himself as a little stream from their clear spring;' a fact (continues he) which adds support to Dr. Bathurst's account" (the impossible story just quoted from Aubrey)" of his father's birth place." Shak. vol. ii. p. 311. This is a strange passage. Young Jonson died before his father, in 1635, and the collection of which Mr. Malone speaks, contains several pieces written after the Restoration. The very first poem in the book is addressed by the author to John, earl of Rutland, and his son, lord Roos, who was not born till both young Jonson and his father were dead! Had Mr. Malone even looked at the title page of this little volume, he must have seen that the name of Ben Jonson, Jun. was a mere catch-word; for the poems are there expressly said to be " composed by W. S. gent."

*The edition of Shakspeare referred to here, and elsewhere, is uniformly that in fifteen vol. Svo. published in

MDCCXCIII

It would seem from this, that the residence of

his father was unknown. Mr. Malone supposes, and on very good grounds, that his mother married again in somewhat less than two years after the death of her first husband, and it was at this period, perhaps, that Fuller's researches found him, "a little child, in Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross."

His father-in-law was a master-bricklayer by profession; and there is no cause for believing, that he was either unable or unwilling to bestow on his new charge such a portion of education as then commonly fell to the children of respectable craftsmen; and Jonson was accordingly sent, when of a proper age, to a private school in the church of St. Martin in the Fields.

From this school it was natural to suppose that he would be taken to follow the occupation of his step-father; but this was not the case. Respect for the memory of Mr. Jonson, or what is equally probable, a remarkable aptitude in the child for learning, raised him up a

♦ On very good grounds.] "I found, in the Register of St. Martin's, that a Mrs. Margaret Jonson was married in November 1575, to Mr. Thomas Fowler." MALONE. Shak. vol. i. p. 622. There cannot, I think, be a reasonable doubt on the person here named: unquestionably she was the poet's mother.

friend, who sent him, at his own expense, to Westminster School. Camden, a name dear to literature, was then the second master of this celebrated establishment; young Jonson naturally fell under his care, and he was not slow in discovering, nor negligent in cultivating, the extraordinary talents of his pupil.

No record enables us to state how long he continued with this great man. Mr. Malone supposes that he was taken from him, when he had reached his thirteenth year; but "lord Winton," (G. Morley, bishop of Winchester, who, as Izaac Walton tells us, knew Ben Jonson very well,)“ says says he was in the sixth, i. e. the uppermost form in the school," when he was removed; and he could scarcely have attained this situation, as schools were then constituted, at thirteen.

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Jonson, who had a warm and affectionate heart, and ever retained an extraordinary degree of respect for his old master, thus addresses him in his Epigrams:

"Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe

All that I am in arts, and all I know—"

and in the dedication of Every Man in his Humour,

'Letters by Eminent Persons, &c. 1813. vol. iii. p. 416. There is yet a difficulty. Grant was head master from 1572 to 1593, so that if Jonson was in the sixth form, and if the